What is your Purpose ?

This is not an easy question to answer for oneself, easy to ask though......it would be valuable to share a few experiences on how i got to my purpose.

Please raise you hand and ask this question to yourself to gain clarity on the direction you take today on-wards, for your professional life.

Having gone through an interaction with 5000+ intelligent students across cities in schools & colleges over the past 1 year, this question grabs attention and ensures students reflect upon themselves and their direction.

A lot of students answer this with a minimum reflection, through basic hygiene : to secure good marks, earn a lot of money, make my parents feel proud, do good work for the society.

Question 1. What do you want to do, if money was not a challenge ?

I started working when i was 19 years with a stipend of INR 4000/- in July 1998, as an Intern not knowing whether this 1 year internship would result in a job.

Money was not a challenge but i wanted to earn money, i don't know why (maybe because everyone else of my age, known to me wanted to earn money). After an year, i learnt a bit of sales, practiced concept selling with multiple opportunity loss, sales wins,territory coverage, customer communication, an innate ability to connect to people which i thought i did not have being an introvert person.

I enjoyed working as a Sales Intern and the internship gave me an opportunity to discover skills i thought i did not have in me.

Still no one (at home and office) asked me the question on Purpose : what do you want to do ?

It was obvious to work as an employee & earn money, to contribute to the family income. Neither was i pushed to earn nor assured to search for what i want to do.

An essential need in the world today, for the youth is to give time to themselves, to check what they want to do, to identify their unique strengths given to them by nature on what they are good at (by doing multiple internships, short term projects, mentored research projects).

Friends, our 20's are the "time to find out what we do not want to do" rather than jumping straight out of college to get a job.

Earning money is important and throughout our life it remains a basic need, still to know what we do not want to do for the next 30-35 years is very crucial for achieving one's world class performance.

Why settle for average, when you are meant for being world class. If you aspire to become the best in the world, not only would you earn a lot after reaching your peak performance but equally important you would remain committed for the boring hard work and the unexpected challenges life would throw at you on the way to the top. You would never give up since you know what you want...clarity of goal.

If we start our career with the focus on earning money, we fall under the trap of the cycle of assured income which keeps on increasing (each year) gradually. Once you become a part of this cycle, its difficult to move away.

You are tempted to believe in the fake competition where we define our self worth w.r.t what our classmates/colleagues are getting starting from college, course, placement offer, marks, salary, company, designation, facilities, perks, focus more on what people say about us than what we believe in, ignoring the fact that each one of us in unique and are meant to follow our unique career trajectory (uphill and downhill till you reach the pinnacle).

Comparison with classmates & later with colleagues (rather than encouraging us to work hard) lowers our self worth or brings in arrogance, as we tend to believe in what is shown by media & applauded in social life, is the real standard definition of success.

Think through, craft & believe in your own definition of success, not what others tell you.

Only a few learned & experienced professionals know the real meaning of success, after having gone through the grind themselves which is a healthy mix of happiness, regrets, wins, failed attempts & lot of reflective learning.

Life evens out in 15-20 years, ultimately what gets paid consistently & with premium, is the real knowledge not just the degrees & marks but how you are able to convert your knowledge into economic value. Employers hire employees not for their education but for what they can add value to a company. Experience of doing the work is valued more in the long run than acquiring degrees.

If you know what you want to do, take action, practice and elevate your performance to such a level that people start noticing you as an expert. Be ruthless with your commitment to work, ignore the reactions of people, ignore whether you get paid well or not in the initial years, keep on improving your quality of work. Money is an outcome not a target, if you "really want to earn a lot" focus less on money and more on your work quality. 

I would have started my career as a teacher, if i knew at 19 what i wanted. I did not give much time to know what i want to do, so like everyone else i started pursuing the "earning money" direction and grew my monthly earnings. After 16 years of working did i give myself time to reflect and got clarity that i need to be an entrepreneur in education. I need to serve people, specially the youth who are deserving but are unaware of their potential & capabilities.

Question 2. Why do you come to school or college (to learn or just to get marks) ?

My school life was all about getting marks and fitting in. I felt bad when i was a misfit in the happening group of boys who used to bunk school at times. Some of them had started to enjoy hard drinks, since i didn't so i became a misfit again and was eased out of the group.

School was all about getting marks and proving my intelligence in all subjects to the best extent i could. Obviously, with the pressure of securing marks i resorted to working hard on how to get marks rather than on how to understand a particular concept or topic.

No one asked me : Have you understood this topic clearly & can you relate it with examples. I was however asked, how much marks are you going to get in your weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi annual and final exams.

Friends, all the 5000+ students i met in the last 1 year are intelligent. However, the social circle at large defines intelligence only on the basis of marks (which do not define real intelligence of a student). Not everyone is good at English, Science, Maths, Hindi or other subjects however they are labelled as Not Intelligent multiple times at home or at school only with the parameter of marks.

Some of these students, who are emotionally strong do talk to themselves and become strong and happy professionals. For a lot of them, who don't talk much, they live their life with the stigma attached to not being intelligent because they can't speak fluently in English (which is a foreign language for them) or not good in Mathematics as an example.

This stigma does not allow them to raise their hand in life, when they should have asked a question in the company meeting as a leader, when they should have stopped someone from doing wrong or unethical in personal or professional domain, when they should have asked themselves first on why they do what they do.

The focus on getting marks builds a citizen and an employee who is focused on getting results, not on how they get results.

Gradually it develops leaders who do not have the courage to ask questions to their superiors & resort to lead their companies strictly on top line growth/results/numbers forgetting in a very professional manner how their company is being run. Its not their mistake, they are groomed to believe that only the marks and numbers count not the real knowledge or the purpose of business of their respective companies.

Little did i realize in my school & college days that the purpose of education is not to get a job but its real purpose is to bring a change in our thought process and to make us aware of the value of enquiry & asking questions, asking people WHY & WHY NOT rather than focusing on only securing good marks. I learnt the purpose of education while unlearning my concepts of Leadership & Strategy at Columbia Business School.

Question 3.What type of work makes you happy(brings in energy) ?

You give your best when you feel happy and energetic not when you get paid a lot. Purpose brings commitment in our professional goals.Many students feel happy in an activity which is their hobby but cannot convince their parents to allow them to pursue their hobby into a career. Convince yourself first.....

Maybe, they don't have a role model to emulate or communicate with. Someone gets a lot of energy participating in a theatre group but is studying Bachelor in Business Economics, someone wants to study commerce to become an entrepreneur but is forced to study Engineering for 4 years to secure their future.

An engineer who does not love engineering or software or machines, is doing injustice to themselves first and then to their employers and family since they would seldom get work satisfaction (a value much ignored when compared with the lure of package one may get). 

If a hobby brings you energy, you do not feel tired practicing it, you are willing to devote yourself completely to it, why not pursue it as a career ?

Meet professionals in that domain who have achieved significant success and they would guide you on the direction you need to take, the skills you need to build, the challenges you need to be prepared for.

It would not be easy in the beginning, however very soon you would identify sources of earning a livelihood as well as covering life's basic goals by being the best in your creative domain or a hobby.

I had a hobby for participating in debates, extempore and essay writing at school level & i used to get awards & certificates on a regular basis, i never thought of converting this natural liking and interest into a career of Public Speaking or writing.

Over the period of my career as a professional in Sales & Marketing function did i realize that it could have been a better career choice for me when i was 19. I could have honed my skills in 17 years since to become a professional with high standards and repute in this domain.

This gives me energy and i realized it late. However, better late than never.

The purpose of my life is to become a person of value to everyone i meet, specially to the youth through service.

I believe every individual has a capability & responsibility to become the best they can be, it can be made possible through the democratization of knowledge and wisdom.

I believe one person can bring a positive difference in the world, i'm working to bridge the existing gap between education (academics) and employability (industry).

Life is simple : meet new people, invest time in building relationships, the outcome of these two activities in the long run would result in having multiple opportunities for mutual happiness & growth.

What is your Purpose ?