Random Thoughts

There are 24 posts filed in Random Thoughts (this is page 1 of 3).

Dear Student

Dear *Student,

Congratulations on completing your 12th class exams, as well as a few competitive ones. I am proud about you making it this far with grit and determination. I know it has not been easy for you. 

Your journey till now was a straight line – year after year, syllabus after syllabus and exam after exam – much like walking a straight path that many others have walked on before.

But now starts a phase that is more like finding your way out of the jungle where no trails exists. You have to carve out your unique path with combination of skills that can help you make a positive difference in the world.

Waiting for results, applying to various colleges, figuring out your path can feel overwhelming, but this is your opportunity to create a different path for yourselves through choices, turns, experiments, and discoveries about the world around you and about your own selves. This path you now create can possibly inspire others too. 

Building a rewarding and fulfilling career is less like a destination and more like a journey. As you navigate your next best step, here are a few things you should keep in mind:

1) You cannot create a novel path for yourself if you simply follow what others have done. Be curious and follow what energizes you, not just what looks good on paper. 

2) Skills > Degrees. Degrees are door openers, but skills are what keeps them open. “What skills?”, you may ask. The skills that you build at the intersection of what you truly love AND what helps others meaningfully. You can be highly qualified, but without skills and real ability to solve problems, qualifications are simply a piece of paper. “What kind of skills?” you may ask again. It has to be a combination of technical skills, functional skills (understanding the domain) and soft skills. 

3) Escape the comparison trap. The world loves comparison, and ranking you on a scale. You are YOU – with your unique strengths, interests, and path. Comparison, they say, is the enemy of creativity. It is a way to keep you in the same track as others. Have courage to break free from the compliant path, and then you stand a chance to do something unique.

4) Learn what they don’t teach you in school but plays a HUGE role in your life, career and relationships. These would be things like communication, digital literacy (AI, tech tools, cyber security), public speaking, storytelling, collaborating with others, time management, investing, personal finance and curiosity. Most importantly, learn how to learn on your own through books, online forums and physical comunities. These are just a few that comes to mind.

You won’t know where exactly you are going, and that’s okay. You just have to take the next right step, and keep going. That’s what wayfinding is all about.

With love and belief in you,

Tanmay

P.S.: The *Student here refers to my daughter, my nephew and their friends, who may find this useful 🙂

Choices are a Signal

 

We say we care about family, and yet skip dinner with them to attend a late night meeting. 

We say we value health, and yet we make poor food choices and skip exercising. 

We say that creativity matters the most, and yet we scroll endlessly without creating anything. 

If your choices don’t support what you value, then all talk is noise. 

Choices are signals – loud, clear and undeniable. 

They tell a story of what you “truly” value. 

The story you live is the only truth – everything else is just hollow. 

Inner Boundaries

I played cricket after a really long time through participation in my neighborhood’s premier league. The opponent teams had players far younger than me with prowess to throw high-speed deliveries. The first couple of matches were really hard. I could barely guard the wicket for a ball or two before getting bowled out.

Third match was a turn-around. Before the match, I affirmed myself with the following:

You get bowled out, not by an opponent’s speed of bowling, but by your internal anxiety to perform. Let it go, calm down, watch the ball carefully and play it according to it’s merit. Defend good deliveries (read tough times) and wait for the loose ones (read opportunities) to take your chances. Let go of your need to show your performance and score runs. Focus instead on each ball, it’s trajectory, pitching and length before doing justice to it. Score can just be an outcome of your ability to enjoy the game.

In that match, I hit five boundaries and everyone around was amazed. The big lesson for me is: It’s always about conquering ourselves first before we can conquer anything in the outer world.

Seneca rightly said,

“A rational soul is stronger than any kind of fortune – from its own share, it guides its affairs here or there, and is itself the cause of a happy or miserable life.”

Ability to stitch yourself together when situations tear you apart is a life skill that no one teaches. We have to do it ourselves. Strengthening the soul is the work of our life.

We are in semi-finals as I write this. Outcome will not matter knowing that I crossed a few inner boundaries!

Achieve, then move on!

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A related thought from Michael Wade:

“An excessive ego can be a chain that slows our advance. It can also resemble a curtain that keeps out the light. It can become a wall that causes us to see only our turf and not the larger expanse that should be our concern. It can poison relationships, cloud memories, and subvert judgment. “. Some of us never recover.”

Create

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We are taught to compete. Competition sets the upper bar for what you can achieve.

If you want to jump over that bar, you need to create. Do things differently and do different things.

Creating requires stepping away from competition and focusing on the game that is uniquely yours. A game where you bring your true, best, authentic self to the fore.

Competition is for amateurs. Professionals create.

Make Things..

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Excuses are easily accessible. You can cook them up. It’s always easier to blame external situations for our failures or lack of attempt. You can play a victim and soon, the world with sympathize with you.

On the other hand, effort to make things is also easily accessible once we get past our victim mindset. The locus of control is internal. The call it “Growth Mindset”.

Make things, not excuses.