Choose Passion

Dear Learner,

We live in a post-qualification world. 

When you clear your school and choose a professional course, you would normally be lured by pedigree of the institution, track records of past students, carefully crafted advertisements with salary packages of the past students. These external factors are important to consider, no doubt. 

But.. 

None of these will help you, even when you get in the professional course, if you do not have one thing – PASSION. That is what you have inside you.

Don’t undertake career based on what the career can offer to you. Flip the script and think about what areas of work are you truly passionate about. Where you can contribute meaningfully to solve problems that you truly care about. Love for the subject precedes everything else. 

That love will propel you forward. It will differentiate you. It will keep you going even when the going will get tough (and it will). It will reflect in what and how you do. It will show up in the work and speak for itself. 

Anita Roddick famously said, “To succeed you have to believe in something with such passion that it becomes a reality.” 

I have seen a lot of people build their careers in areas that they are not passionate about. They work, often feeling stuck, and keep rolling because work pays the bills (or keeps them busy). World of work is full of such people.

But people who have been truly remarkable have all been passionate about whatever they did. Passion was the source of their energy. 

Think Sachin Tendulkar. When once asked what kept him going in the world of competitive cricket, he expressed that he was in love with the sound that his bat created when the ball came perfectly on the center of the bat. That is passion which differentiated him from so many others who played national competitive cricket.  

Your goals will change. Purpose will shift. Nature of work will change. But passion will keep you going.

As you stand at the crossroads with multiple opportunities, choose that which brings you the most alive.

Choose passion, and you will do great, I promise.

Best,

T. 

P.S: This is not a “follow your passion” advice because finding what we are passionate about can take a lot of trial and error along with a fair bit of failure. This is about bringing your innate passion in whatever you choose to do. 

Career and Character

Dear Learner,

Hello again!

Career is something YOU get to build. Through your intelligence. Through your ability to remember and apply things. Through sheer determination. By availing external assistance and coaching to accomplish things. 

But character? The kind of human being you will become? That is not taught, it is built. Character is earned. 

Very few things build (and reveal) true character of a person than adversity and failure. Falling short of a certain threshold (they call it cutoffs in academics) brings along temporary suffering and self-doubt, but also a great deal of realization. That suffering is not without a meaning. 

Thanks to falling short, you are wiser. You know what works for you, and what doesn’t. You know how things work. It nudges you to try harder and work smarter. Failures sharpen us. It is through these experiences that we truly build a character. Failures make us resilient. 

Failure teaches us lessons that intelligence alone cannot offer. 

Be grateful for the setbacks. They are not diversions along the path, they are the path. 

Onward and upward,

Tanmay

 

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. 

Confession of Character

 

The way you speak about the world says more about you than the world itself. When you constantly see negativity, chaos, or betrayal – ask WHY. Because our perspectives are shaped by our inner state. A kind heart sees kindness and a hopeful soul sees opportunities. If you are constantly bitter, it reflects inner wounds.

Words you use to describe the world are a mirror. It pays to think about what your words are revealing about you.  

The Clarity Razor

A razor shaves off the inessential. Here is my Clarity Razor (inspired by this post from Bill and Don Tomoff)

The Clarity Razor

“Choose what amplifies your freedom, fuels your curiosity, and lets your work serve others generously.”

This is a simple framework that allows me to decide and evaluate things/people/ideas/priorities I engage with. It has three guiding values:

  • Generosity in Sharing: If it doesn’t help others grow, it’s probably not worth doing.
  • Independence: If it compromises your ability to choose your path, say no.
  • Lifelong Learning / Curiosity: If it doesn’t spark curiosity or deepen your wisdom, let it go.

Have you tried defining the filters (razors) to guide your pursuits?

A Few Things About Beating Anxiety

“Everyone around seems to be anxious about the future these days. What can they do to beat the anxiety?” is a question I asked to one of my friends who is deep into spirituality. A question that led to a deep conversation. 

A few things became clear in my mind:

  • Anxiety happens when we think about outcome without thinking about the process
  • A deep commitment to process of learning can help beat anxiety
  • Deep commitment to learning means we need to be ready to fail and disregard failures
  • When our commitment to the process is strong, it is easy to reframe failures as a step in the journey – a learning opportunity to iterate and do better next time. 
  • When anxious, take some action – however tiny it may be. Action creates momentum where overthinking creates resistance. Take the minimally viable small action quickly to get past anxiety.
  • Finally cultivating faith in something larger than yourself helps. One of my mentors once expressed that while your focus in on your next immediate step, the Universe (or the Higher Power) has your path figured out. The belief that we will be taken care of, that what’s happening with us now is leading you to what’s best for you, to faithfully act and leave the rest for the Universe to figure out – that is the ultimate hack. 

Cultivating faith isn’t about religion – it is about taking action with conviction, even when outcomes are not guaranteed. It is about doing your part really well (your circle of control) and then surrendering to the higher power. 

There’s no formula to build this resilience when everything around us is constantly shifting. But once we cultivate faith and be stoic about our circle of action, we are anchored, much like a small boat experiences the ocean, but doesn’t get carried away by the waves  because it is anchored to the shore. 

(Image courtesy: Dangelie Perez, Pexels.com)

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Joy of Missing Out

The world tries to induce “Fear of Missing Out” on us. We end up feeling that we need to be on every meeting, project, opportunity or event that is happening around us. 

In real life, the power sometimes lies in choosing NOT to chase every shiny thing and deliberately choosing to miss out. It’s called “The Joy of Missing Out” or JOMO – which is about making conscious decisions to skip the noise and distractions. It comes from a deep understanding that you cannot be a part of everything. 

So instead of spreading yourself too thin, you just focus on what truly matters – whether it is reading that book, taking up that course, learning a new skill, building your own product etc. 

JOMO is about missing out and that does not mean “losing out”. It is about gaining clarity and purpose by prioritizing the right thing. 

That is the difference between achieving great things joyfully versus running in circles and ending up being frustrated 

Key Question: What are you willing to miss out on, in order to truly focus on what matters to you?

 

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What you Give

This quote I read somewhere resonated strongly with me:

“What we give cannot be taken from us.”

We can give stuff, but the real giving is about enabling a long lasting positive change to the other person, to a group of people, and to society at large.

The beauty is you can start with just one person or one small cause. 

Giving something that money cannot buy is the most valuable gift we can give others. 

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