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We want to make our best impression.
Give the most meaningful answers.
And make sure the interviewer is happy after evaluating us.

These are the thoughts that are going on in our mind, before appearing for an important interview. 

However, the interview is not only for us.
It is also for the company, for us to decide whether it is the right fit or not.
Going prepared with our questions and drafting a resume that shows who we are is as important. We are certainly going to exchange our time for salary, not our happiness.

A journey in a job is fulfilling only when it is a two-way line, just like any other relationship.

Entrepreneurship is cool.
It’s a great feeling to launch a product that you made from scratch.

But, maybe the entire ecosystem of sales, management, product, etc., overwhelms you.
You love product development but the processes and team building responsibilities don’t excite you as much.

And that’s perfectly okay.
It is perfectly okay to not do what almost everyone else is doing, because you don’t have that inclination.
Such awareness is power.
Because now you know what to act upon and what not to choose willfully. 

In life, you don’t have to become what everyone seems to be becoming.
Getting to such a realization is precious. 

Feeling stuck.
Tried everything.
Don’t know where to look.

It helps asking other people for their opinions.
Not out of pressure of receiving help, rather out of hope of receiving a different point of view.

“What would you do if you were in my place?”
If we ask and just listen, we would not be in the same place.

Perspectives broaden our worldviews.
We may or may not get help, but we’ll think differently. And that is a good enough start.

Linchpin is a small pin that keeps various parts of a wheel together.
In our world, we call them as humans that are indispensable to an organisation.

While a linchpin does a lot of paddling like the duck, there are some things that they categorically always do: 

Owning the job: If it is the job of someone in the company, it is the linchpin job. No job is small or insignificant. Having the courage to do it and get the team along is what makes them indispensable.

Don’t require follow up: If a linchpin owns a job, they own it completely. We won’t be required to follow up with them, and when they are running late, they will be the first to inform.

Owning outcome versus output: Output is what is required from us. Outcome is the magic we create beyond what is required from us. Owning the output is having to do the task, owning the outcome is wanting to do the task. Linchpins sign up for the latter because their work signs for them.

It turns out, rewards and accolades alone don’t make linchpins.
Being a linchpin is a choice, the competition is scarce, and we make that choice each day as who we are.

Almost everything we do, requires energy.
Almost everything  we want to do and can’t do, is because of lack of energy.

Yet so many of us lose the easiest ways to have more energy: Sleeping on time, hydrating a lot, not wasting time watching news.
The causes that directly affect our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. 

We don’t need more energy.
We just need not waste it. 

Our learning curve gets steeper whenever we receive feedback. 

So if accelerating our learning curve is our goal, then seeking feedback should be too..

Waiting for it, is giving the control of our learning curve to someone else. 

Waiting for feedback to arrive is equivalent to waiting for success to happen without putting in the work. Hardly happens, hardly helps.

“People don’t understand me.
When will they understand what I want?”

We want people to change. All the time. Because they are not right.
However, they think the same for us. They think they are right. It is us who needs to change.

Instead of changing either, the knots just intensify.

Changing people is hard.
Beginning with ourselves is harder.
But more real. And possible.

We have everything, yet something is missing.
We are successful, yet don’t feel successful.
There are blessings that the world thinks we have, yet those very blessings keep us trapped.

Why do we feel like having nothing despite having everything?
Because we have everything that the world wants and nothing that we truly want.

There is a template that we have been following not knowing that we have a plain page to draft a new route.

We don’t feel empty because of lacking something that the world could give us.
We often feel empty because we lack the awareness of what we want.

The sad news is that the emptiness is within.
The good news is that the emptiness is within, so it can be taken care of.

Why college?
Not to think of it as a degree to rely on forever, rather taking those 3-5 years of your life to change your life completely.

How to do that?
By spending time with totally different people, by living like a pauper, and by getting comfortable with never getting comfortable

What to do to get there?
– Taking as many internships as possible
– Being an active member in college societies – by organizing fests, events, etc.
– Writing cold emails and asking for opportunities

Is college education rotten?
Colleges are selling what they’ve been selling for long. They don’t guarantee holistic development. They are just responsible for providing us the opportunity – to get a good network, get good internships and create opportunities for you.

The recruiter wants a degree which the college gives you, but real learning comes from courses and internships, doing those along with clearing college exams is the real game to sign up for.

Maintaining balance in college and internships:
Out of 24 hours, if we sleep for 8 and spend the rest 5-6 in college, we still have ten to spare. Also, when we really want something, we will find a way to make it happen.

What are the metrics for a good college?
– Very strict selection criteria
– Lots of opportunities for extracurricular activities
– Alumni who have gone on to do great things

But what if you realize you are in the wrong college?
If you can, quit and get to the right one. If you can’t, spend time outside of your college by writing cold emails to founders and doing several internships to get the real world learning.

My take on postgrad
If you want to work in India, MBA in India; if you want to work abroad, MBA abroad except the Ivy League Colleges that 

Postgrad should ideally be pursued after working for 1-3 years because you get a perspective, you get to know how real world works

To bring things home:
Do not put pressure on the college to help you find your purpose. Purpose isn’t an equation where we input our college degree and we find it. It takes time and it requires awareness to understand that what you truly want from life is totally different from someone else.

If you inculcate and practice this awareness during college, you would have already made the best of your college (and life) education.

It’s hard to have more time.
Too much to do.
And all that’s genuine work.

But if we do what we have been doing, how will we ever get different results?

The key is to do different things to change the results, because the same things always guarantee the same results.
The key is to know that the most successful people also have the same twenty-four hours, what and how we do things matters.
The key is to know that we have the key, not the reasons we tell ourselves.

Of course, time is a constraint.
That equally makes it a power for us.