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What is the role that we define ourselves by?

Am I a Product Manager?
A painter?
An engineer?
A leader?

Society has trained us to believe that we should be just one thing in our life. 

However, none of the successful people in history – from Michelangelo or Albert Einstein to Bill Gates did just one thing. 

They did multiple things, and that helped them excel in the one thing we know them for.

What if our role was not limited to just one title?
What if we could do everything that nudged our emotions?
What if we made this possible?

We have just one life.
Why live it with just one identity?

Strengths are our trump cards.
We already have an edge over them.
They make us start ahead of everyone else.

Weaknesses are our jacks.

We will have to work more than everyone else to even be at par.

Then why is it that people are told to work on their weaknesses and not on their strengths?

Working on our strengths gives us a competitive advantage.
Working on our weaknesses doesn’t offer that; every bit is a struggle. 

Strengths increase on the principle of compounding; so do our weaknesses.

Which one would you choose then? 

When we only do what we were told to do, we own the output. 

If anyone else gets that work done better, cheaper, faster than us – they would replace us.

Owning the output makes us dispensable

However, if we stopped and asked ourselves, “Why am I being told to do what I have been told to do?”, We will own not just the output, but the outcome as well. 

Owning the outcome will surprise people each time we deliver stunningly more than what we were supposed to do.

Owning the outcome, instead of the output makes us indispensable.

In Japanese culture, there is a painting technique called Buddha Board.

We paint with watercolours.
As the painting dries, the colours fade away, so does the painting.

The work, no matter how beautiful, is no more.

What if every work of ours was on a Buddha Board? It will eventually fade away. 

What will we be left with? 

Our work is what we become in the process, not what we make it to be.

Given how rapidly everything changes now, I often wonder what is the most important skill of the 21st century?

Is it to code? To become an AI expert? To be a storyteller? 

I believe the most important skill of the 21st century is the ability to learn something new, whenever required. 

If we have the ability to become a student whenever we have to and not think of our school or college as the only occasion to do so, we will have the superpower to face the world.

The future belongs to those who stay students forever.

Have you ever heard an artist say, “I would love to work less.”
“I wish I could get away with doing less.”
“Let me figure out a way to bypass the hard work”

An artist truly in love with their work would never think of their work like that.
Because for them, their work is their identity.

Their work is their liberation.
Their work is their existence. 

What if we were also artists when it came to our work?
An artist never gives up when it comes to their work. 

The only thing they refuse to give up is their right to create more magical work.

Whenever we’re working on something new, we’d love to have positive feedback.

“Oh, you’re doing such great work.”
“We love your product.”
“The app is seamless.”

As humbling as feedback seems, it doesn’t help us grow.

What really helps us grow is listening to people who do not have positive feedback about our work.
People who chose not to engage. 

They are the ones who tell us what we could be working on next, what we should be fixing, what could be the next version of our work. 

While it is not necessary for us to accept everything they say, it is important for us to be aware of what they have to say. 

Acceptance is a choice.
Awareness is a discipline. 

I get asked quite often, “How can I build a recession-proof career?”

And I am always left wondering, “Is it possible to have such a recession proof career?”

What if we asked a different question: Is it possible to walk without ever falling?
Then how is it possible to build a career without creating space for failures?

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.” — JK Rowling

It is through the process of falling, that we learn the art of walking.
It is through the process of failing, that we learn the art of growing.

What are you good at?
What are you really passionate about? 

Do they intersect?

The world wants us to “settle” after college.
Quickly find a job and settle.
Quickly choose a profession and settle.
Quickly start earning and settle.

However, how do we know if what we are settling for is worth settling for?

What if, instead of settling, we tried as many different things as possible?
What if we experimented more often, along with taking care of our finances?

What if we sat on as many chairs as possible, instead of continuing to sit on the first chair we sat on?

Our education system doesn’t teach that to us, that is why we have to do that for ourselves. 

How would you ever know what you want to do, if you never showed yourself what all you could do?

It’s human nature to be inclined towards people who are like us.

They make us feel comfortable, validate our ideas, and even protect our opinions.

However, they don’t help us grow.
We just become a bigger version of ourselves, not a better version.

What if we spent time with people whose worldview was exactly opposite to ours?

How would our life be different if we were to, as a discipline, spend time with people who have a different worldview from ours. 

The goal is not to become like them.
The goal is to explore different perspectives, while evolving as who you are.

The people that we do not want to spend time with are the people who know something we don’t.