What is enough

The transition state from campus to corporate  is a big challenge, assignments & preparations for semester exams to team work and deadlines.

You are used to a professor’s way  and here comes a manager. Professors are focused on enhancing learning and  at improving subject matter understanding, evaluate on the answers that matches with your understanding.

From a manager’s perspective, there is a constant pressure to deliver and meet deadlines using the existing and derived knowledge.

Student-life is mostly care-free, typically students live their timings, bunk classes, skip lessons and still make their grades . However, in a typical company setting, life consists of  being on time, attending  meetings,  decision makings, toeing the boss’s line,  interpersonal relationship, meeting delivery deadlines and quality.

In most cases it is CTC (cost to the company) figure, the size and reputation of a company that influences the decision to pick the corporate for those who have choices. Well, all the lectures on passion and choose what you like to do, career, can wait, lets first start earning and free my parents of  the burden. Its the IT sector that pays, lets go there, the mechanical engineering, electronics, the MBA, all were done for a degree. Its cloud nine with all the appreciations, congratulations for landing a job. The bike and the smart phone are the first gifts one is planning to present to self.

Excited to see the first payslip, What, why… so less.. as per CTC figures I should be getting 30K, here its 20K. Well the incentive starts after 6 months, there are pf deductions, taxes, transport, this, that,  the other. That’s the first jolt and your performance  will dip due to the weight of  the disillusionment.

Then in no time there is an appraisal, you get 3 when the best is 5. ‘I delivered in time within  quality limits, why this 3”. Well you met expectations like 60% percent of your team mates. And then your friend who was your class mate scoring less marks in the college gets promoted ahead of you. There is politics and favouritism, you go and tell that at home, your parents will tell the neighbours and friends.

Well our aim is to be healthy and have an excellent career, unlimited finance and great relationships. Any issue with either health, finance or relationship, all the money with poor health or  a good health, finance and disowned by your family  will affect our life in general. You need a balance of all the three.

You can get into a job or be an entrepreneur. You can get into a job, work for a few years and then be on your own. It is very difficult for most of  us to understand or know the purpose of our life in the beginning.  You may not be happy in the first job because what happens defies your expectations. As you go along you will find unexpected opportunities coming your way and one of them will click and that will be it.

To find happiness in your career, Steve jobs has this to say

“The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle, as with all matters of the heart, you will know when you find it.”

The hygiene factors like status, compensation, job security, work conditions, company policies, and supervisory practices will be short lived in absence of motivation factor like challenging work, recognition, responsibility, and personal growth and a sense of  making a meaningful contribution

Time, energy and talent are the three resources you have to apply in the right direction. In his book How will you measure your life ? Clayton M. Christensen says

“Before you take that job, carefully list what things are going to need to do or to deliver in order for you to successfully achieve what you hope to do. Ask yourself : “what are the assumptions that have to prove true in order for me to be able to succeed  in this assignment ?” List them.

The company you work for will show you a career path. There will be a crowd in that path. Be an extra miler, in that mile, there will be less crowd. An extra miler is the one who takes up more responsibilities and delivers more than expected, one who takes initiative, the one who is innovative.

Invest time , energy and if required money  for training or coaching to fill in the gap of your talent to meet your goal. Don’t wait for the company to train you.

Pick challenging projects during your academics, you will have the best part of your learning and will be able to perform better in the industry.

Try to excel, rather than compete.

More important than knowledge is what you do with it

Prioritise learning above earning

Take responsibility

Be a solution provider

Measure your strength by what you give, not what you get

One advise from Clayton is one essential requirement in life is integrity. There are some big names in the industry who reached their pinnacle , however,  a small slip and landed in Jail. One way is to never bend your principle even once.

Never mind which institute you come from, may be a premium or second tier,, right now you are all lined up at a common starting point and your growth depends on attitude and performance.

Our collective individual successes are taking our planet to the edge of the cliff of disaster. Thomas Morten’s advice to students was to “be anything you like, be madmen, drunks, and bastards of every shape and form, but at all costs avoid one thing: success.
The plain fact is that the planet does not need more “successful” people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every shape and form.”

Well you can take Morten’s advise, provided you know how to make money by getting out of the rat race. Another challenge is to know how much money we need, what is enough.

I have plenty of advises with me that works, you can take any of them because I am not using any of them.