Last week, I was a part of a conversation
where few of my software engineering
friends were discussing salaries.
One guy said his friend got a job in
Amazon with half a million dollar
package, and now all he needs to do is
work there for few years. Then he can
retire and live a very happy life,
and
this person who was discussing this
story, said "I'm not very happy with my
job. Maybe I will prepare for FAANG
companies,
and once I get a job which my friend got,
maybe I will be the happiest man ever!"
When I listened to this conversation,
immediately I started thinking about the
other conversations
with that I had with my friends who are
already working in FAANG companies.
They are already
multi-millionaire.
They have achieved all their material
needs: a big home, car,
secure investments and so on.
And they're still dissatisfied. So there
is this concept called a rat race, where
you are constantly running behind money
and power and the best job,
and you keep on running and you are
never satisfied. Once the material
desires are satisfied,
you try to make yourself happy by
buying a new car. Let's say I have a
Toyota Camry, I want to now buy a Tesla.
You want to buy a new home. I have three
bedroom home. Now I want to buy five
bedroom homes or sometimes you want to
just donate to a charity to satisfy the
existence, your own existence on this
earth. And people do all of this, but
they're still not living a meaningful,
purpose-driven
life. I'm also getting a lot of messages
on LinkedIn where people ask me that
they're not happy in their job, they want
to change a career.
So there is a B.Com person, M.Com person who
wants to become data scientist. I'm
getting so many of such messages
and,
pursuing good career, working for big
company is good. But I think we all need
to spend some time in finding a true
purpose of our life. It's called Ikigai. I
read this book called Ikigai. It's a
Japanese term
and what it means is,
you build a career around
your purpose, your calling,
and then that career not only gives you
money but lot of satisfaction in the
life.
I myself have
found such a career after going through
a lot of struggle and I'm going to share
my own story, as well as I'm going to
mention some steps that I have come up
with, which any of you can follow and you
can find a good career for yourself.
At the core of
the pursuit of this finding best career
question is this diagram, which I found
from this book Ikigai,
where
Ikigai is the best career for you,
which is an intersection of what you
love,
what you're good at, meaning your
skills, what you can be paid for
and what the world needs.
And
I myself went through
a horrible health crisis few years back,
where due to the autoimmune disease that
I had, I was reduced in
bones and skeleton. You can see my
picture. I was just eating raw fruits and
vegetables because I couldn't eat
anything else.
And I thought I would die.
So when you have this near death moment,
you start thinking about
bigger question which is, "What is the
purpose of my life?"
All the
money, big career, cars that you have, all
of them
seems futile.
And I went through that experience
and at that moment,
I started thinking,"Hmm, if I'm going to
die in let's say two years,
what should I be doing right now?"
And also I wanted to give myself a break
because my disease,
autoimmune disease was incurable and
I was just googling all the time you
know what happens when you do google, you
get depressed. So I want to distract my
mind,
and I thought I would
I want to do something meaningful in my
life.
And I started
this quest of figuring out what is that
thing,
and as a first step I took a note and a
pen, and I wrote down
few things for which I have received
compliments from other people in the
past.
Now these compliments could be smaller,
you know someone might say,"Oh you do
good photography!" or
"You're very good in public speaking!"
It could be a small compliment, it
doesn't have to be big.
And I found 3 things: photography,
poetry,
and the third complement I always
received is, I can explain things really
well.
So then I started doing
experiments, and I started asking these
questions to myself.
So let's take photography for instance.
When I went through
photography, and I ran ran it through
this Ikigai diagram, what I found was
photography was something I loved.
So
to find out
what you love you can ask this question,
if you are tired and exhausted after a
long day,
and if someone asks you to do let's say
photography, can you do it?
For me if I'm tired and if someone asks
you to ask me to do photography, I do it.
I love it.
If if there is something you love, you
can do it
even if when you're tired.
Are you good at it?
So I had taken photographs in the past. I
have my photography blog as well,
and people gave compliments. They said,
"These pictures are really nice!"
So when people keep on saying that your
your wife, your
friends,
you know if you are on social media,
public can give comments,
that's how you figure out if you're good
at something or not.
The third aspect was, does world need
photography? Yes you know there is
marriage photography, wedding
uh occasions, there is nature photography.
World definitely definitely needs good
photographers.
So this is what world needed.
But look at the fourth
angle: Can you be paid for it? Well, you
see photography is very competitive. I
knew that there are so many
photographers right? Nowadays even with
your with your cell phone, you can take a
best quality pictures.
So this did not satisfy the fourth
criteria where
I cannot pay my home mortgage by doing
photography. I can um earn little money,
but not a whole lot.
You have to be really competitive, you
have to be like extremely good and ahead
in the competition. It's just too
competitive!
So
since it did not satisfy all four four
criteria, what I did is, I moved on to the
next choice, which was poetry.
Poetry same thing, I loved it. I was good
at it.
Yes world appreciates and needs good
poets. But how much poet can earn?
Again, I can't pay even my mortgage by
writing poetry.
So then I look at the
the third thing, which I was already
doing, which is my programming job.
My 9-6 programming job, I've been
doing this for a long time.
I was good at it.
The world needed it, yes a lot of
companies need good programmers!
I was getting paid, I was getting paid
really well for my programming job!
But at the heart of it,
I did not love that!
Programming I like it, but I did not love
it. There is a difference between liking
and loving. It's like if I'm tired after
10-hour work day, if someone asked me to
do programming, I'll be like "Oh man! Give
me a break. I will do it tomorrow.
So then programming job was also not my
Ikigai.
Then I moved on to the next thing,
teaching.
So explaining
things in a very well way means
teaching or mentoring.
And I found
teaching was something which I loved,
even when I was tired and someone asked
me to explain something, I would get
excited. My eyes would lit up!
The world of course needs good teachers
right? So it satisfies all these 3
criteria: what you love, what you're good
at, what the world needs
Now what you can be paid for.
So
COVID came and then this whole
boom of online education started.
And I saw a career opportunity, where I
can
start a YouTube channel.
I can
explain complex topics in a simple way. I
can maybe
do a paid video courses. And I can earn
lot of money.
So then
I found teaching to be my Ikigai. So
the
skill I had, was explaining things. And
that's what that was a raw skill. You
need to
take an effort and build on this raw
skill,
and turn it into a career.
I can explain things in a very well
way
means, I can have number of careers. I can
become a professor at a university.
I can become a Youtuber explain
programming talk with topics on YouTube.
I can become Udemy instructor.
So when you have a raw skill, you're
liking your Ikigai, you can build
different type of careers. It doesn't
have to be one career.
So then based on
this experience,
I started YouTube channel. The channel
really grew.
I kept on working it for again and again
because
I loved it! So I did it on I did it along
with my 9-6 job on weekends.
Even weekdays during nights
because I was not tired. I absolutely
loved it by heart.
For that reason I did it for a long time.
Right now, I'm like fourth or fifth year in
my YouTube channel.
It has crossed half a million subscriber,
I have left my job and this is what I do
now!
So amazing things can happen once you
find your Ikigai. And if you want to
find out your Ikigai, try these steps.
These are the steps
which I have come up with based on my
own experience. So first is,
list down the things on which you have
received compliments.
It is the same list that I showed you
right? Photography, poetry whatever
Everyone is good at something.
So you need to just
list those things down.
As I said it could be a minor thing.
Minor
compliment that someone gave you. Maybe
you are
good at making people laugh
right?
You could be good
and you are a good people person.
You can make relationship fast, maybe
then you should be a salesman or a
business analyst.
If you can make people laugh, you can be
a
stand-up comedian.
You don't have to be programmer just
because you got a degree in computer
science.
Then pick one thing at a time,
and then
ask
can you do this thing even if you're
exhausted?
If the answer is no,
don't bother about that thing. Move on to
the next thing in that list.
But if the answer is yes,
then again ask
can you get paid for it? And see you to
be really creative. The list you will get
will be raw skills. Raw skills you need
to furnish
and then you need to build a career on
top of it.
If the answer is no, you can't get paid
for it.
Don't bother!
Go ahead, pick the next item.
But if the answer is yes,
then
furnish the skills, improve the skills on
top of that raw skill. When someone said
I'm good at explaining things,
I took lot of effort. I produce YouTube
videos one by one. I
read all the comments that I was
receiving, and I improved my teaching
skill. It took me 2-3 years.
It's not like I got everything since the
beginning. I had raw skill, liking things
I love, a passion,
I put a lot of afford in making those
skills better.
And once you furnish the skill,
once you furnish those skills,
and work on it for a long time,
one year, two year
magic is not going to happen. You know in
6 months you are not going to be super
rich.
It will take time. But eventually,
you will turn that passion into your
Ikigai.
Something
that
you can earn
money by doing, and you can still live a
very happy life.
Finding a best career for yourself or
Ikigai
is going to take some time and effort.
It's not just going to magically happen,
and you will get a dream that, "I should
be a data scientist!" or "Ii should be a
stand-up comedian!"
It will require a lot of experiments
with yourself. So first step is you do
introspection, you follow the steps that
you follow, that I mentioned
just few minutes ago,
and you pick one possible uh dream
career option for yourself, and then
maybe you are working uh in some company
9-6 job. Maybe on side you know
during your weekend, and weekdays
you try that alternate career. For
example
you're working as a programmer for
example okay, and you can really make
people laugh. So what you can do is you
can go to the some social occasion, let's
say your friend's birthday party whatever,
and you can do like a stand-up comedy
show for free. You can make people laugh
you know. But take it little seriously
and then you will start getting
compliment. People will say, "Oh you can
really make people laugh! Then maybe you
start a YouTube channel
and start posting videos. Then you will
get a lot of feedback, you improve based
on that feedback. You keep on improving
and you do this for a year or two, and
then you will get a good sense that okay
should I
consider this as a career option and
leave my 9-6 job?
Sometimes you can make your job, you can
do like part time, your job you know just
do part-time if it's possible,
and then remaining time, you pursue that
dream career
option. And let's say you tried stand-up
comedy option, didn't work. Maybe now you
want to try photography. So again
you have to go through that cycle. You
try it out for 3 months, 6 months
maybe a year
and you keep on working hard
to establish that thing, that sad gig
and
you will get a lot of clarity on what
you want.
No one else is gonna come and tell you
what is the perfect career for you. It is
something you have to find it out
yourself.
And while it takes a lot of afford,
it is totally worth it.
You know I have experienced this myself.
I know many people who are living a very
happy,
fulfilled life. Maybe you might not earn
as much money as you might be earning in
your regular profession. But that's okay.
In the end, happiness matters!
And what happens is,
when you are doing things that you love,
you will get better and better at it. And
when you are doing something
wholeheartedly and you are doing it
really well, the world will definitely
pay you for that uh that thing.
There is this famous movie called 3
idiots and I'm going to just play a very
good dialogue uh from that movie so you
can watch it, and if you have any
questions related to your career
please post in a video comment below.
[Music]