The dilemma

The WHY

"Buddy I am in a serious problem."
"What happened?" I asked with a bit of worry.
A confused voice came,"I passed the entrance test for MBA. Now this is a form I need to fill for the college I always wanted to study in. Its first question is, Why do you want to do MBA?"
"So?" I replied.
"So what??? I don't know what to write." Replied that person.
Now I was convincingly confused. There is a person in front of me, with a 4 year old dream of doing an MBA . This person worked hard, invested a lot of time,gave 4 precious years of her life & Now asking me why I want to do MBA?. As I always do, being confused I follow optimism.
I asked "But you always wanted that. I think you are just nervous. Tell me why you decided to do MBA in the first place 4 years back"
"Because I wanted to be a manager." Reply came like a black cloud in a sunny day.
This sounded to me like I want to join army because I want to kill people. Now these are not reasons, these are what you will be doing for a reason. These are more like symptoms not the disease.
I said "If that was & still is the reason then go ahead & write it there"
"Are you insane?Who will give me admission then".
Me being already confused is getting a heavy dosage of it right now." Are you saying that you will write what they wanted to see not what you want to write.That way you will do injustice to yourself & to them."
"I don't want a lecture" She said
"I understand" I lied & bid bye to her.

This is not about a person, an ill chosen dream or MBA.This is a pattern, A habit, An approach we take in our lives.
We choose carrier on basis of what everybody is choosing & one day realize I am in wrong bus,I am not made for this job. But then its very late, the damage has been done & we choose to remain mediocre.This is what we all do. I have seen people saying "Americans!!! they are brains. They are just too original, too creative, too cool, too innovative & a lot more". I share that, that's true. Why??????
Because they don't choose to do MBA to become manager. Let's put it this way
"I never learnt to play piano because I want to become a musician. I am a musician because I love to play piano."
Lets rephrase
"I am not a manager because I am an MBA. I am a manager because Managing things is my passion. I feel proud when I add value to work & help people achieve their goals.I love to see everything organized & managed & me doing it by my hand, using every trait of my personality."
Unfortunately A manager coming out of a BMW becomes single most important reason to be a manager for us. Without knowing what he is doing,why he is doing. We make it our goal to come out of a BMW, like that one day.
Don't take me wrong. Money is like oxygen.There is nothing wrong in owning a BMW but can it be a reason to choose a path to follow.Yes, money is like oxygen, but we don't live, to just breathe.Do we?I have made that mistake, fortunately I discovered it was not a mistake. I was made for what I choose but yes, I made it in that impression. Most of us made it & make it everyday.
I realized that the day we understand that WHY should be answered before WHAT & HOW. We will cease to be mediocre. We will thrive & we are destined to thrive.
Please don't answer 'What','How' before why. I have seen it & it hurts me as a human.Start every job with 'Why'.Hows & Whats will automatically follow

Arpit

The Huge Opportunity

The Huge Opportunity

Not a long back, I witnessed a guy about to join a position. That was a very good position & truly he was lucky to join it. What confused me is that he was not all that excited. He told me that he wanted a different profile but because this is a good position he is joining it. Precisely he told me that IT IS A ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY.

That was sharply shocking for me at once. I mean I have seen people doing it always but that time, I was forced to think about it. More I thought about it more evident it became. Once in a lifetime opportunity is just a fact & it is no greater fact than 'this is a blog not a book'. That's it. It is not a reason. Now I knew that guy, he was not lazy or stupid. So.. Why was he doing that?
Answer to that question brought me to a basic weakness in most of us. We lack character to say NO to anything that is 'Once in a lifetime'.

I applied same principle to what drug addicts do, they went for it just once in a lifetime, its a different matter that they got addicted. Most of us don't make that mistake because we already know about the addiction part. If we are untold about it, surely all of us take the 'Once in a life time opportunity' The analogy is absurd I agree but it makes the point.

At base of both the cases above there is one similarity. Our lack of character to say NO to Once in a lifetime opportunity. Its property of being Once in a lifetime makes its so tempting for us that we take it unconditionally.

Akio Morita (The Co Founder of Sony) faced the same situation in early days of Sony. He was offered a deal of 100,000 radio sets. Now assume me or you. If are a CEO of a newly born company with a production capacity of 1000 sets are given such an opportunity. We will call it Once in a lifetime for any CEO of a small company & will say yes.

What Akio Morita did? He said No!!!Was he absurd? Most people from his management team at that time believed he was! But he thought that such kind of growth would not be sustainable for his company & employees. He can not hire a lot & fire it next year. It was against his ethics. He refused to expand unless the momentum is sustainable. That was the character of Akio Morita & we all know how far he took the Sony.

The point is that it is good to jump from stair 1 to stair 10 if you think that it will not hinder you from moving further. The man who jumped 10 stairs at once & now taking a full day to recover is far worst that a man whos taking one stair per minute. But for that we all need to make a choice at stair one. The choice is to move 1 stair at a time or took once in a lifetime Opportunity to jump 10 of them at once. I agree it takes a lot of character to refuse the temptation of standing at stair 10 ASAP. But Its a brutal fact that Once in a lifetime opportunity is just a fact. Not a reason.
Begin a thinker I believe that you all will base your decisions on reasons not on emotions.


Arpit