Make Your Own Lane: Being Average or Exceptional

You know this.

When you receive email from a life coach trying to sell you a program or an e-book, don’t they all look the same?

When you are planning a trip for yourself and your family, as you surf through the travel sites, do you notice 99% of these websites are same with hardly any difference?

When you apply for a job / role, even the job description or eligibility criteria look mundane and repetitive

Image Credit: Canva Design

You don’t know this

They look same because it is easy, quick and tested.

It worked once probably, the first time. It is likely to work again is the general belief.

Creating something new or something different requires “Thinking” and "Research" - that, in turn requires time, focus, vision and a drive to be exceptional

You know this

Differentiating yourself is beneficial.

There is a huge market out there willing to explore something that is new and different – You, your skills, your competence and your expertise, presented to suit a growing market

However what you know and the skills you have need not necessarily have to come to the market as you know but package it well as the client needs it – to suit your prospect’s purpose

You don’t know this

If you are exactly like a thousand others, you are non-existent.

Use real people’s language to connect. That seems simple and easy. The faster you forget the standard jargon, the better your chances are to make it happen.

It is easy to sell, try being a strategic partner or advisor

It is easy to apply, try being a long term solution

Do one thing differently and you immediately stand out.

If that one thing is client centric, you have a thousand times better chance to survive long term.

The only difference between being average and being exceptional is what you do to stand out.

The world is full of trainers, coaches, facilitators, mentors, who own the function. 

Are you ready to stand out, by owning outcomes?

Make Your Own Lane: You.. An Individual, An Enterprise

This blog will just capture a few random topics first and then I will attempt to put the key point across.

Skill related - Use it or lose it

I created our website I think almost a year back on WIX. I enjoyed doing that so much that I created two more quickly within weeks.

After a gap of few months, when I tried to upload a Vimeo that I created on Powtoon, I had forgotten the basics. I had to spend some time exploring WIX again before I could complete that task.

Key takeaway of course was, if you do not use your skill enough, you definitely tend to lose it. With that loss there is a gradual drop in confidence and competence.

Continuity in learning is not a matter of choice. It is the only choice to stay relevant.

When you find quite a few from millennial generation struggling to identify their top three skills, their strengths or their goals and long term plans regarding what they want to do in life, their confusion and dilemma is so obvious.

You literally want go back to the education system and re-look at the whole thing and what we, as a society, did to bring them to this state.

Vanity Metrics

There is a serious crisis of self-worth and even self-esteem that makes most of them indulge in consumerism for temporary importance and self-destructive life style choices for momentary high.

Good quality work to create a personal brand in the global market requires approximately 10000 hours of dedicated practice. With attention span concerns due to gadgets and the silent suffering that is obvious in the social media channels, is it a question of confidence or competence?

If you observe how the tags that hangs with their names on professional network changes frequently,

Based on education:           Ravindra C, B.Tech, PMP, MBA

Based on what you do:       Ravindra C, Influencer marketer, XYZ Speaker, Key note Presenter

Based on association:        ABC Fellow

Based on future:                 A Civil Services Aspirant

Can you beat the last one?

Doesn't this hint at their desperate need to be taken seriously for who they are and what they do or is it just their poor decision making abilities? 

I want to suspend my judgment on that at this point.

Financial literacy

I read this on Quora just a few moments back – What would be my salary after 20 years in IT industry, starting at a Cost to Company of 3.5 lakhs per annum

Does this hint at his financial literacy?

Does he have the wisdom to understand

What you do with you earn matters

What you do with what you learn actually makes the difference to your financials

This person hopes to continue in a job even after 20 years, almost blind to the fact that there will not be any in the next 10 years.

This person also believe just being in the IT industry is enough to take him to the riches and therefore wants a tentative number he can accumulate in 20 years that can keep him motivated to continue in this model: 

Work_IT_Increment_Incentive_Work_harder_5_Years_to_20_Years

Coach/ Mentor

Then there is this expectation from Coach/ Mentor to take all the darkness away.

A coach facilitates. They share the alphabets with you - What you will do with those alphabets depends entirely on you

Do you want to play with them and waste your time?

Do you want to practice working with the alphabet so that you can create something meaningful?

Write a Word

Or a Sentence

Or a Paragraph

Or an Essay/ Article

Or a Novel

You are not just an individual. You have the potential to be an enterprise, a corporation based on the skills you have, the team you have, the dream you have and the impact you create.

With the inner voice intact, moral compass in the right direction, all it takes is a purpose, a drive and a dream worth working for to be that one man corporation.