Is A Degree In Psychology The New MBA?

I am an orange picker in a rural farm every morning. Rest of the day, I work as a quality analyst in a IT firm

I am a stand-up comedian and I also write White Papers on Technology

I have covered topics like being multi potential, having hybrid skills set, in my earlier blogs. So where are these examples leading to?

Frankly work today is dynamic and disruptive. It can also be tiring with the constant flow of mail and messages across all the gadgets that you use at work and home. Add to it the familiarity of meetings,  lunches,  dinners, travel - the cost you pay to grow up the ladder.

The basic barriers between work and life is blurred now with a dozen addiction - checking our phones a millions times every day, Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, SKYPE and you know the list.

This is a huge challenge because these factors trigger a whole new range of issues - stress, anxiety, attention deficiency affecting decision making ability and impact people's well being.

Today there are books that advise you against multi tasking - pay full attention to what you have in hand first to be more effective. You have videos to manage your lives better, workshops to focus on intrinsic value and tons of YouTube videos and blogs on health, meditation and lifestyle.

Your tired and over whelmed mind looks for opportunities to wander. The huge growing need for travel is more to escape the known environment and routine than explore new horizons.

What if you had a chance to wake up in the morning, dying to open your laptop and get started with your current project, regardless of whether you will get paid or not?

Is it possible?

If  you have a sense of purpose. a higher goal, it is definitely possible
If you know "Why" you do "What" you do

It largely depends on where you are today in Maslow's Hierarchy of needs - Is it the slab for self esteem or self actualization in Maslow's pyramid? Figure that first.

Japanese believe everyone has an IKIGAI - Your reason for being

IKIGAI is the convergence of these four critical components.

What you Love (Your passion)

What the World Needs (Your mission)

What you are Good at (Your vocation)

What you get Paid for (Your Profession) 

The center point of these four is what makes your life meaningful, valuable and worthwhile.

That is the reason to get up from bed in the morning.

Even at the darkest and lowest point of your life, if we continue moving ahead with a purpose and laser sharp focus on your goal, we experience IKIGAI, absolutely indifferent about what the world expects from us. It is our fundamental connect to life that lets financial and economic status be far behind mental and spiritual state of mind.

What is your purpose?

Be driven by Consumerism or Minimalism

Be Goal Based or Soul based

Be inclined towards Extrinsic or Intrinsic values

Image Credit: Canva Design

With so much emphasis on human well being, their lifestyle choices, better career moves aligned to their talent, performance pressure, staying relevant, mental health isn't it obvious that business takes a back seat and Psychology/ Neuroscience actually takes over?

The world is full of MBAs. However business now can be secondary. What should be our primary focus is the people who run businesses.

Beware Of These When You Are Getting Ready For Online Income

I cannot remember any school goer telling me – When I grow up I want to be a freelancer. A very large population is conditioned to look for a job and they often stay there, till they are shaken.

Recently when I was checking with an Indian bank if they have additional fees apart from the conversion charges, he wanted to know what I do – When I specified the income is from my international clients as a freelancer. He immediately asked if I was a photographer. Sadly, that is where most of them are stuck, not realizing how widespread freelancing /work from home opportunities are today and has grown exponentially in the past decade.

Now what happens when someone new (and ignorant), say you - is trying to establish an alternative income – You are likely to get lured by mails like these:

1]  The email sender offers to share the secrets of Mr X, who he thinks is successful because he makes $300-a-day online freelance income and is generous to conduct a webinar for just $49/- instead of his usual $299. Even if six people agree to this on a daily basis, Mr X is definitely making his $300, not you! 

2]  Here is another sample where they try to make it look really easy - No skills required and yet they insist you will need a coach to teach you. That is so contradictory.

There are more..

 3]  Earn $60 an hour from your hobbies so that it does not feel like work 

4]  $2400 for tasting wine and shopping, as if life is one big festival

5]   A marketplace where you can earn just by speaking English

6]  Your overseas income solution is travelling and writing about your travels

Just in case you are not convinced yet, 

The Earn Anywhere Online is tagged with an image – a bare bodied hunk or happy looking Bella, with a lap top - on a beach, giving you the impression that it is so cool to work from there. Have you ever wondered why would he click himself and share? Can you really focus and do some serious work from such a locale?

The convincing copywriter makes you believe that you can and it is possible. That is exactly why copy writing as a service is so very high priced.

That is the trouble I wanted to save others from – dealing with a lot of useless sites, lengthy story-telling mails and using other’s success tales to inspire and encourage you to sign up.

Get real

Even if these are true claims but you have to go a long way to get there.

Mr X took years. So will you. There are no short cuts really. If you are focused, consistent, ready to self-learn and can absorb all the good free advice you get from online world, you are almost there.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - Wiki

Going by this pyramid, it depends what is of primary importance to you now? Is it

A] Physiological needs – requirements for human survival including food, shelter.

B] Safety – Job security, savings, insurance, financial security, personal security

C] Social belonging- Sense of acceptance and belonging to small/ large groups

D] Esteem – Need for self-respect lower version being status, recognition, fame, prestige, attention and the higher version is strength, competence, mastery, self-confidence, independence and freedom.

E] Self-actualization – A person’s full potential and its realization and to understand this, one has to achieve previous needs and master them.

G]  Self-transcendence –  Need to reach higher goal outside and beyond self – altruism, spirituality, holistic levels of human consciousness

There is fundamental shift in one's attitude, approach and skill sets based on where he stands today, his need today.

If your need to establish online/ secondary income gets triggered from years of neglect in your organisation or lack of recognition and you are happy to make just $50 a day to protect your self esteem why do you need a Mr X or his program in the first place?

You are Mr X in the making, and once you are in your new skin, you will say your story a little differently - if you know why you want to do it, you will figure out how to do it.

What is your "why" to get started?