Next year I will be completing 10 years as an entrepreneur and one of the common reactions when I tell this to people is – “Wow Kush, you are lucky you have been able to do something you are passionate about.“

They could not be more wrong.

Back in late 2012 when I was starting out, even I believed that I wanted to do something I was passionate about.

But by 2015, I had received quite a number from checks.

What kind of checks?

Not the types that fill your bank account.

I am talking about reality checks.

The reality is that your passions can and will change.

So if you based your work solely around your passion, things can get tough for you.

I was a photographer and it’s one of those fields that comes to the mind first when someone talks about passion.

But trust me, even photography gets boring after some time.

That’s how we humans are.

We change.

But entrepreneurship is not a child’s game.

If you stop being passionate, will you stop working?

Your passion can go away but your bills won’t.

How will you pay those bills?

That’s why the number one priority should always be making money.

That should be your passion.

Till the time you don’t have a steady supply of money that guarantees a comfortable life, you should work even if you don’t feel like working.

If that means you have to keep doing a dead end job, you do it.

I know this sounds a bit negative but if you have followed me for sometime, you would know that I’m a real coach, not a fake guru.

That’s why I like to give real life advice.

Money is the most important thing you can be passionate about because it makes other passions possible.

There is nothing wrong with thinking about a passionate life but when you do, a better approach is to think and plan by taking into account your whole life, not just your work.

Because even if you find your passion but outside of work your life is miserable, you will soon lose that passion for work also.

On my left calf, I have got the word “Totality” tattooed.

That is to remind me of always taking every decision by keeping the total life in mind.

Once you develop that ability, things will not get easier but you will start to get more meaning because you would be able to push through even when times get tough or your work seems boring.

So work on making your whole life a passion.

Because that is the ultimate passion which you will never get bored of.

Regards,

Kush Sharma

Click Trainers

The post Why “Follow Your Passion” is NOT good advice appeared first on Click Trainers.

Right from the time we are kids, we are always told that hard work is the key to success.

But I have a slightly different point of view.

Because “work” itself has a very subjective nature.

Let me demonstrate this by giving you an example from an experience I had back in 2013 when I was starting out as an entrepreneur.

I was just starting out with my photography workshops in Pune and I used to use two methods of promotion to get students:

• Facebook ads
• Offline promotions like sticking flyers in cafes, outside commercial buildings and near tapris.

Let’s look at the work involved in these two activities:

Facebook ads

• Me sitting in Starbucks and executing a few clicks

Offline Promotions

• Designing flyers by hiring a freelancer graphic designer
• Getting the flyers printed out
• Moving around the city to find places where I could stick the flyers
• Taking permission to stick the flyer

The second activity was certainly very exhausting. It was certainly “hard work”.

But here’s the thing:

When I looked at the data of my results, what I found was that the offline promotions resulted in ZERO conversions.

Not one. Not two. ZERO.

Whereas the activity which I could have done being half-asleep in an air conditioned room resulted in ALL the conversions.

On the face of it, running Facebook ads did not feel or seem like hard work, but it is what got results.

It was so easy that I actually used to feel guilty about it.

And this is the important point.

I felt guilty because just like everyone else, I had been conditioned into thinking that work always has to be hard and unpleasant.

And understanding this point is very important if you are to be an entrepreneur.

Because in a job, “hard work” will always be appreciated since an employee is not accountable for the company’s bottom line. As long as the manager/supervisor feels the employee is a hard worker, the employee usually faces no issues.

That’s one of the reasons why companies hire people with higher GPAs. Because they know such people will be diligent and hard working.

But in entrepreneurship, there’s no one to fool.

The joke will be on you.

You only have to do that which is effective, whether it is hard or easy.

Your focus has to be only on results.

The “deep conditioned satisfaction” of hard work is not important.

And this is a great thing.

Because it means you can do less and yet get fantastic results, something which is not possible as an employee.

As an employee, you cannot tell your boss – “I did what’s necessary and now I want to go home and relax.“

This is why I love entrepreneurship. It rewards REAL work. Not hard work.

I don’t even call it smart work. I call it REAL work.

REAL work is more important than hard work.

Even most entrepreneurs fall for the myth of hard work and tell you things like – “You have to work 16-18 hours everyday as an entrepreneur and have sleepless nights.” It’s simply not true if you understand the nature of REAL work.

I am not against hard work.

But the correct way to work hard is to find the REAL work and increase its frequency.

If you understand this, you will realize Entrepreneurship gives you the ultimate freedom to express yourself and your work in a way that fits your innate nature and personality.

You can run things YOUR WAY.

The REAL WAY.

P.S – Last year, I wrote another similar article on the topic of hard work, titled Talent vs Hard Work. Check that out too.

Regards,

Kush Sharma

Click Trainers

The post The illusion of Hard Work appeared first on Click Trainers.

Some tough love today.

I always dread big sports events like the Olympics.

Because they always result in the most useless type of news being shared till you can’t ignore it and are forced to check what the fuss is all about.

So I finally gave in and decided to see what the commotion was all about.

So a guy named Neeraj Chopra won the gold medal.

So what?

Why is everyone going crazy behind this event?

How does it relate to you?

Is he your relative or friend?

It’s definitely a fantastic achievement but the only people who should be really and genuinely happy about Neeraj winning a gold medal are Neeraj, his family, close friends and his team members.

Anyone else who is celebrating this victory is trying to fill themselves with a fake pride.

Why is this pride fake?

Simply because you don’t even have a 0.0000000001% contribution in what he has achieved.

So why are you celebrating?

Just because he’s a compatriot?

The only time we should celebrate a compatriots victory is when our soldiers and armed forces personnel fight for us.

The rest of the time it is just a fake pride.

Real pride is always associated with what we do ourselves.

For that you have to change your mindset from being a passive audience to an active creator.

You have to go from a consumer mindset to a producer mindset.

There’s nothing wrong with watching TV to relax but to celebrate something in which you had no part to play is just unacceptable for the self-respect of a producer.

I want you to take a vow and start producing something from today itself.

Whether it’s an online course, a book, a podcast, a blog or whatever, it doesn’t matter.

But today I want you to take a vow to become a producer.

Today I want you to get up from the audience seat and have the courage to walk on to the stage.

The internet has given an opportunity to everyone to reclaim their own stardom.

And I want you to grab that opportunity with both hands.

And never look back!

Regards,

Kush Sharma

Click Trainers

The post What about your medal? appeared first on Click Trainers.

Do you struggle with taking decisions?

I used to be like that too.

In fact let me tell you a story.

Back in 2013 when I was starting my photography education business, I was confused about what to name it.

I narrowed it down to two choices:

• Kush Sharma Photography.com
• Creative Pad Photography.com

But between these two, I could not decide for MONTHS. I was going crazy.

So I decided to see a Jyotish.

Can you believe that?

I decided to see a freaking astrologer just to choose a name for my business.

Even the astrologer was shocked. He said – “People come to me for career, marriage, etc. This is the first time someone is coming to me for a domain name.“

I told him – “By the way things are going, choosing the correct digital marketing strategy will be more important than choosing the correct partner. So get used to it.” (I was not wrong, was I?)

Anyway, he told me to go with Creative Pad Photography.

But little did he know that I was not a superstitious person and the only reason I had come to him was so I could see his choice and then do the opposite.

So I chose Kush Sharma Photography.

Obviously that was still a small decision as compared to what we can face in life. So I knew I had to become better at this art.

Apart from the usual strategies like listing down the pros and cons, considering the worst possible outcome,etc., here are two other strategies that helped me a lot:

1. The strategy of not making a decision at all

Trust me, this is a very under-rated strategy.

A lot of times when we are faced with a tough decisions, we always think of A or B.

But there is also a C.

C is not to take any decision at all.

Because that is also a decision.

And this is my favorite strategy because it fits well with my lazy personality.

But it’s very effective.

Because from what I have seen, a lot of problems simply disappear on their own if you just let time take care of them.

In fact I used this strategy to solve one of the biggest and serious dilemmas of my life which I thought would never be solved.

But it did.

Simply because I took the decision of not taking any decision.

Maybe one day I will be vulnerable enough to tell you what exactly that issue was.

2. The strategy of courage

So while the first strategy is my favorite, sometimes you might be required to take A or B. C wouldn’t be feasible.

In that case, the answer is courage.

Not the courage to take the decision, but the courage to face the consequences.

What you have to understand is that we cannot foresee the future.

A may be good/bad. B may be good/bad.

No one knows.

So it’s best to detach yourself from the outcome and instead tell yourself -“Whatever comes from this decision, I will accept it. But I am going to make the choice. I don’t care whether it will be good or bad. I just know that I will accept the consequences because it’s my decision.”

Now it does not matter whether your decision is correct or not. That is not important because you have already accepted responsibility. You have superseded both A and B by becoming unconditional.

I used this strategy last year when I decided to start Click Trainers. Because I already had an existing business, it was not an easy decision since I was starting from scratch.

Some nights I would get palpitations and anxiety and I would get a little scared.

But I told myself -“This is what I wanted and if palpitations or anxiety or something much more serious are the consequences, then I will accept it. It’s the price to pay for taking the decision.”

Using both these strategies has made me much better at taking decisions and has improved my overall life quality.

And I hope it helps you too.

By the way, I ultimately did end up discarding Kush Sharma Photography.com and going for Creative Pad Photography.com.

The Jyotish was right after all.

Make of that what you will.

Regards,

Kush Sharma

Click Trainers

The post How to take tough decisions appeared first on Click Trainers.

Usually in my one on one sessions, I mainly deal with issues related to Online Coaching.

But last week, I had a different request.

One of my students took a session with me because he felt his personality was not “businessman like“.

He told me – “Kush, I am a simple person. I feel business requires you to be emotionless and cunning.“

I could totally understand where he was coming from because back in 2012, I felt exactly like that.

I am from an Army family and no one in our family had ever been in business so even I had doubts like this when I started.

But trust me, most of my photography students worked with me exactly because of that. Some of them even told me that you did not appear “commercial” and that’s why we decided to come to you.

Because here’s what you have to understand and this is the advice I gave to this person:

You NOT being cunning and NOT being emotionless is your greatest strength.

Because by being cunning you can certainly win respect but not affection.

And nowadays, to win the trust and affection of your customers is the most important thing.

People (including me) are fed up of “shrewd and clever” business-minded people.

Because such people only think of money and are very selfish in their approach. That’s why majority of the internet marketing “gurus” get a bad name. Their whole approach is that of desperation.

And with that desperation, even if you gain success, you will lose yourself.

Remember, business is just a name given to barter.

How you barter is not so important as what you barter.

If you give solid value through your products and services, then there’s not need for any other drama.

You can completely be yourself and still do well.

Never ever trade your authenticity for anything else.

That’s the only barter you should avoid.

Regards,

Kush Sharma

Click Trainers

The post “Kush, I’m not cunning enough!” appeared first on Click Trainers.

Yesterday I learnt a lesson which I have learned a lot of times in the past in my entrepreneurial journey.

It’s got to do with how we take our decisions.

As an online entrepreneur, you will be often presented with a lot of choice when it comes to tools, software and methods of implementation for your online coaching business.

Yesterday I had a very successful Facebook ads campaign going on.

I was really happy with it in the morning.

Then while browsing the internet, I happened to read about a social proof plugin called NotificationX.​

It’s a social proof plugin which creates small notifications on your landing page where the conversions are taking place.

For example, if I’m selling a product, it will start displaying notifications like “XXXX puchased this product XXXX time ago“.

This generates more trust about your product because it shows that other people are buying it.

The article that I was reading mentioned that a social proof plugin like this can boost conversions by 30%.

That got my attention.

I decided to purchase NotificationX since it was only $39.

But something did not feel right.

My heart was telling me – “Kush, please don’t buy it. This plugin will create a lot of headaches for you. You’re having such a nice morning. Your campaign is already doing well. Let’s just relax and enjoy the day.“

But then my mind chimed in – “Kush, forget about relaxing. Just imagine 30% increase in conversions. So what if your day goes in stress in implementing this plugin? At the end of the day you will be happy. Just imagine how your ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend) will shoot up. After that you can relax.”

I decided to ignore the heart and follow my mind.

WRONG MOVE!

Right from the second I purchased this plugin, everything went downhill.

First of all, the way these people gave access to this plugin was so confusing.

Secondly, the plugin DID NOT WORK FOR ME!!!

Not until 4 extra hours of tweaking around things and contacting their support.

My whole day went from being amazing to an utterly frustrating one.

When I finally got things to work, I realized that those notifications look so bad that they will probably destroy the user experience on my landing page.

I ended up deleting the plugin.

I did not even bother asking for the refund because I was so drained out and frustrated.

But what was the lesson here?

The lesson is to NOT BE GREEDY AND TO KEEP THINGS SIMPLE!!!!!!!

Your heart always knows the truth.

Your heart can see into the future.

Your heart wants to keep things simple.

But the mind is always greedy.

The heart lives in the present but the mind always lives in the future,

The heart knows that simplicity is the way.

The lesson here to start listening to your instinct and gut more.

Start trusting it more because it always points you to something that is simple and less stressful.

More choice is not always a good thing.

The more simple you keep things, the more energy you will preserve and the happier you will be running your business.

With each passing year of being an entrepreneur, the one thing that I believe more and more is that your business has to feel EASY, not difficult.

And the best part about this is that once you start keeping things simple in your business, this aspect starts to seep into your personal life also.

I hope this experience helps you.

The post A lesson in keeping your online business simple (Heart vs Mind) appeared first on Click Trainers.

This tattoo took almost 6 hours (with a couple of breaks) and it was pure TORTURE with a capital T.

If you ever wanted to see a fully grown self proclaimed macho man cry like a little baby while holding his hair with both his hands, then that tattoo studio was the place to be.

4 hours into it I even started pleading the tattoo artist if we could quit. But he won’t let me.

I was just telling myself -“Aur hero ban. Mazze aa rahe hain ab?“

But I got through that because in that pain, I just kept visualizing the final outcome. But still it was not easy.

I learned a couple of things from this one, even though this was my fourth tattoo –

The first thing I learned was that a lot of times the difficult situations that we face in our lives are from our own doing. From our own desires. Situations more serious than a painful tattoo. Always analyze these difficult situations to see if you can eliminate them by simply letting go of that stupid desire which is causing that situation.

The second thing I learned was that always love yourself enough to forgive yourself in any situation. The last hour of that tattoo was unbearable for me but I changed my thinking. Instead of blaming myself, I switched the voice. I told myself – “You did the correct thing Kush. This is a great learning experience. Let’s go through this.” Always be your own number one best friend.

The third thing I learned was that even though a trivial thing like a tattoo can be avoided, sometimes there will be painful situations which cannot be avoided in life. In those situations just know that you are way more stronger than you think you are. You will 100% get through it. I promise you that. I’ve faced such situations a lot in my personal as well as professional life and sometimes even I am amazed at my own will power which I thought I never had.

I hope this experience of mine helps you in a positive way.

The post What getting my new Tattoo taught me appeared first on Click Trainers.

Let’s be honest. By now, we all have been bombarded so much by this “do-what-you-love” notion that it just doesn’t seem to have the same appeal as it used to.

There are a plethora of resources, ranging from internet articles to full-fledged books, that deal with this subject.

And yet, this vast supply of knowledge just doesn’t seem to solve the problem for most people.

I think the main reason for this is that it’s a problem which is of an extremely subjective nature, more so than it is usually given credit for.

And the reason I say that is because “solutions” like psychometric tests or exercises are still considered to be one of the sure-shot ways of answering this massive question. The problem with these approaches is that they have a linear nature. They are systemized approaches that often ignore the deepest values residing in a person. While they make sure that an outcome will always result after the process ends, they fail to consider whether that answer strikes the deepest chords of the soul of the person in question.

I am of the opinion that there cannot be a sure-shot way of finding out what a person would love to do for the rest of their lives. Life is just too deep, complex and dynamic to ever conform to something of a fixed nature.

But it’s definitely possible to guide someone in a better way by changing the approach from being specific to figuring out the principles that can steer them towards living their passion.

Hence, I’ve developed a little approach that relies on some hypothetical situations to get closer to our deepest selves so we can answer the question in a way that ensures higher sustainability.

This little exercise won’t answer what it is that you need to do, but can make you realise how important it is to follow one’s dream.

So let’s get started.

First of all, I want you to imagine a rather dystopian situation:

Imagine that scientists discovered another planet that was more hospitable to human life and everyone was evacuated.

You overslept on the day the evacuation process took place, and now you’re the only person left behind.

Your inability to garner some amount of self-discipline on the most important day ever means that you’re on course to lead the most boring existence ever know to any human.

What would you do in such a situation if you really had no hope to ever leave?

You would do whatever you wanted.

There is no one to stop you.

But no matter how much ever you indulge in things that were previously inaccessible to you, you would soon be bored.

Even if you were a creative person, like let’s say a musician, you would not be able to play music with the same zeal as there is no one to play to.

What about work?

You wouldn’t even think about things related to work or your passion, as it’s all meaningless when there is no one around.

Money won’t have any value any more.

You would come back to the very basics and the only actions that would have any meaning for you will be directly related to your survival, like eating and sleeping.

Your only entertainment will be any sort of pleasures that you can help yourself with. (let’s not get into those)

Ultimately, your existence will boil down to just satisfying the basic needs a human being has.

Nothing more, nothing less.

What does this mean as far as the concept of work goes?

It means something we all know already. That the primary reason people work is because they want to survive in a world where there is fierce competition to stay alive.

Even people who follow their passions, do it ultimately for that need, though on the face of it, it may not look so.

But the dystopian situation described above proved that passion only has meaning when there are people around.

No people around you would mean that the motivation to work would not exist as everything is available to you.

The only work you would be doing is to just make sure you have enough to eat and survive.

So this teaches the primary of nature of work and the motivation people have to do any kind of work.

Now let’s imagine a completely opposite situation.

Let’s say you wake up and realise that the above situation was all a bad dream, and that the Earth is as beautiful and full of life as ever.

And you receive an expected, but extremely pleasant surprise.

You’re notified that you’ve been declared the winner of a lottery-based contest that was held by a large corporation, which you had taken part in half-heartedly.

But now you’ve won it. And your bank account is credited with an unimaginable monetary figure, large enough to ensure that you never have to do a job for survival.

You can now do ANYTHING that you ever wished to, without ever worrying about your finances.

Now what would you do?

That’s exactly what you would do – ANYTHING that you ever wished to.

That means indulging in all sorts of things which were inaccessible to you before. Your freedom would be similar to the dystopian situation but your motivation will be completely different.

Now you would enjoy everything more.

And though you can completely live-off a hedonist lifestyle forever, at some point, you are bound to ask yourself some questions about finding your purpose and doing something that fulfils that purpose.

So what about work?

You definitely won’t work a usual boring job, but you will start to finally follow your dreams because now there is no fear of survival.

And now your creative endeavours will have meaning, since there are people around to respond.

You will only have the energy to do work that brings joy to you.

You may fail but it won’t matter, since all your future attempts will have one thing in common – they will be pursuits based on your passions.

What does this tell us about work?

This tells us that once the basic needs of survival have been met, the only way work will ever be fulfilling is if it’s based on our passion.

It also tells us that the basic nature of work is that it needs a well defined purpose

In the dystopian world, you would do only that which ensured survival.

In the utopian world, you would do only that which ensured a purposeful life.

The motivation in both the worlds is clear and hence, work will never feel like a burden.

Then what’s the problem with our REAL world situation?

Why don’t most people love their work?

Something has clearly gone amiss.

Is the cause that there are people around us?

Definitely not.

Is the cause that we all don’t have an unlimited amount of money?

On the face of it, it looks like this is the problem.

If we all had to never worry about our finances, it would present us with the perfect situation to follow the path of our dreams.

But going by this assumption, the only people who should be living the life of their dreams are the ones who were blessed with financial independence.

But we all know that is not the truth.

There are millions out there who never had such resources, but are living their purpose.

So while having a large amount of money is definitely a huge advantage, it is by no means, a necessity.

Where then does the fault lie?

We saw in the dystopian world example that the motivation to work only existed because of survival.

Suppose work meant catching one fish a day because you knew that’s all you needed to survive.

Let’s assume it took you two hours to catch a large enough fish to get by the day.

If you knew that you could get by with one fish everyday, would you ever work 4 hours to get hold of two of them.

Probably not. Even if you did, it would only be so you can store the extra fish for the next day so you don’t have to work at all on the next day.

But you definitely would not be working extra hours because you know exactly what’s needed for survival.

And that is EXACTLY where the fault lies.

MOST PEOPLE OVER-ESTIMATE WHAT THEY NEED TO SURVIVE IN THIS WORLD!!!

And if you over-estimate, you will always be doing work that is not necessary.

Deep-down your soul knows that this extra work is not necessary and that the time spent there can be used towards making efforts to live a life full of passion and purpose, because we’ve already seen that the motivation to follow a purpose exists as long as there are other people around.

But the over-estimation of the need for survival hinders this effort, thereby resulting in the suppression of the most basic need of the soul – to live a life full of passion.

And why do we over-estimate this survival need?

Because we never spend enough to time to analyse our lives, and realise that so many of our pursuits don’t contribute to our basic needs in any way.

For instance, if you have an extremely consumerist attitude, your desire to buy the latest gadgets and devices may mean that you have to work more in order to buy these toys.

But these toys are not your basic needs. They are your wants.

But because you THINK they will make you happy, you consider them a part of living your life, thereby overestimating your need to survive.

This overestimation results in doing more of something you are not passionate about.

But deep down, your soul knows about this overestimation and therefore starts to move away from your meaningless pursuits.

This is exactly why you feel a kind of dissonance between your actions and feelings.

And this is what results in frustration.

The BASIC YOU is not in line with this made-up one.

Making a living is important, but only up to the point where your financial condition is enough to sustain the basics of life.

The basics are more to do with needs than wants.

The idea is not to live in deprivation, but to watch closely if your lifestyle is based around only those things that you truly value.

Once the expenses go down, you can begin to divert some energy towards pursuing your passion and purpose.

That’s the only way to satisfy the soul as far as work is concerned.

A lot of people live their whole lives in over-estimating the need to survive. They always feel they need more and more money, so they keep working jobs they hate.

Once we get closer to the survival method described in the dystopian situation, we’ll realise how less we need to be happy.

This will open up doors to pursue our purpose.

A life based around our passion is more rewarding than which is spent on meaningless acquisitions.

Our soul is crying out loud for us to live the kind of life that we would live if we had all the money in the world.

What that life is can only be answered by you, since you are the only one who knows the most about yourself.

But I felt it is equally important to understand why we need to do work that we would love to do.

So if this article helped you, do leave a comment below.

The post A Unique Way of Understanding the Nature of Work and Purpose appeared first on Click Trainers.

That’s exactly how most of us are – completely lost and clueless about what’s happening around us. Being indecisive has almost become an innate attribute of the current generation.
Gone are the days where people would stick to a job for 30 years and work their way up systematically.

Relationships have lost their true essence and majority of marriages are either a masked collaboration of joy over the ugly truth of utter dissonance, or a fleeting affair, where the slightest diversion from the expected course can result in an abrupt end.

Technology has taken over and further added to this endless commotion that our mind and soul experiences on a daily basis.

While all this can sound rather dystopian, can it be that all this is really a blessing?

Can it be that amidst everything that changed and followed the dynamic nature of life itself, the only party guilty of remaining constant is US?

Can it be that the dissonance most of us experience is a direct result of us not being able to disconnect from our past and embrace a change that is bound to drive us out of our comfort zone?

One of the sure-shot ways of understanding this desire to hold on to the past is the never-changing nature of what the term ‘success’ means.

Finish school. Finish college. Get a reputable and sustainable career. Get married and have kids. Live happily ever-after.

This was the mantra for success for the previous generations.

And what is it for our generation? I’ll give you a hint: Look above.

Why is that when everything has changed around us, we find it too tough to break the pattern of what a good life is supposed to mean?

Why is that most people still prefer unhappiness over uncertainty and adventure?

You’d have to go way back to the time where one of your ancestors managed to hold their own in a world where survival was the only meaning of success.

At a time when agriculture was a choice-less occupation, the luxury of pondering and contemplating over the meaning of life was reserved only for the extremely privileged ones.

As the industrial revolution hit the world, the productivity rose and it required people of a diverse skill-set.

This was the first time the common people had that little privilege of choice. Survival was still the pre-dominant notion, but at least you could choose the trade that would facilitate it.

As things settled more, systems became stronger and for the first time, administration and managerial roles began to garner some importance.

This was where the limits to choice started to vaporize into thin air. In other words, people began to get spoiled with choice.

The plethora of options before them meant that work was no longer the ultimate criteria that ensured survival.

Other needs began to show up.

The need for well thought-out relationships. The need to find work that seemed satisfying. The need for spiritual growth.

But all this was still at a nascent stage.

Then came our generation with no barriers to choice at all.

For the first time, the notion of satisfaction took over that of survival.

Survival wasn’t good enough. Anyone could survive. Anyone could lead an ordinary life and make it through to old-age.

But this is also the time when choice itself became a paradox.

More choice started to mean more dissatisfaction.

While the earlier generations could follow a typical path and be satisfied with it, the variety offered to our own resulted in an insatiable desire to find the greener grass.

But just because that desire is present did not ensure that anything was done about it.

And this resulted in a phenomenon that was to give birth to one of the biggest problems faced by any generation – ANXIETY.

The amount of choice actually overwhelmed the current generation.

And what did we do?

We took the easy way out – We decided to hold on to the past.

And this is exactly why we are lost.

On one hand, we know the limitlessness of our own potential and how the current environment can facilitate that, but on the other hand, we refuse to face uncertainty and anxiety.

That is the reason we are still defining success just like the generations of the past.

But we have to realise that holding on to the past can never beat nature.

Nature demands that we grow and be dynamic, just like everything around us.

We have to understand that to be lost is in fact the greatest blessing we could have ever received.

Because for the first time, it meant that the focus of surviving shifted from being able to put food on your table to achieving a self-actualized state where we are the highest versions of ourselves.

For the first time, we have a plethora of knowledge of anything and everything that we could dream of, just a click away.

For the first time, we can decide to live a life that offers a kind of richness and variety that the previous generations could only dream of.

But what are we doing these possibilities?

You have to realise that success does not have to mean any of the things that we have been conditioned into believing.

It’s not your responsibility to do a 9-6 job. It’s not your responsibility to spend your entire life with someone who makes you unhappy. It’s not your responsibility to have kids. It’s not your responsibility to JUST SURVIVE.

But it’s definitely your responsibility to find out WHAT SUCCESS MEANS TO YOU!!

It’s also your responsibility to not give a hoot in hell about other people’s opinions.

Figure out the life that will make you happy and follow it.

You may get it wrong, but you’ll learn. And that’s exactly what your soul needs. Growth and self-actualization.

Just like your ancestors’ souls graduated from being fulfilled with mere survival to stability, yours is craving for more.

And it’s your responsibility to satisfy that craving. It’s asking you to move forward, not backward. Would you feel good if you ate the same thing every day?

No. Similarly your soul has had enough of stability. It’s crying out loud for you to find a deeper meaning to life. It needs you to move higher up. It’s had enough of the ordinary food and it’s FED UP!!

It needs the dessert and for the first time, our generation has the ingredients to prepare one.
For instance, when I looked at my own life, I realised that none of the things I was conditioned into thinking were success made me genuinely happy.

I had finished my MBA and was on course for a supposedly fulfilling career in Finance. It all crashed in under two months when I quit my job. And it was the best thing I ever did.

It led to a professional and spiritual adventure that I could have never dreamt of. I went on a journey where I tried more than 10 different jobs and over half a dozen entrepreneurial projects before finding something that worked.

Sure enough it meant that I would face raised eyebrows, lose ‘respect’ in society, not be able to buy that fancy car and what not.

But did it matter to me? HELL NO!!

Once you taste the adventure that comes from following your calling, you simply don’t look back.

It was because I garnered the courage to be honest with myself.

I realised that the financial conditions around me were decent enough to ensure that the motivation to do anything that I hated was not revolving around survival.

Satisfaction was more important than survival and that meant working for a purpose, rather than just a salary.

This is not to say that it’s all easy or that my life is perfect.

But the point is that I have taken my life to another level by paying heed to what my soul was crying out for.

And this is one problem I notice with my peers. Many of them doing things they hate even when they well and truly are aware of the fact that they are not motivated by the notion of survival.

Instead, they have bought into the idea of success that is conditioned into us by the generations of the past.

However, as already seen, there can never be any comparison as all of us possess a soul that is way more evolved than ever before.

So while you may be able to buy the next smartphone with your salary, you won’t feel as satisfied as someone from an earlier generation would have. It’s like feeding the same thing to your soul all over again. And then we complain when it throws up!!

Our generation needs to take a plunge into the act of defining their own success and having the courage to follow that vision.

It’s time to let go of the past and embrace the present of future with a clean slate.

Yes, you’re lost……And you cannot have it better than that.

The post Our Generation is Lost Because We Have Borrowed the Meaning of Success From the Past appeared first on Click Trainers.

But if we go deep into this topic, we can start to see that this notion of the world being lopsided and to some people’s advantage can actually free us from lot of our troubles.

The problem with trying to overcome unfairness in the world is that it puts us under lot of undue stress because we are preparing for a battle that we can never win.

The world is unfair because that is the natural state of things.

All people cannot be equal.

Wishing for an egalitarian society is going against nature.

There’s always someone out there who will be stronger than you in one way or another and you can rest assured that that person will use that power to his or her advantage.

For example, we often feel hurt by what someone did to us and we think that because they hurt us, it’s unfair.

That person can be a friend, relative, spouse, etc.

Because I spend a lot of hours almost on daily basis working out of cafes, I overhear lot of conversations. And I’ve noticed a similar theme in majority of them, which is that most people are complaining about how someone close to them hurt them and how it is affecting their life negatively.

What you have to realise is that whenever you fall victim to this type of thinking, you aren’t thinking broad and deep enough.

You are not the only one who is hurt every time.

There are always more number of people whom you are treating unfairly too.

It’s just that you are not aware of it.

Why are you not aware of it?

Because that particular person whom you knowingly or unknowingly hurt does not affect your ego.

For instance, think of a poor person who’s struggling to make ends meet.

When such a person watches you live a moderately lavish life, they are bound to think about the world being unfair to them.

Indirectly, you have caused the notion of inequality to pop up in them.

But do you care? No.

This is true even with people who are close to you. If you stop and look, you’ll realise that there are plenty of things in your life that they can be envious of.

And you can bet they are.

But your focus is not on it. Because our attention goes to only that which we don’t have.

And what we don’t have is the upper hand on someone whom we feel has the upper hand on us.

That particular person is capable of pinching your ego, so your field of awareness gets narrow.

Such a person starts to make you feel the world in unfair, whereas you are doing exactly that to a much larger number of people yourself.

It’s just that you aren’t aware of that.

So you expend all your energy into getting the better of the person who wronged you.

But this is where you are fighting a battle that is already lost.

You see the person who usually gets the better of you is doing so because they are naturally stronger and more resourceful in whichever area they dominate you.

They have been able to see your weakness and are naturally taking advantage of it.

Think of it like this.

Let’s say a group of people decide to abandon society in pursuit of egalitarianism and occupy a remote island.

They set up rules which make sure everyone gets equal opportunities in every sphere of life.

Now rules are artificial but human nature is real.

There is bound to be at least one person who is smarter, stronger and more resourceful than the others.

How long do you think such a person will be able to resist the temptation to take advantage of the situation?

You may argue that such a person will not take advantage because he may be a nice person.

But that’s fantasy thinking.

Why?

Because an egalitarian society will always favour the weak and be harmful for the strong.

To understand this, let’s take another example:

Let’s say different animals get together and start something similar.

They all decide to live happily and in peace.

Now imagine the situation of a lion and a deer.

Whom do you think will benefit from this?

Of course the weaker animals.

In fact the stronger won’t be able to survive as you are eliminating their natural advantage.

A fair world can only exist at the expense of a hypocritical and unnatural society.

So why is the world being unfair an awesome thing for us?

It’s because it helps us change and move in the right direction.

You see whenever you feel you’re being wronged by someone, it just shows that you are fighting the wrong battle.

It just shows that you are not playing to your strengths.

Our deeply flawed education system makes us believe that strengths can one be measured linearly and in favour of mental capabilities.

But the truth is that your strengths can be measured across the whole canvas of life.

Someone can have strengths in emotional spheres, someone in logical, someone in creative and so on.

You have to figure out where you are naturally good at and then start suing your innate strengths.

Once you start to fight battles based around your strengths, you’ll find that you win most of them effortlessly.

In fact you’ve always been doing so. It’s just that you were not aware.

If only you could ask the people who envy you.

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