It began and ended with…”You have 24,455 days to live”! That’s a little disturbing math, don’t you agree? Given where I am in life, I have exhausted almost 10,000 of these days already!
So.. I had the first inspiring session in my 2 weeks at INSEAD so far. This was a talk by a corporate executive turned social entrepreneur, Mark Philpott. Mark runs a social organization called Humaneity. The underlying work of Humaneity is to generate revenue through social activities and re-invest those in grass root NGOs.
Mark talked about some of his experiences that changed his perspective towards life. And most leaders who make transformational moves from their for profit to a complete non profit career, have an inspirational moment in their story that changes their perspective towards life. My bigger question to you is, do I wait for that inspirational moment? How much passion do I need to start making a change? How much can I do which would lead to a considerable change to those around me?
The answer should not be too complicated. And here is what I believe:
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Do I wait for that inspirational moment?
- Of course not! God knows we don’t want a personal tragedy or someone else’s tragedy to start making a difference. We want to start today and we should! The point is, most of us are born with a heart that wants to do good. You just have to give yourself the time to reflect. If reflection isn’t working, talk to your house help or that watchman about a normal day in his/ her life. You will get more reasons to do good that you would imagine.
How much passion do I need to start making a change?
- Does your current high paying job give you enough passion to justify spending 2/3rds of your life for it? The answer is probably no for most of us. We start our jobs and over time we begin to like it. It is almost similar to doing a good deed. Infact good deeds are addictive. So don’t try to find passion within you to justify good deeds. Just start now! Look around you and pick a positive change you want to make. Once you do that, you would never want to stop. And there comes the birth of your passion! Yes, PASSION can be created!
How much can I do, that would lead to considerable change to those around me?
- This question, I feel, is the biggest problem amongst us corporate executives. We are trained to make big impacts that generate big revenues, to the extent that an effort seems worthless if it does not create a measurable impact. The answer to this is: realize who your stakeholders are. In consulting a multi million dollar enterprise, your change is not big until revenues grow multifold. But in doing charity, a day of your income can feed a family for several months! That’s the difference my friend. Take a moment to realize this. Anything you do is a step in the right direction!
Don’t wait till you spend yet another fraction of your days that are left for you to make a difference! Start now!!
