CEO speaks: Off the beaten track
When I interact with students and their parents, I am often asked for advice on their career choices. My answer has remained consistent, which is: choose a path in life that you are passionate about, even if it is unconventional. Here, by career, I mean the much broader canvas of contribution to humanity — not restricted to the narrow goals of how much money you make!
Swami Vivekananda chose not to follow his father’s wish of a successful legal career as an attorney but walked to his heart’s call to awaken the masses to their lost glory.
Rabindranath Tagore never went to school. Coming from a family of very successful businessmen, he gave priority to his love for the written word over family business and became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi trained to be a lawyer but chose India’s struggle for freedom over his narrow individual gains.
Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, dropped out of college to pursue a career in technology, a field that was not widely accepted at the time. His contributions to technology have changed the way we lead our lives today.
JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, was a single mother on government benefits when she wrote the first Harry Potter book. Her books have now sold over 500 million copies worldwide and have been adapted into a successful film franchise.
More recently, in 2011, Swami Vidyanand Ji Mahan Maharaj, alias Mahan Mitra, a monk associated with the Ramakrishna Mission, was awarded the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award for mathematics — the highest academic honour for science in India. He changed his specialisation at IIT Kanpur from electrical engineering to mathematics and obtained his masters from University of California, Berkeley. He chose his love for mathematics and teaching and the life of a monk over everything else.
In today’s connected and fast-paced world, traditional career paths are no longer the only way to success. All individuals cannot, and do not, need to be engineers, doctors or lawyers. Many engineers leave great jobs to pursue their passion as YouTubers, bloggers or Instagram influencers. Take Gaurav Taneja — the “Flying Beast”: an IIT graduate, a licensed pilot, a professional bodybuilder among many other things, he has 3.1 million Instagram followers and more than 7.31 million subscribers to his YouTube channel!
These individuals — and counting — have shown us that it is possible to achieve great success in unconventional life choices if we are willing to take risks and pursue our dreams. My advice to students would be to do your research, be prepared to work hard, and never give up on your dreams! I would like to remind them that there are no set rules for success — it is important to understand that it takes time and effort to shine bright. Remember, even a star takes around a million years to form!
The most important thing is to identify your interest that you are passionate about, and to never compromise. Unconventional careers may not be the easiest route to success, but they can lead to the most rewarding and fulfilling experiences in life.
Dr Sanku Bose,
Group CEO (Techno India Group)
