Stick to your core competency

Updated on: Tuesday, August 25, 2009

While conducting a personality development class at a highly accredited professional institute on the outskirts of a city, I asked the final year students to write the name of the sea they would be facing, if they turn towards ‘east’.

Many of them could not. With the help of a diagram, I explained the geography of our country, topography of the three seas and the North mountains. Later, I requested six students to stand facing the Bay of Bengal and asked them to turn towards Arabian Sea. Only four of them could do it correctly. I am not complaining about their geographical knowledge but the common sense. Soon after, I happened to listen to a lecture by Sir Ken Robinson “Do schools kill creativity?”

He also wrote a book: “The Element: How your finding passion changes everything”. This book contains a lot of stories of those people who found their ‘element’ to become their own person.

The author is pro-teacher and does not slam modern education, but says that the “element is something that a person has to find for himself”. Schools and parents unfortunately do not teach.

The book deals with many interesting points: 1. Analysing those people who failed miserably as students but made their name in history, the author says that when the things you ‘love’ and the things ‘you are good at’ come together, you are sure to win and enjoy life. I feel this principle appears to be correct in my case also. Though as a chartered accountant and senior executive in a bank I was financially sound, I was not comfortable as my liking was literature. I found my core competency in writing and started enjoying being a professional writer.

The ELEMENT has four settings, I love it – I want it – Where is it – How to get it. We discuss the other interesting aspects of this book next week, but let me conclude with the positive and intelligent aspect of some of the students of the above said college.

Stick to your core competency

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