Sumit D Chowdhury - Rules of the Game: Discover, Learn, Invent the Art of Speeding Up Your Career

Rules of the Game

Rules of the Game

Discover, Learn, Invent the Art
of Speeding Up Your Career

Sumit D. Chowdhury

Copyright 2014 Bloomsbury Publishing India Pvt Ltd

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The one who dared to marry me,

The two who got fathered by me.

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Contents

Preface

E ver since I saw the Oscar-winning movie, Life Is Beautiful, by Roberto Benigni, I have come to appreciate how everything we do in life is akin to a game. I have also realized that anything in life can be made interesting and enjoyable if we consider it a game, while making an attempt to comprehend and learn the rules that govern the game. While we are going about our daily activities, we sometimes fail to notice a pattern in the steps, which we take over a period of time. Someone who is avidly watching us, can understand this pattern and deduce a set of rules that could explain the pattern in our moves. Most of our learning comes from understanding of such patterns and internalizing those.

This method of systematic studying of any concept, over the time or over a number of subjects while aiming to find a pattern, is used in all scientific experiments which have led to acclaimed discoveries. In this book, I have applied this method to understand the importance of early development of certain concepts to help propel long-term career acceleration.

Once you realize that career management is a game, you have to go about accustoming yourself to the rules of that game. Unfortunately, most people do not think that managing careers is a game and therefore, do not invest in learning the rules. There lies the first issue of people trudging through their daily existence fearing life, fearing change, fearing politics, fearing competition, fearing failure and all the while underestimating themselves and not investing enough in overcoming each of these fears. If they chose to see the larger picture, they would envision the rules that create a pattern and rules that govern the change in these patterns.

The second issue is that sometimes these rules are learnt after their due date. For example, you learn what it means to be a cool teenager, when you are already 20 something. You learn how to be a successful youth, after your early 30s have set in. You realize how much you could have done in your 20s and 30s, upon entering the threshold of your 40s. This book is an attempt to bring forth the career experiences and regrets of those in their 30s, 40s and so on, in a bid to help the youth, who are currently joining the workforce to anticipate the patterns and use that knowledge to fast-track their careers without making the commonly made mistakes and stand prepared for the foreseen hurdles. Once you have learnt the rules of the game, you can go about mastering it to conquer your innate fears pertaining to your career and subsequently help others understand those rules as well.

The third issue is that most people are not aware of the rules of their own game. They have read many books and articles about what it takes to succeed but have spent very little quality time, introspecting about their own self, to know how to apply the acquired wisdom in any given situation. Even if they learn how to act in certain situations, they are devoid of the understanding to anticipate the reactions from the immediate environ that surrounds them. There are no short-cuts. You have to seek the internal truth about yourself. However, you can reduce the learning time, by being prepared.

There is no definite age of any career commencing. For some it begins immediately after high school while for others, it begins after graduation. After successfully finding a job, you either go through a rigorous training module or are directed to perform some tasks which enable hands-on learning. Unless you are an entrepreneur, you are tempted to assume that someone else has a master-plan, which you are part of and that you shall be taken care of, eventually. Over the time, you realize that everyone undoubtedly has a plan which is centered around them and definitely, has no place for you to be in the center. It may take many years to realize this or rather accept this. My definition of mid-life crisis is, when you finally realize the above parable and you decide to dissect yourself in a bid of self-discovery. You then try cleaning your muddy vision to ensure that you spend the rest of your life on your own terms. The purpose of this book is to guide you to clear your vision while finding and defining yourself faster.

In the early years of thinking about ones career, people either make a dash to complete their educational formalities or plan to acquire some extra relevant degrees. Very few people at that age, are level headed to steer their boat towards their destination with a sense of furious dedication and relentless passion. The majority, as is observed, is clueless and usually without a planned strategy. You can plan and anticipate one quick career move but you cannot plan your career graph with certainty. Doing so, would be extremely sub-optimal and similar to living a life with blinders on. However, having a general strategy and direction is essential. Rigorous planning serves as a distraction and restricts you from creating and seizing the opportunities, which might cross your path.

Conscious planning and effective harnessing of spare time in the pursuit of achieving long-term post-career goals is rather indispensable. The delay in attaining this goal is directly proportional to the amount of time wasted. Most people fail to realize that they can actively work for only 3040 years of their life and the remaining 30 plus years are that of retirement from your main career. If proper investment of finances, time, skill sets and activity patterns are not done, you will find living independently with dignity, to be an uphill task. It is therefore, essential to take up a leisure pursuit or a cause, which can become a career or serve a passion in your latter years.