We would like to narrate a real story which gives a glimpse of what a career coach can do and how it can impact anybody’s life, in a way which is unimaginable.
It’s our privilege to share this exemplification with you. One might think “ah! Yet another self trumpet blower.” But what we are going to see is not just any success story.
A short time ago we encountered two wonderful siblings, Manish and Satish. Manish, the elder one, was doing his twelfth standard and had a personal physics tutor. He shared a great bond with his tutor. He had never felt a barrier between himself and his tutor. Not like any regular tutors, his tutor was an entrepreneur-cum-tutor and was very much happy to share his thoughts with his students. He never failed to share his interesting entrepreneurial journey with Manish.
Because of those interesting exchanges between the two, he grew very close to his tutor. He was highly motivated by him and he talked about his greatest affinity for designing car profiles and futuristic car designs with his tutor. On hearing that the tutor encouraged him a lot. He explained how to develop one’s abilities by adapting professional and systematic ways of learning. He made Manish learn much more about it.
One might think by making him learn means reading voluminous books or dumbing his brain with the tutor’s own thoughts but that was not the scenario here. He increased Manish’s approach. He taught him to concur things differently. Manish was provided with different professional and systematic ways of sketching profiles of the cars which in turn made him happy. He was eager to do all the necessary up-gradation during his engagement with the tutor.
Days passed, and he did his finals. Manish got some decent scores and was on the verge of choosing his career path. As any Tom, Dick and Harry have to face, Manish too had a situation in his family where he was advised to choose Engineering over his own passion. Manish didn’t have the courage to even speak his heart out. He had no means to prove to his parents that designing was the “joy of his life” and not the other way around.
Just for the sake of finding stability he opted for Engineering. Manish was finding it difficult to clear certain subjects in the first year and this backlog became a nightmare for him. Those subjects kept haunting him and finally after with patience, hard work and perseverance he finished his degree.
Manish plays an important role in Satish’s (his younger brother’s) life. Satish too took the same course as Manish in twelfth and luckily had the same entrepreneurial physics tutor. Satish was a good student. He had a decent talent and flair for the science subjects in his twelfth standard. But like his brother Manish, he too had a natural appetite for design and sketching.
Satish witnessed every little happening in his brother’s life and by the time his tutor was not just a tutor anymore, he evolved as a career coach (CC) and was able to nudge Satish as well as his parents to allow some degree of freedom to the kids to choose their JOY OF THE LIFE. Parents in Satish’s case ‘allowed some flexibility in selecting a career option. Now the CC also did his part in nudging the parents to listen to his heart and in pushing Satish to follow his heart.
He made them realize, what is the real joy of life? How will it impact his life & career in a different way to comprehend from his current perspective?
CC did all within the limitations of engagement as a teacher & career coach and nothing more. Satish passed his 12std with decent marks yet this time his parents were able to understand Satish’s needs and aspirations. Now he was allowed to pursue his career in designing with a significant contribution from CC’s Art of nudging theory.
Satish applied to a good Design school. He filled in the admission details to his CC and then he came to know that there is a time constraint to gird him up to face the interview and exams. CC asked Satish to sketch bottles and some random things of a home from a designer perspective. He did so and gave his best. He passed the written exam and the stage was set for his interview.
Satish and CC were dwelling and pondering on how to approach the interview. CC told him he should develop a small portfolio and build the portfolio around two different areas of design – Visual design (logo and concepts), and product design sketches. As a diligent student, he started preparing for it.
Regarding the product design, he asked CC what to do? While thinking of a way to do it the CC remembered that once Satish shared with him what he did for his granny. After chemotherapy of her grandmother, Satish’s granny nerves would swell, so he and his brother would massage granny’s arms by rolling the wooden stick and it helped her. Over a period of time, they used beads on a stick which gave lots of relief.
So the CC told him why don’t you design & sketch a modern massaging tool as a part of the portfolio. Satish took the advice of the CC, designed and took to the interview. The panel were very much impressed by his sketches and simplistic yet wonderful concepts in them. He also told the story behind the designs, which gave him the edge in the eyes of the interview panel.
After a few days, he got a call from that prestigious design school counsellor that he had been selected for the course. It was great news for all.
Though it was just a stepping stone, it is a step in the right direction and his favourite design journey started. He was enjoying it very much -it became the joy of his life. Now he is pursuing his career in product design in a well-reputed design firm, enjoying every bit of it.
At the same time Manish who was also seeing all the progress made by Satish, one day told his mother that he also wanted to do the same thing as Satish but because of their rigidity and old-school thoughts, he got stuck in a career which was not his joy of life.
Through this life instance, we can understand that children must be given space and choices to understand what comes easily to them. If you are about to buy furniture, you are provided with two options. You can easily differentiate the craftsmanship. The carpenter who loves his work would have made the best one and the other one would not be so desirable. This is because the best one is done by a naturalist. Being a parent it’s our duty to find or at least leave room for the child to discover its own comfort and joy in its life. Coach them in a way they can differentiate their plus and minus so that they take the right step towards their career.
