What is it that you really want to do?
We were born in the same year, a scant day apart. We met before we hit our teenage years. She was the quiet one, an odd combination of intense and lyrical. She had long, black hair and opted for the uniform skirt and black patent shoes. I was the girl from Catholic school, happily opting for denim jeans and the wooden Happy Feet sandals, my nose in a book. Somehow, we became friends, the pianist and the writer, the quiet girl and the rebel.
She opted for accounting and music, and I pursued a degree in mathematics, intent on becoming an actuary. Even then, she had already laid out two paths.
Perhaps it had to do with our parents. Her parents were educators. They believed in professions, and honing skills.
My father was an entrepreneur, my mother ran enterprises out of the household. Some years, we produced cakes and cookies, some years, we produced bags. Summers, we made halo-halo (a Filipino iced dessert) to sell to the neighborhood children. As soon as I learned how to bake cookies, my father had me calculating the cost to produce and churning them out by the hundreds. Before I was out of school, I had organized a system of pre-mixing dry, wet, and fruit and nut ingredients for my mom’s annual Christmas fruitcake production.
Practicality was our number one virtue, efficiency a close second. When it came time to choose a major for college, there was, of course, some consideration of what I wanted to do. But, the decision really boiled down to two questions: Do you have the aptitude for this? Will you make money doing this?
My father quickly turned down my first few choices. They were either impractical or too common. This early, my father taught me the value of differentiation. When I suggested mathematics as a major, he pulled out the impractical argument he had pulled out when I suggested physics. This time, however, I had an answer. Math was only the first step towards a specialization – one that paid well, and one I could do well in given my natural aptitude with numbers, and one few individuals chose. I had hit the jackpot.
In corporate strategy, you would say I had found that happy intersection between my competence and a clear market need, one especially attractive because there were few players.
After graduation, I was invited to join an information technology firm. I declined. I was focused on the path I had chosen. I gravitated naturally to the life insurance industry, the natural home of the actuarial profession in the Philippines. I was fortunate to work for a medium-sized firm positioning to break into the top five in the industry, giving me front side seats – and opportunities to contribute – to a successful repositioning and gearing up.
My friend finished her double degree and spent a few days agitating about doing her music recital and taking the CPA exams in the same year. She eventually did both with flying colors and then accepted a job in an audit firm, shifting very early on into information technology.
When I joined a company that was decentralizing core operations from regional to the Philippines, I had occasion to ask her to interview for the position of IT head in our firm. We worked together for a few short months. She stayed in the firm. I pursued other interests, juggling consulting, running a business, and teaching.
In those latter years of our career, she was the focused one and I was the juggler. We kept in touch somehow, the pianist and the writer, the executive and the rebel consultant.
As the children grew, we hit the point in our lives when we didn’t need to work. We could, but we didn’t have to. She retired from her executive position and enrolled in a music therapy program. She had come full circle, back almost full time to the music she loved, preparing for a new path in a field related to the one I was in – education.
It is an enormously joyful thing to watch her talk about her new path, all the things she is doing, all the things she plans to do. She is as busy now as she was when she was just starting out. Not surprising as she is, in a very real sense, starting out again.
This second starting out is very different, though. It is a beginning fraught with hope and no fear. It is the beginning of one who has already finished the difficult climb. It is, also, a beginning composed almost entirely of passions and preferences.
She reminds me of my friend who left a legal career to become a writer. They have taken very different approaches to their change, but they are both now doing what they really want to do. They inspire me.
The real challenge in these changes, in fact is that one matter. What is it that you really want to do?
In business, the most important guidance we give to managers lie in the corporate vision and mission. They explain what we really want to do. The how is important, of course. The formulation and implementation of strategy determine whether or not a company succeeds. Understanding the environment and continually monitoring the situation is critical – as Nokia realized too late.
Sadly, in life, many people focus on only one thing – the practicalities, the how. There is an old Chinese saying – it does not matter how fast you go up a ladder if the ladder is placed against the wrong wall.
Money is important. Professional success, fame, notoriety – they don’t necessarily have value. For the most part, they are really just means. They are a way to get other things, things that are meaningful. The real tragedy would be to wake up at the end of a successful career, only to find that nothing you have achieved is important.
So here is our question for this week, the week when we have that extra day in February to try and figure out some things. For those like me, who have already put in the time. Now is the moment to address the one really important question. What is it that you really want to do?
First published 04 March 2016 by The Standard in the column Integrations by Maria Elena “Maya” Baltazar Herrera.
You can email Maya at [email protected]. Please like the Integrations Manila Facebook page or visit her archives atmanilastandardtoday.com/author/maya-baltazar-herrera/ or integrations.tumblr.com
