What the heck do I do with my life?
This is probably one of the most asked questions that young people today grapple with. When I first picked up Ravi Venkatesan’s book, I was a bit unsure and hesitant about what it might have. Especially because one too many self-help books claim to help you sort your career out but fall into the same trap of generic solutions about pursuing your passion, taking on all opportunities that come your way, actively networking etc. and yet fail to address the fact that our world has changed tremendously, and solutions that worked even 5-6 years ago don’t work anymore.
But Ravi Venkatesan’s book is anything but a typical self-help book. In fact, it’s one of the most thought-provoking books on sorting your career pathway you’ll come across. ‘What the heck do I do with my life?’ sets the context right for anyone asking the same question. Ravi’s vast corporate experience, backed by his passion for mentoring, shine bright in the book as he takes the reader through a journey of first understanding where the world has reached and then going into the ways one can navigate it.
What I also personally appreciated about the context is how it considers how the world has changed so drastically and identifies polarisation, lack of trust around us and disruption due to tech and climate change as key challenges anyone looking to figure their life out will invariably face.
At the very outset, he explains how and why one might disagree with a lot of what he’s shared. As a reader and an entrepreneur myself, I disagreed with a few of the things Ravi wrote, especially because every individual’s personal circumstances often dictate the career choices they make. However, Ravi also explains how his learnings will get you thinking – and that they do. Even in slight disagreement, I felt empowered by the information the book shared because it got me thinking about my own career decisions and choices. It also made me immediately think about why my peers, colleagues and former colleagues make the kind of career decisions that they do.
We’ve seen how the ‘gig’ or passion economy has emerged strongly, with a rising number of independent workers, especially during the pandemic. Chapter 7 of the book navigating your career, highlights ten extremely practical ideas and exercises for you to create an ideal career matrix for yourself. Three of those ten ideas, following the passion economy, building a diverse career portfolio and not chasing an ideal retirement, were the most critical for me.
What stood out for me was the way in which the author brings his personal experiences to drive bigger learnings and how every single chapter leaves you with practical and realistic learnings and actionable outcomes you can aim for.
If you’re someone wondering what to do with your life, or even if you’re someone who thinks they have it all sorted, I’d recommend you pick up a copy of this book because it’ll push you to think harder and sharper about how to be ready for what the next decade holds for you, professionally (and even personally).
I’m definitely buying a few copies as a gift ahead.