Wait! What? If this is your reaction to reading the headline, please read on. If not, this article is a waste of your time. 

"Follow your passion" is an oft-heard bit of career advice that is wrong in so many different ways. Words like passion, purpose are bandied about meaninglessly. I struggled to define these words for my career. In this blog, I will try to explain these words, debate if they can help you make fulfilling career choices, and suggest an approach that might help. - that's the engineer in me talking. I will also talk about my mantra that has defined my career choices. You can decide if it is too shallow or, as they say in Singapore, too "Chim"- meaning profound.

Let's begin by trying to understand the difference between purpose and passion. 

I didn't have a passion. I enjoyed playing basketball but was never an ardent fan. I liked reading Western pulp fiction but wasn't passionate about it. I felt comforted by the fact that 8 out of 10 people either do...

We do not know when the world will get back to normal. But is it the normal you want to get back to? What can you learn and change in the meantime?

This has been a troubling time for all of us around the world, however, most of us are fortunate to be at home and spend time looking inwards for a change. Yes, the social distancing has given us a lot of time away from the daily distractions, to reflect on what is really important to us and what has been working and what has not been working. 

 As I discuss with some of my peers and friends, some may decide that they don’t want to go forward in their current work stream, and it’s a good time to make a switch.Some others may decide they really like what they’re doing but want to change the way they go about doing it. This is a special time in our lives that can help us to improve things or make a shift and do something new and different.

 There could never be a better time than now to rethink how you...