Thursday, October 01, 2009

Weight handicap is as big as other handicaps in career

I met a school-friend of mine last week. I had gone to his home after a long time of 10 years. I remembered his daughter, Priya, as a smart, intelligent and lively kid. She was good in academics and also was active in other fields like dance. But when i met Priya this time, i was shocked.

Priya had become completely different this time. She had left her college. Did not appear for her Higher secondary exam. Did not want to join us for a movie, of which she was very fond of. Had no friends to chitchat in the evenings. Instead sat in front of the computer chatting with net friends. Watched TV all day. Her change had occurred due to one handicap: weight handicap. She was overweight.

That had triggered the entire vicious pattern. Because she was overweight, she was picked by her class friends for barbs and snide remarks. She started avoiding friends. She had changed three schools in last four years. She avoided neighbourhood friends because of the same reason. As she became reclusive and immobile, she kept on putting more weight. More stress added to more eating which further aggravated the vicious cycle. That brought her to net. When my friend told that she has fallen in love with a net friend at 18, i was not surprised. It is so logicial!

Weight-handicap is as serious as other handicaps ( what we saw as speech handicap of Hrithik Roshan) in creating such vicious patterns. And like other handicaps, it requires much more than willpower to tackle it. Like in speech handicap, it requires support of the groups ( in this case overweight kid groups) who have traveled on a similar path. And once the trigger is sparked, it requires other supporting elements and your love to sustain on that new pattern, until a threshold level is reached. The dynamics remain same.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Willpower is not enough to change big handicaps

I was seeing the interview of Hrithik Roshan in the Farah Khan's show of 'Tere Mere Beech mein'. The story of Hrithik Roshan came out as a very poignant story of a child who has emerged from all his handicaps to achieve something of significance.

Hrithik Roshan suffered from Dyslexia. He used to stammer and could not utter a single line in a flow. He was therefore bullied & hackled by classmates and became a loner. As he said ' I used to get scared of getting up in the morning' because of the fear of going through another day. He used to bunk 'oral exams' using different justifications like stomach ache, fever and others. With no 'platform' to practice 'speech', his speech had no chance to improve. He was caught in a vicious cycle.

As he said, very hesitantly, during the interview, the support and help from the home is not useful at such times. Because they keep on insisting 'Keep trying, and you will succeed'. Their love sometimes get transferred into anger when repeated attempts lead to failures. It does not work. Love and support, instead of facilitating the change, perhaps begins a constant source of nagging which one starts avoiding.

An unexpected event changed the pattern for Hrithik. Once, when he went to beach, he saw kids of his age doing 'somersaults'. He asked them to teach them. He fell down. But with their support, he kept on working on it. And suddenly, one day, he did 'somersaults'. For him, this was a pattern-changing event. As he commented in his interview ' I was zero in this. If i could learn to do somersaults after some attempts, why can't i do it with my speech'. This new lucky 'sensemaking' helped him start afresh.

Every day he started practicing speaking words and paras alone loudly in his room.(He still follows this practice for an hour every day.) That practice allowed him to 'build' the confidence to speak in public. And as he spoke, he must have got 'positive feedback' from it. With positive 'feedback' from speaking, he must have practiced more and more. His earlier vicious cycle got changed into virtuous cycle. It is not will-power alone that is enough in such instances to change the pattern. Neither is love enough.

For children who stammer, this is an important lesson. They need to find their own 'virtuous' pattern. They must take help from such 'groups' which help. For instance, Hrithik Roshan offered one child in the audience his phone nos so that Hrithik can help him with tips. At such times, a help from a person who has gone the same path is very important, because that person can exactly 'second-guess' what is happening and guide better than other 'normal' advisors. Such 'groups' exist. If you can connect with them, they offer important guidance that is crucial. Now your job is to help fill the gaps and help your child move into a 'virtuous' pattern.

Sunday, August 02, 2009

Which students are using computer?

Tata Consultancy Service recently announced a survey results of students ranging from 12 to 18 age, living in metros and mini metros, of about 14000 students. The findings can be seen on the website of the company.

Some of the findings are notable. 63% of urban students spend over an hour online daily, which is quite a significant number. Most of them access internet at home as 62% have a personal computer at home. Usage of computers is therefore quite significant in metros and mini metros.

The more interesting part for us is about the choice of careers of these children. IT and engineering remain overwhelming popular career choices, perhaps because it is talked about the most. With the proliferation of Engineering colleges, especially private colleges, this should not be a surprising choice. More importantly, engineering offers many options and is not a niche stream like say 'medical'.

However, an unexpected choice has been the foreign destinations for higher studies. This seems to have become increasingly popular. This is surprising because the best graduation is perhaps offered in India while the best post-graduation courses are in other countries. We should perhaps find out which students are really going out and why. My guess is that these students who wish to go at 'graduate' levels are the ones who do 'education' to have a degree against their name. It would be interesting to find the list of serious 'careerists'. I know of a friend whose child went to US because she wanted to graduate in a rare subject like mathematics. Choices of basic sciences like physics and chemistry still make it very attractive choice to go to western universities.

I must however say that i was most enthused to learn that some other careers are coming in the forefront. Careers such as Media & Entertainment, Travel and Tourism are emerging career options. There are lot others which have not gained public visibility such as careers in ecology. The rate of adopting these careers is slow because most of them are not aware of these options. And this is where internet can really play a big role. If students ( and their parents) learn to use internet creatively, they could find many more career options for their children.

Saturday, June 06, 2009

Is computer-knowledge important for career?

With the onslaught of computerisation in our lives, this is one question which i am asked a lot by parents during my talks.

Grandparents beyond 60 have to negotiate computers when they have to use them to talk to their grandson in US. Parents of 50 have to use computers to find match for their sons and daughters. Teachers have to use computers to download the answer paper that their students have uploaded. Even uneducated citizens are forced to learn computers to find if their railway ticket has been confirmed. Computers are everywhere.

Parents therefore get very anxious and want to teach computers to their children right at the age of 5. Not so surprisingly, kids also learn computers faster than adults and therefore tend to master it quickly. But despite the huge usage of computers by the children till the age of 15, they do not learn to use computers smartly.

Children learn internet as their first introduction to computers. But the only activity they engage is in opening an email id and writing letters to their friends or brothers. They do not know how to find information on the net. If they want to know about the courses in say, hoteling, they will type 'hoteling course' and search in Google. Number of searches that pop up from this enquiry is so large that they cannot seperate wheat from chaff. Very soon they give up. After two three such 'failed' attempts, they soon give up on using internet's most powerful feature.

Some children, i see, take courses in Word and Powerpoint. Word helps to type letters and documents, while Powerpoint helps you to develop 'powerful presentations' to explain a subject, say on the subject of Nanotechnology. Once again, these are tools that serve a purpose if they are used frequently. It is like playing a table tennis. Anyone can toss a ball across the court. But unless you play diligently tennis every day for a long period of time, you do not become proficient in that subject.The same is true with these two softwares Word and Powerpoint. The effort in learning them does not produce any result.

In short, children do not know how to use computers in their life or career, because there is no meaningful guidance on the subject. Let us explore this topic further in next few blogs.

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Marks are poor predictor of career success

Welcome to the blog after a long time. I have been writing a book for the parents of young students, " How to make career choices at 10th class".

Today a every interesting write up in a newspaper attracted my attention. It was a write up on a 15 year old topper from Mumbai, Aditya Shankar, who got 98.4% marks this year.

As a careerologist, i am often asked if there is a single determining factor that predicts career success over a long time. Marks, as i have found in my research, is definitely not one of the predictor of future career success. If you have read a recent book of Malcolm Gladwell called 'Outliers', he has quoted a very poignant example of a person, Chris Langan, with extraordinary IQ of 195. ( Please remember that average IQ is about 130 and even Einstein had an IQ of 150.)

It is well proven that a person with IQ of 150 would be able to think well than someone who has a IQ of say, 90. But when the comparison is between an associate with average IQ of 120 to another person of say IQ of 150, IQ is not able to predict anything. In other words, IQ below a threshold may affect one's career, but IQ after a threshold value, say 120, is not helpful to predict anything. It is like a factor of 'height' in basketball. In a basketball, an individual with height less than five foot six inches has very little chance to succeed; but height above 6 feet does not guarantee any success in the game of basketball.

More than marks, i have observed, interests in off-mainstream pursuits can perhaps be more useful in ensuring career success.I was therefore surprised when i read that Aditya Shankar, the Mumbai topper regularly cooks Indian and Continental dishes for his sisters.

Cooking interest will help Aditya in three ways. One, cooking for men, in India, helps boys to break the gender stereotype which will help Aditya more in his personal life. Two, cooking is a highly creative activity, which will only help Aditya in his work-life. And, thirdly, cooking can be an excellent stress-buster activity that Aditya will thank his parents for, because men in later years find it difficult to find an activity that will help them 'dissolve' stress in their lives.