Finding X – How I discovered what to do with my life

I believe that everyone has their special place in society – a position in which they can easily outperform everyone else with much ease. It’s where you experience the most flow, tackle real challenges with confidence, appreciate immense learning and growth, and ultimately live a life of purpose and fulfillment.

Imagine if you could combine your passions, with your strengths, to solve real problems every minute of the day. It’s the reason why some people find the adrenaline that keeps them awake for nights on end, that when they sleep they just can’t wait to wake up again. These people have found X.

I’ve been pretty lucky to encounter such people in my life. You can see it in their eyes and feel it radiating from their soul, even though they might be introverts. There’s something about this spirit that can only be caught and never be taught. After a while, that energy empowers you with the confidence to start questioning and take your own leap of faith.

1. Start by knowing thyself
So much is being written about finding your passion or even discovering your life’s purpose. Brilliant. Well and good for those with easily identifiable passions, but I’ve always had trouble with this one. At one point, it even felt like I was screwed because I didn’t know what my one big hairy audacious mission in life was!

And then I realized that it was perfectly okay. The reality is that society often defines you by what you are based on your resumes, results, and which institution you most recently sold your soul to, that people have lost who they really are. By being grounded in your values and getting back in touch with your soul, you go a long way by letting the fabric of your character guide the most important decisions. Randy Komisar does a brilliant job putting this into an action plan:

2. Flex your strengths

In the most Asian way, I grew up being told always to fix my weaknesses. It now seems so obvious on hindsight – why not be a lot more of who you already are, than trying to correct for something that you are not? Just spending an hour each day devoted to honing a skill could go a long way, what more if you could flex your strengths for most parts of the day?

Thanks to scholarship interviews and business school, I’ve taken truckloads of personality tests that gave me a good (though highly general) understanding of myself. For those who are interested, I found the Motivational Appraisal of Personal Potential (MAPP) pretty comprehensive, although I know many who swear by the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the 16PF Test.

But what I personally found most useful was StrengthsFinder by Tom Rath, so aptly named, which I now use with anyone we get on board our team. The 34 strength classifications make a lot of sense, mined from data and research. And I love the action ideas on how you can work your strengths and help others with theirs. And no, I’m not making any commission on this.. but what a brilliant business model to boot – one code per book in which the value of the test results are enhanced as more people around you take the test!

3. Find out what the world needs

This is the part that ensures your lifestyle is sustainable, that you are contributing value to something the world really needs. If you get this part right, I guarantee you won’t have to starve on the streets to do what you love, or pump billions of dollars into marketing a product (*cough* coke *cough* USD3bn) that there is no real need for, to try and create your own demand.

Then again, this is almost the easiest part of the whole puzzle to me, because there are so many darn problems we haven’t found solutions for. The larger problematic themes still remain, around poverty, education, human rights, diseases, global warming and the litany goes on.. but what excites me the most is the rise of technologies that present us with new opportunities for solutions. If saving the world isn’t your cup of tea, try focusing on inefficiencies within the an industry you know, or even personal frustrations in which you are victim of circumstance. Chances are, you’ll be doing someone a big favor by figuring out a better solution!

All said and done, finding X is a constant work in progress and will evolve with the different stages and priorities in life. It’s something I’m still figuring out every single day. Then again, you know you’ve come close enough when you wouldn’t trade what you’re doing for anything else in the world :)