(This note contains about 40 percent of what I shared during the career chat at Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh on 13/06/2015. I spoke for nearly 7 hours; it’s simply impossible to write down everything I said.)
Career Chat
Sushanta Pal
Assistant Commissioner
Customs, Excise & VAT Commissionerate, Khulna
Come, let us dream!
Let’s take a little journey with the person of our dreams…………….. (This was a song from Uttam-Suchitra’s ‘Saptapadi’)
During the chat……..
- Mobile phones must not ring under any circumstances
- If you need to take a call, step outside the room
- If you want to talk to the person next to you, do it discreetly when I’m not looking your way
- If you feel sleepy, sleep in a way that doesn’t disturb others. Don’t lean on your neighbor’s shoulder while dozing off
- Ask questions only when I ask for them
- No need to take notes, just listen. I’ll share everything on Facebook. My Facebook ID: Sushanta Paul
These words matter……. (These were some dialogues from my favorite movies and a quote from Steve Jobs)
Some thoughts…………
- Quota: Another man’s beautiful wife! She who is not mine………
- BCS: ‘A den of corruption’
- BCS job: Voluntary consent to sell one’s freedom
- Don’t feel like studying but want to be a BCS cadre == Want to hear ‘mother’ but don’t want to get married. Legitimately impossible! Sorry!
- ‘Good job’……. It’s an oxymoron!! “There’s no pure job in this world.”
A Nobody’s Story
- Looking back. The story of being a nobody. The tale of the boy with the worst results; who wasn’t even supposed to complete his honors at one point, whom nobody ever dreamed about. The story of repeatedly changing life’s direction. The story of a happy, unsuccessful, accidental engineer who didn’t live in someone else’s life, didn’t compromise with life, the story of a disillusioned entrepreneur.
- Identity is more important than existence! Not getting any recognition from anyone is a terribly painful thing.
- The story of giving up tutoring. People do tutoring alongside their studies. I used to study alongside my tutoring. Not out of necessity, but out of passion. Later I realized, what does tutoring actually give us?……..Often money and contempt; sometimes respect. The most joyful work is the one others think you can’t do. In the Bengali middle-class life, is life more important or job? This is the great dilemma!
- Days of humiliation, nights of tears. “Have you fallen? Alright, get up and try again!” Nobody says this, everyone just lectures! How does someone survive when nobody wants them? The most painful sight in the world is seeing your parents’ tears, for which I am responsible.
- The defeat of the poison chalice and what came after. Just surviving can lead to many things. Let’s just see what happens by staying alive a bit longer! To kill the life my mother gave me with my own hands would be a great sin! So I live—not like ten other brilliant people, but as a completely dim person if need be! Have you read ‘The Swimmer and the Water-Maiden’?
- In life, it’s better to suffer than to get nothing at all. Cry, only to smile better. What does it mean to do something good? Doing something that brings smiles to your parents’ and loved ones’ faces, that lifts their heads high—that’s doing something good.
- When a person’s back is against the wall, they turn around and fight. My back was embedded in that wall! How desperately I used to look at everyone’s faces, like a beggar hoping for a kind word! Nobody would say that I could do it too.
- The story of the iftar party. The story of get-togethers. Every humiliation hides an opportunity within it.
- I am very happy because I didn’t get what I wanted. Allah sometimes grants our prayers by not granting our prayers. Thank God, He didn’t accept my early life’s prayers. There’s always time to understand that you’re running late.
- Why aren’t all prayers answered? What’s the real mystery behind this? We are each just a part of a vast masterplan!
The Story of My Life:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
~ Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”
(I played a video song.)
What is Career, Why, When?
- Before starting your career, ask yourself what you enjoy. Others can’t answer this. At best, they know what you should enjoy. The big problem with thinking like everyone else is that your actual capability gets trapped in a predetermined framework, and your achievements become nothing that can be called or seen as distinctive. Whether you’ll put your life into mediocrity—it’s your choice.
- Those of you here who haven’t even started your careers yet—are you really behind? What does ‘being behind’ actually mean? The story of hearing about BCS. I started working at least 4-5 years after my friends.
- What is a career? What does a ‘good’ career (whether job or business) contain? I think there are three things. One. Social recognition. Two. Solvency. Three. Time to spend your earning in your own way.
- It’s much better to live like a small sparrow without regrets than to live long among abundant wealth while sighing. Yes, you can run like everyone else, like mice winning the rat race. But there are two problems with this. One. This race never ends. Two. Even if you win this race, you’ll remain a mouse in the end. The problem with being a mouse is that mice can’t enjoy human life. How much does a person really get from a job? We never know what will come first in our lives……the next day? Or the next life? Therefore, careers should be chosen keeping in mind that we can live life our own way before death.
- Career and Family—the story of filling a glass jar.
- I had no Aim in Life, except in exam papers. Someone once asked me, what’s your 10-year plan for life and career? I answered that I’ve never been able to make even a 10-minute plan in my life. Still I’m happy. No regrets! How much does a person really get in one lifetime? I’m someone who lives in the world of every moment. What’s the point of living as such a careerist?
- Modern man’s great irony: gives more time to the boss than to the wife. Wishes Eid-Puja to the boss first, family later.
Taken from life…….
- The day you want no one to remember may turn out to be the best day of your life! The story of deactivating your Facebook account on your birthday.
- Just one second, one piece of good news can change the course of your life. A strange moment can make you forget all past sorrows. Allah never leaves anyone dishonored forever. You must wait patiently for the day of your dreams and believe from your heart that the day will come.
- Just one mistake can give you a tremendous push forward. Being able to make such a mistake is also a matter of good fortune. Making mistakes early in life is the best thing.
- Having Intellectual Humility is crucial. Why Google doesn’t care about hiring top college graduates? Those who aren’t used to making mistakes can’t go very far.
- Accept it—the mistake is yours. Forgive everyone except yourself.
- Stop trying to be perfect. If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll remain as you’ve always been. There’s nothing called perfect in this world.
- Whether you’re an Oxford, MIT, Stanford, or Harvard graduate—no one really cares. At the end of the day, only your impressive behavior, manners, and conversation stick in people’s minds. Nothing else.
- Most people love success but secretly detest successful people. Not everyone will like you. You don’t need everyone to navigate this world. You need some enemies in your life. If you don’t have any, create some. Experience says, Birds of the same feather feel jealous of each other. Those who come after you have already accepted that you’re ahead.
- Doing a job well is more important than doing it quickly. People remember how well the work was done—only that. Don’t complicate simple tasks and don’t underestimate difficult ones.
- “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” Saying someone’s face is ugly doesn’t make my own face any more beautiful.
- You can become big in two ways. One: By becoming big yourself. Two: By making others small. The second way is easier, but risky. Why?
- Better to be a wise person’s follower on Facebook than a fool’s friend. Keep learning with a humble attitude. You can’t learn without humility. It’s better to lose once fighting a lion than to win a hundred times fighting a donkey.
- The power of not making someone listen is much greater than making them listen. If you want to make someone listen, do it through your actions, not your words. Your day will come too. Until then, let people talk. Your actions talk the loudest!
- Do three things. One: Write down what you want to do. Two: Write down how you’ll do it. Three: Keep what you’ve written in front of your eyes. ……… When will you start doing this? As soon as you get home today!!
- Love your emotions. Your hand might be less beautiful than many others’ hands. But just as you’d be incomplete without it, you’d be incomplete without your emotions. People live with their emotions.
- There’s no point in asking “Why me?” The story of a priest. Caroline’s story. Your own story. Have you never received honor that you didn’t deserve? What goes around, comes around. The world moves in balance. You’ve passed many exams by a hair’s breadth in life. Why feel so bad about failing one now?
- Focus on the rabbit you want to get. If needed, change the tactics, but don’t change the rabbit. If what you want seems difficult, change your approach, not your goal. Half of what you think is right about your efforts is actually right.
- What’s essential to win? Intelligence? Skill? Knowledge? No, none of these. Two things are needed: passion and perspective. The footballer’s story. My students’ stories. Little children’s stories. The story of staying awake for two nights.
- From today on, whenever you watch football or cricket, imagine what you would do if you were in that player’s position. Practice this.
- Fear is only as frightening as we make it. The childhood story of fearing cockroaches. The bumblebee’s story. What happens when you look down from the top of a mountain?
- When you’re to look through the window, just look through, don’t look at.
- The story of pessimists. Pessimism is utterly contagious.
- Spend more time with those who speak well of you and have faith in your abilities. When someone praises you, use the sense of responsibility that arises within you. Samar sir’s story. Every husband tries to do more of what his wife calls good. Apply this to your own life. Listen to praise with a humble heart, give praise with a generous heart.
- Be a 2-dollar man.
- Sometimes a goalkeeper not running here and there actually reduces the chance of conceding a goal. Why does the goalkeeper run? We think, at least he tried. Even if he concedes a goal, no one blames him much. Think less about what others are thinking.
- Eat that frog! formula. Before sitting down to study, write down what you’ll study that day. Finish the difficult and boring subjects first. This way you can finish the easier subjects much faster. Set your priorities. If you can finish one difficult subject, give yourself a gift. Sometimes give yourself permission to slack off. Close your room’s doors and windows. Play music at full volume and dance! What’s the big deal!
- Stress Management: Sachin Tendulkar’s story—The Main Khelega Attitude! (I played a video clip)
- To become great in life, you need a habitual ‘selfish’ weakness to greatness. Looking down on great people doesn’t diminish them at all. Seeing Humayun Ahmed as Shawon’s husband rather than as a writer is our mental illness. For your own benefit, try to replicate the qualities of those who are successful in their respective fields. Whatever goal you want to reach, maintain tremendous respect for that goal. Otherwise, sincerity doesn’t come properly in preparation. Allah honors the humble.
- Notice one thing. Ninety-six percent of the world’s wealth is earned by just one percent of people. Among those who take BCS exams, only one percent of candidates become cadres. Why is this? Some of this is controlled by factors beyond our control. Don’t think about those. Use what’s in your control. Plan to be among those 1%! Think less about the misfortune of the remaining 99%.
- Once a song gets into your head, it keeps playing and playing. Whatever kind of song it is! Maybe such a song has entered that you’d be embarrassed to even hum! When our brain receives a signal, it only sees what signal our thoughts are sending. Our brain only works with keywords. Choose them very carefully. Like attracts like. Let me give some real examples.
- Creating your own work environment. Examples of Humayun Ahmed and Sunil Gangopadhyay.
- It takes two hands to hold two small things. It takes two hands to hold one big thing too. If you can’t let go of small opportunities, big opportunities will slip away. My own story. Live like birds. Leave to live.
- While doing a task, follow the car headlight theory. If you think about everything before and after the whole subject, your attention is bound to get scattered. Most people find upcoming tasks difficult, so they prefer to think about what’s easy to think about and discourages them from doing the upcoming tasks.
- No one kept their word (I recited the poem)
- To do something very good doesn’t necessarily require a lot of time. To do something beautiful, emotion is needed more than hard work or intelligence. Knowing how to do many things in less time is a great art. …… No one kept their word. You fill up my senses. Kumar Sanu’s 28. Dostoyevsky’s story. …….. Be lazy. Bill Gates’s principle.
- One thing is very true. Being a good student academically doesn’t necessarily mean having a good career. Good students often see you as an easy target. Use this weakness of theirs. Try to have the last laugh. Let some time in between pass in tears, neglect, contempt.
- Stop complaining the world is not fair. Yes, it’s not fair. And, this unfair world is older than you and has charmed many people much better than you.
- The two most difficult steps in doing any work: One: Deciding what you actually want to do, how you want to do it, why you want to do it. Two: Actually starting the work. The easiest technique to start any work is to actually start the work.
- Is confidence necessary for success, or is success necessary for confidence? I can’t do it, I can’t anymore, I quit! Shah Rukh Khan’s story.
- “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” The difficulty level of most of the competitive exams is overrated. — Why? Those who come first in civil service exams are human too, right? I used to think like this. ………. Don’t think your BCS won’t happen, your BCS won’t happen. Your prayer might be answered.
- Your passion pays!! Books, movies, music & of course Facebook!! No matter, whatever it is!! Basically, you were what you loved, you’re what you love, you’ll be what you’ll love!!
- If you are not thinking about your dream, you are not thinking at all.
- What’s the point of asking Bill Gates for business ideas about rice and lentils? Be strategic.
- Success can never be deserved; success must be earned. Just as you think after becoming successful that this is your achievement, similarly, after you fail, others think in their minds that this is what you deserve.
- What people can’t do or aren’t used to, they assume you can’t do either. There are some viruses that can never praise or tolerate anyone’s praise. Don’t let yourself be influenced by anything they say. Those who can’t praise your right actions have no right to criticize your wrong actions. I hate critics more than anyone. Throw them out of your life. Only he deserves to rule…. Kind words are healthier than a bowl of chicken soup.
IBA Admission Exams and BCS Examinations: DOs & DON’Ts
- The difficulty level of BCS and IBA admission exams seems to me somewhat overrated. While it’s true these are competitive exams, it’s even more true that there usually aren’t many candidates capable of real competition. Most people prefer to spread fear about these two exams rather than offer genuine insight. They speak about what they know; they also speak about what they don’t know. Let me share two facts.
- In these exams, 50% of candidates show up just for the experience, without any real purpose—almost like attending a get-together. (The funny thing is, some of them actually succeed! The “I came, I saw, I conquered” type! There’s no point feeling bad about their success.)
- Only about 7% of candidates are truly equipped for real competition.
- This means your competitors aren’t as numerous as you think. Since BCS and IBA admission exams have no specific syllabus, achieving 100% preparation for these two exams is impossible for anyone. Remember, the art lies in thinking you’ve learned everything, forgetting sixty percent of it, and properly utilizing the remaining forty percent. For success in these two exams, far more important than knowing what to study is deciding what to leave out.
I’ve tried to elaborate on this in the following slides. Use these guidelines in your own way. Take what you need, throw away the rest.
By the way, he is joining the IPS! (I had shown a Hindi song video clip)
Various Topics for the Preliminary Exam…
- Language: Previous BCS exam questions + job solutions + 9th-10th grade grammar books + Hayat Mamud’s Language Learning + guide books
- Literature: Previous BCS exam questions + job solutions + Soumitra Shekhar’s Inquiry + Humayun Azad’s Red Blue Festival + Mahbubul Alam’s History of Bengali Literature + guide books
- Language: Previous BCS exam questions + job solutions + English for the Competitive Exams + Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary + guide books
- Literature: Previous BCS exam questions + job solutions + guide books
- Bangladesh Affairs + International Affairs: Previous BCS exam questions + job solutions + newspapers + internet + guide books + reference books
- Geography, Environment & Disaster Management: New guide books
- General Science: Previous BCS exam questions + job solutions
- Computer & Information Technology: Job solutions + previous BCS written exam short questions and notes + new guide books
- Mathematical Reasoning: Previous BCS exam questions + job solutions
- Mental Ability: Previous BCS written exam questions + guide books + Dhaka University evening MBA admission exam question banks + IQ books
- Ethics, Values & Good Governance: Common sense + new guide books
35th BCS Preliminary: Some Observations
- Many candidates marked wrong answers for at least 3-4 questions they knew, because the sequence A-B-C-D was arranged vertically instead of left to right.
- The questions weren’t the “let’s do it ourselves” type. Talking during the exam didn’t help much either.
- No amount of coaching centers and guide book reading will work if you don’t have something in your own “headquarters.” Taking a good exam is more important than good preparation.
- The days of saying “such-and-such coaching center’s suggestions were so many percent common” or “so many questions from such-and-such guide were common” seem to be ending.
- There were slightly more questions this time that could have different answers depending on how you approach them, compared to previous years. PSC deliberately plays this game so that no one answers those questions. Greed leads to sin, sin leads to negative marks.
- If you look at the questions carefully, you’ll notice that regardless of your academic background, you’re not getting any extra advantage.
- If exams continue in this style from now on, the reign of question banks, digests, job solutions, and coaching centers will diminish, or they’ll have to change their service approach. The days of entering bureaucracy through sheer memorization are over.
“Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”~ Forrest Gump
“Don’t ever let someone tell you that you can’t do something. Not even me. You got a dream, you gotta protect it. When people can’t do something themselves, they’re gonna tell you that you can’t do it. You want something, go get it. Period.” ~ Will Smith (The Pursuit of Happyness, Film)
GET BUSY LIVIN’,OR GET BUSY DYIN’.~ The Shawshank Redemption
“When you have to shoot, shoot; don’t talk.” ~ The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Movie)
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.” ~ Steve Jobs
What Doesn’t Kill You Make You Stronger…