Fight for your place; find your place with desire, determination and discipline.

I have been in the information technology industry since 2006 from the day I started selling computers at a retail shop in 2006, which was my part-time job while I was in the university doing my postgraduate degree in computer science. Today, I am still a sales representative working as a business development manager. As the title says, I develop new business, identify new customers, identify buyers and sell our technology and services. I never dreamt or desired to become a sales representative or even be part of the information technology industry in the first place.

I don’t think I ever had defined or designed what I wanted to become, and I just was moving along with the flow, applying for IT jobs to keep the money flowing for survival. I started as a computer seller, then as a web developer, then as a support engineer, then as a data centre engineer. At this point in my life, I was still not sure about my goals, I wasn’t happy with the job, but I was pleased that I had a job, and there was some money coming in. In 2010 a GM of an IT company had identified me and was interviewing me for a consultant role; through the process of the interview, I didn’t know what had changed his mind; he suggested I take the sales role that was vacant, and he commented I would be a good salesperson and that thought of that GM altered my life forever.

The more I tried to move away from the information technology industry and selling, the more I got closer to it. After 15 years of struggling and striving, I can proudly say that I have created some status and a name for myself, not famous or anything but the industry surely knows that there is this vibrant, energetic guy; however, I know very well that I have a long way to go. Predominantly in the past five years, I have been thinking and evolving, and I have entirely realized that just the desire to become something had kept me in the business, just the passion that I have to become something better than everybody has kept me in the industry.

I have never had a big picture, and perhaps I was just working to sustain the status that I was working in the IT industry. I was a sales representative, never put much thought into making money, making massive commissions or wealth. I was not even a generality because what I had in my hand as jobs and jobs titles and the companies I was working for weren’t small. Still, I don’t know if I recognized the worth of it, I didn’t understand the importance of what I had in my hand, and that is because I didn’t have a big, well-defined picture; I had a vague concept to become something that something is “too vague”.

Trust me, the jobs I had accepted over the last 15 years didn’t come easy. I had worked hard day and night preparing for interviews. With desire and determination, I have always been able to find great jobs in great companies with reasonable remuneration. During the Covid19 pandemic, I was made redundant by the company as the company had to cut their cost and had decided to reduce the workforce; this happened in November 2020. Trust me; I had six companies interviewing me in December, went through 22 to 24 rounds of interviews. Overall, the interviews were all combination of discussion, conversation, interrogation, and presentation. Finally, I was able to sign the contract for a sales job starting from the 2nd week of January 2021. I am really gifted that way because I desire to get up and fight for my place. I took up the role started in January; from the beginning, I never got the feel of the culture, couldn’t gel with the people in the company, tried hard to fit in but never was able to get along, so after six months, I started looking out for job again and found a job as a business development manager. Again, I confidently believe that the desire to get the job got me the job, got the job in a week; the company interviewed me three interviews in the same week and gave me the offer letter Friday that week.

I am fortunate that I have taken certain copies of my parents and grandparents genetics which has given me the quality to fight back life when life hits me hard. Now I have realized from my career and life that desire can only make you survive, desire can only make me struggle, desire can only make me work, and desire can only make me live. But I don’t believe only desire will make me happy, healthy, wealthy, and prosperous. I have been putting much thought into why I cannot achieve what I want to accomplish in life. I have been listening to the audiobooks of Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, Les Brown, Bob Proctor and Mel Robbins, and I have reading books like “The 10X Rule”, “The Way Of The Wolf”, “The 5 AM Club” from all of these great people who designed and developed all those principles one message is common that without discipline success is not going to near me. And so, I now clearly know that along with the desire, there should be strong determination and discipline. I believe I have realized what was missing to succeed; it was the big picture and the discipline.

Today I know precisely what I want to become; I have a plan for whom I want to become what I want to become, but most importantly, I know I need the 3 D’s Desire, Determination and Discipline to become what I want to become. I have short term goals, and I have long term goals, I have happiness goals, I have career goals, I have health goals, family goals, and I have wealth goals. With desire, determination and discipline, I believe I can achieve anything in life. Fight for your place, find your place. It’s never too late.