This document contains notes from a coaching journey focused on helping professionals find meaning and purpose beyond mere existence. It discusses how existing is a biological necessity but living requires finding meaningful work, effort, uniqueness and recognition through meaningful contributions. It suggests defining one's unique place and contributions, getting feedback, finding mentors, and taking action to make living a reality. Quotes from various figures emphasize escaping mediocrity by finding one's own path and kindling light through purposeful existence.

1. Think Talent Services Confidential
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“Enabling endurance, robustness, sustainability for organisations”
Living vs existing
Every professional’s dilemma
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Notes from my coaching journey--Bimal Rath

2. Working with leaders and their people
 Working with talented leaders and employees across companies and
industries, my own learning around the human spirit have been great.
 One of these has been about the innate need for every person to find a
meaningful purpose in their lives - and it is manifested in many ways—
personal, professional etc. You can feel the passion and fire when you
meet someone who has found their purpose or is on the path to their
purpose.
 As a coach, if one can help people find the meaning for their lives—and
translate it down to day to day actions -- I believe one has done ones job.
 Experience shows that the motivation to learn, change and drive the right
behaviors in self and others is often an outcome of a really clear purpose.
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3. Our need to exist
 Existing is purely a biological phenomena and part of nature.
 Having worked with many professionals , it is amazing to see how many
are ‘bored’ with pure existence. All of us, at some stage, are looking for a
meaning, beyond mere existence.
 The world around us appreciates purpose and contribution which comes
from ‘beyond just existence’. However, the daily stresses and strains, and
setbacks and insecurities, often push us into compromising towards mere
existence.
 Some inner force though, is always struggling to find meaning beyond
existing—we can all see sparks of it in ourselves and ordinary people
around us from time to time.
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4. Our deeper desire to live
 For most professionals, there is a need to make a recognizable
contribution to their work and people around them—and be appreciated
by colleagues, family and friends for their unique contributions. (some
people may not even want the recognition—they believe that their
contribution itself is meaningful enough as a reward)
 There are few elements which go in:
 Meaningful work
 Effort and persistence
 Finding uniqueness
 Recognition (?)
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5. What is living for each of us ?
 Each one needs to define their own unique place and contribution in the
world—a combination of their own passions and talents*, and find a way
of making it real.
 Living is also about removing ‘voices in the head’ which may not allow us
to move to our true purpose.
 What may hold I back are the noises around us –often from non-believers
or those who have limitations /lack the courage to pursue their dreams.
 The purpose and meaning for all of us is beyond pure selfish interest.
Something truly contributory towards a larger purpose-- be it company,
other people, a technology product, arts or society.
 And best of all—you can make out people who are living a life—the
energy, smile, magnanimity of dealing with the environment, and many
other signals that we catch and feel.
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* See the model of coaching –which allows for this discovery (www.newscoaching.com)

6. How can we make living real?
 Introspect, reflect, and maybe get some ‘real’ feedback from people close
to you—they will tell you what they value you for, and what they want to
see you as. And use these to create your own picture of a dream future for
yourselves.
 Find a mentor/coach. Mentors who are living their dreams and making
meaning are great as motivators. Taking help from such mentors is great
for defining your own way forward. A professional coach can help in many
ways to identify the way forward and help remove roadblocks.
 Then finally—create a roadmap and act—there is no substitute for
courage and action.
 And read the quotes on the following slides—they are truly inspiring
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7. Think Talent Services Confidential 7
Steve Jobs
Charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution
“Your time is limited, so don't waste
it living someone else's life. Don't let
the noise of others' opinions drown
out your own inner voice.
You have to trust that the dots will
somehow connect in your future.
You have to trust in something--your
gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.
This approach has never let me
down, and it has made all the
difference in my life.
The only way to do great work is to
love what you do. If you haven't
found it yet, keep looking. Don't
settle.”

8. “In short, we cannot
grow, we cannot
achieve authentic
discovery, and our
eyes cannot be
cleansed to the truly
beautiful possibilities
of life, if we simply live
a neutral existence.”
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Armstrong Williams
An American political commentator, author of
a conservative newspaper column, and host of a daily
radio show and a nationally syndicated TV program.

9. Anne Sullivan Macy
An Irish-American teacher, best known for being the instructor
and companion of Helen Keller.
“We imagine that we want
to escape our selfish and
commonplace existence,
but we cling desperately
to our chains.”
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10. William Cowper
An English poet and hymnodist
The forerunners of Romantic poetry
Samuel Taylor Coleridge called him “the best modern poet”.
“Existence is a strange bargain.
Life owes us little; we owe it
everything. The only true
happiness comes from
squandering ourselves for a
purpose.”
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11. Carl Jung
A Swiss psychotherapist and psychiatrist who founded analytical
psychology.
“As far as we can discern,
the sole purpose of human
existence is to kindle a light
in the darkness of mere
being.”
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12. Fyodor Dostoevsky
A Russian novelist, short story writer and essayist.
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“Deprived of meaningful work,
men and women lose their
reason for existence; they go
stark, raving mad.”

13. Thomas Merton
An Anglo-American Catholic writer and mystic. A Trappist monk of the
Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and
student of comparative religion.
“In the last analysis, the
individual person is
responsible for living his own
life and for 'finding himself.' If
he persists in shifting his
responsibility to somebody
else, he fails to find out the
meaning of his own
existence.”
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14. James F. Cooper
A prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century.
“All greatness of character is
dependent on individuality. The
man who has no other existence
than that which he partakes in
common with all around him, will
never have any other than an
existence of mediocrity.”
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15. Deepak Chopra
An American physician, a holistic health/New Age guru, and one of
America's most notable alternative medicine practitioners.
“You and I are essentially infinite
choice-makers. In every moment of
our existence, we are in that field of
all possibilities where we have
access to an infinity of choices.”
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16. Richard Dawkins
An English ethnologist, evolutionary biologist and author.
“Intelligent life on a planet
comes of age when it first
works out the reason for its
own existence.”
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17. Honore de Balzac
A French novelist and playwright.
“An unfulfilled
vocation drains the
color from a man's
entire existence.”
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