Following is the transcript of the above video. Subscribe to my channel for your free startup and meditation course and 3-5x weekly videos on startups, success models, and writing: https://www.youtube.
Hi, this is Karan Bajaj and today we’ll talk about how to leave a lasting impact on people.
Now it sounds difficult but it’s actually pretty easy to have a deep impact on people in interviews, meetings, job discussions, etc. All you have to do is to appear very, very interesting. Easier said than done, right?
How do you appear interesting?
You appear interesting when you are deeply interested. Interested not in others but first in yourself. And the key to being interested in yourself is to have a deep passion. And then keep diving deeper and deeper into it, so that you’re not merely interested in something but you are actually creating things around it.
Let me explain a little bit more. I’m the Chief Marketing Officer of a start-up. And we interview a lot of people for many of our open positions.
- They all come from good schools.
- They all are pretty good at what they do.
- They describe their work pretty well.
Then we start talking a little bit about their interests and they all like to read and travel and watch movies and all the other things that people like to do. And then they all end up blending into a mass of sameness. But out of all of these, a few always stand out. And typically they stand out because they’ve had a passion. And then they’ve gotten deeper and deeper into it and created something out of it which is memorable.
So for instance, they don’t just like watching movies, they’ve actually created a short film which they’ve submitted to various film festivals and perhaps got screened at Cannes. They don’t merely like yoga, they’ve actually gone and done a yoga teacher training in India for six weeks in an ashram and become qualified yoga teachers. They don’t merely like to read a book. They’ve actually gone and started to write a book and perhaps gotten it published. Or in the process getting it published.
So what happens with these people is that they stand out not because of the passion that they are in, that can be interesting or not interesting, depending on the interviewer, but what you start noticing is that they have a very special spark. And that spark is lit within them and the interviewer or the person opposite to them can feel that energy, can feel that passion. And that makes the person very, very interesting. You don’t necessarily have to have a very deep exotic pursuit.
I remember that 15 years ago when I was in college in India there was a guy in our class, who just didn’t like to travel he had actually liked travel so much that he had memorized all the train routes that left Calcutta station. For all the trains that actually left Eastern India. So he knew about every train route. When the train would come when the train would go away. Which stops it would have on its eventual destination.
Now at that point it seemed rather silly, but if I look back after 15 years the only people I remember apart from obviously, my friends and close contacts in college is that one guy, who had this very deep passionate interest and really went so vertical into it that he just stood out. And that happens in every case in life. So what I want you to do today is, take your passion and keep diving vertical keep going deeper and deeper into it and actually start creating things around it. And you’ll end up becoming very, very interesting in doing that.
So if you like listening to my video on YouTube, don’t just stop there.
- Go, create your own channel on YouTube
- start creating your own videos
- publishing your own videos, and see where that takes you.
If you like reading, obviously keep reading but then start to write. Maybe you can write a book, maybe you can write a fiction, maybe you can write nonfiction. Or maybe you don’t end up completing a book but you learn a lot about yourself in the process that will make you deeper and more interesting than today. And similarly with every activity that you do. You’ve been hearing a lot about me getting you to meditate and if you decide to do that don’t just start meditating. Go and do a 10 or a 30-day silent meditation retreat with Vipassana in a center, in India. And try to make that interest deeper and deeper. And this process of making an interest deeper, a passion deeper you’ll end up having lit a spark and that spark will make you interesting. And will always help you make a lasting impact on people. I hope this was helpful.
Subscribe to my channel for your free startup and meditation course and 3-5x weekly videos on startups, success models, and writing, https://www.youtube.
