What Am I?
Knowing Who Am I leads to knowing What Am I?
What You Possess within Yourself and What You can do with Your Natural Abilities, gives you the strength to Reinvent and Realign Yourself to New Opportunities or Create One if it does not exist!
We touched upon the Inner Voice concept and left those standing at crossroads to ruminate on the above thoughts in our first seed of Aham Brahmasmi
In Seed 2, we give greater clarity in answering the question: “What Am I?“
Thoughts of K C Janardhan, Edited & Curated by Aarthi R Nandakishore
We begin with these three questions that I ask all my students/ participants/ trainees attending the Be Your Own Master workshop:
- Who Are You?
- What Are You?
- Why Are You Here on this planet Earth?
The reactions are always the same, be it Students or corporate executives. Most times, there is complete silence. I then ask them to internalise these questions, if possible in their mother tongue:
- Who am I?
- What Am I?
- Why Am I Here on this planet Earth?
Most of them say – Our minds went blank or We Have never thought about it so far. Some take time to think and answer. Very few of them attempt an answer. Even these well-thought answers are vague.
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Reason: The Education system across the globe today has not empowered an individual to understand themselves. They let you try to understand everything else that is outside this experience.
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The Result: Many youngsters are confused, standing at the crossroads of career choices. The middle-aged are going through an early midlife crisis lamenting on the career choices they made as youngsters. Some individuals get burnt out. Many also talk of unplanned retirement before 40.
What Am I? Is what you have done with Your natural abilities and strengths, how you have polished them to perform consistently with achievements of excellence. What Am I? Is answered only by tracking the performance journey through both – the Good & Great times and during the Adversity and Uncertainties.
What Am I?
40 Years at the 5 AM Club: I have reinvented myself many times through all these times. Majority of these years, I have been an early-to-bed and an early riser, Relaxed & In sync with whatever I can do and want to do through every passing day.
I have many plans in place. The Four Season Plan is just one of it. I pursue these plans with passion even if they are going to take me years to accomplish. Even if certain plans don’t happen for some reasons, it doesn’t stop me from a Plan B or Plan C to get back.
I have successfully survived the various challenges of Health, Finance, Relationships and Social issues for many years. COVID-19 proved to be just another uncertain rough weather to walk through in life.
Here I Am Not many projects in hand, but the last seven months have been motivating and productive. I am also at work, creating new platforms and sowing the seeds for the post-pandemic era through this blog, Saptha Beej.
Like most youngsters, I too started at the crossroads of my career, asking this question Who Am I? Image Source: Finance Monthly
What am I? Today, I am a living journey of natural abilities and innate strengths that have empowered me with certainty and stability to find my way to passion, convert them into viable vocations and a Profession.
I am also a sum total of the friends and well-wishers, whose goodwill I have earned over the years through complete commitment and discipline. I share some of those beautiful memories with you on Savoring Serendipity.
Today we are all in the same boat: You may be one of them who has had a 30 per cent cut in salary or lost your job. You may be a fresher who is yet to find a job or lost the job offer confirmed before COVID-19. You may even be among the many confused students, who have worked hard to get into premium institutions for the campus experience and now sitting helplessly through online classes.
Tough times open up a plethora of opportunities to reinvent and start from scratch. It also calls for Self Introspection. Ask yourself these questions:
- Do you know your actual worth?
- Where do you fit?
- What can you contribute?
- What is your expectation?
The Thinking Man, Image Source: Britannica
What Am I?
Think and Evaluate: Most people appreciate your skillset. However, the majority use your skills pro Bono until you have proved yourself with solid performance. They fix a value for your work based on their perceptions. Sometimes You feel underpaid and short-changed. Whatever effort that you have put in and delivered, you feel grossly underestimated!
Regularly engage in a realistic self-assessment of your skills and abilities. In doing so, you will arrive at a self-value for your effort. You understand the gap between ground reality and the magnified value perceived by you. You also get clarity on what you need to improve upon and polish it to get your expected price.
For the employer, your value is more when you meet their targets, profits, and customer/client satisfaction. You also understand that there can be no compromise on quality, precision and perfection.
Image Source: From Poverty To Power
Your performance becomes your real qualification, which fetches you the returns and leads to Meritocracy and Excellence. You may even exceed Expectations with your Talents and win Appreciations. Doing so, you set a higher standard for yourself, creating the WOW effect for your employer or the customer.
Now ask yourself this question: Am I Ready to Exceed these Expectations? Is creating this WOW effect enough to keep me on top?
You need to think innovatively to find actual answers to this question. Here is a simple example in IPL cricket. Delivering a stunning performance catapults a player to higher levels and their star value skyrockets overnight. Now, how one sustains that value with continuous performance is another Art which only a few have mastered. We have seen some players being purchased at a very high value during the auctions. If their performance is below par, they get dropped from the team. They even end up with a plummeted value for the next season. Sometimes, they are totally left out!
Also understand the `new normal’ standard that has set in because of the setback, called Corona – That even after consistently performing, you may face a cut in your expectations. Remember, even with this, you are still ahead. Thank your stars that your efforts have not left you empty-handed.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Image Source: Google Images
To Me, Mahendra Singh Dhoni as a fine example of an Individual to understand the concept What Am I? He has proved his worth in all forms of cricket with his near consistent performances as a wicketkeeper, as a finisher in style with a six and in leadership skills by winning many championships under his captaincy. Above all, he had clear progress, exit plan in most crucial decisions that he has publicly made, including his retirement.
Expect the Unexpected: Each one’s life could present you with many twists and turns, even after peaking performance, good planning and long-term consistency. The proposed Formula One-F1 car racing salary cap from the Year 2023 is a fine example to discuss here.
Image Source: The Mirror UK
Here is an interesting article I recently read on Lewis Hamilton. Even after the consistent performance, the six-time F-1 World Champion has some challenges from 2023 if this new rule comes into effect. The 35-year-old British racer is currently going steady breaking most of Michael Schumacher’s records and is almost sure to equal the Seven-time world champion record.
What Am I? Don’t get perturbed by this. Doing so, you will only succumb to the situation disgracefully. You peak in your career when you excel in your continuous performances. How often you reinvent yourself to realign through such changing times also determine your ability to stay at your peak. Remember: Your roles also change along this journey.
Amitabh Bachchan, Image Source: The Hawk
One needs to age gracefully and assume greater responsibility in playing these different roles. At 78, Amitabh Bachchan still leads by example in both discipline and performance. He has also had his lion’s share of challenges and setbacks in health, career, finance and relationships, yet he never seems to exhaust you or himself in whatever he does.
SP Balasubrahmanyam, Image Source: India.com
Late Singing Legend S P Balasubramanyam makes a beautiful memory to wind up this session of Aham Brahmasmi. He is an apt example of an individual who has truly achieved his purpose on planet Earth. He is not a trained Carnatic Singer. He has reinvented himself with his voice to continuously perform in many languages throughout his journey.
For us, he has left behind many thousands of Soul-Stirring Immortal Melodies across languages and some Strong lessons to tuning our Inner Voice that lays the foundation to probe deeper into What Am I?

Every one of us is like the Great Leonardo da Vinci – Born with innumerable abilities. He polished them and showcased them to the world. You too can Be Your Own Master! Realise Your true potential and purpose to Reinvent Yourselves with New Ideas through any challenging times.
Click here to enrol in our life-changing courses. This helps not just you as an individual, but also Rise together as a Nation and a Global Citizen.
Comments (6)
By far the best article I have read so far in the series Aham Brahmasmi. Very insightful indeed. Kudos to you all. . .
Wow…..introspective…
Excellent article.. Well narrated Sir!! But one thing I have to differ with you, Example of Dhoni!!!! Hez a great player no doubt about it… If you asked me who??
Steve Waugh!!!
Excellent, useful and very informative, thank you very much Sir
Great insight and very profound. Keep writing chief. God bless you and the team.
good read. Loved the simple writing 🙂
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