On credentials, identity, and the question nobody answers honestly.
Yesterday, I was in a meeting. We were talking about people from Delhi and Noida and their colourful language. And someone brought up this woman in our company — McKinsey on her resume, London Business School on her LinkedIn — who swears like there's no tomorrow.
The way she was described was: "She has such good credentials. And still she swears."
And it hit me — not for the first time — how often people are framed by what they've achieved professionally. Their credentials walk into the room before they do.
Because for the longest part of my life, I've been defined by labels that weren't mine.
Before I knew it, I had lived through a dozen identities — and none of them were ones I chose.
Do I want to be known by the credentials that take up most of my life? Do I want to define myself by titles?
Or do I want to be known by who I am?
A kind person. A humble person. A generous person. Maybe these are just adjectives I'm using to describe myself. But they feel more real than any job title ever has.
Do I want to be known by my relations to other people? By how I treat them? By how I am as a person when no credential is watching?
Because whenever I meet someone new, the first thing they ask is — "So, what do you do?"
And most of the time, people answer with their job. I'm a developer. I'm a partner. I'm at this company.
But when I sit back and ask myself — what do you do, Richa?
That's the answer I want to give.
So the next time someone asks you what you do — maybe think about it from the perspective of what you do for yourself. Who you are as a person. And maybe, just maybe, through all of this, you'll find a part of yourself that had been missing. And you'll reconnect.
And next time, instead of asking someone "what do you do?" — ask them what excites them. Ask them what gets them out of bed every day.
And maybe a part of them will be as ignited as yours.
— Richa