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LINK: ‘Note Verbale‘, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Section) - 25 November 2007 Issue

Occupation refers to the principal activity that a person does during his lifetime to earn a living. And occupation is normally left to the individual’s own choosing.

To earn a living, an individual could opt either to accept employment, to be engaged in some profession, to be an entrepreneur, or to be an investor.

Employment means having to be in the service of another person or entity called the employer that directs and controls the material details of the work to be performed. The arrangement between the employer and the employee is always defined or even limited by a contract, whether express or implied, that is usually subject to some minimum standards imposed by laws under the theory that the state must afford appropriate protection to labor. The employee is paid for the services rendered in expectation of his or her contribution to the employer’s productivity, generally driven by the employer’s motivation to realize a profit.

A profession, on the other hand, arises when a specialized field of human activity transforms itself as an occupation through merit and fitness obtained through a formal education and normally after passing state-sponsored qualifying examinations. The practice of most professions is regulated by the government and the professionals are bound by some rules or norms of ethical standards.

The entrepreneur, a word first defined by an 18th-century Irish economic theorist, Richard Cantillon, is a person who assumes the inherent risks of initiating and operating a new enterprise or venture as an occupation by mobilizing the factors of production of land, labor and/or capital also for the purpose of making profits. The entrepreneur is the business owner.

An investor is someone who commits capital in order to gain financial returns. Treating investment as an occupation means making money out of existing monies and resources most often out of passive income like interest, rent, royalties, dividends or some forms of speculative gains.

Typically, a person’s occupation starts with employment. Many would end up in this state until retirement day. If monies were saved or some assets were acquired out of employment, they could be used to change their occupation or start another one either as an entrepreneur or an investor or both. Without such assets though, the person is bound to live either a life of misery or dependency until his retirement from this world. Some gifted employees may also climb up the apex of the corporate ladder and be an entrepreneur in their own right using other people’s money and resources.

Many people would choose the path of spending more years of study to possess a bona fide standing in a regulated profession. Most starting out professionals would begin their career as an employee, often justified by the sense of a lack of experience, while the gutsy others would rather embark immediately on entrepreneurship as a mode of carrying out their vocation. Success in a professional career also provides the professional the opportunity to become an investor.

Entrepreneurship is a good option because it permits people to exclusively enjoy the profits arising from the value of their own hard work. Simply stated entrepreneurship is self-employment, and that means being an employer and employee at the same time. Every successful entrepreneur eventually becomes an investor.

Obviously, the most comfortable and ideal of these occupations is to become an investor. And this is simply because investors make their own money and resources work for them with least human effort and risk. But to be one, the individual needs to muster a good amount of resources from employment, from the practice of profession or from entrepreneurship. The only exception perhaps would be those who were born in a silver platter or those who got married to someone with a silver spoon. Otherwise, to attain the station of an investor necessitates hard work.

In the scheme of things though, each of these occupations provides the dynamic engine to complete the economic cycle of society.

At the end of the day, every person despite their occupational beginnings should strive to become an investor as a reward for a lifetime of hard work.

PUBLISHED: ‘Note Verbale‘, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Section) - 3 June 2007 Issue

Individual success or failure is often measured in terms of the state of prosperity or fame that a person attained.  This is a poor and myopic standard though.

Success is relative and thus would vary from person to person depending on his or her personal goals in life. These goals may not even fall within the ambit of the ‘prosperity or fame’ frame.  Everyone, and not only celebrities, the rich or the powerful, has the right to claim his or her own success. Everyone has the equal opportunity to succeed.

The road to success should always begin with the first step of finding out personal goals. One may have several goals that would lead to one big goal. But the most important thing is to clearly define what that goal is. Not having a goal is like jumping off from the starting line of a race without any clear direction in mind where to go or where the finish line is.  In this situation, there is no way to gauge success for sure. And the ultimate effect is failure.

Failure is a fact of life.  No matter how much or how well one prepares, there would always be some events, conditions or extraneous circumstances that would stand as a barrier towards personal success. The one good thing about having smaller and short-term goals is that sporadic failures in meeting them do not necessarily prevent a person from succeeding. Sporadic failures in fact could be vital factors in the attainment of the ultimate goal. They could make success sweeter and fuller in a sense.

Some goals are set too low and some to high. It really does not matter. Goals are driven by individual motives and capacity anyway. The only difference is that the higher the dream, bigger and greater efforts are required.  Life coach and motivational speaker and author of “If Success Is a Game, These Are the Rules”, Cherie Carter-Scott, aptly said: “Ordinary people believe only in the possible. Extraordinary people visualize not what is possible or probable, but rather what is impossible. And by visualizing the impossible, they begin to see it as possible.”

Once that goal is set and clearly defined, a person needs at the minimum – focus, determination and motivation – to move closer to the realization of his or her dream.

In this busy, complicated and crazy world, there is a lot of stuff that really generates, attracts and entices special interest and challenges to make a person deviate from the things that need to be done to achieve a purpose. And a conscious effort to stay focused, could spell the difference in knowing how soon a person could accomplish a goal, or whether or not the person could attain it after all.

Determination is also critical factor in achieving one’s goals. The lack of determination would always put the sense of focus in great jeopardy. Without determination, small and sporadic failures become a major hindrance and a source of discouragement. “It is the ‘follow through’ that makes the great difference between ultimate success and failure, because it is so easy to stop”, said American scientist, social philosopher and a 1933 cover of the Time Magazine, Charles Franklin Kettering.

Of the essential ingredients to succeed, motivation is perhaps that most crucial.  Without motivation, it is extremely difficult to stay focused and determined. Motivation is always the source of inspiration and incentive to do something mirthfully or oftentimes with least effort even if it is very difficult or when everything seems to fail.  

But what if the person still failed in accomplishing his or her preset goals? 

That is still success because all the small and big efforts devoted toward it are never wasted. Remember that a person who failed in his or her goals may still become the trailblazer, the pioneer, the innovator, the groundbreaker, or simply a model, an inspiration or example for others to emulate.

Certainly, a purpose-driven life would never lead to failure regardless of its outcome.