The first 10 years of your professional career will definitely be one of the most challenging periods of your life. It’s the time where you gain practical knowledge of your trade and real experience of learning to deal with working hierarchies and working as a team. A lot of us gain a working view of the job role and industry we’re getting into and a lot of us do not. No matter your circumstances, if you feel unsettled and are seeking clarity on the way forward and the 5 Stepper is a course that you need to read through. The METAL condenses several deliberations of the nature of work and employment into 5 key elements, mastery of which will help you transition to the New Paradigm of Employment. A comprehensive certificate course on this five part programme will soon be available on Udemy, Coursera, Khan Academy and Udacity

What is Professionalism? We talk about this like it’s common knowledge, we criticize professionals when they don’t meet our expectations and gloat about it when we do or exceed expectations. And yet such an ubiquitous concept is never really taught to us as a subject in schools or colleges. Why? We are taught etiquette. Is Professionalism just good etiquette? Is it as simple as being prompt, civil and crisp on communication? Is Professionalism subjective and relative across different cultures and geographies? What are the discrepancies when work cultures collide in a Globalized world? Is there a common definition we can agree upon? With the changing nature of employment and work does Professionalism and its nuances change? How does Professionalism cope with new concepts like Work From Home, having a strong side hustle, maternity and paternity leave, dealing with a smarter customer. And most importantly who is the authority on this subject? These are some of the many concepts that we will explore in this section. Mastering Professionalism is the part of the 5 part guide into explore the new paradigm of employment. To learn more about this topic click here.

Nobody can be passionate everyday, one cannot be motivated everyday and that throws up a conundrum “Are we truly passionate about a subject if we cannot deliver on it everyday?” The truth is everyday we progress into the future, we leap forward into the new creating distractions we just cannot avoid. The answer to this is Embracing Mechanics, which amounts to enforcing a discipline, creating a habit, a routine that will help us focus on the many pursuits we have. Embracing Mechanics is all about accepting that our Minds and Bodies have a mechanical aspect to that drive on through routine and habit and fall into disrepair when we give-in to our impulses and procrastinations. One of the hardest things for me to enforce myself, basic discipline is perhaps the biggest aspect that is under threat in an age of constant connectivity. Embracing Mechanics is a definitive guide on tapping into our mechanical aspects to drive us ahead. Embracing Mechanics is part two of the five part guide into explore the new paradigm of employment. To learn more about this topic click here.

The biggest trends to hit us in the new millennium is an age of Start-ups. It’s no surprise then that the most trending word is “passion”. Discovering your true passion and transforming your passion into a stream of income is perhaps the most definitive trait of our lifetime. There are those who are truly passionate and obsessed about certain subjects and others not so much. There are very few who have been able to turn passions into careers and fewer less who have turned passions into fortunes. However what is agreeable is that the formula for this niche space has become a lot more apparent. Starting from why it is critical to be passionate about something definitive to developing it into something tangible to taking it forward to something monetizable is what we explore in this space. The biggest mistake we make sometimes in this regard is we are always told to “search” for your true passion, not realizing that we’ve already come across it at some points in our lives and so we need to “track” it via introspection. One of my favorite topics in this journey is how we track our passions. Tracking Passion is part three of the five part guide into the nature of the new paradigm of employment. To know more about this subject click here.

One of the biggest misbeliefs in the world today is that there are leaders and that there are followers. The truth is that we are all leaders and all followers, it is just our scope of responsibility that changes between these two ends of the spectrum. But when it comes to leadership in focus, one through experience can tell that there are many styles to Leadership. Leadership by example, Leadership by title, Leadership by management, Leadership by legacy and reputation, leadership by Intellect are some of the many styles of leadership and they all suit different scenarios and situations. Can a military style work in a corporate space, can a social adept style work in an institutional sphere? All this brings us to the basis of Leadership and what it is needed for, how elements of different styles can work in certain situations. How to manage the stress and expectations plays a major role too. Leadership by far is a topic that can host the most debate. It is a topic that has forever boggled the minds of great thinkers and statesmen to major corporate leaders. Acquiring Leadership is part four of the five part guide into the nature of the new paradigm of employment. To know more about this subject click here.

Starting Up, a process of building a financial asset in the form of a company or a sole proprietorship is not a new notion to the world at large, however, the fact that it has become mainstream is a novel idea. How do you startup in a world where industries are becoming redundant in a matter of years. How do you start-up in a world so demanding of novel disruptive ideas. Is it really all about creating the next Facebook or the next new SpaceX of our time? Or is it as basic in nature as the multitude of entrepreneurs who pitch on Shark Tank? Starting Up is a strenuous journey one that can only be simplified with expertise, the right ecosystem and most importantly culture. The Voice Author comes from a background of Internet and technology and so the scope of Starting Up will be within the realm of this digital space. Launching Side Hustles is part five of our five part guide to the nature of the new paradigm of employment. To know more about this topic click here.