I had the pleasure to sit down and have a deep conversation about life, success, decision making and more with Toronto’s Youth Career Coach and an extremely humble & generous human being: Luki Danukarjanto for my show “Secrets of Greatness”. 

You can watch the full episode here

Luki and I share very similar passions about building a better education system and positively impacting youth who’d become the leaders of tomorrow. In fact, Luki has a very inspiring life goal: To elevate education through Soft Skills and positively impact a billion people.

 

When I first heard this big goal I just wanted to pause everything and say “WOW”. And ask Luki “How are you going about impacting a billion people?” 

To understand the answer it is important to learn more about the man himself. 

1. Making difficult decisions through the lens of “WHY”

Luki left a very lucrative and successful career at Deloitte to become a Coach. Luki was at a crossroad when he was not feeling content with his regular consulting work at Deloitte that required him to work overtime, travel extensively and compromise on precious moments with his new born. Eager to find a solution like a pro-consultant, Luki approached the problem from the lens of self-awareness. 

Luki started journaling. He advises people who are looking to go deeper within but struggle to find time to do so, to start journaling. In fact, here is a method that brought clarity for Luki: 

 

5: 2-2-1: A five (5) minute daily journaling technique where you:

• Spend 2 minutes to reflect on moments from the day that you did not enjoy. Things that exhausted you & did not make you happy. 

• Spend the next 2 minutes to reflect on moments from the day that you thoroughly enjoyed. Moments that energized you, motivated you and made you happy. 

• Spend the last 1 minute to think and write “how you can do more of what you enjoyed, and less of what you did not enjoy”

At some point of our lives, we all have to face some tough decisions. These could be related to our personal or professional lives and the decision may have a huge impact on our future. Hence, to make the best possible decision, it is paramount to have a clear vision about your future priorities. The clarity about the future brings clarity of your personal “WHY” - your purpose. And leaders who know their WHY are better equipped to make difficult decisions. 

Unfortunately, nobody is born with an instruction manual to execute their life purpose. It is something that takes years to discover. And the 5:2-2-1 journaling method is one of the many ways to discover yourself. When journaling consistently, patterns about our thoughts, likes, dislikes, our inner chatter, our values & beliefs start to surface. Such pattern recognition helps you to understand yourself better & assists you to make the right decisions in the present for your future self. 

Luki trusted the process and kept journaling for weeks and months until a clear pattern emerged in front of him. The patterns revealed his hidden passion for coaching, mentoring & developing others. 

This new found clarity made the so-called difficult career decision easy for Luki. He said “In their deathbeds, people don't regret what they did. Instead, they regret what they did not do”. And off he went to submit his resignation at Deloitte and kickstart his entrepreneurial journey as a Youth Career Coach. 

Actionable Tip: Spend 5 minutes before sleeping at night to journal your day using Luki’s 5:2-2-1 method to help you find clarity in life. 

2. How to measure Success?

During his new entrepreneurial journey, Luki kept contemplating about how he’d define success? 

Actionable Tip: Before moving further, quickly write down your definition of “success”. Now recall your definition of success from 10 years ago. 

Do you see the difference? The definition of success does not just differ from person to person but sometimes, it also differs from time to time for the same person! 

For Luki, as a fresh graduate out of university, success was all about getting a job at a corporate firm. For you it could be defined by your GPA as you hustle through the next few weeks of the semester. For most people that Luki and I have spoken to define success using the yardstick of money. But think about it: Is your definition of success derived based on the society’s expectations of you or is the definition independent of external influence?

Luki learnt this the hard way and though everyone’s definition of success is very personal, Luki defined his definition by impact: How many people are positively impacted by his work and actions? 

Whether you're an entrepreneur, a doctor, an accountant or an HR clerk, remember that you are hired to solve a problem. Dig deeper to understand what is that problem you’re hired to solve. What problems will appear if you stopped doing your job? At the end of the day regardless of our title and profession, we are all problem solvers working on different life and corporate puzzles. If we define our success based on our paycheck, then our passion will get sucked out of our job, like how it happened for Luki at Deloitte. 

Hence, it is important to define your success based on the impact you’ve had on your customers, patients or employees. How you help people and make a difference in their life is what makes you truly successful.

The material success-definitions may change with age but success defined by impact stays for a lifetime.

3. Luki’s Secret Sauce to Success

Wear your learner’s hat 24/7. Not all lessons are taught in schools. In fact, schools only teach us “WHAT” to learn. The real-life learning happens outside of the school boundary. 

Luki did not go to school to become a coach. He went to school to become a computer programmer. Life taught him lessons that he wanted to teach others and make sure others don’t repeat his mistakes. According to Luki, regardless of your age, gender, profession, you can only become successful in life if you invest in your own learning & development.  

Luki applies Josh Kaufman’s 20-hour rule to learning a new skill. Learning new skills add new neural connections to the brain. It builds new neurons. Our brain literally grows! Yes, we become smarter everytime we learn something new. 

Thus, Luki recommends that we discover our favorite medium to “learn new things”. That could be through books, podcasts, networking, online courses and more. The only caveat here is to keep your ego aside when learning something new. 

Action Tips: Commit to learning something new everyday. This could be through watching a TED Talk (if you are a visual learner) or listening to a podcast (if you are an auditory learner) or by reading a book or attending a workshop (if you are a kinesthetic learner). 

My favorite way to accelerate learning is to read books, listen to podcasts and network with new people! 

To discuss your life success & career growth, connect with me at Omer@OmerQadri.com