I have always been a goal- and action-oriented achiever.

Perhaps it's the way my brain is built. Whatever I'm interested in, whether in my studies, at work, or for leisure, I tend to be intense and go deep. I obsess over whatever I'm engaged in. Once I commit to something, I set a goal, I aim high, and I take action.

This way of being served me well in school and helped me succeed in my career. Even in my recreational activities and interests, this focus has helped me accomplish more than I otherwise would have. I summited Mt Jade in 2023, scuba-dived intensively (60 logged dives) in 2022, and learned rock climbing and flying before that.

I felt uneasy when I started this year without a "flagship" goal or purpose.

I've been listening to The Happiness Lab and learning about positive psychology, emotional well-being, and stoic philosophy. They pointed towards living a balanced life, growing social connections and relationships, maintaining health and fitness, growth and development, experiences over possessions, time affluence over financial hedonic rat race, and so on.

In my annual review and planning, I put all those ideas and principles into my plans. In doing that, it is clear I cannot intensively focus on any one area if I want to have balance. There is no singular tentpole goal or purpose -- and that has been emotionally challenging for me. I felt lost without that shiny goal to shoot for.

My mentor reminded me that maintaining a balanced life can be my goal and purpose, and it's a worthwhile one. We use balanced scorecards in business, so why shouldn't we do the same for our lives?

That subtle shift in thinking helped settle my mind and my goal- and action-oriented tendencies.

Coincidentally, I just finished Stillness Is The Key by Ryan Holiday. Leisure - an activity done for enjoyment without any external justification - is one way to instil stillness in our lives.

Some people play sports or travel to escape from what they do not want to face - but that just postpones the inevitable. "The bill comes due."

This year, I'm also planning to create. I have always consumed a lot - reading, watching, and listening. But it's time for me to produce.

Writing (and making videos) forces me to clarify my thinking and test them in the world by sharing them. Writing forces me to struggle with the tough problems and ideas in my mind on the page. There is no escape.

Once I have laid bare my thoughts, a mentor, a book, or a friendly discussion in real life or online can give me insights that change how I think.

You can help shape how I think, just as I hope my writings and videos can nudge your thinking, too. Leave a comment or message me directly. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

As I reflected on 2023 and planned for 2024, I struggled to answer the prompt on purpose and meaning.

Simon Sinek advocated for businesses to identify their purpose in Find Your Why because the why inspires employees to work for them and customers to buy their products. Dr. Laurie Santos (The Happiness Lab) talked about how employees who find purpose and meaning at work are more engaged and perform better at work and are happier with their lives.

I've worked in several organisations in consumer products, technology, insurance, and consulting. Many have purpose statements. But the purpose of a business doesn't necessarily translate to the purpose of an employee. While they may sound nice and make sense for the business, they've felt generic and corporate to me, and I don't feel particularly connected to those purposes.

Instead, I find more purpose and meaning in creating change and transforming the business through my work, which is independent of the business's purpose.

But... I don't think that's my life's purpose or meaning.

As per happiness research, I find joy in relationships and connections, flow and accomplishments, experiences, and so on. I enjoy reading, learning, and sharing, and I value the experiences I've had through my hobbies and interests, such as climbing, flying, scuba diving, hiking, travelling, and making YouTube videos. These are all part of me and my life, yet I'm not sure they are my purpose.

Over the past few months, many big/OG YouTubers have retired, burned out, downsized, taken a break, or made changes. Many have said they loved being a YouTuber, and it’s their dream job, but it’s still work, and they still struggle with balance and fulfilment. What they initially chose as their passion and purpose, which have given them business, financial, and social success, eventually succumbed to the stress of the business.

Perhaps this is a universal struggle. We have well-known concepts such as quarter-life crisis (age 18-30s), midlife crisis (age 40s-60s), and existential crisis (any age).

Ultimately, our work doesn't matter in the end. When we die, we cannot take our money with us. Legacy doesn't matter to us when we're in our coffin. Our relationships, experiences, and accomplishments are ephemeral and can only be enjoyed in the present while we're here.

So I wonder... do purpose and meaning matter? What do you think? Please comment below or message me. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

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I'm organising a salon dinner on 20 Feb 2024 (Tuesday), and the topic will be "Purpose, Meaning, and Happiness". Here are some questions I'm interested in discussing:

• How do you think about purpose and meaning in life?

• What brings you happiness, joy, and satisfaction in life?

• Do we need purpose and meaning to be happy and content in life?

If you're interested in joining this salon, please message me. You can sign up for the salon mailing list here to be notified about future salon dinners.

Effective communication is the most important skill you need to learn and develop in your career and life, but it is also the most difficult to master.

That's why I ended my last video by saying that my next video will be about communication.

Ironically, I struggled with my script for the video. The script was over 3,600 words, which meant that the video would have run for over 20 minutes!

It might have been good... but, honestly, I'm simply not prepared to make a 20-minute talking head video at this stage of my YouTube journey.

So, instead of making that video, I am sharing my lessons as an email series - https://enochko.com/communication

Even though I have been told that communication is an important skill since I was a student, it was hard to grasp its importance. In schools and universities, teamwork usually means working with no more than 2-4 other students of similar age or background studying the same subject, so the challenge of communication is hard to comprehend.

Firstly, the number of lines of communication grows geometrically with the number of people in a team or organisation. When you work with another person, there's only one line of communication between the two of you. When you work with two persons (group of 3), there are now three lines of communication. For a group of 4 people, there are six lines. By the time you get to 10 people, there are 45 lines of communication. For an organisation of 100 people, that's 4,950 lines.

Secondly, unlike in an educational setting where everyone is studying the same subject, work often involves communicating with people from various backgrounds and expertise with different priorities and interests. Communication is essential to coordinate everyone's efforts so that the whole organisation moves in the same direction.

I remember starting my career as a "technician". I was focused on doing the work, and communication was an afterthought. I had failed to realise that communicating the work is just as important as doing the work. To the organisation, finishing and saving a piece of work on the network drive without telling anyone is practically the same as not doing the work. Others need to know that the work product is ready for them to use in their own work.

As my career progressed and I worked on ERP implementations, change management, and financial transformation, effective communication became critical to my career success. I had to learn to communicate with senior executives, middle management, and individual contributors/subject matter experts from finance, IT, HR, operations, legal, marketing, and sales in order to work effectively and deliver the desired changes for the organisation.

I have created an email series where I share the lessons I have learned over the past 15 years on effective workplace communication, including:

• The importance of communication.

• A model of communication.

• The purpose of communication - the WHY.

• Communication strategy - WHO gets WHAT message, and WHEN and HOW do they get the message?

• Other tips and techniques - two-way communication, human factors/psychological safety, closing the loop, etc.

Sign up here if you're interested in what I've learned about effective workplace communication - https://enochko.com/communication

"How to Succeed in Your Career Without Really Trying" - that was the prompt VidIQ (YouTube creator tool) gave me.

It seemed like a crazy clickbait title at first, but then I thought about it more and decided to make a video.

Thinking back on my career, I've managed to build a successful career without feeling like I was trying very hard. There were late nights and stressful periods for sure, but it wasn't an existential struggle for me... I actually enjoyed them, which I have since learned isn't the case for everyone.

I identified the five key ideas I've learned from my mentors and readings that enabled me to do so... check out my YouTube video to learn more!

In just 2 months, I went from suffering excruciating pain finishing a hike... to enjoying a pain-free hike on the same trail! In this video, I will show you what I found helpful in fixing my knee pain, and what was not.