What are you?

Star? Middler? Or Lounger?

Stars are stars – so good at their work that they can bring you to tears or make you take a deep sense of pride with their depth of emotion, intellectual prowess, empathy, efficiency or any number of things that mark a star. Their heart’s in it. And they’ve put enormous amounts of hard work behind it.

Middlers – are very good at what they do in a learned, conscious way. They know the technicalities, they have the experience; but they stop just short of the sheer genius, the depth and innovativeness of the stars. Their hard work, sweat and blood takes them to where they are.

Loungers – Their work doesn’t amount to much because this category doesn’t put in even the hard work that’s needed. They get by with the bare minimum work that is needed to make things go – not an inch more.

You could be a star, a middler or a lounger all at the same time, in different domains.

I’m a lounger when it comes to configuring my wireless. I need Configuration Basics for the Dummies to do it and I can still go wrong. Or I could take hours for a thing my sys admin Chetan takes minutes to set up.

I’m a middler when it comes to speaking in public. I probably wouldn’t do what a Clinton or an Obama could. I do the hard work before the presentation, but my heart’s not wholly in it.

I belong somewhere in the bottom rungs of star where writing is concerned. Don’t count me arrogant, I’m giving an example – there’s plenty to learn before I can really belong in the star category.

How do you choose a category?

You don’t choose a category, the category chooses you.

Singers gravitate towards singing, painters move towards painting even if you put them in construction or the military. Writing chose me while I was hell bent on the business world. I didn’t choose writing.

So the right question is – Which is your Star Category?

If you’re a doctor when you should be singing your heart out, you’ll probably end up being a lounger or a middler in your medicine. But trust yourself, move to singing, and you have all chances of becoming a Star.

Before you mistake my definition of a Star, it isn’t about fame. It’s about being the absolute best, the greatest, the untouchable one in your category. It’s the thing that lets you lose yourself in it, become one with it – where the singing itself becomes an extension of you, like your own skin or deeper.

You may have to give up a few things in life to make it there. Not all domains pay well. Not all domains bring power. Not all are acceptable to your family, and they most likely don’t match the dreams you’ve dreamt for all the wrong reasons. Because when we look at the world and follow it, we forget to follow our heart and soul.

Listen to your Heart – you’ll find your Star Category.

Put daily, hard work behind it – you’ll become the Star.