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From Lawyer to Facilitator For a while after graduating from law college, I felt completely at a loss about what I was supposed to do next. I had no idea what career path I wanted, or what I even was passionate about. I had two options with my degree - get into corporate law and work with a company, or get into litigation and work as an independent advocate. I chose the former and hoped it would lead me to my true passion as I set sail on this journey. From my experience, I can say that there are clear advantages that a desk-bound corporate worker would have over someone out in the field, such as: A bigger chance of a high paycheck Your own cubicle to work in Access to technology/Internet A set routine Not physically demanding Less exposure to injury or illness As a corporate lawyer, while I was enjoying all of the above mentioned perks, I knew that on the inside I am not a desk-bound person. I was an explorer who prefers being outdoors and meeting people. I kept reminding myself that I was still on my journey to find my true passion and still unsure of what it was. I admit that the core legal work was actually quite interesting, intellectually stimulating, and challenging, however, I always dreaded the lack of ‘human touch’ and a ‘sense of purpose’ in my work. While flipping through terabytes of emails, drafting a multitude of documents and negotiating endless legal provisions, I had this sudden realisation that it takes a special kind of personality to be able to perform this kind of work, and also to get along with the other people who enjoy that sort of work, and it's not a common personality type. It's definitely not a bad personality type – lots of big corporate lawyers are perfectly nice people — but I never found myself to have the specific sort of social skills, stamina, and tolerance for boredom that this work involves. Let’s just say, it wasn’t for me. The best part was that I could see a new sun on the horizon. After attending multiple team building and leadership workshops at offsites during my 7-year tenure as a corporate lawyer, I found the job of a facilitator to be particularly interesting. The explorer inside of me was always intrigued with the work of the facilitators. I thought they were good leaders, supportive, soft spoken, happy and fun loving people who had a larger purpose in life - i.e. enhancing social relationships and making people’s life easy. As a participant, I could vouch that facilitators were stirring souls and making a real time impact on people’s lives. I was sure that facilitation had a strong potential to be my calling, my passion. During my 4-year stint at a leading law firm, I got to experience two workshops facilitated by the FocusU team. My first impression was that they were different and unconventional – definitely not just another training company. I found the team to be exceptionally sincere and very deeply bonded with each other. It was clear that this was a team driven by sheer passion and hunger for excellence. It was in the summer of 2016, when I finally reached out to one of the FocusU facilitators after a workshop and expressed my interest in this line of work. Guess what, after a couple of interviews and a few long conversations, I was onboard at FocusU, and it hardly took a month. Before I could learn anything about facilitation, I was briefed about the core values that everyone in the FocusU team holds close to their heart – Care, Humility, Openness, Passion, and Safety. With that my journey as a facilitator kicked off, and it’s been a roller coaster ride since then; a really good one. It’s been more than a year of learning facilitation techniques, theoretical models, team-building activities, and designing new ones and I find myself truly enjoying every minute of this exhilarating work as I travel across India and abroad. With every workshop that I deliver, I feel that I not only become a better facilitator, but also evolve as a human being. Being a FocusU facilitator, I touch lives, make real time human impact, deliver great experiences and have fun myself; I couldn’t have asked for a better combination of a great job with a great team. When I look back, I thank myself for taking that leap of faith, getting out of my comfort zone and letting my inner explorer… explore. I finally found the missing human touch and a higher purpose in life, and I am truly grateful for it. I am also grateful to the FocusU team for letting me in the family with open arms and giving me numerous opportunities. C.S. Lewis said it best, “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”

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lawyer Archives - FocusU

From Lawyer to Facilitator