Submission date
15 May 2023 at 3:50:52 am
First name
Rahul
Last name
Singh
title
Assistant Director
NTU
Affiliation
Country
Singapore
Bio
A banker by the day and writer by the night, Rahul is an expert at connecting the three Is - idea, insight, and individual who sums up his life as ABC - author, banker, and community builder. Having an illustrious career in banking, he is the Assistant Director of Global Marketing & Strategy at Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Principal of Corporate Advisory Group at Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Udaipur, and Academic Council Member of Jaipuria Institute of Management.
He has authored several books on purpose including “You know the glory, not the story”, “Engineering to Ikigai”, and “An atheist gets the Gita”. His book on Corporate purpose “ESG: Putting purpose back in Finance” is scheduled for release in 2023. An inspiring personality and a thought leader, Rahul regularly speaks on topics that concern millennials such as careers in 21st century, conscious capitalism, and cross-cultural understanding. His books cover purpose from varied lens – ranging for micro memoirs of purposeful journeys to collective Ikigai and Organizational Purpose. His books have a touch of realism and connect to audience at a personal level motivating them to find their purpose in work, in relationship, and in self discovery.
Besides writing, Rahul advises companies & start-ups on their ESG journey towards Sustainable Development Goals and has pushed for inclusion of Conscious Capitalism & ESG in university curriculums. He is the founding President of Indian Scholars' Association Singapore which represents Indian alumni of Singaporean Institutes of Higher Learning including NTU, NUS, SMU, and SUTD. He is also the youngest ever President of IIM Bangalore Alumni Association Singapore.
Paper title
Towards Ikigai - A collection of real life short stories
Keywords
Ikigai, short story, memoir
Abstract
Towards Ikigai
“The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.” ― Tom Clancy
Ikigai is a Japanese compound word comprising Iki (生き) meaning "life or alive" and kai (甲斐) meaning "effect or worth". The resultant concatenation “Iki” “Kai”, spelled and pronounced “Ikigai”, can roughly be translated to “reason for being”, something that makes life worth living for. It is about doing what makes you happy, going with the flow, and pursuing that which makes your heart feel light as a cork, as opposed to heavy like a stone. In its broadest sense, Ikigai may be understood as something that gives direction and purpose to life. It is the fire within that propels one to spontaneously spring into action and enjoy the journey of life while deriving meaning from it. Ikigai is the resilience that keeps one motivated to keep going and not give up in the face of adversities. It not only gives a sense of purpose to life but also is the very motivation of living it.
You know the glory, not the story: 25 journeys towards Ikigai is a collection of micro memoirs. The book covers real-life short stories of 25 select scholars who were offered full scholarship between 1990s and early 2000s to study in Singaporean universities. Each story started with engineering and took the person to one’s calling – dance, filmmaking, entrepreneurship, mountaineering, philanthropy, research, and even monkhood.
Using short story as a medium the author has attempted to give real life examples of achieving one’s Ikigai. The idea behind the book was as much to inspire the younger generations as was to document these fabulous Ikigai journeys of grit, perseverance, and resilience which otherwise would have been lost forever. This book is also an important leaf in the Singapore-India relationship with many of the scholars being the bridge between Singapore and India.
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