My journey into starting a business or two has yet again brought me back to the same concept. Somehow my reality is convergent on helping others grow. Learn about how I came to realise my purpose, how we are our parents and how I am assimilating it into my photography.
Dusty Backroads Leading Home (Credit: Lila Fine Art Photography)
Purpose
Your purpose is that thing that every path you take gravitates back to. In my interpretation of reality at least.
I suppose it has always been in me lying dormant, waiting for the right moment. This need to help others grow. Sounds like a pile of self-righteous bullshit. Believe that if you like. I am beyond the point of trying to convince people. Unfortunately, in this world, we have been manipulated so often that we don't see true sincerity when it presents itself.
There were people whose lives I influenced positively over the past few years, I am sure they will bear testament to that. If you wish to speak to any one of them I will gladly ask if they are comfortable for me to reveal their identity. They know who they are. I earned no material income from mentoring them, but I did receive payment in the form of their stories, their worldview and my sense of purpose.
It started when I was still working for Eskom. After I had gained the knowledge on-site, I revelled in helping incoming graduates learn. I wrote my Master's dissertation on a subject that I had hoped would help young newcomers to the industry and tried to gear it in a way that would appeal to corporate management as a gain for the company, all in the meanwhile my true intent was for it to benefit young engineers.
And to get me to a level where I could influence the matter.
When I moved back to Durban, I did my best to mentor the young technicians who I managed. I think they have moved forward into better jobs, and overall better lives as a result of it. I hope that I not only shaped their professional lives but also their personal journeys by teaching them things that they don't teach you in school, like financial planning etc. Most importantly I think I succeeded in showing some of them the bigger picture.
I will never forget the time a young man appeared at my office whilst I was the Engineering and Operations Manager at a manufacturing and machining company in Durban. The secretary told me that this guy was at the door asking for work. In most cases, managers too busy and already adequately staffed, would not give him the time of day, but I wanted to hear his story. Turned out all he was looking for was unpaid work experience. He was in a sponsored development program and required experience hours as part of the qualification. After having heard his full story, I decided that I would mentor him personally whether the company wanted anything to do with it or not. When I left that company I took him with me. I have since lost contact with him, but last I heard he had gotten a paying job at the company next door to my dad's office.
Equilibrium
In science and engineering, we learned that 'things' want to find their way back to a state of equilibrium. Balance. Steady state. Zero resultant force. Stability. It is that state that phenomena are most predictable and consistent. It is their 'happy place.'
Take for example a car steering wheel. The steering system, from your point of contact (the steering wheel) ie. the input mechanism, down to the vehicle's point of contact with the road (the tyres hopefully) ie. the output, is designed to return to the centre, or neutral position, if you let go of the steering wheel. In the event of loss of control, the vehicle tends toward a more steady, predictable state of operation, moving straight forward.
Now look at the disaster that happened at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. There were multiple design and operation problems, as well as communication and management issues that contributed to the nuclear meltdown. I once studied the root cause investigation of the incident in a course. One of the findings was that the reactor was not designed like a car steering system. In the event of loss of control, instead of tending toward a safer neutral state, the reactor exponentially increased its energy output. ie. The steering wheel locked in a full-turn position, and took the car careened into the nearest wall! BOOM! SPLAT!
All that mumbo jumbo was to illustrate the importance of equilibrium in our lives.
Imagine your fulfilment in life as a straight road. We know that it is not straight in the least bit. There are ups and downs we all have to navigate. Let's isolate one aspect of our lives. Let us assume that there exists some 'purpose' for us in it. I am not religious or spiritual, I have said it many times. Some might refer to it as a calling, destiny, fate or whatever, it is all the same eventuality.
Let us define 'purpose' as the 'thing' that if we were to identify and pursue, would bring us a sense of fulfilment, would add to justifying our reason for living and would amplify the positive value of the human experience for us.
Now go back to the road. This road has many off-ramps that take you away from the road and bring you back and cross it and bring you back, throughout your life. You choose most of these paths. Others, happen and you react to them in an attempt to course correct. Each offshoot is an aspect of your life. Your spouse, your parents, your child or children, your friends. They will be different for everyone. I am starting to believe that one of those roads is 'purpose.' The problem is that course correction is difficult when the destination is unclear, which in the scenario of fulfilment and purpose, is not abundantly clear for most of us. As a result, we miss it, go past it, spend some time on it then veer off again. Such are life's undulations.
I believe Purpose wants to come back to the straight road. To stability. To steady state. The more and more I go on, the more I find that the easiest way back to that straight road is by letting go of the steering wheel within reason. The harder I tried to fight it, the more unstable the system was becoming and the harder it was to see what I think is my 'purpose.'
Perhaps if I were religious I would say, "Jesus take the wheel." Perhaps I would think of Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist and , "Maktub" from the Arabic language meaning, 'It is written.' Whatever your label, the truth of it is scary.
It is terrifying because to let go means to be open to failure, to attack and uncertainty. To be vulnerable.
I have struggled with this for the longest time and still do. It is human nature to protect ourselves, and so vulnerability has become the centre of the 'why' that we do a lot of the things we do. I learned this from my late Mentor, Lance Marshall. The more and more you dig, the more you will find vulnerability to the root cause of the 'bad' things in life. Fear. Anxiety. Anger.
Preaching to the Wrong Crowd
I have already mentioned the people that I had mentored and brought me fulfilment. That was the start of my realisation of what could be my 'purpose.' So much so that I started a company that failed for reasons that I now understand much better. Here is a link to the website. I even deregistered the premium plan on it. I stopped pursuing it for the time being.
Amongst the reasons for its failure to launch, was that I think the concept was ahead of its time for the people I had pitched it to. Perhaps I was just not pitching it in the way they needed it because that was not how I truly felt about it. I also think that it was not supposed to work because if it did I would not be here today walking the path I now am. My apparent 'purpose' would have been used for the wrong reasons.
I realised then that my ideals were driven by the desire to help people grow. However, in the haste of wanting to get a business off the ground, I followed my logical mind more than my heart. I tried to use my mind's logic which said I needed to get into big businesses and market myself in this way and that if I wanted to succeed. I was driven by vulnerability. There was always the underlying core desire not to go about it that way, but I could not help myself because I believed 'The world does not work that way.'
I remember having a conversation at the airport with my cousin's partner who is very entrepreneurial, and he had asked me about things like scalability and the like. Don't get me wrong, I was aware of these things, years of study and experience in industry had taught me that, but it was not what I wanted for myself. I told him that I didn't want to be a multi-millionaire. Where he dreamed of going to Stanford or Harvard getting a Master's degree, and meeting the right venture capitalists, I wanted to make enough to live happily with my family, give my daughter the opportunities in life she deserves and have enough time to spend it with them. Neither dream is right or wrong. Everyone has their own dreams.
Sidebar: He did get that Masters degree from Harvard and is currently over in the States making his way.
The opposing forces in me ultimately took me away from the straight road, and because of the tussle, the business stalled. I think there may be a time for it in the future, but it was never going to work with my state of mind at that time. It was not all a loss. That experience of starting a business, feeling failure, building websites, marketing and branding and so on are all skills that cannot be taken away from me.
I was not talking to the wrong crowd in the way you might first think. I realise now that I wanted to help people grow but in the approach I took out of fear, I was only helping companies grow. My intention, no matter how good, was being overpowered by fear and materialising in the wrong way.
After that, I veered away from the path for a while.
Remember, at that time, my toolbox was full of engineering, science, management, soft skills, emotional quotient and life experience that I was trying to pass on to mentees. The off-ramps that followed and led me back to my 'purpose' today were additionally through my mental health journey, pursuing a PhD and photography.
We are Our Parents
Before I get to the point of this whole story, I need to take a moment to mention something I realised truly and completely for the first time this morning. My mum stayed over the day before yesterday to help me with Mira whilst Leeanne was away for work. My realisation was not something that I didn't already know, but I had never really connected the dots before in this way. It came from some of the conversations we had yesterday.
Both my parents have always had an intrinsic need to help people. We can dig and dig to find what happened in their lives to make them that way but that is for another time perhaps. Just know that they did not have much growing up, financially and in many other ways. Life was not easy for them, and all this in a country divided by apartheid. They could have chosen to be bitter about how difficult their circumstances were, but I have never heard them talk about it that way. They could have used their experiences to fuel greed, never wanting to go back to a life like that, but they didn't do it that way either. The path they chose, I realise now, is why I think I have found my purpose to be what I think it is today. To help others grow. The right others this time. The people, not the companies.
My mum cannot stop caring for and helping people, even those who are ungrateful and horrible toward her. It is just who she is. I have vehemently tried to fight it out of anger that she was being taken advantage of for the longest time, but I realise now, that caring for people is her purpose. Not doing it because of the external person's behaviour would only be more detrimental to her intrinsically.
My dad, in his business, has always taken the approach of helping people grow too. I know of a specific 'uncle' whose now flourishing company, came as a result of dads 'hooking him up with a job', and influencing him to start his business. I have seen multiple employees come into Dad's business, become highly skilled and leave. Most companies part ways with people like that with a sour taste in the mouth or do everything in their power to hold them back. Dad wished them well with a smile and pride, knowing full well that he would have to start from ground zero with a new employee, but he had helped to improve the quality of life for someone and that was far more meaningful.
There is a reason that every day that Leeane or I are at the playground with Mira in the afternoon, that we are the only parents there, sitting amongst the nannies. One family in our gated community has FIVE nannies for TWO children. I am sure they are very rich. Financially.
The reason we are there is because of the values instilled in us by our parents. Her family and upbringing were very similar in that regard. Along with those values came my purpose and where I think I belong.
The painting below was done in India from a photograph that one of Mum's relatives sent over to be painted. The artist was so meticulous in his authenticity toward the representation of photo that he even omitted the flower that had fallen off from mums garland. The idea of seeing a single fine art image every day in your home, from that important day, rather than having 200 photos in an album somewhere, is what birthed the concepts behind Lila Fine Art Photography.
We are our parents. Their influence is everywhere that you look within yourself. It just took me a while and some learning to let go, to see the part of it that now shapes my way forward.
Credit: Unknown Artist
Where I Belong
My purpose is to help PEOPLE grow. My toolbox has expanded to include photography, music creation, writing and cinematography over the years, and is still growing. I am fortunate to be able to assimilate information very quickly. I am a bit of a Phylomath. Someone who loves phyllo pastry and mathematics. Just kidding. It is ' A person who loves studying and learning.'
Unfortunately, that does not say anything for remembering!
I love making photographs but I don't think my place is making photographs of events or commercial shoots and the like. I have tried those things. I have proven that I can do them, but they did not bring me anything (emotionally) or much in the way of financial income either. I think I can do well to help others grow their skills and businesses, in the content creation and photography space with the experience I have and the knowledge that I am constantly acquiring.
My work speaks for itself, to the people that want to hear my kind of work. I am the one that needed to learn to believe that.
Helping others grow themselves or future businesses will be fulfilling for me, it will speak to my purpose, and I am sure it will lead to the means to support our family in the long run.
I still want to make photographs. The ones that tell stories. The ones that move me, and in turn hopefully will move the people who they were meant to move. If I keep fighting the pull back toward my steady state, by doing photography that is more lucrative, popular and safe, I am never going to make a reality of that which I have the ability to. The desire to do. The important stuff. There is nothing wrong with the lucrative, popular and safe photography, it puts food on the table. I just don't think it is how I was meant to do it. I would rather use what I learn to enable other people to do it. I can say this knowing that I have tried and it has taught me what is and is not for me, and the health of my state of mind.
Mentorship is about learning with me, not from me. Hence I have been publishing my learnings as I am on this journey, rather than in a few years time when I have succeded. Who knows, I might not succeed in the literal sense of the word.
At least we would have learned something along the way.
Until next time...
Neo
If learning with me is something that you might be interested in, please reach out and we can chat further.
Inbox me @neo_lilafineart on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/neo_lilaphoto/
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If you would like to support me in this journey please do on Patreon. All my content is free, but the option is there to support me financially if you wish ('My Tribe' membership- $3/month) OR if you would like to commission me to create a piece of work (ie. book a photo shoot with me, of yourself or other people/places/things) the 'Muse' membership -$50/month is available instead of me quoting a lump sum for the sessions.
It seems insane to approach income this way, but I believe that the people who truly identify with what I do, and want to be a part of it can be trusted to stay a member for as long a time as we agree to cover what would have been a lump sum. I don't 'charge per hour.' I trust you will maintain your membership to an appropriate limit and in turn, I ask that you trust that I have every intention of producing and delivering a fine piece of art for you. It is as much in my interest as it is in yours.
About the Writer (perhaps one day...Author)
Neolen Pillay (Pr Eng) is a photographer and the founder of Lila Fine Art Photography. He is the writer and mind behind the blog posts that you read on this site, the development of the site and the content produced by Lila Fine Art Photography. After 10 years in the engineering industry, having earned a BSc in Mechanical Engineering (UKZN), MEng in Development & Management Engineering (Cum Laude)(NWU) and accepted proposal for a PhD in Science, Engineering & Technology (UNISA), his academic work aimed to diversify SET education by augmenting the curriculum to include for more psychological and emotional considerations. However, an unexpected turn of events, a bipolar diagnosis at the age of 33, completely changed his and his family's trajectory. Photography became therapy for his condition, and he decided to dedicate his future to sharing his experiences, and interpretations of the world, in the hope that it would help someone somewhere going through, or who knows someone who might benefit from similar experiences. He hopes to use his photography to tell the true story of his subjects through this powerful visual medium.
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