The Compass
—

I have been asked many times where my ideas about leadership, purpose, and life came from. People usually expect me to mention a book I read, someone who mentored me, or an important moment in my career.

The truth is, none of those would be the right answer. Whenever I think about that question, my mind goes back to a morning in Hurghada, a coastal red sea city.

It was August. I was spending a few days there to get away from the noise of everyday life and give myself time to think. Anyone who knows Hurghada in the summer will understand why I was out before six in the morning. By the afternoon, the heat could easily pass forty degrees.

So every morning I walked to the same café near the beach. I would order a coffee, open my notebook, and sit there for an hour or two.

That notebook was important to me. It was full of goals, plans, and ideas. At that stage of my life, I believed that if I planned carefully enough, I could solve almost any problem.

One morning, while I was looking through those pages again, someone spoke to me.

“You have been looking at that notebook for the last couple of days.”

I looked up and saw an elderly Irish gentleman sitting at the next table.

I smiled.

“So you noticed.”

“I did,” he said.

For a few minutes we talked about ordinary things. Then he picked up the book beside him and said, “This is one of the greatest books ever written about motivation and planning a life.”

Naturally, I wanted to know the title.

Before I had the chance to ask, he looked at me and said something I have never forgotten.

“Whatever you read or plan without a real compass, your efforts are nothing.”

That was it.

He did not explain what he meant.

He did not try to convince me.

He simply went back to his coffee.

I remember sitting there for a while, just looking at my notebook.

For the first time, it felt incomplete.

I spent the rest of that day thinking about his words.

That night I had a dream. I saw a wooden desk standing in the middle of a forest. There was nothing on it except a compass.

The dream was so clear that I still remember it today.

The following night I had exactly the same dream.

I cannot explain why.

When I went back to the café the next morning, the Irish gentleman was not there.

In fact, I never saw him again.

I do not remember the title of the book nor I remember what he looked like, but what I do remember is his words that changed everything.

Over the years, I have often thought about what he meant. At first, I believed he was talking about purpose, but later, I wondered if he meant values.

Sometimes I thought he was talking about character.

Today, I am not sure any one of those answers is enough. I think the compass meant something deeper. It was never about finding the right destination. It was about becoming the right person before you arrived.

One of the clearest directions that compass ever gave me came years later at a gathering at a technology conference and exhibition, where people from many backgrounds had come together. Every accent was different. Every conversation seemed to begin with the same questions: Where are you from? What do you do?

I found myself talking with a lady I had never met before.

At first, our conversation followed the familiar path. We spoke about our work, our countries, and the different lives we had lived.

Then, without either of us planning it, the conversation changed.

We started talking about our families, the people who had shaped us, the mistakes we had made, and the hopes we still carried. The differences that had introduced us gradually gave way to something else. We recognised pieces of ourselves in each other's stories.

At one point she smiled and said, “Perhaps we spend too much time explaining who we are and not enough time remembering what we share.”

Her words stayed with me.

Our identities matter. They tell the story of where we come from. They give us roots. But roots are not there to stop us from growing. They give us the strength to reach further.

I have often thought that a garden would lose its beauty if every flower looked the same. Humanity is much the same. Our differences are not the problem. They never were.

The real danger is forgetting how much we already have in common.

Not long afterwards, another conversation added something to that thought.

I was sitting beside a man whose life had been very different from mine. At one point he told me a story from his childhood. He remembered standing alone in a place that felt completely unfamiliar. Nobody had been unkind to him, yet he could not shake the feeling that he did not belong.

Then someone walked over, smiled, and spoke to him with simple kindness. That was all.

Years later, he still remembered that moment.

As I listened, I found myself thinking about the Irish gentleman in Hurghada. Perhaps that was what he meant by a compass.

Long before we are known by our names, our professions, our beliefs, or our nationalities, we all understand what it feels like to need kindness. We all know what it is to hope that someone sees us for who we are, not simply for the labels we carry.

Since then, I have tried to remind myself of something very simple. Every person I meet is carrying a story I cannot see.

They have known disappointment, hope, fear, courage, and loss in ways I will probably never fully understand.

Remembering that does not mean agreeing with everyone. It simply means refusing to mistake a label for a life.

I still think about that dream too from time to time. The forest. The wooden desk and definitely "The Compass."

For years, I wondered why those images stayed with me when so many other memories gradually faded. Perhaps it was because the dream never offered an explanation. It simply returned, quietly, and left me with a question that seemed to grow more meaningful as the years passed.

Looking back now, I realise that life has a way of giving us many maps. Education gives us a map, and experience gives us another.

Books, mentors, careers, and even our successes and failures all help us understand the world a little better, but none of them can tell us who we should become.

That is the work of THE COMPASS.

The compass is not interested in status or titles. It does not care how successful we appear or how many people agree with us. It asks quieter questions.

Are you becoming kinder?

Are you becoming wiser?

Are you becoming someone others can trust?

Those questions have guided me far more than any plan I have ever written. I never discovered the title of the old Irish gentleman's book. Sometimes I wish I had asked him. Then again, perhaps I was never meant to.

I have carried his words with me ever since. Not because I finally understand them, but because I am still learning from them. Perhaps that is what a compass is for.

It does not promise an easy journey, or removing uncertainty. It simply reminds us, again and again, to pause long enough to ask the one question that matters before taking the next step.

Not, Where am I going? But, Who am I becoming?