Month: February 2012

We’re all well versed to look out for sickness – temperature goes up, stomach starts paining etc. The moment we fall sick, we know that it’s time to take a break. And we generally do. Take a day or two off, watch some TV, eat healthy etc.

With that, we take care of our physical well-being.

I’m convinced that there’s a second kind of sickness – energy sickness. And I’m also pretty convinced that this is actually more important because this is a sickness in our minds. We all go through this from time to time – feeling of uncertainty, nervous energy, more mistakes and the like.

Unlike physical sickness, this sort is hard to spot, harder to diagnose and is hence, harder to cure.

I’m guessing mental well-being comes from balance (it’s a hypothesis!). The moment we’re out of balance, we feel the difference. If we’re too far out of balance, we might even feel a fever! But, often, we don’t get too far out of balance and just move along out of balance enough to not feel so good. We have no idea what’s wrong but we can sense something being amiss.

That’s the time to take a break. Our gut serves as a very good warning system. I think of it like the body’s natural winter.

When we think about it, the seasons have a big effect on our body. I grew up in places where there wasn’t much difference between the seasons, really (unless you count hot, hotter and hottest). Now, I feel the difference a lot more.

I seemed to be doing an entire personal mental spring clean over the past month or so asking myself many basic questions, having many long conversations with people close to me, re-aligning and somehow, resisting doing anything new! That’s very unusual but I’ve just not felt the right energy to get started on something new. All the effort seemingly went into preserving the status quo. On reflection, I realize that it was a warning sign and it was good I was sensitive enough to listen to these signs.

The good news with all kinds of sickness is that time takes care of them. So, if you’re going through one of those spring cleaning periods, give it time..

Following my energy has been one of my biggest learnings over the past year or so. Being able to understand this difference was a start. I’m slowly understanding the seasonal difference – there’s a natural time for reflection, action, more action, reduced action, end of year joy.

Man for all seasons, I hope.. (haha).

Oh, and one of the newer things I’ve started doing is a touch of meditation on one leg of my long commute. I keep it very simple. Close my eyes, focus on breathing and typically have a book in my ear to listen to. It’s been very helpful. And I hope to continue with the habit.

Have a nice week!

This week’s book learning is from ‘The Total Money Makeover’ by Dave Ramsey –

Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover strategy is as follows – (The assumptions here are based on an average American income of US$3,500)

1. Build an Emergency Fund: Save $1000 (or 1/3rd of your income to start with..) every month until you have an emergency fund. An emergency fund is when you have enough money to survive 6 months. Keeping this fund is priority one!

2. Debt snowball: Pay off all your debts: List down all your debts (if applicable..) and then begin paying off the smallest debt. Forget interest rates. Just focus on crossing off the first debt and build momentum. Motivation is more important than math!

3. Invest 15% of your income: Dave’s investment style is mutual funds. The principle here is to invest 15% of your income. There’s more on mutual funds on his website, for those who’d like to know more! (I don’t know much about this as yet)

4. College Fund: Invest $200 per month per kid! (If applicable)

5. Pay off your mortgage: Pay off your mortgage! :)

Other Basics: Buy insurance, buy second hand cars and focus on living frugally, use debit cards, do a budget every month – make sure every dollar spent is accounted for!

The Goal: To live off your investment income. That’s the day you are financially independent.

I read Dave’s book thanks to a snippet on the Debt Snowball in ‘Switch’. Managing money is something I’m beginning to think about. And it came at a right time. I loved Dave’s catchphrase

‘If you live like no one else, you will live like no one else.’

i.e. if you live frugally like no one else, one day you will actually be able to do whatever you like! Good book. Hope you enjoyed the simplified version..

Here’s to ‘living like no one else’ this week!

I generally look forward to writing a long post on Saturday but today I’m sticking to a short(er) one.

You know how we clean our homes every few days and yet, in a few months, they need a spring clean?

The last one month or so has been something of that sort. I’ve felt it. If you’ve been a regular here for longer than a few months, you have probably felt it too.

What I find is that the spring cleaning is not as important as the act of doing it. It typically starts with (for example) not finding something that you are looking for. You then look around for it and after a few hours, find it. And then you wonder why it was kept there in a first place. Then, your eye catches something else that doesn’t seem to be in it’s right place and boom, before you know it, you’re spring cleaning!

And, in the act of spring cleaning, we often find that most things are alright in the places we kept them. They might need some dusting. But, the act of re-evaluating, questioning and understanding gives us the mental feeling that things are okay and clean. And that matters more than anything else.

I’ve felt similar. I’ve been spring cleaning and I’m almost on the other side (and hey, it’s not even spring yet! :)). And funnily enough, I have indeed found that a few things need dusting but most other things are fine in it’s current place. And just like in spring cleaning, I did go through a bit of pain in the process when you find some dusty corners that have been untouched for years or some dirt in unexpected places that needs some bleach. And as is the case with most things in life, we learn to look at/clean those places on a weekly basis..

Make mistakes. Do things well. Then make those mistakes again (and hence, fail). Then learn. Then reflect. Then go ahead, do more, make bigger mistakes, do better things and so on.

We learn as we go. And like in the case of any spring cleaning, things have been on the up over the past couple of weeks or so and are beginning to feel more normal and settled.

So, it’s time to get rolling. Begin doing more, experimenting more and attempting more. Almost like figuring out whether the maps are like before going traveling.

Almost there. Maps looking okay. Time to travel.

Until the next spring clean, of course. :-)

PS: One of the correlations I’m beginning to notice when I’m not spring cleaning is that my daily quotes (on my short form blog) are typically of a more inspirational nature more often. These quotes generally reflect my state of mind and often say a lot about what I most need at that point. (Often, not always, of course) And, when I’m working on a whole bunch of ideas along with work, thinking about inspiration is very helpful.

Of late, if you’ve been following the quotes, you’ll have noticed that there’s a lot more of humour and less of inspiration. Clear sign..

I realized this over the last couple of days. Very useful for me. Indicators are useful – like thermometers that tell us that it’s time to take a break! And it was indeed time..

I remember hearing about audio books five years ago from a wiser friend and thinking ‘That’s CRAZY. You can listen to books?’

Fast forward a year later, I was walking around an excited kid in university with a horde of audio books on my Palm Treo (a phone). Well, I wasn’t walking around much. Most of life in university is spent on shuttle buses and those rides suddenly had new purpose – I was reading! (well, listening technically..)

For someone who hadn’t been reading for a few years, Audible opened up a realm of possibilities, especially the fact that there needn’t be ‘down time’ any more. Time spent commuting, waiting in queues etc could now be spent reading. And I remember feeling like an excited 3 year old as I listened to Virtues of War (a story of Alexander the Great) narrated by John Lee with my mouth open in awe at his amazing narration skills. I used to feel chills running down my spine when Lee said something like such was the pride of being a soldier of Alexander!

It really was magic.

The expectations on this new world were extremely high. And four years down the line, Audible has met, and more often than not, exceeded those expectations.

And, over time, I had friends and family who began testing Audible out. For the listeners, this turned out to be game changing as they realized that not being able to get through reading  a book didn’t mean not being able to read anymore. For a few readers who could never find enough time to read anyway, Audible turned out to be something they listened to on their commutes to work and during their down time.

Over time, 9 out of a close circle friends of family and friends are now Audiblers (made up term, of course). And that’s very high impact in my book. 2 others just couldn’t get through listening, which I can understand. But, when I think of the simple fact that 10 of us are reading more than we can ever imagine thanks to Audible, I’m simply astounded at the impact Audible has had on our lives. In my case, the impact this wiser friend has had..

And, while I’m at it, Audible has been fantastic in terms of customer service. When I think of products I recommend actively, Audible and Disqus come first to mind.

So, if you aren’t reading as much as you’d like to, give audible a shot.

Who knows? It might just change your life..

PS: For those who are reading this, going through a ‘This is CRAZY’ reaction and feeling the need for some more information, do feel free to ask away in the comments or even email me if you prefer to do so in private. This is one tool I’ve seen having massive positive impact and happy to help any way I can to help you with the same.

This morning, I thought I’d post a note on a subject I’ve been struggling with over the years.

The problem? The news that is sold to us is a tad too negative, sensationalist and intentionally depressive. Negative stuff sells. Yes, I know that.

I’ve had my up and down cycles with this thing. There was a time when I used to spend more than 30 minutes getting up to date on the news. Then, after a book that recommended I don’t bother checking the news out, I did that too and went for a long period relying on important news coming through via friends, family and occasionally Facebook.

That couldn’t go on for long though. I clearly remember the evening when there was a discussion on the outbreak of the Arab spring and the not-so-smart feeling of not knowing the details of what was going on.

I experimented with news via email for a while. I experimented reading the free news papers on the train to work here in London.  Still no joy.

The moment of joy came when I made a long overdue shift to Google Reader for blog consumption and tapped into the Financial Times and WSJ news feeds. This was in perfect format – a headline and 3-4 lines describing the news. I love this because I can now skim and click to read stuff that interests me (not very often). And this way, I know what’s going on without internalizing the gory details or looking at any pictures.

Additionally, thanks to the brilliant Reeder app on the iPhone, skimming the news on the commute is an absolute breeze!

I know of a few positive newspapers that exist and have heard good things about the Huffington Post. Maybe I’ll check those out as well. For now, I’m celebrating the joy of feeds and at finding a solution after 3 years of experimentation. Those of you who’ve been on Google Reader all these years must be having a laugh. :-)

If you guys have any suggestions on good newspapers/feeds, I’d love to know. At this point, I’ve been pretty happy with the FT and WSJ. Always happy to experiment..

We all know that humour is magical. We all have hung around people who make us laugh till our stomachs hurt. We all probably can even remember moments where we rolled in laughter at a joke we can’t even remember. It’s special. It’s magical.

When we grow up, we often are told that there are funny guys and then the rest of us. It’s just like we are told that there are the smart guys and then the rest of us, the sporty guys and then the rest of us.

And, as with most such generalizations, it is flawed. (I initially wrote all such generalizations. The irony of making a generalization hit me just about then.. haha)

Let’s take playing the guitar as an example.

We may have grown up seeing some incredible musical talent learn the guitar and master it. Sure. You remember that ridiculously talented girl from that musical family who started playing the guitar in her diapers?

Does that mean you and I can’t play the guitar though? Of course not. Not only can we play but with some dedicated practice, we can pretty good. Are we likely to ever make Bryan Adams jealous of our talent? Probably not. But, we can get good enough to play along with songs, play along with friends singing, maybe play in an amateur band, think of musical analogies to solve problems among many other.

It’s similar with a sense of humour.

Humour is largely comedic timing and a way with words. Both of these can be learnt over time. We can learn comedic timing from all those sit-coms and stand up comedians who make us laugh and we can learn a way with words by practicing jokes from time to time.

How do we practice jokes? Go out and find humorous jokes, quotes for different situations and test them out. The learning is massive. Over time, we realize that jokes are highly sensitive and can go terribly wrong. What’s funny in one place is often frowned upon elsewhere. But, we learn as we go..

After a period of time, though, we begin to trust ourselves to spout a funny line in a serious situation and inject some much needed humour in it.

I haven’t done any research or seen much data around this but instinct says humour is likely going to be a big help to take us far in life. Of late, I’m realizing that humour is an incredibly powerful force in conflict resolution (more on that someday). And, the ability to see humour in tough situations is one that’s great for our spirit. I can attest to that from a bit of experience.

And no, you’ll probably never be as funny as a Louis C K.

But, you’ll probably laugh a lot and make others around you laugh a lot too.

PS: Humor, like many other things in life, is a journey in failure. When you get started learning to use humour, please expect to fail.. a lot! Luckily, like all those things in life, it gets better with practice..

A friend told me an interesting story the other day.

The normal application process for Masters programs is to reach out to all seniors you might know of who are already in similar/the same program. They look at your academic and extra curricular records and identify which schools are realistic. If they decide you are just around average, for example, they would encourage to apply to 1 tier I school, 5 tier II schools and maybe 3 tier III schools. Then, they would help with your application.

This friend decided to apply to a different program altogether. There were no seniors  to ‘help’ with the screening process. So, he was on his own. He knew from his friends’ experiences that he would have been screened out of the top category. Nevertheless, he decided to go ahead and just apply to all tier I schools. And he made it to almost all of those he’d been aiming for. ,

The story really got me thinking.

I’m sure you’ll take away very different things from the story than I did because it’s likely you’ve had a similar experience and might just wonder what could have been. And, if you haven’t, at least you know what to guard against.

Often, the biggest things that’s stopping us from getting what we want are the stories we tell ourselves..

This week’s book learning is from ‘Switch’ by Chip and Dan Heath.

Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, conducted a study involving about 100 seventh graders, all doing poorly in math.

They were randomly assigned to 2 workshops. Workshop A gave lessons on how to study well. Workshop B taught the students about the expanding nature of intelligence and the brain. Here, the students learned ‘that the brain actually forms new connections every time you learn something new, and that over time, this makes you smarter.‘

The results were astonishing.

76% of the improved students were in the 2nd group. And, while the average of the 1st group fell from C+ to C-, the 2nd group significantly over performed.

“You mean I don’t have to be dumb?” Jimmy asked, astonished. Working hard was no longer a sign of being dumb but of getting smarter.

Since Dweck’s experiment, the concepts of ‘Fixed mindset’ and ‘Growth mindset’ have become accepted in modern psychology. And this series of experiments has had huge impact in our understanding of intelligence.

And, when we pause and give it a moment’s thought, we see that the difference between the 2 groups of students was just a 2 hour workshop. Imagine what a difference it would make if this was taught with the seriousness given to a subject in school..

This story was fitting today since I’d blogged yesterday about how I hoped the ‘a learning a day’ philosophy would one day be taught in schools all over the world at. We often tend to underestimate the incredible power of incremental change and it’s impact on our lives. Dweck’s research went a long way in proving it’s effect..

Here’s to working hard and getting better, one day at a time, this week! :)

Every once in a while, I hear a piece of news that shocks me. There’s a lot of evil out there in the world. Some of it is unerringly close to us, some not so. Thanks to our connectivity and the in-built viral nature of bad news and disaster, such stuff gets out pretty quickly.

I was beyond shocked when I heard of a 15 year old who murdered his teacher in school because she’d reprimanded him, back home in Chennai. The news shook me. My mother teaches many a 15 year old..

Of course, the post mortems are out. The teaching community is shocked. Tensions are high. Schools are worried and things will likely get strict for a while before it is forgotten by the majority. My condolences go out to the teacher’s family.

I was thinking about the causes for such an incident. And, as is the case with such incidents, a plane crash analogy is apt. A plane crash never takes place because of one cause. Typically, it takes an average of 7 things that take place one after another. Similarly, such an incident is likely to be caused by poor parenting, a bad environment at home among many others.

While this news is particularly shocking, there’s no dearth of such stories these days. Suicide, desperate crime is on the up. And, given the challenging time most of the world is going through at the moment, such incidents are likely to be on the up. The more the unhappiness and discontentment, the more the crime.

A lot of the damage is done young. Most criminals in decades past didn’t have the benefit of a good education. These days, however, we hear of well educated criminals. Pressure of expectation seems to drive many a man insane. And I use man here simply because most crime is, at the end of the day, testosterone driven.

I’m reminded of a popular forward I read ages ago..

---

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints; we spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy it less.

We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time; we have more degrees, but less sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, but more problems; more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get angry too quickly, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too seldom, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life; we’ve added years to life, not life to years.

We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor. We’ve conquered outer space, but not inner space; we’ve done larger
things, but not better things.

We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul; we’ve split the atom, but not our prejudice.
We write more, but learn less; we plan more, but accomplish less. We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait; we have higher incomes, but lower morals; we have more food, but less appeasement; we build more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication; we’ve become long on quantity, but short on quality.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men, and short character; steep profits, and shallow relationships. These are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare; more leisure, but less fun; more kinds of food, but less nutrition.

These are days of two incomes, but more divorce; of fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throw away morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer to quiet to kill.

It is a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stockroom; a time when technology has brought this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to make a difference, or to just hit delete…

By Dr Bob Moorehead

---

Truth is often vastly stranger than fiction. And there are many truisms in that piece..

Someone once said it to me that the idealist will always point to education as a solution to societal problems. I laughed. It did ring a bell. I do admittedly think of what we can change in the education system when thinking of massive societal problems and will do so again now.

There’s way too much pressure on the youth out there. It’s literally driving people insane. And here’s the bad news – I don’t think that’s going to change. We don’t live in isolated disconnected worlds. We’re in a global race for most things these days. While that has many many positives, it also poses many problems for those who are resistant to a change to the status quo.

The system is designed to encourage this. What was previously a local competition is now, for the most part, global. When you secure a seat at a top school or a job in a top company, you are literally competing against talent all over the world. There is competition everywhere. And it is only going to increase.

Banning competition and attempting to run away from it is not the answer either. Things have changed. It is the way of things.

What hasn’t changed yet is our reaction to competition. The way we live our lives today, we could be competing for ever without ever hitting the big jackpot. Getting into a top school, a top job or even making a million these days is not enough. We want more. And then some more. Because we want to stay ahead. Made a million at 25? Meh. Look at Mark Zuckerberg.. and so on.

And thus, the rat race goes on. The problem with a rat race, of course, is that even if you win the rat race, you’re still a rat. And then, of course, there are those who hit road blocks and since failure is unacceptable, insanity beckons.

The real answer, of course, is that there is no race. The only race we run is one we design for ourselves against ourselves. We’re screwed the moment we lose sight of that. And I do mean screwed. Because, the moment we do lose sight of that, we practically say goodbye to happiness and welcome updating statuses of our desired Facebook lives.

As a race, we seem to dismiss continual progress and small wins. We only smile when we land the big jackpot. We will only be happy when we land the big jackpot. And, lest I forget, we will only be successful when we land that jackpot. Everything we run behind seems to be about that big jackpot. For some, it’s retiring when they are 40 (retire and then do what?) and for some others, it’s making that targeted amount of money so they can then buy their aeroplane or their fancy yacht and then spend the rest of their lives rueing the fact that the size of their neighbour’s is bigger than theirs.

We really do underestimate and dismiss the small things. If you’ve ever worked on a tough successful project/activity with a team, you know that the memories and fun times are never after the project is a success but from the days when you were up at inane hours of the night facing adversity and still finding reasons to laugh till your stomachs hurt. Success is the journey..

Someday, I believe the a learning a day philosophy will be taught in schools. (If I sound narcissistic here, I’d like you to know that I didn’t invent the idea. I think I got on the bandwagon 2,000 or so years too late for that..;-)) We grossly underestimate the impact of getting a little better every day. It’s like writing one page every day. 365 days later, you could be the author of a book. Somehow, we’re not taught to think like that. Life, success, happiness are described as ends of long, dreary tunnels.

It’s not all that serious. What’s the point of all of this if we’re not making mistakes, falling in love and having fun?

We can’t always do big things. But we can do small things with great love. And over time, these small things will become big things.. that’s how great bridges are built, that’s how great art is done, that’s how great relationships are built.. and that’s how these things will be built. Rome was not built in a day.

We can learn something small every day. We can choose to get better every day. We can change how things work out in our lives. And we can dance to our own tunes and find great happiness.

One day at a time. One thing at a time. One person at a time.

I know it’s the age of fast food and instant gratification. But, these things are fleeting. They are good for a high. But, we all know how that ends..

Patience. That’s been by biggest learning in the a learning a day journey.

And that’s why I hope we’ll see this philosophy taught in schools all over the world.

I hope. I believe..

It’s Friday. It’s been a long and hectic week. And it’s practically whizzed by. I was commenting today that last Friday feels like yesterday! The days are long, the weeks are short..

And I thought we’d welcome the weekend by watching a video that’s been doing the rounds thanks to Facebook.

It’s the Coke ad – There are reasons to believe in a better world. It’s one of those videos I  have in the instant ‘Inspiration’ tab.