Month: June 2013

I am not aware of any shortcut to good decision making. We all pay our tuition with many a dumb decision. But, that’s not my point – this post is all about preventing the extraordinarily dumb decisions.

When we make decisions, we typically default to the following question –  ‘What decision can solve my current problem?’ This approach is excellent during rapid fire decision making because you can always make another decision that will correct the previous one.

The decisions we regret are those that are extraordinarily dumb that make us ask the “what the hell was I thinking” question. This happens because the default question has a very short term focus.

Prevention requires us to add one additional question to our decision making process – ‘What will the consequences of this decision be 5 years from now?’

Here’s an example – the high school I studied in had a stormy management change a few years back during which a very popular principal was replaced by another in the middle of the academic year. All sorts of protests followed from both students and alumni.

Students could easily be punished but controlling the alumni was going to be much harder. Someone in the management asked the default question – ‘What decision can solve my current problem?’  And the obvious answer that emerged was to make all alumni showing up at the school feel unwelcome. The watchmen at the gate treated alumni like criminals and teachers weren’t allowed to meet the alumni. I experienced this and it wasn’t pleasant. In time, I understand they upgraded the policy from being unwelcoming to banning alumni altogether.

Now, imagine if someone had asked the question – ‘What will the consequences of this decision be 5 years from now?’ Would the decision have passed the test? Nearly every school around the world works incredibly hard to keep great relations with alumni. There are many reasons – aside from fostering a culture of loyalty, schools inevitably reach out to alumni for all sorts of favors including donations and sponsorship. I realize I’m already referring to “them” as “the school” and not “my school” and I tend to be the fiercely loyal sort. I sincerely hope they reconsider..

When we make decisions this week, let’s pause for a moment and make sure we consider the long term consequences. One additional question to save many a future regret. That’s not too bad now, is it?

PS: For a related thought, check out Derek Sivers’ fantastic video – Don’t punish everyone for one person’s mistake

I began looking up the requirements for a transit visa to New Zealand a few days back. It turns out that I have to cough up $150 and go through the usual amount of admin hassle for the privilege of spending 8 odd hours in transit at the Auckland airport.

Seriously?

Of course, there are a few countries on the waiver list and of course, India isn’t on it. If I had done this research before I booked my non-cancellable ticket, I would have avoided the NZ stop altogether. But, what’s done is done. This time, I decided to respond to this annoyance differently – by focusing on developing the world’s best visit visa system. Here is my 5 step plan – 

1. Abolish transit visas. (Again, seriously?)

2. Every visit visa (3-6 month – business/tourist visits only) application needs to meet a target of 30 points. The home country pre-allocates the 30 points to it’s favourite countries – So, European passports get 30 points pre-filled; this is how the system works today.

3. If you are from a country that starts with 0 points (that’s at least 2.5 Billion Indians and Chinese or put differently, about half the world’s population), you gain 3 points for every business trip made to countries on the home country’s “favorite” list and 1 point for every tourist trip. Every repeat trip gives you 1 and 0.5 points respectively.

4. The UN requests every country to fill in a point allocator page in the first page of every passport so immigration officials can stamp in new additions. This does not apply to long term stays or immigration as I understand these situations are more nuanced.

This way, if you’re a Chinese national whose made business trips to 10 different European and American countries, you earn the 30 points on merit and qualify for visa-on-arrival.

This post is specially dedicated to all the current and future bureaucrats in the ALAD community. Let’s get this changed then.

When conversations hover around getting things done, our usual area of focus is time. Yes, we always have less time than we need. Get over it.

When we actually take the trouble of breaking down productivity –

Productivity = Working Effectiveness * Working Intensity * Time

Working effectiveness is the ability to focus on, and do, the right thing. It involves asking the right questions and focusing on things that actually move the needle.

Working intensity consists of 4 parts –

1. Physical intensity. Are you physically able enough to focus intensely for sustained periods? You can’t keep up physical intensity if you are extremely unfit, have eaten bad food, or are sleep deprived.

2. Emotional intensity. The best work is done in calm.

3. Mental intensity. Ability to focus without checking our social media or our email.

4. Tool expertise. If you are crunching huge masses of data on Excel and move around your spread sheet using the mouse you are most likely working at a speed of 0.5x. How good are you at the tools of your trade? Competent carpenters don’t work with blunt tools.

If we want to get more done in a day, let’s stop mucking around with extra hours. As you probably see, time may be directly proportional to the equation as a whole but is inversely proportional to intensity.

In reality, once we set aside must-attend meetings, we have very few productive hours in a day. We need to get intense or get out.

I had tried out an “offer of help” post in October last year and it turned out to be a lovely thing to do. I received 4 requests from readers I’d never met – 3 of them were email exchanges and 1 of them was a resume review. The resume review was wonderful since I actually met one of the members of this community in person in London.

I would like to offer a bit of my time to be of help to you over in the coming 3-4 weeks. I’ll borrow from my previous post to explain what I have in mind.

What do I mean by help? If you are reading this post, it’s very likely that you’ve been reading this blog for a while and have your own ideas. Specific areas where I feel I can add value in are help around presentations, job search related issues, resume review, structuring content or ideas. That said, if you are looking to bounce a new project/initiative/product with someone or think through a specific problem or philosophical struggle, I think I can help there with an additional perspective. And if I can’t help, I’ll do my best to connect you with somebody who can.

Why am I putting this up here? I feel like it’s been a while I’ve been of help with someone. In fact, I feel like all I’ve been doing in the last month has been asking others for help on this or that. So, I’d love to hear from you and hopefully add value.

I am reachable on rohan@rohanrajiv.com – I look forward to hearing from you.

This week’s book learning is part 2 of a 5 part series on Personal Finance and Investing inspired by 3 books – The Investors Manifesto by William J Bernstein, I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi, and The Millionaire Teacher by Andrew Hallam. (Part 1)

Buying a house and investing in real estate are two different things. Houses are purchases, not investments. That said, it probably makes sense to buy a house if you are certain you’ll live at the place for 10 years or more.

Points to note
– The costs of a house are much higher than just the sticker price – add in property tax, realtor fees, renovation, and maintenance
– In expensive cities, renting can work out to be a better long term strategy
– Buying and selling real estate is a different ball game – tread with care as you are up against professionals with a nose for value
– Pro Tip on real estate deals: Divide how much you pay for the property by how much it rents at. If you can pay off the property in 10-14 years, you’ve likely gotten yourself a good deal

Recommended steps if you decide to buy a house
– Put down 20% as down payment
– Take a 30 year fix rate mortgage (long term mortgages with option of paying larger amounts)
– Don’t make monthly payments more than 30% of your gross income

Sketch by EB

The conventional advice on investment is to buy a house. Our personal finance gurus recommend we think about our decision and ensure it makes sense for us instead of just taking the plunge because everyone else is doing so.

So, what do they recommend for long term investing? Coming up next week..

I read a thoughtful post a few months back that asked an important question – is being happy a worthwhile goal in life? Or is it just a selfish way of looking at our grandest adventure on this planet?

I am beginning to believe that being happy may just be the most worthwhile of goals. I believe that to be the case because I think that the toughest question life poses to us is – “What will it take for you to be happy?” Life is a relentless teacher who never gives up on us. So, it poses us this question every single day of our lives. It’s only when we learn to answer it does it leave us alone. Or perhaps it doesn’t ever leave us alone.. perhaps the wise just know how to put it in context and in it’s place.

So, what is happiness? My thesis on happiness is that happiness is a state of being when we feel a coherence between what we do, how we do it, and why we do it and when we acquire the ability to be present and put all our experiences in context. I don’t think happiness is a feeling. Joy is a feeling. Sadness is a feeling. Happiness is a state of being. When it comes to sadness, “feeling sad” sounds right; “being sad” doesn’t seem to fit. But, when it comes to happiness, it’s the other way around. So, what do we need to be happy?

Ancient wisdom equates happiness to love and work. There are so many great books out there that explain this concept in great detail. Today, I aim to pare it down to it’s essence without stripping it of the poetry.

What we do – We spend a big part of our lives thinking and acting in the “what” dimension.

What career should I choose? What subject should I study? What job should I apply for? What should I do in my free time? Where should I volunteer? What should my salary be?

If we then consider how our lives are set up, the traditional job is designed for us to spend 24% of a week at “work.” However, thanks to 60-80 hour weeks being fashionable, we spend close to 50% of our lives at work. Let’s think about this for a moment – we spend up to 50% of our lives in the “what” dimension. We have more money, more comfort, more safety, and arguably more to be happy about in this age than any other. Yet, we seem to have more depression and happiness than ever before. Why is that?

How we do it – The How question is the most nuanced question of them all.

How do I approach my work? How do I plan my days? How do I think about this problem? How I prioritize?

‘How’ is the true middle man. It doesn’t exist without influences of the ‘why’ and the ‘what.’ If you’ve decided to spend most of your day at the office, the ‘how’ helps siphon out what really needs to get done. If you’ve decided to enjoy the weekend, the ‘how’ helps you dig deep enough to understand how you ought to spend your time. The ‘how’ becomes a part of what we can call ‘our style.’ But, for the how to be effective, it needs to lean on the ‘why’.

Why we do it – The most profound question them all. There may be many ‘what’ questions, fewer ‘how’ questions, but there are only a couple of ‘why’ questions.

Why? Why not?

This what-how-why funnel illustrates one of the biggest reasons for our unhappiness. We are trained to solve problems by asking ourselves “what” questions. It makes sense when we get started since solving problems by asking ourselves ‘what’ questions give us a sense of accomplishment. ‘What’ questions are numerous and answering them is relatively simple. Move to ‘how’ and the challenge becomes evident. We’re not taught to explore ‘why’ – how do you teach someone how to ask themselves ‘why’ if you don’t answer to it for yourself?

Therein lies the biggest misconception about teaching and learning. The real role of a learner is not to worry about finding answers to questions. The real role of a learner is simply to learn to pause and ask herself better questions. The real purpose behind learning is to be comfortable with the process of iteration – to keep refining one’s questions until, one day, the question becomes so good that the answer cannot hide behind the bushes. It just shows itself. The real role of a teacher, as a result, is simply to get the learner started, aide her on her journey, help the learner when the learner asks for it, and not get in the way.

You see, if we began by turning the funnel upside down, we would begin by asking ourselves the two most difficult questions. Once we work through them, the rest of the journey would become progressively easier until we get to a solution. Every solution is the “right one” only for a while. The next time you go through the same process, the questions may still be the same but the answers will have changed.. That’s where the learner’s openness to change come into question. It’s tempting to avoid the tough questions but it wreaks more havoc than we can imagine. It’s not adversity that kills us. It’s comfort.

You can run away from your hardest and most important task in a day by hiding behind a long to do list of 40 meaningless items that do not matter. But, you’ll be unhappy. Hacking life only goes thus far. A false sense of accomplishment is just that.. false. We face a challenge every single day in this grand adventure we call life. It may be the longest thing we ever do but we have nothing to compare it with and so, for all practical purposes, it is always shorter than we realize. Every day, we wake up with a simple choice – ask ourselves why or run away from it. In answering that one question, we determine whether or not we get a shot at being happy.

Acquiring the ability to be present and put all our experiences in context. This is where life shows it’s ingenuity. You’d think that learning to repeatedly ask yourself “why,” “how,” and “what” would be enough to be happy. But that’s only one part of the puzzle. The good news, however, is that if you do manage to get that part figured out, this part will follow as well.

That’s because the ability to be present and put experiences in context requires a variety of trials, adversity, and experiences that test your character. If you don’t know what it is to truly be in shit, if you haven’t experienced that stench, you’ll never really be able to put what you are experiencing right now in context. If you haven’t experienced a situation when you had to choose between what’s right and what’s easy, how will you know how to put your current conundrum in context?

Luckily, life gives us a way out – it guarantees us experience. It doesn’t guarantee that we’ll learn something from it though. That’s our job.

That’s why it gets tougher and tougher to stay happy as we grow up. As we learn to think, come face-to-face with our deepest fears, insecurities, needs, it becomes easier to fill our lives with activities by just sticking to the ‘what’ questions. We get consumed by what’s happening on TV, amongst our friends and family, and become upset by matters of no real consequence simply because we’ve masked our insecurities with our ego. We stop living in the real sense of the word. We exist. We react. But we do not live. We do not go onto push ourselves to learn, to relentlessly ask ourselves that dreaded “why” question, to stop thinking about the past or the future, and to just focus on what we can control – the here and now. We face the resistance and give up without a fight.

I don’t think happiness comes from balance or  moderation. I think balance and moderation are necessary every once a while but if everything is in moderation, even moderation should be in moderation after all. I think we need more struggles than we think we can handle, more pain than we think is necessary, and more experiences that challenge our integrity and character. Fear is a force that transforms our comfort into action. It’s only when we embrace life’s pains, both small and large, in it’s entire-ity do we learn that the only way to “be happy” is by repeatedly facing up to the tough questions and by treating every day as a challenge by preparing for it, resting for it, and training for it. Life, in the final analysis, is how we spend our days after all.

When a couple of us were discussing our trysts with crime, a friend shared an experience where he was held at gunpoint after he made a withdrawal worth $10,000 to make a big payment. “10,000 dollars” we gasped “That’s horrible.”

“Horrible? That’s not horrible. It’s only money,” he said. “What would have been horrible would have been to lose a leg or have my family killed.”

Damn right. He’s earned his happiness stripes.

Happiness is hard – the hardest and probably the most worthy challenge we’ll ever face. It’s as worthwhile a goal as any because when you’re happy, you’ll do things that are good for the world and most importantly, you will learn to love and laugh. And what is life without love and laughter?

So, to face up to that challenge, make it a habit to ask yourself three questions every day –

“Why am I/should I be doing this?”
“Is this really as bad as I’m making it seem?”
“Am I being present?”

Here’s to love, laughter and learning… and, lest I forget, may the force be with you…

—

Yes, this is a note to myself.

..is that it depersonalizes the performance. So, if you’ve had a bad week on your exercise or on improving your sales pipeline, it’s still just a number or a bunch of statuses. Your focus then is to improving the numbers and statuses. Simple as that.

The downside of tracking is evident if overdone. When customer service metrics treat people as a number and remove the human connection (we’ve all seen this happen and felt it), we get pissed off. Like every tool, figuring out it’s utility goes a long way – especially in an organization.

My learning on tracking initiatives and quantifying what you do is that it’s excellent when used to build personal habits. It’s worth doing every time you’re trying to embed a new habit in your life. After a while, you will probably not need it but in the early stages, it helps you take failure less personally.

Want to wake up at 5am every day? Start a tracker on google doc, find a friend who you’ll report to on your progress every week, and be patient with yourself. Repeat progress for all habits on your wish list.

We change our habits.. and change our lives.

PS: While you’re at it on the tracking, use conditional formatting so you get a splash of bright green when you hit a target. Celebrate small wins…

You need to Warren Buffet-ize your schedule.

“If I had started this 5 years ago, I’d be incredibly successful by now. Instead, I have to…”

“If only you had started doing this a few months back, the timing would have been much better..”

Just get started.

Yes, the timing might have been much better but you wouldn’t have been ready. And I’d take my readiness over optimal timing any day of the week. The timing is hardly ever optimal. Rarely do we have a day on the road when all the lights we pass are green. If we waited for the optimal moment, we’d never get started.

Timing is the resistance’s way of playing tricks on you. It’s an easy excuse to get out of action. Often, you’re looking at the wrong thing altogether. The timing may be wrong for an opportunity you think you wanted but may be perfectly right for the opportunity you really need. Of course you can’t see it seated on your couch.

When you get started, don’t worry about about the middle or the end because the middle and the end are going to look very different when you get there.

Just get started.

I first reached out to Jonathan Haidt for a Real Leader interview on 28/10/2012. I received no response.

I tried again a week later on 3/11/2012. Again, no response.

I am a big fan of Jonathan Haidt’s book “The Happiness Hypothesis” and did not want to give up on the idea of interviewing him. So, I tried again on 3/3/2012. Again, silence.

When I was sifting through my list for interview follow ups in May, I asked myself if writing to Jon was a good idea. Cue self doubt. He had after all not gotten back to me three times in a row now. Perhaps he was just ignoring me. Knowing I was facing the resistance, I shook away these concerns and wrote him a note again on 18/05/2013.

I heard back from him almost immediately. A few emails later, we’d found a slot for the interview and one week after the interview, I am very very glad I decided to write to Jon. Aside from a wonderful 25 odd minutes interviewing, Jon is amongst the nicest people I’ve met. And I know I was very close to rejecting myself out of this opportunity.

I find myself face-to-face with the resistance very often. Since I don’t know most of the luminaries I’ve interviewed on RealLeaders.tv, it often takes 4-5 emails before I even receive a response. It is so tempting to just reject myself and run away from putting myself out there..again. I don’t even need to go so far – even my friends often choose to stay silent as I try out one idea after another with them over email (Of course, maybe that’s a hint..haha).

By now, I’ve learnt recognize the resistance’s familiar countenance as it attempts to fill me with self doubt and, inspired by the wonderful Steven Pressfield’s words, I realize I must destroy it with action and say “Rest in peace, @$&*#$&*@*^##@.”