I just finished reading Boomerang by Michael Lewis. As I was putting down my reflections, I was reminded of this idea from books on personal finance – every decade or so, there comes a craze where there seems to be easy money to be made. It happened with the dot com bubble, with cheap credit in Iceland, with the real estate bubble in Ireland, and numerous other examples from history. This lure of easy money results in the complete disregard of weakly held principles. Financial institutions throw away norms that have served them well for a hundred years to chase the new craze. Everyone gets caught in the insanity and the few who don’t look like fools.
The only thing that is a constant is that lows that inevitably follow are just as high as the highs that preceded it.
So, beware things that come easy. They are sure to go as easy as well.
Now let’s see how we all fare in the next bubble. :-)
Even as a 10-year-old boy, Jeff Bezos (founder and CEO of Amazon.com) had a passion for crunching numbers. During a summer road trip with his grandparents, young Jeff got fed up with his grandmother’s smoking in the car. He recalled an ad campaign about smoking and calculated how many cigarettes per day his grandmother smoked, how many puffs she took per cigarette, the health risk of each puff, and then tapped her on her shoulder and proudly proclaimed “You’ve taken nine years off your life!”
Bezos expected to be applauded for his arithmetic skills. Instead, his grandmother burst into tears. His grandfather pulled the car off to the side of the road and asked him to step out. And then his grandfather taught a lesson that this now-billionaire decided to share with the Princeton graduating class of 2010: “My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, ‘Jeff, one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.’”
We, at Help2Grow.org, are proud to support Pudiyador – a charity that has been changing lives by educating the underprivileged community in Chennai, India, for the past 10 years.
Pudiyador’s leadership team want to take 45 of their kids to India’s first 5 day Ultimate frisbee camp for the underprivileged and they need help. Most of these kids have never been outside their hometown before.
We have a campaign on Bitgiving.com – a crowdfunding website for social initiatives – to help them raise their money. Our target is INR 40,000 and have started out with a target of INR 20,000 (roughly USD 341). So, that means $10 from you could go a long way to help these kids. Please watch the 2 minute video below and the note from Liz and join us by contributing here. And, if a contribution is not possible, we’d appreciate it if you shared the love..
Thank you for your attention and hope you have a great weekend.
PS: Please let me know if you have any trouble making the final payment and please don’t worry about any messages that say your card won’t be accepted. I am reachable on rohan@rohanrajiv.com/rohan@help2grow.org.
Hello there!
I am Liz, Program Manager for Sports at Pudiyador, a Chennai-based non-profit. We would like to take 45 of our kids to Surat for a one-of-a-kind Ultimate Frisbee camp.
Pudiyador believes in changing lives through education. We provide a safe, interactive, fun, and hands-on learning environment for underprivileged kids. For over 10 years, we’ve been running weekend and after-school programs for over 200 children every year across their centers in Chennai.
I am also an ultimate Frisbee enthusiast and I have been teaching the sport at Pudiyador the past year. We’ve seen how ultimate Frisbee changes the way our kids communicate, work with each other and approach life. We truly believe in the impact that play can have on child growth and development.
And we are keen on taking 45 kids to Surat for the National Youth Ultimate Frisbee camp. Most of them have never travelled outside Chennai before and are very excited.
The Surat Camp will be a first in many ways:
– the first sleep-away Ultimate Frisbee camp ever held in India.
– the first initiative to enable bonding and friendships between underprivileged children from different parts of India.
– the first ever camp of such a scale (160 kids from across India and 30 youth coaches).
At this point, we are short of INR 20,000 to make this trip happen. You can help make this happen! Any additional funds will go towards making the Surat experience extra special for our kids.
Thank you so much!
Liz
P.S: We believe that every rupee creates equal impact and hence, all our donations will be treated and rewarded with the same love.
Savings come from a track record give have inherent credibility and trust. These savings work like real money – they are generally hard earned and easily lost or spent.
Once you lose that credibility and trust, you’re done. It’s a lesson we can’t take seriously enough given how easy talking is thanks to blogs and social media. Don’t talk about it unless you can walk the talk. Social media is like cheap credit and is really easy to over use without really showing any proof of savings. We all know how that story ends..
The good news (and yes, there is some)? Saving is a straightforward habit. It doesn’t take extraordinary skill – all it takes is some discipline and a will to keep on your path despite what “everyone else is doing.”
I watched “Rush” a few days ago – the movie that details the rivalry of Niki Lauda and James Hunt. It is a movie that explores the contrast between two top racers – a passionate dare-devil Britisher called James Hunt and a clinical German called Niki Lauda. They raced at a time when F1 was far from safe – a death or two every year was commonplace – and brought incredible skill to a challenging and often punishing sport. Rush is about an epic rivalry that pushed both of them to do better.
The crux of the story is in their differing approach to racing. James Hunt (painted as the more talented racer) approaches racing with passion, love, and possesses the sort of dare-devil instinct that allows him to put his life on the line. His life involves multiple highs and lows with alcohol, women, and substance abuse – he’s the flawed superstar. Lauda, on the other hand, works the percentages. For him, racing is a profession and he’s out there to win. He refuses to race in conditions where he sees more than a 20% chance of death. He also understands every aspect of the car and often helps the technicians with the engineering. It makes for a great contrast and a very interesting story and, as the movie goes on, they develop a grudging respect for each other’s talents.
James Hunt eventually does win the world championship he always dreamed of. However, things go downhill very quickly after that. He loses focus (despite Lauda’s attempts to push him) and he dies aged 44. His story reminds me of that of Manchester United and Northern Ireland legend George Best. Best was the best player of the world at 22 but no amount of talent could save him from himself.
It is a telling reminder that talent is only one part of the equation of excellence and happiness. There’s a lot more to life than that and the boring traits of discipline and consistency rarely get the credit they deserve.
Lauda sums it all up brilliantly after a conversation with Hunt just after Hunt’s world title.
“Of course he didn’t listen to me. For James, one world title was enough. He had proved what he needed to prove. To himself and anyone who doubted him. And two years later, he retired. When I saw him next in London, seven years later, me as a champion again, him as broadcaster, he was barefoot on a bicycle with a flat tire, still living each day like his last. When I heard he died age 45 of a heart attack, I wasn’t surprised. I was just sad. People always think of us as rivals but he was among the very few I liked and even fewer that I respected. He remains the only person I envied.”
There are 2 ways I know of understanding what drives us – our schedule and our track record.
The schedule is a short term measure while the track record is the long term measure. The track record functions as the real test while the schedule forms a check. A bit of soul searching might reveal what we’d like to think we’re driven by but the schedule and track record are the real answers.
If we haven’t done anything around serving the community ever, it is definitely not something we care about all that much. Words don’t get work done and only work done counts. And, if we haven’t spent much time with our family this week, it’s safe to say that’s not what drives us. The schedule reflects our priorities.
This doesn’t mean the answer to the “what drives us” question is set in stone. A detailed look might reveal things we don’t really want to talk about – free time, Facebook, television, etc.
We can begin to change it by fixing our schedule this week and the next. Over time, it’ll show on our track record.
Even the best performers receive 1 star reviews and boos when they try something out that doesn’t work. “She should stick to what she’s good at.” But, it doesn’t stop them. The best performers consistently reinvent themselves because change is essential. If every song follows the style of the first hit, it’ll mark certain death.
While there probably is art and science to making change without alienating those who follow you, this post is about the other useful skill – building immunity. A 1-star review on Amazon, a boo when you are performing, or an insult to your face never stops hurting. But, over time, top artists learn to be immune enough so it hurts a little bit but not too much.
How? By doing what’s painful.
When you start out playing the guitar, there’s no way to avoid the pain caused by cuts in your fingers. Over time, however, those cuts lead to hardened skin which in turn mean less pain. The pain doesn’t ever entirely go away. We just become immune to its intensity. The pain is important because it shows we still feel and creating art requires us to be in touch with those feelings. The immunity, however, reminds us that there are things more important than that pain.
So, if you’re worried about being criticized, go do something (it doesn’t matter what) – the criticism will follow. if you’re worried about failing, go do something (again, it doesn’t matter what) – the failure will follow as well. Action -> initial encouragement -> pain -> failure -> more pain -> immunity -> creating stuff we are proud of.
Today is the 6th year anniversary of this blog. As I type out this 3087th post, I have a couple of thoughts to share for the day –
First, a thank you to Blogger. This blog spent a week short of six years on Blogger. It was a really nice experience as Blogger did offer a simple service for journalistic blogs. When I started blogging, WordPress was still an upcoming service while Blogger was much more established. I had big hopes for Blogger and what Google would do it. Unfortunately, most of that didn’t happen and I’m happy to have shifted to WordPress. The shift was a rather painful process and, while I do bear a few scars (like lost followers), I think it is for the greater good. WordPress do blogging very well. Well done Matt and team. Looking forward to staying here for a few decades.
Second, a thank you to Mom. I thought for a while about a mother’s day post. But I just couldn’t think of a suitable one. There are many great tributes out in the news and in the blogosphere today and I didn’t feel I could add much of value. My mom’s contribution to this blog is of particular significance as she was probably the only consistent reader in the first year. Her comments, emails, and notes kept this fledgling idea going. My mom has shown unwavering support for every one of my initiatives over the past few years and I think it is really thanks to that that I have been able to approach most of the inevitable failures of these ideas with a sense of optimism. In many ways, the “A Learning a Day” philosophy owes its origins to her. And I can only hope I can be half as good as a parent as she’s been.
Finally, a note of thanks to all of you. There have been 2 anniversaries this year – the 3000th post at the start of the year and the 6th year today. There isn’t going to be another one in a while and I hope that doesn’t mean I forget to say thank you to you for your encouraging support. My only request to you for the day would be – if you are wondering if you should comment on a post or reply to the feed email with your reflections/opposing point of view, please do. It is always lovely to hear from you. You make this blog a blog. It is a privilege to be writing for you and it is one I hope I do justice to.
Here’s to another year of initiative, failure, and learning..
Here’s this week’s 200 word idea from To Sell is Human by Dan Pink
While one might imagine Pixar story writers conjuring up amazing stories without constraints, every Pixar story is tested with and uses the following frame –Once upon a time… (there lived a fish called Nemo with his widowed father) Every day… (his widowed father warned him about dangers in the sea) And then one day… (Nemo swam out and got lost) Because of that…(he was captured..) And because of that… (Dad went to search for Nemo) Until one day.. (they found each other and realized..)
This simple framework ensures the stories has the requisite twists and turns to be a successful film. If a story lacks any of these elements, the framework will call it into focus and help the team fix it.
Perhaps we should work on creating simple frames for our pitches, presentations and meetings (e.g. current state, planned future state, plans to bridge the gap).
‘Shakespeare wrote his sonnets within a strict discipline, fourteen lines of iambic pentameter, rhyming in three quatrains and couplet. Were his sonnets dull? Mozart wrote his sonatas within an equally rigid discipline: exposition, development, and recapitulation. Were they dull?’ | David Oligvy
A friend recently shared a story of a friend she’d known well while growing up – she had a near fatal car accident with multiple head injuries. It seemed like a lost cause but she luckily recovered and has been on a very long road of recovery since. Such recovery can go on for years and, while she has resumed a normal life, it’ll still be a very long time before she can get back to being her former self.
The thought that crossed my mind then was the importance of such stories to repeatedly question our assumption of unlimited time. We assume unlimited time when we plan our future – “In 20 years, I’d like to do…,”” in 5 years, I think I’d like to do this,” “When I’m 60..” And, yet, one unfortunate moment can change all these plans forever. I don’t believe it is wrong to plan for the future. It’s the right thing to do. Build like you’ll be here forever but also live like you might not be here tomorrow. It’s hard to remember that, however, and that’s why stories of tough accidents and death are important. They ought to remind us that we are, after all, human; and that this road has a definite end.
And, what that tells me is that there is no good in postponing our plans to make this world a better place. Sure, the scale may not seem ideal and the timing may not feel ideal as well. But, we have to get started now. Opportunities work best when they are manufactured. We have it in us to make a positive difference. Our impact may not be as grandiose as we imagined but it rarely is when we get started.
We owe it to ourselves to get started. We don’t have unlimited time..
A Learning a Day 