Author: alearningaday

5 years

I started blogging 5 years ago on May 12, 2008. My first post was had longer post scripts than content.

A learning a day..

The name says it all – Its just what the blog is intended to be. To help me re live some of those meaningful learnings. Hopefully, I will be able to keep up writing one a day.

(PS: I tend to have weirdly long days sometimes resulting in the next day being understandable short(36 hrs and then sleep through the next for example). So, the definition of day can be a bit..well.. shaky..

(PPS: That’s just me making excuses! Hoping to make it happen..)

I love how I make an excuse to start with (the joys of being 19, eh?). If integrity is the ability to make and keep commitment, I had pretty low integrity in those days as I didn’t have the willpower to follow up on my commitments – I did marginally better on commitments to others thanks in part to an inflated ego.

Five years and 2766 posts later, I can say with confidence that this blogging thing has changed my life. In committing the “A Learning a Day” ideal, I committed to learning more, learning better, treating failure as learning, and showing up every day. I’ve tried hard to live up to all of that.

And I’ve been fortunate to have a small readership that’s been steady, encouraging, and supporting all at once. There was a time I knew the numbers at the back of my hand but then I realized that this readership thing can really get into your head. A year or so ago, I used to check Google Analytics and Feedburner stats every couple of days to see what my page view count was. Now I do so every few months. I realized somewhere along the way that I don’t this to be the most popular blog in the world. it was a great opportunity to revisit the “why” behind this.

I blog primarily because it makes me better. This journey of learning inspires me and I share it in the hope that it will inspire others too. And I am blessed to have a small blog community of folks who subscribe to this blog via their feed readers, emails, and the like and thus take part in this journey. I treasure hearing from all of you – thank you for sharing your stories every once in a while via email and the comments on this blog.

I really am honoured for the time and attention you give my writing. I hope to continue to be worthy of it.

Best wishes and wish you a nice week ahead,
Rohan

Increasing Mindfulness

I blogged about attention a year ago. This paragraph from Eric Weiner’s great book sums it up well..

“Attention’ is an underrated word. It doesn’t get the… well, the attention it deserves. We pay homage to love, and happiness, and, God knows, productivity, but rarely do we have anything good to say about attention. We’re too busy, I suspect. Yet our lives are empty and meaningless without attention.

My two-year-old daughter fusses at my feet as I type these words. What does she want? My love? Yes, in a way, but what she really wants is my attention. Pure, undiluted attention. Children are expert at recognizing counterfeit attention. Perhaps love and attention are really the same thing. One can’t exist without the other.”

I’ve always struggled with attention. I tend to be attention deficit by nature and smartphones, social media, and notifications haven’t exactly made it easy (excuses.. yes, I know).

13 months down the line, I don’t think I’m too much better at this. I still struggle with attention.. but I’m hoping to improve by focusing on mindfulness first. Mindfulness is just the ability to “be” in the moment. The essence of zen, as described by a teacher, is the ability to focus on one thing at a time. That requires radical self awareness and mindfulness or conscious action is the first step.

Over the past few months, I’ve been slowly changing habits that increase distraction and thus reduce mindfulness. For example..

– On my phone. All sorts of push notifications are switched off. I switched off email notifications more than a year ago and it’s now moved to applications like whatsapp. This helps a lot.. because I now only get messages when I want to see them or when I want to engage.

– On my computer. I switched off Outlook’s new email alert more than a year ago. That helps a lot. Additionally, I’ve switched off from all sorts of messengers and communicators except when I really need to use them.

– On social media. 5 weeks ago, I decided to experiment with never checking my Facebook news feed. The experiment has worked well and I only get on Facebook to share blog posts, quotes, and the like. It’s one way and I’m loving that.

– On email. I’d tested a project to only check my personal email and social media in 3 hour intervals. That’s been fantastic and has been working for a few months now.

– On meditation. Thanks Headspace – nothing like a daily morning reminder to be more mindful.

I’ve paid lip service to mindfulness and attention for too long. I’m hopeful I will report some improvement in a year from now.

Happy mindful weekend!

Reflections from Dick Costolo’s commencement address

I watched Richard/Dick Costolo’s commencement address at the University of Michigan earlier this week. Dick C is the CEO of Twitter and previously was a co-founder at Feedburner. I’ve been interested in hearing from him ever since I learnt that he’s an ex-Improv artist and stand up comedian (I love such diversity!).

Here are my reflections from the talk –

– Learnings from Improv. Inspired by Dan Pink’s points in “To Sell is Human,” I recently bought a book on Improv. Improv principles like listen for offers, see humor in every situation, make the other person look good, be open, and make a plan but adjust rapidly resonate with me and Dick Costolo’s learnings from improv struck a chord.

– “Life is unscripted.” We have to be relentless about making scripts and understand the direction while being relentless about adapting. Make plans but be open for change is a worthy principle.

– “Our stage can be absolutely anything.” His Director once pointed out that they weren’t thinking big enough. The stage they were on could be absolutely anything – a space shuttle or an Amazonian forest if they wanted it to be.
It’s something we need to keep reminding ourselves. We are the heroes of our own stories and we own the script.

– Twitter went down when Russian President Medvedev entered the office to send a tweet. I’ve often wondered why the biggest IT issues on my computer/internet/Skype happen just when I’m about to record a Real Leader interview. Dick C’s experience with Twitter going down as the Russian President entered made me smile. As a quote I read today goes – “Expect problems. Eat them for breakfast.”

I enjoyed the talk. It’s not often you have a CEO of a top companies channelling inspiration from improv and stand-up. Good on you, Dick C.