Author: alearningaday

Inspiration from the kitchen friend

I was having dinner at the kitchens of a restaurant owned by a close member of family and chatting around with the employees.
There is one person who I’ve known for a while now, lovingly called ‘Abu ka’ (originally Abu Bakkar). We were chatting about his family, life etc.
That’s when I came to know that he worked for one of the Qatari ministers for 20 years (prior to the 10 years he’s spent at the restaurant) and during his time as one of the aides, he traveled to 60 countries!! In full royal style i.e. private jets, seven star hotels etc.
Talk about inspiration presenting itself in unexpected places if we take interest in people and show the willingness to listen..

Back up using Dropbox for personal needs

There’s a lot of material out there on back ups i.e. Backing up your hard drive, taking images etc.
However, I also know there’s many of us who probably use our personal laptop primarily for browsing, checking email et al and maybe use a bit of MS Office or other such applications for personal passions.
If that is the case, you might not always want to have a complex back up system set up. If you have less than 2GB of critical ‘must-not-lose’ stuff, just put it into your Dropbox. (presuming many of us these days have been exposed/are using this amazing utility)
For the uninitiated, Dropbox is a file syncing utility that you can use to share files between various laptops. The point often missed here is Dropbox can be used for backing up your own content as well, as anything you put in it is sync’d online.
So, essentially if you start using your most important files within your Dropbox folder, you can be sure that there is a copy online in case your computer crashes..
It is a precautionary measure but such things help us sleep better at night. Helps me for sure as there is some stuff I don’t want to lose!
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Please drop any questions you might have in the comments and I’ll be happy to help answer them.

The work is not done when ‘send’ is clicked

In this world dominated by email, email has become synonymous to work.
What is often forgotten is that, unless you are a customer service rep, the work is not done when ‘send’ is clicked.
No, the work is done long before. Clicking ‘Submit’ or ‘Send’ doesn’t count. That’s just signalling that it is show time.
It is similar to a presentation or a play or a football match – the real work is not getting on stage and performing. The real work is the preparation that gets you in well enough shape to perform.

On ‘Experiences’ vs ‘Things’

Firstly, I must say that I am enjoying ‘Delivering Happiness‘ – a book about the last 10 years of Zappos.com – and it’s evolution from a tiny Silicon Valley start up to one of ‘best companies to work for’.

Tony Hsieh had a point that resonated very well with me – ‘Don’t spend on things, spend on experiences‘ . He illustrated his love for the same through examples in his personal life. Despite making 40 million of his first venture, he still kept the car he used following his college days and retained his old lifestyle. However..

– Inspired by the sit-com ‘Friends’, he wanted to create a place for his ‘tribe’ i.e. group of friends to hang out. So, he invested in converting his home into a ‘party loft’ where people could get together and spent time. And ‘Club BIO’ as it was called, became a centre for many many great experiences.

– A few years later, despite being low on finances, he decided to go ahead with his plan to trek up Mt Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa. Zappos.com was plagued with difficulties then but he decided to still go as it would be an opportunity for him to clear his mind and ‘experience’ something new. The trip was extremely tough!! But, the experience of being amidst the clouds was unforgettable..

His focus on ‘experiences’ obviously rubbed off on Zappos.com as their first core value became ‘Deliver WOW through service‘. Tony worked very hard on creating an incredible customer experience i.e. a ‘WOW‘ experience. And thanks to that, Zappos.com enjoyed incredible growth and hit its $1 billion sales target 1 year ahead of schedule.. in December 2008!

This is a picture from Old Trafford, Manchester. Inspired by Tony Hsieh, I decided to invest in ‘experiences’ myself and finally went for a Manchester United game after having been a fan for 9 years! While this was not cheap, I am very glad I took his advice – for this was mind blowing. I cannot remember the last time I was THIS excited