Category: Everything else

Tiger – Spy in the Jungle

Thanks to some wonderfully innovative camera techniques involving elephants carrying cameras on their trucks and placing “log cams” at various parts of the forest, the BBC Wildlife Specials crew led by the one-and-only David Attenborough have a fantastic three part series called “Tiger – Spy in the Jungle.”

As elephants are treated as harmless inhabitants of the forest, they can come and go as they please. And, they do so with aplomb. Over a 3 year period, David Attenborough tells us the story of a mother raising 4 tiger cubs. Innovative filming techniques were required because tigers are solitary animals whose behavior is very different when humans are not around. It is also not easy to film in the dense Indian jungles.

I found it fascinating to watch the tiger cubs’ learning process. It begins with play among the siblings. Then, it is following their mother when she goes hunting. Their mother hones their skills over time through some skillful coaching intended to develop specific skills – the ability to carry the carcass, to complete a kill, to get as close to the prey as possible. It reminded me a lot of the process of deliberate practice. It was also delightful to see the cubs take every opportunity to play.

David Attenborough and BBC’s work to capture nature’s great sights and sounds is such a treat. I find that it elevates my understanding and appreciation for nature. Every one of these animal focused documentaries remind me how beautiful these animals are and how important it is for us to do our bit to maintain the delicate balance in nature.

This and more available on Netflix. They come highly recommended.

Tiger, Spy in the jungle

2 questions for most team dysfunctions

If you’ve worked in teams long enough, you realize pretty quickly that most dysfunctions come down to the answer to just two questions –

How much do you care about the cause and about each other?
How much do you trust each other to do the right thing?

They tend to be related. The more you are sure your teammates care, the more you are likely to trust and vice versa.

You know the best part? Neither is an innate ability we are born with. Both involve us making a choice.

Jobless Einstein

Albert Einstein was unemployed for two years following his Diploma. He was rejected from every research post he applied in Europe. He came to believe that a part of it had to do with the fact that his impudence had annoyed his thesis adviser. The rejections were tough for him to stomach because he (contrary to how he’s occasionally been portrayed in popular culture) was an excellent student.

Einstein’s letters from the time speak to his frustration, frequent disappointment and, at the same time, many bouts of optimism and self belief all at once. At his lowest point, he was so disheartened that he considered giving up his pursuit of a career in Physics for a career in Engineering at his father’s firm or even selling insurance.

Just when all hope seemed lost, his Marcel Grossman’s attempts to secure him a position as a patent examiner came through.

His Nobel prize winning papers were submitted while he was still an examiner.

This is Albert Einstein – probably the single greatest scientific mind that has ever existed – having difficulties finding a research job. Maybe we should remember that when our “plan A” doesn’t work out.

And, maybe, just maybe, when faced with plan B, we’ll remember what he did and knock the socks off our plan B.

jobless einstein

Yes, but, how much?

People throw around “I care about…” a lot. The pertinent question when you hear that the next time is not “Oh really, how nice!” but to say – “Yes, but how much?”

A few examples…
…do you care enough about your health to not just sign up for the best gym in town but to actually exercise 4 times a week?
…do you care enough about your family to walk out of the office in the evening and spend time with them?
…do you care enough about your mental energy and capacity to make decisions to get enough sleep?
…do you care enough about learning to actually read or to spend time with people who push you?
…do you care enough about your friends to interrupt your schedule to be there for them when they need you?

Sure, asking “but how much” might make you look impolite. So, ask different questions, politely if you will. But, ask.

The more you can call bullshit out by ignoring what people say and watching what people do, the less time you will spend fabricating stories that make you look good.. for the time being.

And, to be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong in not caring about yourself, your health, learning or your family and friends. If that’s how we behave, let’s at least call a spade a spade.

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The two best pieces of health advice I have gotten

  1. Listen to your body
  2. When you fall sick, it is the universe’s way of saying – “Dude, take a break.”

I seem to think of these two pieces of advice nearly every time I don’t feel 100%. Years of paying attention to our bodies teach us a lot and I felt something was just not right this morning and it was better to get to it rather than push through and try to behave like nothing happened.

The agenda for today is Tylenol, rest and lots of TV, a.k.a, “dude, take a break” day. I am looking forward.

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Waiting for passion

There are a lot of people on the planet waiting for passion. That is a bit like a person walking around waiting for bird poop to land on their head. Someone they met told them that bird poop is a lucky charm that will change their life and that they knew of a couple of other folks whose lives transformed when they had bird poop land on their heads.
So, this person roams around feeling certain that it’ll show up. And, when it does, they believe they will be on the path to success.

passion, waiting, choose

Jack Welch’s famous people evaluation systems at General Electric had a large weight for passion. But, passion for what? It turns out that it didn’t really matter. As he said, passionate people are passionate about everything. It didn’t matter if it is their kid’s softball team, their musical instrument or their not-for-profit, people who choose to be passionate will be just that, passionate.

Cal Newport wrote a whole (very good) book debunking the idea that finding your passion is bad advice. His thesis was that you work your way into getting good at something and that’ll lead you to passion. Starting with an attempt to find passion will take you nowhere. Instead, get good, become awesome, and you will likely find passion. It is an approach that is almost guaranteed to work.

My only addition to that would be – “Choose to become passionate.” Passion isn’t something you need to wait for. At some point, you just need to choose to give a sh*t, to care about what you do and who you spend time with. You can start anywhere you want – it doesn’t matter. You just need to care enough to sweat the small stuff.

The moment you do that, you will find that once you are passionate about something, you will care and be passionate about everything.

And, yes, you will be transformed.

What you are doing vs. who you are being

Of late, I’ve been pondering the difference between two ideas – what you are doing and who you are being. On the one hand, they seem closely related. One might imagine that what you do generally flows from who you are. But, that assumes you walk what you talk and vice versa.

Whenever there is a gap between what you are doing and who you are being, you come across as inauthentic. We’ve all experienced this with people we’ve met – that feeling of dissonance, that sense that something isn’t right.

And, on the flip-side, we’ve likely been on the receiving end of someone’s mistake. But, given we know how much they care (or who they are), we’ve been happy to forgive them.

In an age where there’s media everywhere around us that lionizes people who succeed, it has become more important than ever before to understand if what we do is aligned with who we want to be. We might do many of the “right” things, but if they aren’t consistent to who we are being, then it isn’t going to work.

After all, people don’t remember what we said or did. They remember how we made them feel.

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Living in day-tight compartments

In a rather dark phase during my university days, I remember reading Dale Carnegie’s book – “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.” It was one of those classic self help books written in the post depression era.

I don’t remember much from the book beyond one idea that stuck was – live life in day-tight compartments. The idea here is that it helps to localize the effects of a bad day. If yesterday was a bad day, it is tempting to let it spill over into today. Instead, Carnegie recommended we practice taking life 24 hours at a time.

I was thinking about it over the last few weeks as I was watching episodes of The West Wing (which, by the way, has to be the greatest TV series ever made if you geek out about teams and leadership). The show, for the most part, takes us through momentous days in the lives of the team of White House staffers. And, every once a while, when they’ve had a good day, the President calls it out by saying something to the tune of – “You’ve had a good day. Go get rest and I’ll see you tomorrow.” And, typically, after a series of bad days, it is something to the tune of – “Break’s over.”

Here’s what we know – fluctuations are a part of life. A run of good days or, for that matter, a run of bad days will never last. If it is a good day, call it out, get rest and get started early the next day. If it is a bad day, call it out, get to bed quicker and get started early the next day.

The more we can keep perspective, the better. And, a nice way to do that is to live in day tight compartments.

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Disentangling situation from mood

One of the implicit assumptions most humans make in conversations is that mood has to be directly linked to current situation. Most conversations that involve a non-rhetorical “how are you?” go something like this – “All is well, so I am well” or “That bad thing happens, so I am not feeling great.”

This thought process is both flawed and weak. Yes, our environment has an effect on us. But, WE get to choose the response. The first step to discovering this super power is to disentangle what is going on with how we feel. These don’t need to be in sync. You could be walking through hell and high water professionally and could still be in a great mood. That is the difference between feelings and states. The state of happiness acknowledges that there will be minor ups and downs while keeping the perspective that things, overall, are just fine.

There is space between the situation and our response and it is entirely up to us to use it. As humans, we tend to crave a certain stability. When we learn to disentangle situation from mood, we realize very quickly that we don’t have to look outside to find that stability. It is within us.

And, what’s more, it has always been there…

mood

Re-frame to let go

I found myself irritated by an exchange recently where I felt I was being unfairly judged for the second consecutive time without good reason.

After letting it sink in for a few minutes, I moved onto other things. However, the irritation was still at the back of my mind. I don’t like the feeling of irritation and I have come to think of anger as a weak reaction. So, feeling that irritation made me wonder about how to let go completely.

After sleeping on the thought, I realized that the issue was the way I had framed the situation. In thinking about the situation, I had implicitly assigned blame on the other person. In my language – “They had judged me.” And, to add to it, the solution, in my own language, was – “I wish they were upfront about what they expected.”

I switched the frame to think about what I could have done and what I had learnt from it. And, voilà, it all became clear. I should have done a much better job setting expectations upfront. I didn’t this time. But, I’ve learnt my lesson and it is time to move on. Letting go was so much easier once I’d accepted responsibility.

It is very hard to let go of things you don’t feel you influence. You can, thus, take control by re-framing the situation and focusing was in your control. Once you do that, you acknowledge the mis-step, accept responsibility, learn and move on.

Re-frame. Then, let go.

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