Category: Everything else

It is getting cold where we are and, the other day, my wife commented how having hot water when we need it is such a boon. I realized that it isn’t just hot water that is a privilege. All of “hot,” “water,” and “hot water” are. There are billions of people who don’t have regular access to these.

Privilege is a funny beast. You could be speaking its language without even being aware of it, e.g., complaining about flights being late, about internet being slow, or about bad weather on vacation.

Guilt is not the answer of course. Acceptance followed by action is.

If you’re worried about whether you are capable to make a big difference, stop. Frequent tiny differences made consistently over a lifetime will work very well.

The conventional approach to organizing to-do lists is to do so by chronology.

I’d suggest trying a different way. Ask the question – “which item’s completion will remove the most stress?” – and reorganize the list.

My experience so far is that it seems to work much better. We seem to have a natural internal prioritization system that understands what needs to get done. When we ignore it, however, it sends us signals by increasing our internal stress levels. That’s the feeling when we know something needs to get done and also know we aren’t doing it. The build-up of this stress leads often to frustration and paralysis.

I guess it points to an important productivity principle – we are most productive when we are at peace. And, to be at peace, we have to learn to ask ourselves the right questions and listen…

A friend of mine started a blog recently and sent over the link for feedback. This isn’t the first time this has happened. I think there must have been a hundred or more friends who’ve started blogs and sent links over the past few years. The number of friends who’ve kept their blogs going approach zero however.

So, every time I get a note like this, i just like to say – “Awesome. I’ve subscribed!” The principle I follow is straightforward – no feedback, only encouragement.

Sure, they could improve their blog’s layout and formatting. And sure, they could improve the way they’ve written their first or second post. I just know that that isn’t what matters. What matters is that they feel enough encouragement to continue writing. Many start writing for various reasons – to educate, to inform, to improve their own online presence, and maybe even to drive change of some sort. That’s the period of romance. It soon hits you that you’ve been blogging for a year and you only have one dedicated reader (hi mom!).

The only insight I have to offer here is that, when you write, write for just two people – yourself and one reader who you can picture (hi again mom!). If you can do all those things you set out to do, that’s great. But, as long as your writing benefits these two folk, you’re doing just fine. We all set out to change things when we start writing. We often forget that the person we change most is ourselves.

As an outcome, that’s one that the British would term “not too shabby.” (=> the rest of us would say – that’s awesome!)

Have a great week, everyone.

1. Call your mother

2. Spend some time thinking about your long term goals

3. Play (not exercise – play)

4. Get lots of sleep

5. Kick back for a bit with a book or a movie

And, if you feel tempted to say that you don’t have time to do this, then you definitely need it more than you think.

We will get back to changing the world tomorrow. Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

People whose help you need vs. people who would appreciate your help

Things you haven’t achieved vs. successes you’ve been fortunate to have been part of

People who are richer than you vs. people whose financial needs are much greater

What you are upset about vs. what you are thankful for

…..

There are always 2 kinds of lists. The first kind is the “get” list – described best by want, desire, and comparisons. The second is the “give” list – described largely by perspective and gratitude.

The “get” list seems to work great for the short term. The happiness that comes with it, however, isn’t happiness. All you get are fleeting moments of joy. The “give” list, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to do much for you for the longest time. Until it does.

The best part? You get to pick.

Happy picking!

A year and a half ago, Manchester United played Real Madrid in the quarter finals of the prestigious European Champions League. In a surprise decision a few minutes into the second half, one of United’s best players that day was sent off. It felt like injustice and was very unfortunate as United were leading 1-0 and looked set to go through.

However, legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson was visibly livid and frustrated. And, it was about 10 or so minutes before he responded with a substitution. The substitution, however, came a few minutes too late. In that time, Real Madrid had scored twice and the game ended at 2-1. And the supporters were left with a big “what if.” What if Sir Alex Ferguson had not lost his temper? Would United have gone through?

Unfortunate events and setback happen. There’s no getting around them. As the football story indicates, they happen at the biggest of stages. There’s no point succumbing to anger and frustration because they get in the way of a creative, constructive and corrective response.

Our setbacks don’t define us. Our responses do.

We go through high pressure periods and low pressure periods. High pressure periods are those times when we feel our backs are to the wall – a critical deadline, an examination, or a product launch. And, then, we inevitably face the low pressure period when things get easy again. We can afford to breathe easier, slack off a bit, and catch up on the finer things in life.

As we take on bigger and bigger responsibility, however, this approach results in large spikes of activity that are unsustainable. When you are the leader of the massive product launch team, the pressure is high. But, you can’t just throw your life away during the pre-launch period as you also have a family to look after.

So, how do you prevent these spikes in activity? By sweating in peacetime.

It is natural that you exert a lot of pressure on yourself when the going gets tough. But, it doesn’t make much of a difference because everybody does that. It is by exerting pressure on yourself when things are easy that you make things easy for yourself. It not only enables you to ease the pressure on yourself when the going gets tough. It also allows you to get through such times without any long term damage to your health or relationships.

Life is best lived like a good ECG. There will always be fluctuation around the middle. We just want to avoid the big spikes or troughs. And, you know how we do that – by sweating in peacetime. So, eat, sleep, and exercise, while you are in good health. Invest in your relationships when things are good. And, work hard to smooth out the impending spikes in activity at work.

The more we sweat in peacetime, the less we bleed in war.

The average sumo fight lasts around 10 seconds. The preparatory rituals before the fight take much much longer than the fight itself.

A fight is a culmination of intense preparation over the 3 months between the 4 major tournaments and rigorous practice for years before they qualified to fight in the highest division.

But, all that ceases to matter when they step onto the ring. It all comes down to the quality of their effort in those 10 seconds. If a top grade sumo wrestler can keep up his intensity over the course of a tournament day and bring his highest level of performance in the 20 or 30 seconds during which he fights, he’ll emerge a winner. If not, he risks losing his place in the division. And, hence, one of the biggest objectives of the practice regime of a sumo wrestler is to find ways to sustain that intensity. Traditionally, this means living a life of intense discipline while they train.

We often measure our productivity by the duration of our effort. Perhaps we should channel the sumo state of mind and try intensity as a measure of our productivity instead.

Our lizard brain works like Gmail’s priority inbox. It looks at our reactions to stimuli over time and then categorizes some as important and others as junk. For example, it learns quickly that a call from our scary boss ought to send our pulse shooting up and ensure maximum alertness. It does a magnificent job with this. The only hitch is that it depends on signals from our thinking mind. And, our thinking mind is often dominated by the short term emotional half that finds it hard to differentiate between what is urgent and what is important.

So, the first time we cancel our basketball game for a meeting, it automatically gives meetings higher weight to meetings over health. I’m sure you recognize these signals – coffee over sleep, a drink to kill frustration instead of a work out, food that kills us (a.k.a comfort food) over healthy food and good conversation, etc.

Juggling health is a bit like juggling a glass ball as we walk up a hill. And, we walk up the hill every day as we get older. When we’re kids, dropping the glass ball means we just need to bend down, pick it up, fix it and start climbing up again to regain lost ground. It is both easier to fix it with a bit of super glue and easy to make up lost ground as we aren’t too high up the hill. It also helps that we’re pretty fit.

As we grow older, however, dropping the glass ball means higher damage as it rolls further down than it used to. This acts as a multiplier as it gets correspondingly harder to make up lost ground because we also get out of breath quicker.

So, watch that glass ball. And, watch those signals… for as we live as our days, so we decide our lives.

Some panels and articles on entrepreneurship make it sound like the only difference between you and your potential million dollar start-up is courage. Panels that encourage you to find a career based on your “passion” tend to do the same.

No, it is not always a courage problem. Sure, it can be at times. But, it is definitely not the case most of the time.

There are many factors that contribute to the early success of a company – the founder’s product skills, product-market fit, and the founder’s ability to market the product and make the sale. Courage just helps the founder get started. The career conundrum is more nuanced. But, the fact remains that it has to be grounded in practicality. You might have a passion for photographing Kangaroos but that doesn’t immediately make it viable. And, a passion for photographing Kangaroos doesn’t guarantee skill. Additionally, being a photographer is very different from running a photography company just like teaching is different from running a school. They require different skill sets and it is not always easy to divine your potential skill in something you haven’t tried.

So, if you don’t feel ready, that’s okay. If you are keen on changing things in your life, I have seen three principles that seem to contribute to successful change –

1. If you are looking to change location, function, and industry, look to change 1 or 2 things at a time. I know of folks who’ve managed to change all three but I wouldn’t bank on it. The best way to do so is to change 1 or 2 things at a time. For example, a friend of mine who works in a Finance role in a certain industry found it easiest to first move into Marketing within the same industry. The next step will be to switch into the industry of his choice and perhaps location will follow. The other way to look for a complete switch is to go to school in the location of your choice. That way, you’re left with needing to switch function and industry.

2. Work on your million dollar idea in the spare time. Most great companies start out as hobbyist projects. Crucially, this enables you to test if you are onto something before jumping ship. Test your future lifestyle before committing to it. As Cal Newport puts it, just because you’ve committed to living a certain lifestyle doesn’t mean others are committed to supporting you for it.

3. It is okay to not have found your passion. No big deal. Just get good. Good things follow.