Category: Everything else

Success, failure, laziness, learning

I’m sure you’ve heard about or asked that famous question – do we learn more from success or failure?

Let’s put that question on hold for a moment for a quick question – I had submitted two assignments recently. I scored well on one and didn’t score well on the other. Guess which one I wanted to review?

This isn’t uncommon – the issue with debriefing after success is that there is almost no patience to make them meaningful. A debrief after a failure feels like a necessary post-mortem. A debrief after success feels like attempts to delay the party. Success, in short, makes us lazy and complacent. It makes us want to celebrate and then come back and get the next success (sometimes without putting in the work). Reflections after success can be as rich as those from failure. Just because failure makes learning seem more important doesn’t mean that it is. Perhaps that is why discipline is often cited as a key success ingredient – it takes discipline to overcome the resistance and get on with the reflection and learning.

And, of course, we can avoid the whole discussion by learning to ignore the result and focus hard on the process. Good decisions and a good process => good results in the long run. Reflecting on the process is an easier habit to instill and your process can almost always get a bit better. That’s when it stops being about winning and losing. A process focus is all about the playing.

Welcome to the infinite game.

Not choosing is choosing – a few thoughts about choices

1. The early men believed that everything in this life was in controlled by unknown powers. They didn’t have any reason to believe choice existed. The thinking around this changed over time and it was the free-thinkers in the ancient Greek society who asked interesting questions about the choices we have.

2. But, even the enlightened Greeks didn’t get close to thinking about the implications of choice. Over time, owing largely to expert gamblers, the theory of probability came to being. Probability represented an interesting intellectual and theological question as prediction was generally interpreted as a godly act. Could we actually have a say in our own future?

3. Probability soon lead to risk analysis. A group of insurers at the Lloyd’s coffee house in the city of London began using their understanding of risk and probability  and became the world’s first insurance group.

4. Thanks to these pioneers, we all intuitively understand the concept of choice and probability. We also understand the link between choice and consequences.

5. We don’t control everything that happens in this life. Far from it. We probably only have choices regarding about 10% of what happens. But, what we choose undeniably affects our experience of the rest. For example, exercising the choice to be happy not only changes the way we view a day. It could help us see opportunity at a time when others around us only see unhappiness and disappointment.

6. While it seems like a simple intuitive concept in theory, it has a few interesting nuances. For example, the number of choices we see is proportional to our mental maturity. The wiser we are, the more responses we see to a given situation. E.g.,  a child may react to a disappointment with tears but a wise adult always knows better. Hence, a person’s response to tough situations is a great measure of their wisdom / mental maturity. Wisdom brings with it an openness to new ideas and a willingness to adapt; these traits are critical in seeing more options in a situation.

7. Even if we have the maturity to see different choices in a situation, it is very hard to follow through. That’s because execution requires strength of character. Strength of character is what made Viktor Frankl special.

8. We are always making choices. Saying no is a choice. And, not choosing is another form of choosing. Economists call this opportunity cost – a brilliant concept.

9. So, when we choose not to think about the difficult questions that we know we must think about to be happy (what are my values? how can I live a life consistent with my values?), we are, in fact, choosing a less fulfilling path.

10. The most essential choices are those that are important but not urgent. For example, it is critical we choose to be healthy while we are healthy. If we’ve allowed the situation to get to “urgent,” we’ve just left ourselves a mountain to climb.

11. Leaving ourselves mountains to climb from time to time is a sure sign of poor choices. The best work isn’t done at the last minute. The best studying isn’t done the night before the exam.

12. It is easy to keep “learning by doing.” There are times when learning by doing is called for. But, most of the time, it is inefficient. It is a sign that we’re suckers of the activity illusion. Doing is not learning. Learning happens when we pause, reflect and think. This takes intention, time, and effort. Not choosing to do so means we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.

13. So, figure out how to deal with what is urgent quickly. Start spending more time on what’s important.

14. Abolish the phrase – “I have no choice.” You do. You just don’t choose to see them often enough.

Things that will never “end” vs. things that will

Things that will never “end”
– Cleaning vessels
– Failure
– Ironing your clothes
– The pain of growth
– Doing your dishes
– Organizing yourself and your work
– Hard work to get what you want
– The need for tough questions
– The effort needed to be happy

Things that you will not experience again
– This special moment in this place at this time – you grow up, your friends and family grow up, some leave, some stay, you leave, you stay, feelings change, relationships change, and time definitely moves on.

For things that never end – there is no point wasting even a single breath wishing they’d go away. There’s only more pain there. Embrace them. Love them. They’re integral parts of life.

For things that you will not experience again like these special moments – smile a lot, hug a lot, tell people how much they mean to you, have fun, learn and make them count. All we’ve got in this life is a collection of memories. And, like all great things, they are what we make of them.

Have a great weekend.

Deep Nishar’s 2 hour story

A friend at Linkedin shared a story yesterday that Deep Nishar, soon-to-be former SVP of Products and User Experience, shared at his farewell.

Deep came from humble beginnings in India. When Deep was in secondary school, he learnt that a graduate from the school had been admitted at the Indian Institute of Technology. He understood it was rare and prestigious but didn’t know much beyond that. So, he asked this student if he could spend time telling him more about this. The student obliged and spent 2 hours with Deep explaining what the institutes were and how he might prepare to make it in. Deep took his advice seriously and secured admission when he graduated.

He went on to explain that that changed his life. It put him on a trajectory that saw him go to the University of Illinois Urbana Champagne, to Harvard Business School, lead Google’s efforts in the Asia Pacific and then play a key role in Linkedin’s growth over the past few years. All it took was 2 hours from a person who probably knew he would get nothing in return.

Deep’s advice to the Linkedin community was – if someone asks for a small amount of your time that could end up making a big difference to them, just do it. Don’t over think it. It might not mean much to you but it could mean a lot to the other person. And, who knows, it might even change the trajectory of their lives.

I loved this story. While we do occasionally get the opportunity to do big things, we get lots of opportunities to do the little things. We always have the choice to do the little things meaningfully.

It is stories like this that remind us how special this life is and how lucky we are to be here. Here’s to the little things… and here’s to giving small bits of our time to those who might benefit from it…

Disorganized and Organized

The first time my wife (then-girlfriend) walked into my room in university, there wasn’t place for her to sit. I had a huge pile of laundered and unfolded clothes on the bed. When it was time to go to bed, I would move the pile onto my desk and go to sleep. I don’t really remember if she said much but the look on her face said it all.

A lot has changed since then. My rooms have become much neater (not neat enough is what she would say though :-)). But, the biggest change has been in the way I manage my work. I have become close to brutally organized over time and I believe that has greatly helped me get more done in a day. Choosing organization over disorganization has been a deliberate, learned, and logical choice.

Here’s why – day-to-day living is tough. It will take every ounce of energy and stamina you give it and still ask for more. And, if you make it a habit to constantly associate yourself with circles where people are better than you, you will soon notice that intelligence or aptitude are hardly ever going to make a difference. There are some folks who can get away based on pure smarts. But, they are few and far between. A larger percentage thinks they can but find it hard to pull it off. No, the successful folk I’ve met are those who marry smarts and aptitude for what they do with thoughtful strategy and tactics to approach life, relentless focus, high self-discipline and a seemingly never-ending reservoir of grit and persistence for things that matter.

And, all of this would be null and void if you didn’t have your proverbial “sh*t” together.

Someday, I hope I’ll be as organized in my personal life as I am in my professional life. I keep misplacing things all the time because I don’t keep things in their designated places – that results in much more wasted time and unnecessary stress than I’d like. But, I’m beginning to get the idea and I’m beginning to understand the sort of systems that will help. It’s a start. Being organized is a way of life, a way of living well.

And, if something is worth doing, I guess it is worth doing well…

Running a distributed team – Building Help2Grow.org

Our team at Help2Grow.org consists of 14 individuals currently spread across 7 locations in 4 countries across 3 continents. While that makes for a cool story, it can quite easily be an organizational nightmare. Here are a few challenges –

1. Finding a time for our calls. We have been meeting once every 2 weeks almost without exception. But, with the recent addition of a team member in Europe, finding a time that works all the way from the Bay Area to Singapore is tough. So, we’ve decided to alternate between 2 slots every month. This way, the folks at one end have to give up their Saturday night once a month while the folks at the other end have to give up their Friday night once a while. And, a couple of folks will have to live with waking up at 5am and 630am respectively.

2. Sustaining momentum. Given the awkward timings and the sheer distances between us, it is easy for one person or the other to lose momentum. We’re all working on this on our weekends and the limited extra time we have during our weeks and one call missed can mean going a long time without contact with the team. Momentum is not easy to sustain.

3. Large amounts of communication via email. You know what they say about asynchronous communication. Yes, we know it is not the same. And, yes, we know face-to-face / video communication will be better. Luckily, many of the relationships are strong existing relationships. That helps. Then again, it doesn’t mean it is easy given the constraints.

On the flip side, these constraints make things interesting. We face the resistance all the time at Help2Grow. Wouldn’t it be easier to not do this at all? Absolutely. Would it be better? Absolutely not. We’re doing this for reasons beyond ourselves and we’re learning a LOT during the process. Besides, these are all amazing first world problems to have and serve as a wonderful reminder of the need to give back. So, how do we keep the momentum going?

Our best recent solution has been to think of it with an analogy – imagine the whole team is on a large boat, can we get 6 people rowing together for a consistent number of hours every week? While we do occasionally see spurts of activity from our team, we realize that there’s immense value in consistent application of effort. So, that’s what we’re working on these days – getting 6 people rowing together consistently. This means we’ve set up systems like vacation and activity trackers so we know in advance when people are going under water and we’ve created an overall management information system (more on this another time) which we use to guide our conversations every call. We might lose people on a call but we want to make sure our systems cover for them. And, one new metric added to the system is.. you guessed it.. whether we had 6 people rowing together this past 2 weeks.

That’s how we “row”l. :-)

This blog post has also been posted on the Help2Grow.org blog.

A commitment to front loading

Just for this week, let’s make a commitment to front-load our work. If it is due on Friday, let’s get it done by Wednesday.

If you only click into gear only when your backside is on fire, here’s to creating a schedule where your backside always seems to be on fire.

You and I both know we aren’t going to get out of it. Why, we have already taken the wiser path and embraced it. It’s just going to be less stressful.. and better.

And, sure, our attempts may result in failure today. That’s okay. We have a week to get into the zone. We will just try again tomorrow.

With a bit of reflection and tweaking, we do get better every day.

Finding your purpose – The Clayton Christensen Process v2.0

Clayton Christensen’s excellent book – How will you measure your life? – ends with an intriguing chapter on finding your purpose (summary here). Here, Clay recommends the following 3 step process –

1) Find your likeness. Ask yourself – what would you like to be like? How would you define your ideal you? Define your likeness when you are 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, etc i.e. define how you would look, what your family be like, how you would be known, and what you would be doing. (Clay, a very religious man, asked himself – what does god want me to be?)
2) Make commitments. Come back from time to time and revisit your likeness. Does it feel right? Is it you?
3) Define metrics. How do you measure ‘success’ in your definition? In his case, since his purpose was kindness, he always measured it by the number of people he helped. He points out that these metrics are rarely “make more money” or “get a promotion.” Define success and ensure your metrics are aligned.

I was intrigued by this chapter as it definitely felt like the most meaningful part of the book. However, unlike the rest of the book, this part seemed a bit cryptic. Now, I’m not sure if Clay intended it to be so but it resulted in a 1.5 year journey in attempting to really understand and apply this. I’d like to share my learnings from this journey with you.

Purpose process v1.0. I tried following Clay’s exact process and made a first draft of a list of commitments and metrics. After 6 months of testing, I realized there was something amiss. The hardest part about questions that have an existential component (e.g. what is your purpose?) is that you know when something is amiss but you don’t know exactly what is amiss. Cue: Time for more thinking.

I gave myself a break to think about it and got back to “designer” mode. It was time for Purpose process v2.0 that combined Clay’s approach and my learnings from attempting to apply his approach.

Purpose process v2.0 – my 7 step process for giving finding and measuring your purpose a shot. 

Step 1: Visit your own funeral. First, we borrow Stephen Covey’s idea to begin with the end in mind. Close your eyes and imagine you are at your own funeral. Who do you see around you? What are they saying about you? What else do you hear?

Step 2: Draw out your likeness. Pick a few arbitrary points – e.g. 30 years, 50 years, 70 years, 90 years and describe your likeness. Who would you want to be at these ages? Describe your future self – how you look, what your personal life looks like, what you do, etc. Don’t restrict this process. For example, I had a funny moment when I realized I kept describing myself as “fit with muscly arms.” Fit alone clearly didn’t do it for me. The thought of muscly arms somehow always brings out a smile. These details matter.

Step 3: Pick a simple framework to think about your life. This is an important step as we go down the path of aggregating the data we’ve collected so far. Pick a framework that captures life as you know it. I have 2 examples –
a) You could break life down in terms of various states – physical, mental, emotional, spirtual
b) I chose to think of it as 4 layers (or 4 concentric circles) – Myself, the people I love, the work I do and the impact I have on the world. This is ordered in terms of priority in my case.

It doesn’t matter which frame you pick. Picking one is important thought.

Step 4: Describe what success would look like for each segment of the frame. Start describing what success looks like for each segment of the frame. Use all the data you built up as you described your likeness. Here is how mine got filled out..

A happy self..  
– Top physical shape – muscly arms :) and regular sports
– Top mental shape – high learn rate
– Top spiritual shape – Meditating

A loving framily..
– Quality time spent with wife and kids
– In meaningful contact with those afar – either engaged in projects together or in touch regularly

A value adding career..
– Doing work that does good and works toward longer term goals
– Consciously maintaining a board of directors
– Built wealth by adding value and living well within our means

And time spent making a positive difference..
– Spending time giving back to those less privileged
– Actively sharing my life lessons and learnings

Step 5: Make specific metrics. The next step involves creating metrics that you can track every week/month to see how you are doing. Here is what my “happy self” and “positive difference” section looked like.

Happy self

 

 

Positive difference

As you can see, I have a mix of weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly commitments. I didn’t do that in v1.0 and found this distinction to be useful.

Step 6: Track and revise. Set up a recurring invite on your calendar as a part of your week review process. I would suggest checking it every week as it keeps the continuity.

Step 7: Make a “why” statement. This purpose exercise is a beautiful way to put together an overarching “strategy” for your life. It fundamentally defines how you approach your life. It helps keeping the big “why” in mind. I have to credit writing applications to business schools for help with crafting my “why” statement. In my case, it is “To build active relationships with close family and friends, to learn, and to make a positive difference in the world.” Having a why statement helps a lot. There’s no easy way to get to it (i’m sorry!). My first shot was a why statement that didn’t work for too long. This has been a result of continuous improvement and involved seeking advice from folks who knew me well.

A few final notes if you decide to give this process a shot –
– There is no easy way to get through this process. You’ll have to set aside 3-4 thinking hours on a couple of days and wrestle with yourself as you go through this. But, it is one of those processes that changes the way you think about life. If done once, it helps draw attention to what matters and what doesn’t. I hope you’ll consider it. The clarity you gain at the end of the process makes the juice well worth the squeeze.
– It never ceases to amaze me that Clay Christensen did this as a 21 year old. I love his thought process and am thankful to him for sharing this in his book.
– Finally, please do not hesitate to let me know if I can be of help in any way. As you can tell, I’ve stumbled a lot over the past 18 months in my attempts to make this work. v2.0 is definitely working much better than v1.0 but I expect more changes and more follow on posts over the coming weeks, months and years. Until then, I am always reachable on rohan@rohanrajiv.com would love to help

I know this post was long. Sorry! I hope it was worth it.

Introducing PacMe

Every once in a while, we’re fortunate enough to have a person in our lives who challenges many of the assumptions we operate with. These people help us learn and grow by helping us think critically about why we make the choices we make. I rarely mention names on this blog. But, today, I’d like to introduce you all to Ken. Ken not only regularly challenges all these assumptions but also manages to do it in a way that seems non-judgmental. I guess he manages to focus entirely on the idea and makes it a discussion around the concept rather than the person – I’d love to get better at doing that. Many of the ideas on this blog owe their origins to discussions I’ve had with Ken – especially the push over the past few months on process. The “Don’t confuse good results with bad decisions and bad results with good decisions” is a Ken-ism. Thanks Ken, for all you do!

Today, I’d like to share with you all Ken’s new venture – PacMe.

PacMe was created to make the sure you don’t lose out on the amazing benefits of shopping in the US (read: incredible deals and prices via services like Amazon.com) available to people around the world. PacMe does this by giving every member a US address on PacMe.com which is a mailbox at PacMe’s Oregon warehouse. You can order as much as you like to this US address. Once you reach a certain critical mass, PacMe will repack your items, not just your boxes, and ship it overseas to minimize “dimensional weight” surcharges. It also helps that PacMe’s shipping rates are incredibly good – so you get what you want without losing a ton of money So, you’d be interested in PacMe if –
1. If you’re living outside the US – If you have lived in the US for a short while, you need no sales pitch. If you haven’t, then give services like Amazon.com a spin for items you want (XBox’s, baby clothes and diapers, etc., and be amazed!)
2.  If you’re living in the US – If you’ve got friends, relatives or siblings living abroad, PacMe is a fantastic way to ship stuff over to them.

So, why is PacMe awesome? (in their words with a few of mine sprinkled)
– Our warehouse and website software was built from scratch by an obsessive, meticulous customer (read: Ken) who receives hundreds of packages per year.
– Every incoming package has its own webpage showing a scan of the invoice, photographs of the contents, carrier tracking number, options for “special requests,” and a chat box to discuss any issues.  You might think that is overkill, but when you have 10 packages all from Amazon, and they sent you the wrong item in one of them and back-ordered an item in another, this will help you keep them straight!
– You can even enter “expected packages” and our system will recognize them when they arrive and put them into the correct consolidation.
– You can control all of the consolidation options yourself (e.g. discard shoe boxes), and even fill out your own customs list, or let us take care of everything.  One click or ten clicks!
We are expert packers, hence the name PacMe. Most packages sent internationally trigger the “dimensional weight” surcharge.  Unless you are only shipping fluffy pink unicorns, we will help you avoid that by repacking your items correctly.

Or skip all the text and just watch this great video –

My requests to you
1. If you consider giving PacMe a spin, please use the discount code “alearningaday” – sign up fee is $100 per year. This will essentially give you a 3 month free trial worth $40.
2. Once you do sign up and try PacMe, please send Ken feedback on feedme@pacme.com – this sort of business spreads best by word-of-mouth business and Ken would appreciate any feedback you will have. PacMe is also present on Facebook and Twitter.

I hope you all find it useful. Here’s wishing Ken and the rest of the PacMe team all the very best on the new venture.

A few thoughts on making money work for you

Working for money is not a nice place to be. You only work for money when you can’t do without it. When you live well below your means, you firmly ensure that it works for you. The good news is that you can work towards turning the relationship around with a few changes to your lifestyle. A few ideas –

1. Drink more water. The cost of carbonated beverages and alcohol add up over time. Water is largely free, incredibly tasty and, as an added bonus, great for your health too. Easy way to save $35-$40 per week / $1600 per year.

2. Eat food at/from home. If you need a lot of food to be energetic, consider taking a few simple sandwiches and fruits with you. The biggest benefits come when you begin packing lunch. And, definitely eat dinner at home. That can save about $140 a week  / $7280 per year.

3. Develop a taste for low cost fun. Every weekend needn’t be expensive. Try board games, pot luck dinners, and simpler gatherings. Yes, I recognize that this list appeals more to introverts. Mix it up a bit perhaps.

4. Allow space in your budget for some guilt free spending. This way, you keep your willpower reserves intact and also enjoy your money.

5. Spend money where you spend your time. If you spend 12 hours on a computer desk – invest in a nice screen, a comfortable keyboard, and a nice mouse. Don’t skimp on stuff that you will use a lot and definitely don’t skimp on tools that help you get more done – e.g. if you can clear more emails or listen to more books on your commute on a tablet, invest in one. Similarly, don’t compromise on a comfortable duvet. If you don’t sleep well, the rest of your day is useless.

6. Invest in your long term happiness by spending on great experiences rather than things. Go for that iconic trip to the Canadian Rockies or that road trip to the Gold Coast. They’re memories that will stay with you forever. You get used to regular luxuries (e.g. an expensive car) real quick.

7. Invest in your learning. Don’t skimp on a good education or books on a regular basis. These things generally pay themselves forward with better jobs and higher earning potential.

8. Give. Giving helps us gain some perspective about how much we have. Happiness is key to spending wisely.

9. Invest for the long term in indexes. I gave estimates on the first two items just to illustrate the power of long term decisions. Assume you have around $10,000 this year by saving on food and water and invest in an S&P 500 index that Warren Buffet recommends, that will be worth $102,000 in 40 years assuming a standard 6% real return. Imagine if we did this every year and if the amount were bigger with the aide of low cost fun and other savings.

Money is just a tool. We just need to learn how to use it well so it doesn’t get in the way of our happiness. Live frugal by investing in things you really need. Spend consciously.

It may sound a bit boring.. but, not having to worry about whether you have enough money for this or that sure is a lot of fun.