Category: Everything else

This may not be a quote you associate from reknowned social scientist “Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi” but it is one I’d like to share from our conversation this morning.

As I’ve gotten into the habit of giving previews of upcoming Real Leader interviews, this is an interview I am very excited about. Prof Mihaly was a treasure trove of insight around the topics we discussed – flow, happiness, skill, and intrinsic motivation. In some ways, you might say it is expected. Almost every psychology, behavior, and social science related book cites Prof Mihaly’s work.

So, why the quote? I had another Real Leader interview technology bad hair day. This happens roughly once every 6-7 interviews. I guess it is because of the enormous resources it takes (Skype video + screen recorder + audio recorder for back up) and I ended up wasting 15 mins of Prof Mihaly’s time as I had to restart my computer twice. Then, 5 mins into the interview, my screen froze again. It was very embarrassing. 

But, these incidents are such amazing learning moments. Prof Mihaly was kind, gracious, and humorous. When I expressed how embarrassed I was, he said “technology exists to embarrass” and we continued our conversation.

Prof Mihaly is 80 years old now. He’s started the world’s first Doctoral program in Positive Psychology at the Claremont Graduate University. He is trying hard to be less productive but, next month, he will be traveling to Kazakhstan, Australia, the Netherlands, and Russia. He is a legend in his profession and, yet, took time to take this call. He was patient, gracious, and humorous when things didn’t work and full of wonderful insights and learning from his career. He is happy (from a lifetime of practicing flow, perhaps?), energetic and keen to teach and share.

We really have no excuses.

There was an hour’s hailstorm near where I am last week. It was on the news and a couple of friends and I were discussing it. While it was normal for them, I was still surprised. The weather has been getting hot lately and a hailstorm was among the last things I expected. We discussed the hailstorm for a few minutes and moved on.

I conversed with an acquaintance who also owns a farm yesterday and asked him about the season. He said that things were a disaster for him and all the farmers in the region. The one hour hailstorm had wrecked their crops, destroyed their fields, and ensured they would have no harvest for the next six months. Following last year’s bumper year, many farmers had invested heavily into this season and were facing huge losses.

The same event can have very different implications on others. For us, the hailstorm was just a discussion topic. For others, it turned out to be an event that defined the year. There’s not much either could do about it – the weather is what it is. But, understanding this can go a long way in helping us develop a bit of empathy and think about others as we celebrate or as we mourn; and, hopefully, help us get over ourselves a bit. The same incident can mean different things to different people.

3 things I’ve learnt in the year I turned 25 –

1. Living well every day is the single hardest challenge. I aspire to be “the best I can be.” Easier said than done. I can think of stretches of time when I was far from the best I can be. Thanks to various reasons, I was largely irritable and wrapped up within my own problems. I know I didn’t turn out my best work on those days and neither did I give energy in my personal relationships.

In our lives, there are definitely more failures than successes. This makes living well every day as big a challenge as any. I’ve learnt to accept bad days but I’m still not at peace with bad weeks – that’s on the “take control and don’t let it happen list” for next year.

2. “And, whether or not it is clear to you, the universe is unfolding as it should.” This has been a lesson I’ve been internalizing very slowly over the past few years. It is an important one. I have struggled with impatience for as long as I can remember. And, at times, it is this line from “Desiderata” that has reminded me to keep calm and carry on.

And, there’s another line that I’m beginning to internalize – You don’t know if a good day is a good day. Both of these have helped me keep perspective when the chips are down.. and it feels like that has happened often this year. And, in that spirit, if you struggle with being hard on yourself and keeping perspective, marry someone wiser. :)

3. Work hard to create memorable moments. This is a learning that I’ve written about a few times here. As I think about the year right now, many moments pass by as snap shots. As time passes, I find more members of the framily scattered all around the world and it gets harder and harder to get everyone together to celebrate being together. But, it’s worth planning for these and it’s worth working hard to make these reunions happen from time to time.

I’ve also realized that even the seemingly mundane can be memorable. A simple moment at home can so easily become memorable with a bit of impromptu song and dance, a casual evening with friends can become memorable when you put yourself out there, and every meeting can be made special with a tight hug.

It’s our responsibility to make it meaningful and make it count. And what a great responsibility it is..

Seth Godin’s post today talks about confidence being a choice, not a symptom.

The batter has already hit two home runs. When he gets up to bat for the third time, his confidence is running high…

It’s easy to feel confident when we’re on a roll, when the cards are going our way, or we’re closing sales right and left. This symptomatic confidence, one built on a recent series of successes, isn’t particularly difficult to accomplish or useful.

Effective confidence comes from within, it’s not the result of external events. The confident salesperson is likely to close more sales. The confident violinist expresses more of the music. The confident leader points us to the places we want (and need) to go.

You succeed because you’ve chosen to be confident. It’s not really useful to require yourself to be successful before you’re able to become confident.

I couldn’t agree more. I’d like to extend his message to say that most good attributes are by choice and are not symptoms. It is easy to be kind, forgiving, and empathetic when everything is going great. The real test is how we behave when the chips are down.

The best way to get out of a negative spiral is by being good, kind, forgiving, and confident. This relationship between success and good behavior is a classic case of chicken and egg.

And it is of course easier to start with good behavior rather than wait for success..

You know what the main thing is. The main thing is what you really need to think about and work on – chipping away on this problem is important to your long term well being. It’s not urgent.. but it is very important.

You also have a “resistance list” – a long list of other things that the resistance has conjured up to ensure you feel less guilty about not focusing on the main thing.

Throw the resistance list away.

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Let’s focus on keeping the main thing the main thing this weekend.

It’s funny how some things stick. I had an acquaintance who sent me a text when I was sick. He said that falling ill was the universe’s way of saying – “Dude, take a break.”

I am not in touch with this acquaintance any more but I do remember this text every time I fall sick.

I thought of it today.. and I’ve done just that – taken a break. It’s a nice way to think about illness.

Imagine a whirlpool moving up a street. Everything it sees, it swallows. Replace the street with learning and imagine the whirlpool with a person and you have accurately described Larry Page/Bill Gates/Jeff Bezos.

I’m halfway through “In the Plex” and have found studying Google’s progress awe-inspiring. It is amazing how often they’ve taken a look at the status quo, torn it apart, started from scratch, and built something much better. While they are impressive as an organization, I’m amazed at the consistency between the founders of these new age firms that are changing the world.

Out of the 4 biggest technology companies (Facebook is probably getting close really quick) – Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple – a maverick product visionary aside, the founders have all been driven learning machines. To use the term again, it is awe-inspiring to see how they work.

These guys seem to be in a constant loop of – read, observe, synthesize, form an opinion, experiment, review and go back to the drawing board. Depending on the strength of these opinions, the “experiment” can be worth a few billion dollars. We often set a lot of stock on a person’s inherent smartness but, in the long term, it’s a person’s willingness to learn, fail, and reinvent himself/herself that really makes a difference. And, these books have given me an understanding of just how well they’ve mastered that process.

Perhaps it is no wonder that the folks who’ve arguably made the biggest impact in the information age are those who are not only constantly in the lookout for new information to create, prove or disprove a long standing belief/opinion but are also adept at understanding how to make use of the vast magnitude of information that surrounds us.

Driven learning machine will soon be the minimum requirement. We better get on board.

One of the more valuable lessons from Clay Christensen’s great book “How will you measure your life?” was – don’t let life happen to you.

I’ve mentioned a couple of times here that I spent most of 2012 commuting about 3 hours every morning to work. This isn’t best practice by any standard. But, it happened. Now, as I became a regular on the morning train, I got chatting to another regular one morning. He said he’d been doing it for 6 years. When I asked him why he didn’t just move over, I recall he said something about giving this arrangement a try at first and then just letting it continue.

I think this is a great example of letting life happen. Our day-to-day existence can become habitual and, very slowly, the inertia to change things around gets lower and lower.

My best solution to not let this happen is to set up periodic reviews or “tripwires.” For example, if you’re starting on a 6 month trial of a new commute, set up a review in 6 months to see if you want to change things. Do so again in 6 months. In our friend’s case, maybe the results of the review might have agreed with his course of action. Maybe not. But, the idea here is that the first step is to be aware that there is a decision to be made. Even by sticking to what seems a normal course of action, we make decisions against other courses.

Keep doing reviews of your life. And, if you want to take it one step further, consider a 1 week reading week that Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and the like have adopted to just read, review, and set goals for the year.

Sometimes, the hardest part of making a good decision is knowing that a decision is to be made.

A friend and I were having lunch the other day at a restaurant. We were being attended to by a very courteous person who was easily twice my age. He called me “sir” twice.

This tugged at my heartstrings.

“What’s his story?”- I wondered. I always ask myself that when I see people who are my parent’s age working hard in hospitality. The hours are long, the work is hard, the customers can often be rude and thankless – what led them there?

When I ask myself that question, I realize that, 95% of the time, the answer is simply that they were just born in tough circumstances. Ours is a society largely constructed by people of privilege to ensure their progeny remain privileged. Yes, things have gotten better..but, for the most part, where you begin plays a huge role in determining where you end up – especially in poorer countries.

Moments like this always make me take stock. They remind me how lucky I am to have had the kind of privilege I’ve had. They remind me that it is very important to be kind, empathetic, and to give others a chance. They also remind me that I have absolutely no right whatsoever to complain. Sure, we all have our challenges but that doesn’t give us the right to be self centered. All this privilege comes with a responsibility to be humble and to work hard to make this world a better place.

All this reflection came from that simple question – “What’s his story?” – it is one I should ask more often.