Bollywood movies would have you believe that Indian life has a lot of singing and dancing and chasing your loved ones around trees in beautiful landscapes. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Visit Mumbai and it’s unlikely you’ll find much singing, dancing, or public displays of affection.
I think we love entertainment that doesn’t reflect too much of reality. It’s nice to be able to forget the (often painful) real world. Mobile games do that, for example. They ensure we carry a virtual world with us wherever we go.
Similarly, when it is time for next the summer Olympics, there will be a lot of anticipation and excitement around the 100m race to crown the “fastest man on earth.” Its fitting – life couldn’t be more different.
It is rarely about speed. It is almost always about endurance. It’s taking one hit after another, picking up the pieces and moving forward. Well, trying to, at least.
“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!” | Rocky Balboa
This week’s edition of RealLeaders.tv is an interview with the founder of a promising mobile gaming start-up. Very few mobile gaming start-ups actually succeed in generating revenues and I was keen to hear from Abhishek Radhakrishnan as to how they managed to crack the code. The other important detail here is that Abhishek is a friend of mine from university and I was keen to understand how he made the transition from a creative Mechanical Engineer to Game Designer.
About Abhishek – Abhishek Radhakrishan started his career at Logic Mills where he grasped the fundamentals of building games and developing games. Aside from collecting game XP (experience, in Abhishek’s lingo) at work, he gathered it by playing games and teaching rules of games to anyone who’d listen. He then co-founded Lambda Mu games and now, he designs games for a living with his team at Lambda Mu. Lambda Mu’s game, Pixel people, was released to critical acclaim and was released in partnership with Chilingo, EA’s mobile games division. Chilingo has previously released world famous games like Angry Birds and Cut the Rope.
My favorite quotes as always –
“I think what was really valuable for me, which I think maybe is not something that a lot of people experience, was my ability to teach people how to play games.”
“If the people can’t understand how the game works, then it’s not a well-designed game.”
(Skills of a good game designer) “exposure to as many games as possible matters. You need to know what’s out there. I did this by reading lots of books just to see the different styles that are out there, to broaden my horizons, to see what are the different elements I can use and combine, and to find inspiration. That’s one of the most obvious ones. It’s necessary but not sufficient.
The next thing you need is to realize that a game is an experience. You’re creating an experience for a person and it’s very hard to create an experience for other people if you haven’t had experiences yourself. You need to go out there and try to do as many things as possible, see as many things as possible, and read as many things as possible. Watch TV, movies, try things. Read about history and literature. Inspiration for a game can come from anywhere. Psychology is an important field to be well-versed in because they understand behavior. A really broad exposure to as many subjects and experiences as possible really helps the design angle.
From the practical angle, you need really good communication skills.”
“Every time there’s a crisis, or failure, or something has gone wrong it’s not about hindsight. It’s about finding out what went wrong. We just lost 10,000 dollars on this screw up, let’s get 10,000 dollars’ worth of education out of it.”
“In most role-playing games, one of the main goals is to get as much XP as possible, or experience. That’s the thing for life also. You have some unknown number of years to play this game. We don’t know where the endpoint is, but you know that there is an end and the object of the game is not necessarily to see how much that coin balances at the end because that’s not the score that’s recorded. It’s not even what high score is pulled out but it’s how much XP your character can get by the end. That’s how I try to look at life as well. What can I do today to up my XP? Every day little by little make sure you’ve done something to increase that XP bar.”
Full transcript, as always, on RealLeaders.tv. Thanks Abhishek, for taking the time!
I grew up reading Enid Blyton, a British novelist. I don’t know if this is an Indian thing but Enid Blyton was the most common children’s author when were growing up. I owe Enid Blyton’s book a lot – her stories ensured I had a childhood full of stories of kids who solved mysteries and had adventures on their own.
Inspired by her books, I’d even started a small group that met on Sundays to discuss conspiracy theories around issues like the Bermuda Triangle. We didn’t sustain that for too long. So, in true start-up spirit, we pivoted to create a lending library. This was our first money making venture and, while it made us some pocket money, it was hugely problematic as every time we got into a fight, one of the parties threatened to take their books back. It taught me an important lesson – beware of large partnerships! Anyway, I digress.
As I was reading a book on my Kindle day before yesterday, I decided to do a quick search for some of Enid Blyton’s books. And voila! A huge collection was available. This must be somewhat recent as I remember checking for them a year or so ago. I immediately went about purchasing a few books from my favorites series – the Malory Towers series, Mr Galliano’s circus, the Five Find-outers, and the Famous Five. And I now carry all of them on my iPad and have begun reading the first Malory Towers book. It feels wonderful.
This post isn’t as much about the wonders of technology or the kindle (they definitely are wonderful, alright). It is what the technology we have today enables. When I walk around with my phone in my pocket and my iPad in my bag, I carry a 100 books with me. It’s never been easier to get smarter, get creative, go down memory lane, and pretty much do so many things that would have been science fiction thirty years ago.
It really is an amazing time to be alive. And, for all of us who are touched by technology, there really are no excuses for procrastination and squandering away the most important finite resource at our disposal.. we need to get over ourselves and our problems and make these gifts count.
I had reached out to Gina Trapani, founder of Lifehacker, for an interview for the Real Leaders Project this weekend. She responded within 48 hours (thanks Gina) and said it didn’t look like she’d be able to make time for it in the foreseeable future.
Instead of being disappointed, I was actually pretty happy. And I spent a couple of minutes wondering why that was the case – I had just been rejected after all.
When it comes to requesting some of the more famous people for interviews, I have come to accept that it sometimes takes up to 12 months or 18 months to make it happen. Sometimes, I get lucky and it works out almost immediately. But, otherwise, it can take pretty long. I think of it as the “testing intent” phase. I’m pretty sure these folks receive multiple requests for interviews. An interview with the Real Leaders Project is more an act of giving as we don’t have the sort of reach (yet :)) that would benefit them. They have multiple giving options and are understandably not entirely sure if they should invest in us. That’s fine by us. We’re more than happy to follow up multiple times in the next few months and not take the wait personally. We know we’ll stick around because we’re in it for the long run.
The long run… that’s what makes the difference. If my time horizon was 1 month, I would be disappointed by Gina’s response. But, since my time horizon is many years long, I am sure we’ll end up finding a time.
Rejection don’t feel like rejections when you think long term.
Whatsapp is my favorite social network by a country mile. I blogged about it six months back, it’s numbers and growth have been consistently through the roof, and Facebook has now validated it by paying $19 Billion for it.
A few observations/thoughts –
1. Mark Zuckerberg is probably reading “The Innovator’s Dilemma.” I think this is a smart move. There was a time when Facebook was the best social network out there. Now, Whatsapp is the best social network (in my opinion) everywhere outside the US and China – certainly in terms of time spent and overall usage. Ben Evans describes it as Facebook’s attempt to be the “next Facebook.” Sounds about right.
2. Facebook is investing heavily into mobile with Whatsapp and Instagram. I think it is doing the smart thing by not attempting to integrate all these companies into Facebook in an obvious way. Let them be. Let them do their thing. It’s good for everyone.
3. Whatsapp have done a phenomenal job being completely under the radar.
4. Once again, Whatsapp demonstrate the power of the combination of a great product and a bit of luck. Companies like Google got their break because of a killer product while companies like YouTube probably had a healthy slice of luck. In case of Whatsapp, they had a simple product that just worked and even though they had competition from Kik and Viber, the very viral nature of the product ensured they grabbed most of the online mobile user-base globally (except perhaps China and the US – where WeChat and Snapchat/Kik reign).
5. The rate at which Google, Facebook and Amazon go about acquiring companies is truly mind-blowing. It validates the now conventional wisdom of leading venture capitalists who ensure companies are focused on acquiring users and their product before revenue. If you build an outstanding company with 300M users and almost no revenue, you still have a great shot at being bought out by an internet giant who won’t have trouble footing the bills to capture your reach. Granted – 300M users is no easy thing but it probably still makes it easier for entrepreneurs to focus.
And, straying off topic for a moment, enough with the social web already. I’d like to see this sort of innovation in agritech and wellness. There’s a lot of good work waiting to be done.
Congratulations to the Whatsapp team – well deserved. And good job Facebook.
You might have started your blog/website with the noble intention of making the internet better by sharing your passion for a topic of choice. You then did the usual – signed up for Google Analytics, a Facebook page, a Feedburner account, etc.
Click through on any of these and you see numbers and stats thrown at you – total reach, number of page views, number of unique visitors, bounce rate, etc., etc. You notice that one post has had more visitors than others – maybe you should post many more like that one? These numbers then prime you when you begin writing your next post and make you wonder what you can do to further increase your reach. Should you perhaps start paying for a bit more reach?
Suddenly, you’ve lost track of that initial objective of making the internet better. Suddenly, it’s all a competition.
A blog is just one example, of course. Numbers and stats in any domain can mess with our original intentions. Charities go about trying to increase the number of donors, partners and regularly forget about focusing on impact (which is much harder to measure). Companies focus so hard on the stock price race that they forget about serving customers and the problems they set out to solve.
Don’t let everything become a bloody competition. Use numbers and stats where necessary. Throw them away if you’re trying to make art. Figure out why you’re doing what you’re doing. Then just do it.
One of the hardest things to do in a game of poker is to separate decisions and results. If the focus is on results, the game can quickly become an exercise in gambling. If the focus is on decisions, the game becomes rooted in logic and sense.
In poker as in life, decisions are best made using a process. However, in both poker and life, there is no guarantee that results will follow decisions. It is easy to assume a great result followed a great decision and vice versa.
So, if you’re experiencing a bad result – go back to the decisions made. If the decisions were the result of a good process, then revisit the process. If you are convinced the process is a good one, don’t worry about a bad result in the short term. You will definitely make more good decisions than bad in the long run. And that makes all the difference in the world.
PS: It’s hard not to question your process and thus, yourself, when results don’t go your way. Keep the faith. You are meant to learn something from these experiences.
People of influence in our formative years leave indelible marks on our lives – I call these marks imprints. Kids, for example, always carry imprints from parents and key teachers through life. If a child’s parents were harsh and critical, the chances are high that the child carries those insecurities for life. At the same time, if you find a child with parents have been largely supportive, you probably have a kid who is confident of his/her decisions and open to failure.
While imprints are best made in our formative years, an open person can continue to be impressionable as he/she grows up. The more positive imprints a person experiences, the more likely that person is open to more. Conversely, people who’ve been scarred early are going to be very hard to influence/change. In short, both of these create recursive loops.
There are a couple of questions that arise. The most obvious one is if we are generally impressionable or not. Do we employ wariness or openness as our default reaction? Being wary is safe and risk-free while being open can bring a combination of learning experiences and failure.
The most interesting implication, however, is on how we do as people capable of leaving an imprint. We leave imprints in 2 ways –
1. In positions of influence or power – As parents, elders, managers, leaders, and teachers. 2. In every day-to-day interaction. The impact of the imprint is largely proportional to the size of the personality.
The size and impact of our imprints are not to be underestimated. For example, a friend of mine used to regularly sing in her primary school years. In the sixth grade, she participated in a school play during which the teacher in-charge told her mother that “She’s like a peacock. It works best when she keeps her mouth shut.” She has never sung in public since.
I don’t intend to take moral high ground here. I am sure I’ve made remarks that have scarred people – especially as an insecure teenager with a strong personality. But, after having experienced both positive and negative imprints, I’m learning to be careful.
The lesson for today is simple – make a conscious effort to think about the kind of impact we have on people in every interaction. I would hazard a guess that the sum total of these imprints over the course of a lifetime is truly game changing and probably our only real legacy in this world. Let’s ensure its a good one.
I’ve wanted to get into the habit of switching off completely on Saturdays. I managed to do it for a bit a while back but fell back into old habits. There always seems to be so much to do – I work on all my projects over the weekend and it feels like I’m constantly pushing away ideas to the next weekend for lack of time. I should know better – when you least feel like you need a break is when you most need one. Knowing to take time off is a big part of being consistently productive.
So, today will be different. I’m going to switch off completely till tomorrow morning. No checking email and definitely no work. Just a movie, perhaps some reading and a lot of being completely present to enjoy time with family and friends.
If your schedule allows it, I hope you try it too.
One of my favorite Seth Godin posts of all time (there are a few that share this title) is “The Paradox of Expectations”
Low expectations are often a self-fulfilling prophecy. We insulate ourselves from failure, don’t try as hard, brace for the worst and often get it.
High expectations, on the other hand, will inevitably lead to disappointment. Keep raising what you expect and sooner or later (probably sooner) it’s not going to happen. And we know that a good outcome that’s less than the great one we hoped for actually feels like failure.
Perhaps it’s worth considering no expectations. Intense effort followed by an acceptance of what you get in return. It doesn’t make good TV, but it’s a discipline that can turn you into a professional.
I love this post because it highlights something I need to learn. I am one of those who habitually falls prey to high expectations. When Seth published this post in September 2011, I remember shaking my head in disagreement. I didn’t even get it then! So, this post is representative of my own learning curve around expectations. I began seeing the wisdom in having no expectations last year but I’m still far away from getting there.
“Intense effort followed by an acceptance of what you get in return. It doesn’t make good TV, but it’s a discipline that can turn you into a professional.”
A Learning a Day 