Blackstone Vice-Chairman Byron Wein has a lovely list of 20 lessons he’s learned in 80 years on this planet. The full list is here. My favorites from a great list are –
Read all the time. Don’t just do it because you’re curious about something, read actively. Have a point of view before you start a book or article and see if what you think is confirmed or refuted by the author. If you do that, you will read faster and comprehend more.
When someone extends a kindness to you write them a handwritten note, not an e-mail. Handwritten notes make an impact and are not quickly forgotten.
Don’t try to be better than your competitors, try to be different. There is always going to be someone smarter than you, but there may not be someone who is more imaginative.
When meeting someone new, try to find out what formative experience occurred in their lives before they were seventeen. It is my belief that some important event in everyone’s youth has an influence on everything that occurs afterwards.
Never retire. If you work forever, you can live forever. I know there is an abundance of biological evidence against this theory, but I’m going with it anyway.
After a lean last 3 months of the year in terms of reading books, I’ve begun doing some heavy reading over the past few weeks. I’ve been enjoying reading books on technology companies. So, after completing “Hatching Twitter” and finding myself more than halfway on “The Everything Store” (Amazon), “In The Plex” (Google) was a natural choice.
As I’m reading these books, I seem to repeatedly find the power of the influences of the founders. Here are a few examples –
– Steve Jobs “got” music. He was a die-hard music fan and even dated Bob Dylan’s ex-girlfriend. He ended up disrupting the music industry first as part of the iTunes revolution.
– Jeff Bezos “got” books. He was a voracious reader whose first step in understanding anything was to read a book. Amazon’s first foray was books. His initial attempts at disrupting the music industry failed because he just didn’t understand it. Jobs, on the other hand, never really got his head around books because he didn’t believe in them.
– I haven’t read a great Bill Gates book yet but I’d argue that he was probably best placed to understand the power of Microsoft Office in corporates. I know this is extrapolating a bit but Jobs was a far better designer than he was a corporate citizen, especially in his early avatar, and the Mac has never cracked the corporate market.
– Next, new media. Twitter was founded by 4 very geeky founders – one of whom described it as the place to go when he felt alone. Every one of them “got” that. I’d wager that the best new media/”social” start-ups are probably created by geeky founders who’ve fought a lot of loneliness as they grew up and thus understand the real value of being connected online – Facebook and Tumblr seem to support this thought.
I’m not sure what the Google story is, yet, but I’m looking forward to read that. I realize that I’m really cherry picking here – in that these are still relatively young companies and are outliers by nature. But, nevertheless, I find it interesting how the personalities and influence of their founders has influenced their business success.
I commuted 1 hour 45 minutes one-way nearly every day in 2012. It started as a 4 month thing and got extended for all good reasons. I remember being completely freaked out by the prospect in the first month. I gradually began accepting it and even shared some of my early reflections in month 2. Over time, it just became habitual – leave home at 7:15am, get to work by 9, work like a mad person as you knew you had to get out by the 5:30/6:30 bus, take some work back on the commute and get back by around 7:15pm.
It helped that there were others who shared the same/similar commute. It created a nice feeling of camaraderie. There were a few who had been doing so for 5-6 years. Over time, I learnt to optimize every part of it – for example, I replaced the last leg – a 20 minute bus ride – with a bicycle ride through a park. This was good exercise even if it was occasionally freezing cold.
That commute serves as a great reminder of our ability to get used to anything. Our minds and bodies are very adaptable and we can thus get used to most things. The unimaginable and uncomfortable can just as easily become habitual. That’s very good to know.
This week, on RealLeaders.tv, we have Dhanya interviewing Meera Sanyal – a very inspiring leader who has juggled multiple roles personally and professionally. Aside from leading RBS India, she is now working on making a difference by joining the “Aam Aadmi Party” or AAP. The AAP just upset the ruling power by winning the elections in the capital.
I found it impossible to pick out a few excerpts. Instead, I’ve picked out an inspiring paragraph where Meera talks about the changes she drove as the Chair of the RBS Foundation while being CEO. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
“You asked about community involvement. It’s very interesting that you say that so many leaders whom you have interviewed have that aspect of their life. The most recent job I held was as CEO and chairperson of RBS in India which I have been doing for the last six years. I had three parts of that job. One was the CEO of the bank. That is the front office; the customer facing side, the revenue side, etc.
The second was heading the global share processing center in India which employs over 12-13,000 people. That’s a very exciting part because you have young people and it’s being a grand ambassador for India in one way, presenting the high quality of their services.
The third role that I had was as chairperson of the RBS Foundation. Through the foundation we do the community work or the CSR work. I have to tell you that that has been the happiest part of my job. I’ve enjoyed all parts of my job, but whenever I’m having a difficult day, then I just go to my memories of what we do at the foundation and that lifts my spirit. I have really enjoyed that.
How did that start? I’ll give you a brief answer. In the early part of 2000, we started a Micro Finance program at the bank in India. At that time the bank was ABN AMRO and I mentored that program. We started in the early part of 2000 and over the years we have financed (through Micro Finance) about 650,000 women across the country.
I used to love to go out into the field meeting these women and it has made a big difference. At one time our bank held about 25% of the market for all of Micro Finance. Then it became a part of the regulatory environment. The banks said that all banks should do it and gradually the share of the pie increased and many people were doing it. I’m sure if you’re following the sector you know what a lot of problems have arisen through the Andhra Pradesh crisis, etc. I am very sorry about that because I think it can really have a powerful impact on women’s lives.
Nevertheless as we were doing Micro Finance we found that there were women who were so poor that they were at subsistence level. They could not come to the level of being an entrepreneur. So we set up the foundation which is the RBS Foundation and we said that we will make outright grants to these women. In the process of giving the grants, we will teach them a livelihood. We won’t give them money, but we will give them things through which they can start a small business. We will train them and we help them to learn and provide access to markets, etc. For example, we would give a woman 10 goats, or 20 pigs, or 50 chicks, or 2 beehives and with that we would give veterinary assistance. How do you feed them? How do you take the product? How do you bring it to market? We taught them how to be a little entrepreneur.
Over the last 5-6 years we have financed and trained over 175,000 women like this. It is just fantastic because the results have been great. I would say between 60-75% of the women we have financed have turned out to be successful. And of course, 35-40% have not worked depending on where it is. Mostly I think that’s a very good result. Our grants are very small. They are 5000-1000 rupees. Within a year some of these women were earning 60-75,000 rupees. It is just magical. I have really enjoyed it, I have learned a lot. “
A few thoughts on offering condolences to friends who are either going through a difficult time or have lost someone important in their lives.
1. Speak to them as soon as you hear. If you live in the same place, go see them. If you don’t, call. And do so immediately.
A common excuse when I suggest this is the feeling that the friend might be uncomfortable speaking to you if you aren’t close. I think that this sort of reason is the excuse we give ourselves for not summoning up the courage to call or to be there. The person in grief has no time to worry about being uncomfortable – they are uncomfortable and may need your support. So, go offer your support.
2. Once you meet them, plan your support. Some people cope with a situation just fine. That’s great. Make sure you’re there for them if they need you and see if you can stay in touch for a short while.
For ones who have been harder hit, one idea I would suggest is to set up a daily call with them at a particular time. If you live close by, be there regularly. The one thing that helps in such a time is structure as one day melts into the next with no reprieve. And your call/meeting may be the start of the process of getting structure back into their lives.
If there is a case for financial support, then you can take it upon yourself to see if you can help muster up some funds from friends.
Finally, don’t worry about what to say. Even if it’s silence when you speak to them, it’s not a bad outcome. It’s the feeling of support that you remember. Be yourself when you meet them and do your best to help. Years after my dad’s passing away, I still remember my two hilarious neighbours who spent long periods with me during that time and just made laugh. They always made me laugh and they didn’t let a difficult time stop them. Meeting them was something I really looked forward to as laughing made me believe all would indeed be okay.
Difficult times are times to just show up and be there. So, show up and be there.
We recently bought a laptop and I ran through the following check list before buying it. I hope it helps you with your next purchase. This assumes that you’ll be looking for a Windows machine – I know that isn’t all that safe an assumption to make. I happen to be a Windows and Office fan and love (yes, love) laptops running Windows.
First recommendation – if possible, go to a store to buy the laptop. Next, make sure you know what you’ll use it for. If you are using it for multimedia, a big screen helps. If you plan to travel a lot, lighter laptops help.
Once you know (roughly) what you want, I’d recommending checking the following –
1. Keyboard: Please try the keyboard. We’re going to spend a lot of time typing and a bad keyboard does more harm than good in the long term. A backlit keyboard is a plus and helps if you have the habit of working late at night.
2. Trackpad: A decent trackpad helps. This is generally mitigated with a good mouse but still useful as we use the trackpad often.
3. Tech specifications should be okay: Almost all laptops will have decent RAM and processor. It is worth isolating your 3 preferred options and checking amongst your 3 options if one has significantly better specs.
4. HDMI + Projector slots. Needless to say, but small laptops often omit one or the other. Make sure you know what you’re getting into.
5. USB 3.0 slots. Good to have
6. SD card slot, sim card slot – Very good to have. Sim card slots help with internet connectivity wherever you travel as you can just get hold of a 3G sim card.
7. Windows + Office. The package makes life easier. We’ve had a good experience with Windows And, aside from Excel, PowerPoint, I’d also recommend Microsoft OneNote and Outlook.
8. Warranty. 90 days is definitely not enough. I would say 1 to 2 years is good. And if you have to pay a bit for an additional year of warranty, I’d recommend it.
9. Small things worth checking – good sound system and good inbuilt camera. Most laptops have these – so this is more of a quick check.
Once you have all these checked, I’d quickly run your favorite model by a Google search for reviews on CNET/similar websites. Check for – 10. Long term battery life 11. Tech support responsiveness and ease of finding places for repairs 12. Durability.
Once you do all of this, I think you’re set. I hope I haven’t missed anything important out. If I have, do add to the list in the comments.
At any given time, there are always reasons to be unhappy. There is always something in our life that’s not ideal. Some of these problems are long term while some others are short term. In an absence of long term issues, the short term problems can have us reason that, after this period, we’ll be 100% happy and positive. Why not sulk and play victim for just a bit?
You don’t need me to say it doesn’t work like that. Perhaps you need me to remind you (and if you don’t, I certainly do. :)) that being a source of positivity is a giver’s action. So, if you’d like to be a giver, give. Give by being your best – despite everything that’s going on. There are many others with tougher problems who could do with a bit of happiness in their day and who need a reminder that things get worse before they get better. Why can’t that come from you?
It can. The tough part about giving your best is not making the commitment. It’s the daily act of re-commitment.
We’re amidst an exciting period at Help2Grow. As we’re waiting for some legal formalities to be done to do our first field work, we are also in the midst of thinking about how to structure and build a 100+ year initiative. As pre-work for an upcoming call, I had sent a Bezos-esque narrative/4 page memo with my thoughts. The team has been sending their replies via memos detailing their thoughts. I expect to combine all of this into a final pre-read memo for us to read either before the call or in the first few minutes.
In one of the responses, a friend remarked – “Our narratives seem to closely follow what we read recently. Real leaders project’s about page contains strong references to ‘so good they can’t ignore you’. 200words project and Help2grow to Jeff Bezos. It will be interesting to collect these trends and look at the underlying basics someday”
He’s right. I’m amidst reading “The Everything Store” by Jeff Bezos and have been adopting his approach of writing memos/narratives as a way of preparing for meetings. He is also right that a lot of what we do often closely follows what we are reading. This flows from my belief in influences.
First, I think influences make or break us. Most of our thoughts are influenced by people we meet or books we read. We are very often the average of the 5 people we spend most of our time with. This is where books are critical – while it isn’t really easy to change our environment and company at the snap of a finger, it is easy to read a great book. We just need to be open to influence.
Second, great organizations and people are shameless about copying best practices. Sam Walton said that every great Wal-Mart idea had it’s origins elsewhere. The principle behind this is that there are always others who have solved the problem you are facing. For example, the problem I had faced was “how to make meetings more productive?” Thanks to Bezos, I have a solution that works at Amazon. Cue: Copy.
Third, In the process of copying, we inevitably tailor the process/approach to our style. We aren’t great copy cats. So, as we try something new a few times, we make more changes and reach a point where only the principles of the original approach remain. I am not wedded to the idea of narratives before meetings. I do think it’s a great thing to try, however. We’ll know a few months in if it is really adding value. If it is, great. If it is not, we’ll change.
Here, I am inspired by another Jeff-ism that people who are right a lot are wrong a lot. They are willing to change their mind and constantly improve their thesis.
So, we’ll keep experimenting as we build Help2Grow and, in the process, we’ll also make sure we are open to other influences. I said this before and I’ll say again – our influences make or break us.
P.S.: Being open to influence means you will likely experience a mix of both good and bad influence. The good stays and the bad becomes a training in improving your judgment a.k.a. life experience.
Broadly, I think there are 2 sorts of days – days where we wake up in the morning feeling powerless and days when we wake up feeling powerful.
Powerless days involve stretches of time when we wake up unsure of the day’s prospects. These are the days when the resistance eats at us. These sorts of days most happen when we’ve just made it past a failure or when we are losing hope as we wait for something. Powerful days are the exact opposite. We’re on a roll and believe most things are within our influence.
I’ve realized that the way to move forward on such days is to either relinquish or accept responsibility. On powerful days, we ought to accept as much responsibility as possible and take it upon ourselves to drive big changes and take big swings. A lot could depend on the actions we take. On powerless days however, I find that it’s best to relinquish responsibility. Don’t worry about the world. Just take care of yourself. Let the focus be wholly on building momentum gradually because momentum is the difference between the 2 states of mind. The more momentum we have on our side, the more we believe in our ability to do things, change things.
And, if you’re unable to build momentum, then go slow, wrap the day up quickly and catch sleep. Some days we’re the pigeon and some days we’re the statue. Start the next day early. Even this will pass away.
During interesting exchanges, I have the annoying habit of showing impatience on my face. This is especially pronounced if I feel I know what the person is about to say.
There are 2 issues with this – 1. I assume I know exactly what they’re going to say. Alarm bells. 2. I assume there isn’t benefit in allowing them to finish. I often clear my thinking while saying it aloud. It would be hypocritical to think others don’t do the same.
This week, on RealLeaders.tv, we have Dhanya interviewing Meera Sanyal – a very inspiring leader who has juggled multiple roles personally and professionally. Aside from leading RBS India, she is now working on making a difference by joining the “Aam Aadmi Party” or AAP. The AAP just upset the ruling power by winning the elections in the capital.
A Learning a Day 