Category: Everything else

A kid born into a family that is well off has 2 massive advantages –
1. Parents that are well educated (largely the case)
2. Parents who can afford good education

For the purposes of this, let’s take well educated parents as a proxy for good parents. We can argue about this for days but I think it is safe to say that well educated parents are much more likely to be good parents in that they can ensure their kids build on their skills, learning, and network.

Second, these kids have parents who can invest in their education – good schools, good books, great technology, etc.

Both these advantages typically kick-start a chain of events that looks something like this – good school -> good university -> good first job -> good graduate school -> better job and career prospects.

Yes, some parts of this chain are debatable – if/when you do graduate school, etc., but this chain is significant. Even if we agree that a good university is a proxy for a reasonably successful career, that’s still a huge advantage. For detractors who like to point to successful companies being built by university drop outs, let’s take a moment to remember that Microsoft and Facebook had their beginnings in Harvard dorms and several others in other illustrious universities like Stanford.

I’m spit-balling a bit with the numbers here but let’s assume the average top 500 university has an undergraduate student population of 3000 students per year. That’s only 1.5 million people. And, say we assume a world population of 7 Billion and assume identical distribution across ages between 1-70, we’re looking at around 100 million people sharing the same age.

Essentially, that’s about 1.5% of the population. I wouldn’t be surprised if the actual number would 1% or less.

How easy is it for a kid born in a low income family to be part of this privileged 1%? I’d say very very hard. This analysis would probably get even more interesting if you then dug into numbers within top graduate school programs across disciplines. I’d be willing to bet that that those seats are largely a smaller percentage of this privilege 1%. And, once we include a new variable – the location of birth – I think you will see that the chances of a kid born into a low income family in a less affluent country has practically a 0 percent chance of ever seeing the kind of life many of us take for granted. And, this doesn’t even consider the odds for a kid whose parents abandoned him/her at birth..

And, of course, all of this is decided by something you have no control over – birth.

This post is not some clarion call to stop complaining, keep perspective, and be happy every single moment. It could be. But, I recognize we are human. That doesn’t mean we can’t work on being happier, complaining less, and giving thanks more often.

This post is about doing 2 things –

1. Take a moment right now to recognize your privilege. If you are in the top 1% of privilege, then recognize it and give thanks. You and I were born lucky. Let’s be humble about it.

2. Do something to help a few kids who were born in tough situations. Even a little goes a long way. I’m sure have expenses but you can easily pledge 1 or 2% from your salary to give to kids who haven’t had your luck. It’s a big problem. It’s a tough problem. We’ve just begin getting our heads around it at Help2Grow. That doesn’t mean we are going to make headway in solving it. It’s a tough problem.. but there are few worthier problems to try solving.

An idea that never ceases to amaze me is the ability our minds have to get used to anything. We all like to think we have control over the future. Many of us like to have plans and get very attached to these plans. And, when we discuss the possibility of our elaborate plans not working out, we sometimes wonder if we can even handle it. “Unimaginable” sometimes pops to mind.

It turns out, however, that we are actually really bad at predicting how we feel. And, that’s because we largely feel okay. We like to believe life is some sort of fairy tale. Big ups, big downs, etc. Well, it is not – in most cases at least.

Our mind has a great defence mechanism thanks largely to it’s ability to tell stories and find meaning around these stories. These stories ensure we never feel debilitated by disappointments – that’s how we’ve managed to even survive inhuman concentration camps.

It’s a great thing to keep in mind the next time you feel you are attached to a particular outcome. If it works out, that’s great. And, if it doesn’t, don’t worry – you’ll find a new outcome to get yourself attached to in no time. Your mind is the ultimate “don’t-take-it-personally-instead-move-on-and-get-shit-done” machine.

“One of the things the professional artist gives up is the thrill of the manic high. I used to be manic, about twenty years ago, when there was a sliver of something working. Things were really brutal at work, with rejections and near-business-death experiences coming daily, and I grabbed hold of any positive feedback really tightly.

Now, I’m delighted to say. not so much. Which means the highs aren’t as high. The successes are about the privilege of doing more work, not about winning. When my Kickstarter project for this book met its funding goal in less than three hours. I didn’t do the line-kicking dance reserved for TV celebrations. Instead. I took out my laptop and got to work. That is the greatest privilege I can imagine.” | Seth Godin, The Icarus Deception

I thought about this paragraph today. It is tempting to think of life as a quest to keep notching up wins.

In truth, life is just an infinite game. The greatest gift is to just play, follow a great process, and remind ourselves that happiness doesn’t lie in the destination but the journey.

The highs then cease to be as high and the lows stop being as low. After all, it’s just about plugging away and doing our bit to make this world better. This is easier on some days and harder on others. It’s a gift to just be able to play. Let’s do it well and have fun while we are at it.

Growing up in the Indian school system, we were typically taught hacks to do better at composition. Some of these were –

– Use connecters like “however,” “moreover,” “furthermore,” etc., at the start of a paragraph
– Write neatly.
– Use at least 3 paragraphs.
– Use good language and throw in a rare word every once in a while

That’s about all I remember right now but I’m sure you get the drift. We were never taught that writing is all about ideas. We never really appreciated great writing. Our goals were limited and our learning followed the same limitations. If you had a good vocabulary, you learnt, over time, to hide behind it.

But, when you begin to share your writing with the world, you realize very quickly that flamboyant language doesn’t do much if you don’t have a point to convey. That’s probably the best thing about writing – no amount of language can save you if you haven’t developed the ability to frame and structure what you want to say. You eventually get found out.

Most things are like writing. In the long run, hiding doesn’t help. The more elaborate the plot, the quicker it unravels. Don’t waste energy hiding. Use it to get good instead.

Imagine you’ve just started a leather trading business. As it is normal practice to offer discounts to customers, you decide to offer a flat 10% discount to all customers. This is against the norm of more complicated seasonal discount schemes that your competitors offer. You decide to get rid of the complexity, figure out their final discount amount, and just offer this flat rate. Feels fair, right?

Well, it will feel until a customer placing a one million dollar order watches you provide a 10% discount to somebody who buys a thousand dollars worth of leather. Why should the thousand dollar guy receive the same % discount?

This illustrates the power of implicit choices to wreck the intent of original choices. By choosing to give a flat 10% discount, you implicitly backed your smaller customers and alienated your big customers. A “fairer” way to support your big customers would be to offer the million dollar guy 10% discount and the smaller guy a 5% discount. I’m guessing you’ve spotted it now but, here again, you have implicitly told the smaller guy that you like bigger customers more.

There are 2 interesting learnings here –

1. Life’s bad decisions are most of all a result of implicit choices. You haven’t explicitly decided to become unfit when you picked up your daily evening soap opera habit. But, well, it happens.

2. You can’t please everybody. Your choices will upset groups of people – it is better to clearly evaluate who your choices are meant to please (it could just be yourself). What seems fair will have a bunch of implicit repercussions – might as well be intentional about them.

A couple of friends and I had asked if a taxi parked near a lane in Mumbai would take us to a location about 10 mins away the other day. The taxi driver said yes. As we walked around to the taxi, we realized that he had just refused an elderly couple for no apparent reason. We weren’t sure if this was because of us and immediately asked the elderly couple to go ahead.

They nodded at us, smiled and said – “Don’t worry. This happens. Go ahead” A passing taxi stopped just then and they got in. Once we got in, my friend commented “How obnoxious of this guy.” I nodded but didn’t say or do anything.

I thought about that moment a couple of times. I don’t know where my head was at when that happened. I don’t know if it was just that I wasn’t thinking or whether I had just shrugged and accepted the taxi driver’s obnoxious behavior. What I feel I should have done is taken a stand and walked away from that taxi.

I believe it is moments like this that really test our character and what we believe in. And, in this instance, I failed that test. I didn’t take the stand and it’s bugged me since. I will do my best not to let that happen again. There are no small decisions when it comes to our values – I’ve realized that much.

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..