Category: Everything else

The next time you’re tempted to curse your luck when life throws a curve ball at you, stop and repeat “Maybe I’m meant to learn something from this..”

Philosophy and faith are powerful healers. Our ingenious minds are also brilliant at doing what they were designed to do – to think. A negative situation is easily transformed into a profound learning experience.

It’s wonderful to remind ourselves of the power we have within us. We can transform the nature of a situation or experience with one simple question or statement.

And, who knows, maybe the fates did mean to teach you something..

It’s a bad deal if you want it a lot more than the other person and a guarantee of problems in the road ahead.

It’s like a lover desperately trying to get in with you – a put off.

If you know enough to be prepared to walk away from something you know will change your life, you’ve just increased your likelihood of making it work.

Success is a culmination of one counter intuitive action after another.

Contentment comes from looking at how far we have come. Happiness comes from focusing on the now and enjoying the journey. And, ambition comes from looking at how far we have to go.

Too much looking back means lesser than necessary focus on happiness and ambition. Less focus on happiness and ambition means less good done today, which in turn means less content tomorrow.

We are hardly ever going to get the ratios absolutely right. That’s life. But, we owe it to ourselves to get as close as possible as consistently as possible. What does that mean for today?

1. Reflect on learnings from yesterday and as you do that, think about what your learnings might have been on the same day last year – a great reminder of how far you’ve come

2. Write down three things you plan to do today. Add a fun thing to the day if you aren’t looking forward to the three big priorities. 

3. Write down three things on your bucket list that you are working towards/three things you’d like to get done in the next five years. Take a small step today.

That’s 5 minutes of writing. It doesn’t take much. It does accomplish a lot.

(PS: The list will not look rosy every day as you chronicle the downs along with the ups. But this way, you make sure you don’t just trudge through life. You reflect on how it feels to actually live it.)

A friend of mine quoted the ‘never eat alone’ concept referring to a need for good company during meals at work. I thought I’d provide the counter point.

Enjoy the solitude that comes with lunch alone. If you are introverted, it’s bliss anyway. And, if you are extroverted, it’s a great opportunity to catch up with your thoughts.

There are so many equally amazing options – take a book along and read alongside, listen to a book while staring into nothingness, stare into nothingness, relish every bite of what you’re eating and remember how blessed you are to be where you are, among others. Your pick.

So, just for today, find a quiet corner and have lunch by yourself. Consider making it a weekly habit at the very least. You tend to get very less ‘alone time’ as life goes by.

Treasure it.

Over the past few years, I’ve tested out a bunch of ideas and experiments on various audiences. Taking out the disinterested lot, I always found the interested ones to divide themselves into 3 groups.

– The nodders. Lots of smiles and nodding with no follow up

– The wannabe hustlers. While smiles and nodding aren’t a pre requisite, the wannabe hustlers DO follow up. But, the follow up doesn’t last long. They love the sprint and hate the marathon.

– Hustlers. I’ve been fortunate to work with hustlers of all kinds of personality types. A couple of them I know don’t say much but follow up with exemplary execution. Some others say a lot but also back it up with stuff that gets done.

There are 3 learnings I take away from witnessing this behavior.

– I am learning not to get carried away after a meeting. I’ve realized that the true success of a meeting can’t be measured immediately. It’s a metric that shows itself in time and is dependent on how many hustlers you met.

– I am learning to test ideas with folk and see what their preference is. A work or project relationship is a two way relationship. Push doesn’t help.
(And yes, hustling is a preference)

– I am learning to ask myself the ‘Am I nodding or hustling?’ question every once a while. Hustling is a painful preference since you dedicate a big part of your down time to doing just that. But, integrity is about making and keeping commitments. It’s so hard to keep commitments that we often tend to forget the first half of the deal.

The lizard brain may hint that not making commitments is safe. But, hey, who are we kidding?

We wake up every morning faced with many choices. Today, let’s remember to check in on whether we want to nod or hustle..

This week’s book learning is the first of a 8 part series from The Honest Truth About Dishonesty by Dan Ariely. (Part 1)

Can increasing the psychological distance between a thing and money increase the “fudge factor”, meaning people cheat more?

Dan Ariely tested this in the communal refrigerators in MIT dorms. In half the dorms, his team placed 6 cans of Coca Cola and in the other half, a plate with six 1 dollar bills. The Cokes disappeared within 72 hours while no one touched the money. They could easily have taken the $1 bill, walked over to the vending machine, and bought a coke. But, they didn’t!

To test this further, Dan and team revisited the matrix experiment with a new “token” condition. When students finished solving the matrices, they now received a token/plastic chip stating the number of problems they had solved. Once they received the token, they walked 12 feet to another table and exchanged it for cold hard cash. The difference from the normal condition was that collection of money was one step removed from telling the volunteer how many problems they solved.

Cheating increased to twice the normal amount.

Sketch by EB

These experiments explain the shrinkage problem in companies – employees are more likely to take expensive stationary home than money lying around in the office. Our moral compass slips when the “fudge factor” increases. Would the famous credit default swaps have been used to disastrous ends by banks if they looked like dollar bills?

It brings up the next interesting question. How does the cheating process work in our heads? Next week, same time, same channel..

Relationships have a big transactional element. The strength of a relationship is typically directly related to the willingness of the two individuals involved to give more than take. It is something we all are aware of at some level (the degree is self awareness dependent).

The funny quirk here is that the moment you consciously think of a relationship as a transaction, you have sealed its fate. Perhaps it is because the thought of the word transaction has us focus on “what’s in it for me?” 

The trick is to approach giving in relationships like lunch. You do it every day. It’s good for you and you don’t think about it.

(And, similarly, approach ‘taking’ like an unhealthy midnight raid of the fridge – I realize this analogy doesn’t apply if you are a university student…)

Work on a project that requires consistent effort.

Phone habits break down over time. Email habits last longer but are not as rich as an actual conversation.

Working on a project, however, changes everything. These projects can be varied – a coach-pupil type project designed to improve a skill or embed a habit, or a team project that involves you building something cool. That commitment to something beyond “staying in touch” ensures that the minimum of staying in touch is achieved.

Besides, it’s fun.

Tip: If you’re working on creating a project-like engagement, start with a definite time state and keep renewing it (e.g. 6 months). Committing to a project till the end of time isn’t an arrangement that’s going to work, either.

My synthesis of an insightful part of “The Startup of You” by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha.

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The biggest reason for following your passion being irrelevant advice in this day and age is that your passion could be for an industry that might not exist in 10 years. The rate at which industries are being disrupted means that, even if it does manage to survive the next ten years, it’s unlikely it’s going to be anywhere as lucrative or attractive as it is now. What then?

Much better to focus on skills that will be useful and to be so good they can’t ignore you. And, much much better to focus on being flexible with plans. Never stop planning, but don’t be too wedded to plans either. One opportunity well utilized always leads to another i.e. a “break”. ‘And, you can’t possibly map all this out with one existential question – “what have I been put on earth to do?”

Start on the road with all enthusiasm, energy, and a desire to be the best you can be. Don’t worry about the middle.. by the time you get there, it will be different anyway. Successful careers in today’s age are in permanent beta.

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Makes sense.