Category: Everything else

I interviewed Cal Newport for Real Leaders this morning. The first 30 minutes were a disaster – I was having internet connection trouble on my side and Skype didn’t cooperate. We switched to Google Hangouts and, in an attempt to stop the echo, I put on headphones to get the interview started. 7 minutes into the interview, I realized this wouldn’t work as the recorder wouldn’t be able to hear the audio. Cue feelings of embarrassment, disappointment, and annoyance all at once.

Luckily, we persisted. The next 30 minutes were much better. We did complete the interview. Cal was full of insightful ideas about work, excellence, and building careers. Regulars here know I am a big fan of Cal’s work, specifically his book “So Good They Can’t Ignore You,” which I consider to be the best career related book I’ve had the fortune to read. So, in a way, I expected to walk out of the interview with these ideas.

However, I walked away with something different. I walked away remembering the guy who was empathetic, understanding, and patient through technology troubles and my screw ups. Nice guy first.

We’ve been fortunate to reach out to, and occasionally interview, a whole bunch of successful people thanks to Real Leader interviews. Ego and petulance could perhaps be expected (there is a lot of that out there, too). But, I’ve learnt that many of these folk are remarkable because they are nice, first.

As I reflected on the conversation with Cal, I read a first draft of our next interview due tomorrow – Chandoo of Chandoo.org. Excel geeks all over the world love Chandoo.org – one of the world’s top excel help websites. Chandoo has been featured in Chris Guillebeau’s “The $100 Start-up” as well. And, Chandoo’s interview was one of the heartfelt interviews I’ve read (My lucky teammate called “dibs” on his interview first so I didn’t interview him myself). Nice guy first.

Regulars know how I have been continuously influenced by Seth Godin’s great work. Despite his many many commitments, Seth still takes responds to notes asking for help. Again, nice guy first.

So many other examples spring straight to mind.

You can say great things and back it up with great action. These guys do that. But, people hardly ever remember what you said or did as much as how you made them feel. You can be great at what you do but to truly inspire others, you need charisma – that ability to make others feel capable of great things. And charisma comes from being nice first.

I once heard an executive described as somebody who would “sell his grandma” to make sure he gets his job done and gets promoted. Sure, that’s one way to go – be hard nosed with a focus on success and nothing else.

Or be nice first while being remarkable at your craft, inspire others around you and be a leader in the true sense of the word. Your pick.

A great tourist trip isn’t about waking up at 6am and staying out 12 hours a day attempting to pack it all in.

No, a great tourist trip starts when you’re willing to sit down and say ‘I’m at peace with the fact that I’m not going to be able to see and do everything. What do I really want to see? Why am I going to this place in the first place?”

Great writers don’t write for everyone. Great directors don’t direct for everyone. And, by extension, great people don’t aim to leave everyone they know with a positive impression.

The moment we move on to asking ourselves why we are doing what we are doing and what we want to achieve, we realize that the de-facto purpose of squeezing everything in/pleasing everyone was never the purpose.

It’s interesting how the acceptance that we can’t have/do everything results in us actually having a shot at having/doing “everything”.. in our definition at least.

“I will be in touch.”

“Let’s catch up for coffee sometime.”

“Thank you so much for the gift. I will read that book this weekend.”

“Great idea. I’ll think about it and get back to you.”

If we are in the habit of regularly giving empty promises to others, can you imagine how many of these we give ourselves?

The choice we have is to either follow up and do what we say or be honest and not make these empty promises.

Sure, honesty is painful. But, at least it’s honest.

(PS: There is possibly one exception to this rule – your spouse/partner/special friend. “Do I look fat?” is always followed by “Noooo” and “How do I look?” is always followed by “Gorgeous.” ;-))

3 questions typically follow failure –

“What went wrong?”
“Why did it go wrong?”
“What could I have done better?”

Failure serves as a natural call to reflect.

Success needs a debrief too. A successful project requires an hour or more to reflect the following questions –

“What worked really well?”
“How can we apply what worked well to other projects/areas of work?”
”What did I do well? Did I exhibit any strengths during the project?”
“What could I have done better?”

It’s in this reflection that we learn our lessons.

‘I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being–forgive me–rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.’ | Albus Dumbledore

As we grow in position, stature, learning, and wealth, our mistakes become bigger. It’s a natural consequence of taking bigger risks and/or making bigger and more consequential decisions.

Resisting this is futile and never helps. It’s akin to playing on a poker table with a bigger buy-in and continuing to make smaller bets. You don’t get very far.

The only way forward is to accept the fact that we have earned the right to play at a more important table, embrace the risk, and embrace the likelihood of bigger mistakes. There is no minimizing the risk. And safety is an illusion.

We are creatures of habit and habit is the “automation” centre of our brain. The moment an action becomes repetitive, our brain makes a habit out of it so we don’t need to both using mental resources for it. Most of our driving, walking to the train station, etc., are done in “autopilot” mode.

The problem with “autopilot” mode is that, if our daily work is repetitive, we subordinate most of our lives to a Monday-Friday monotony. Not much input required.

So, how do we ditch autopilot mode? Write everyday. Write in a journal if you’d like to keep it private. But, just write about an idea that pops into mind – a take on the world’s events, an idea that you’d like to see developed into a movie, or an observation about people. It doesn’t quite matter. Just write about one idea every day and write about it.

Writing everyday will push you to thinking. You might do okay for the first week but it’ll soon push your thinking beyond what you’ve imagined. Inspiration won’t strike every day so you’ll find yourself noting ideas down for no-inspiration days.

And, even after noting down tons of ideas, you might find it really hard to write one morning because you just don’t feel any of them are good enough. On those mornings, I suggest you write about writing or tell your readers to do what you do..

This week’s book learning is part of an 8 part series from The Honest Truth About Dishonesty by Dan Ariely. (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4)

Dan Ariely and team enlisted many female MBA students for an experiment. They were divided into 3 groups with Chloe designer sunglasses.

This first group were told their sunglasses were authentic. The second were told they were counterfeit (even though they were real). And nothing was said to the third group about the authenticity.

The women were then directed to the hallway where they were asked to rate the quality and experience of looking through their sunglasses. Soon after, they were called back for the matrix/puzzle test with the “shredder” condition where they solved the matrices, shredded their answer sheet, and told the examiners how many they solved. (Ariely and team knew the average number of questions having performed this experiment many a time)

The results were fascinating as always –

– 42% of the participants in the “no information” condition cheated
– “Only” 30% of the authentic condition participants cheated
– As for the “fake” condition, a whopping 74% cheated

Real or fake?
Image credit

In Ariely’s words, “These results suggest that wearing a genuine product does not increase our honesty (or at least not by much). But once we knowingly put on a counterfeit product, moral constraints loosen to some degree, making it easier for us to take further steps down the path of dishonesty.

The moral of the story? If you, your friend, or someone you are dating wears counterfeit products, be careful! Another act of dishonesty may be closer than you expect.”

That leads us to the next question – are there any other downsides to wearing fakes?Coming up next week..

Wish you a happy weekend and happy week!

The easy-to-access beaches are always full of people. They’re nice fun places for a while thanks to the abundance of activity. They feel boring and crowded very soon though.

Great beaches are never easy-to-access. They have that 1 kilometre walk from the mainland amidst bushes and thickets. The wonderful thing about this additional “resistance” is that it eliminates pretty much everyone. That 1 kilometre of resistance is the difference between mainstream and niche paradise.

Exercise first thing in the morning is similar. The resistance in that case is getting out of bed, putting on exercise clothes, and getting out. Practicing your guitar requires you to tune it and reading a great book requires you to get past the “I’m too busy” mental illusion.  

Perhaps great beaches are a lesson for us. Get past the resistance… and the good stuff follows.

If you are building a business, it matters what your customer thinks. If you are rolling out a new feature, your customers ‘like’ matters. It’s not the case if you are making your art, though. The only ‘like’ that ought to matter is yours.

The likes of Facebook and Twitter threaten to make life an endless cycle of external affirmation (or concerns about the lack of it). So, is it business or art? If your cookery blog is your art, don’t worry about the view count. Just focus on making better food and sharing that with the world. Connect with ten genuine fans. And do it till the end of time..

In time, you may be able to convert your art into a business. Your taste might actually be good enough to guarantee success in the market. Then again, it might not.

It’s just worth remembering that, even if the odds are not great, there is some chance that your art may become a business and fund your lifestyle while continuing to feel like your art. The chances of a business, built on the basis of external affirmation, feeling like your art is unlikely.

So, before you get started on your next initiative, ask yourself that question – is this business? or is it art? If it’s a business, check for potential revenue and focus on making it work with customers of your choice (or make sure you’re doing what keeps your boss happy). If it’s art, don’t bother with the ‘likes.’ Do it because it helps you express yourself and do it safe in the knowledge that it might not work, and that’s okay..

1) Is he/she a jerk or just someone in “jerk mode”?

2) If it’s a case of someone in “jerk mode”, why is he/she in jerk mode?

3) How can I make sure I never do to someone else what he/she is doing to me?

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The Rationale: We are all more than capable of being jerks. Extreme emotions (manic highs and depressive lows) tend to switch us into “jerk mode.”

The Focus: These questions take the focus away from the “what an idiot” reaction. The focus here is to empathize and understand why the other person might be behaving that way.

Action: No action is required at the moment as the act of attempting to empathize and understand changes the way we look at the situation.

The only action required is to file the experience in our memory bank for a situation in the future when we might find ourselves in a similar situation. And, given life’s tendency of bringing things back a full circle, the chances are high.