Category: Everything else

Boyce Avenue

I stumbled onto Boyce Avenue some time during my university years. As was the case, it was a YouTube link that was sent over Google Talk. Since that was the default way new music was discovered, it was normal to stumble onto something really cool.

And Boyce Avenue was just that. Really cool. They were essentially 3 brothers who began postive covers of popular songs on YouTube. And these ended up becoming very very popular. And that’s how I fell in love with Boyce Avenue’s music as well. And I was particularly impressed with their lead singer – Alejandro who was extremely versatile. Great voice, comfortable on the guitar and the piano – all very impressive.

So, when I noticed Boyce Avenue were coming to town on their YouTube page, I promptly booked tickets.

And I had a wonderful evening. The first half hour was another YouTube star from Colorado called Tyler Ward. Turned out it was Tyler’s biggest audience ever (2,000) and he spoke of growing up singing in the basement of his parents’ house. It felt genuine and authentic. He sounded very unspoilt.. And it felt nice to be there listening to him. He had fantastic stage presence. Ward combined with Boyce Avenue for Fix You. Check out their video on YouTube. It moved me.

And following Tyler’s cameo, of course, came the main event. Boyce Avenue were brilliant. 60% of their music was covers and 40% was their own. They mixed it up nicely with acoustic guitar pieces, piano and drum pieces and full band pieces. It was a lovely evening with an extremely talented live band. My kind of fun..

Here’s a video of them playing Viva La Vida live. The last 30 or seconds was the highlight for me.

All the entertainment aside, there was one moment that defined the experience for me. After Boyce Avenue came in and took the mic, Alejandro posed a question – “How many of you heard of Boyce Avenue through YouTube?”

2,000 hands went up.

“Isn’t that amazing? God bless YouTube.”

Now, I’ve dedicated many posts speaking of the way technology has changed our lives and empowered people more than ever before. But, here we had a band fly half way around the world thanks to a website that’s changed the way we live.

That moment was worth a 1000 such posts.

Stepping Off The Gas

Of late, I’m finding it very useful to consciously step off the gas every once in a while and keep the number of frenetic days in a week to 3-4.

What this essentially means is that I’m trying to consciously prevent myself from overdoing things. And that’s something I’m always in danger of.

This morning was one such example. I decided to sleep in and skip exercise. The day resulted to be slightly lower in energy as compared to the first 3 days this week but I see that as essential in sustaining the exercise habit. Setting up simple container systems are helping. For example, I have negative consequences on my daily points system (minor, but still..) if I miss 2 days of exercise in a row. However, I’m also trying to make sure I don’t do 3 days of exercise in a row. I’m building slack into the system, intentionally.

And this is a big evolution in my thinking. Previously, I used to go where my energy took me. So, if this was the week of exercise, I would do it 7 days a week, if necessary and often at the expense of something else. And if the energy stars are not aligned next week, too bad.

Essentially, I was doing great starting things but the follow up was questionable. Over time, the realization that it’s not a battle, but a war began to sink in. And, as a result, I’m trying to be conscious of when to take breaks – even if things seem to be coasting in a particular week. Some weeks are, of course, better than others. But, taking my foot off the gas occasionally seems to keep the bar higher on average while continuing to allow for the spikes.

When you least feel like taking a break is probably when you most need one | David Allen

Oh, and besides, taking feet off the gas naturally means the proverbial smelling of the roses.
And that’s always really cool. As our friend here would testify.. 

Why aren’t there more Urinals in homes?

This probably constitutes more of a question than a learning at this point but I’m hoping somebody would help clarify.

For the ladies, I am referring to these..

(I picked a stylish one to keep up with the natural style and panache of this blog and of course, the blogger… And no, ladies. We don’t have it so good in public restrooms!)

Firstly, I must apologize if this makes you squeamish by any chance. Not intended to. It’s just a bit of a practical problem.

Ask any guy how uncomfortable it is to walk into a friend’s house with a sparkling clean bathroom and then work extremely hard.. vs just peeing in a public urinal.

I actually searched this topic out online. It turns out that the primary reason urinals aren’t installed in homes is because they look ungainly. So, people are working hard to make them look better. A few creative designs are shown here. Other smaller reasons are custom plumbing, fear of wasting water if you choose to have water running through it 24*7 (why would you?) etc.

Let’s rule the additional water problem out. The custom plumbing is likely to cost a little more. So, what? A bit of extra cash to be comfortable and clean for a long time? I think the long term value would be much more valuable.

Sure, it may look a  tad ungainly but if you have males in the house, don’t you think it would make sense? From both a comfort (for the men) and a hygiene (for the women) standpoint?

We do need to pee – many times at that. We might as well do it right, no? Or am I over thinking this?

Maybe this should be my next venture.

Change the world, it will. One restroom at a time.

—
PS: I’m experimenting with a change in font. Is this easier on the eye?

A Spring in My Step

I had a moment this morning.

I was getting off the tube in the morning. Mornings are generally pretty full. Up at 615. Off for exercise with book reading, blogging, personal inbox clearing and then traveling to work. And the journey to work since last week has been getting back to book writing on my phone. Ever since solving the real problem, that’s been in place.

And, for a few moments, as I stepped out of the train, I remember feeling very tired.

It was only 3 hours into the day but you know how these things go. Sometimes, you just feel.. tired. Now, this was a bit of a bummer because I feel it’s very important to walk into our place of work smiling and energized. I had 10 minutes to turn this around.

And I promptly pulled out my phone, switched on some music and the song was a recent favorite from Venga Boys.

And 2 lines woke me up – ‘Happiness is round the corner’ and ‘So if you like to party, get on and move your body.’

I did.

Happiness was indeed round the corner.

There was a spring in my step.

And the smile and energy came rushing back. What a wonderful world..

Gifts Differing

Very rarely do I feature a book on this blog. That’s precisely why my book reviews blog exists. But, this book, in many ways, is an exception. Not because it is extremely well written or because it’s a commercial superstar, but simply because of the depth of insight that it has.

I have been on a quest for some self-knowledge for the past many months. And, in many ways, the insights in this book have contributed greatly to a major jump in understanding.

Gifts Differing is written by Isabel Briggs Myers, the woman behind the world famous Myers Briggs Type Indicator. Typically these types are assigned to us based on our answers to various tests and it is recommended that we have this discussion with an MBTI certified coach.

There are numerous tests available online but I’m inclined not to put in any of the links here because every test practically gave me a different answer. And that’s why I went about trying to find the book and then read it. The basic structure of the types are as follows:

Extraversion vs Introversion (i.e. where do you get your energy from? People or yourself?)
Sensing vs Intuition (i.e. How do you process information? By taking in all facts or looking for possibilities?)
Thinking vs Feeling (i.e. How do you make decisions? Using impersonal logic or feelings?)
Judging vs Perceiving (i.e. How do you live your life? Are you regimented or open?)

Now, typically, you are assigned a combination of these letters. And the book will, of course, explain what this means, what are the typical strengths of somebody of this personality type, challenges if you are married to someone of an opposite type, how type takes formation in kids etc.

What I’ve realized is that we always have a clear dominant characteristic and a clear auxilary characteristic. The rest, really depends because, these dominant characters get set when we are kids and over time, we learn  the benefits of the others and they gradually become a part of us.

I’ll be happy to explain my understanding of this from my own example – My end type, based on my self test, was E/I N F J.

I couldn’t conclude between E vs I because I answer the basic question (i.e. where do you get your energy?) as an introvert. However, when put in a social situation, I am extravert all over. So, I concluded I’m 50%.

N or intuition was a clear win. I am a poor observer and live in a world of possibilities. The split here was probably 80-20 and I’m paying attention more to sensing, especially over the last year, thanks to analysis.

F or feeling was also a clear winner. Probably 70-30. My decisions are definitely based on my own value system, and not on impersonal logic.

J or Judging. By nature, I am very self regimented but over time, my perception has improved and I guess I find that most in my views becoming more tolerant. This is probably 60-40 split.

The key concept here is that we need most of these processes. E vs I is less relevant because this is just how we get our energy. It’s almost an understanding on how to deal with ourselves. I have a set goal of not having more than 2 social nights in the week (self regimentation on display :)) because I end up becoming very tired after there. And I do love my weekends in solitude.

We need sensing because sensing helps in our observation capabilities, in us collecting all the facts, paying attention to the details.

We need intuition because intuition helps connect these observations together and seeks out possibilities.

We need thinking because we need impersonal logic to arrive at the ‘right’ decision.

We need feeling because we need to be able to understand how this could impact the people involved.

(eg: The right decision after a presentation may be to give honest feedback on what you thought about the concept. But it’s important that it’s done in a way that makes it easier for the person to accept the feedback. That process involves both T and F)

We need judging to make decisions.

We need perception to explore possibilities.

And it seems that the natural process is that we end up developing our dominant process very well. In my case, based on whether I am in ‘E’ i.e. with people or ‘I’ i.e. with myself, the dominant process is ‘F’ or ‘N’. And once we develop this dominant process, we can go on and work on our auxiliary ones because they ensure balance to our personality.

There was also a piece of advice that I got that helped me in this journey. (Courtesy: a wise friend)

‘It feels to me like you have gone a great distance in better understanding your preferences, and for me, that what these instruments measure – preferences. I do not place “OR” between them. For example, I do not see myself as either E or I, rather, I tend to show up most often, in most aspects of my life, as I… and, in many situations I am E all over the place. I find many of the definitions that these practitioners use end up being interpreted as formulaic… and I do not believe life is formulaic.’


For me, these assessments are of “self”, and as such, must come from within. In my experience of observing people go through these things, I notice that many of us “want the answer to be such and such”, so we are not always honest with ourselves. I also believe that it is important to pick the one that feels best, fits right… like a suit… not the one that the sales person says looks great on you… even though they may be right.


And

Could you love yourself exactly as you are? Could you take your new learnings into life and see how your internal theory measures up against real situations, especially those at the extremes?

This wise friend was also an MBTI practitioner. And I found his advice VERY useful as I was going through the journey, especially the sales person and suit analogy.

Now, I feel like I’ve got a better understanding of my preferences. And armed with this understanding, I actually feel far more comfortable dealing with the world because I am beginning to realize which process of mine dictates which reaction and whether it is applicable or whether another process works better.

Probably the biggest impact is the increased understanding of people around me that I interact with from time to time. As with all cases, how we behave is a reflection of who we are. And when we understand ourselves, we do understand the world a bit better.

And it definitely reinforces a principle I believe in – we are all gifted, in different ways. We just have to find our place in the world, use our gifts and make a difference.

A great book, in short. I learnt a lot  from it. I thought I’d quote Aristotle before wishing you a great day.

Let the man who will move the world first move himself.

And I daresay he did know a thing or two about what he was talking about as well. :) 
Have a great day. Let’s hatch some eggs. ;-)

Hatch Those Eggs!

Let’s examine the relationship between a farmer and his hen. Let’s call them Jim and Carry.

Carry, the hen, is given a lot of freedom by the farmer to do what she likes but she knows that what he really wants from her is eggs. That is the purpose of her existence after all.

Jim loves Carry dearly. He’s taken care of her since she was a baby hen and the time has now come for her to start hatching eggs as well. Return on investment, if you will.

But, Carry isn’t hatching eggs. And Jim can’t tell why. She seems to be playing around with the other hens, doing all the things a normal hen would do and even eating as much as the other hens. And then, one day, Carry does actually lay some eggs but in all her zeal to make sure they survive, she doesn’t let them out of her grasp. She can’t fail this time after all! What would the other hens think?

She practically sits on them till they suffocate and die. This happens  few times and finally, an exasperated Jim stops expecting eggs from Carry and a now exasperated Carry stops expecting chickens from herself.

All this pent up anger results in her getting annoyed with the other hens that are hatching eggs and living a normal life. She always has a mean word or two to say. Over time, she finds company in a couple of other hens as well who have gotten too used to a life of entitlement. And in time, Carry died as well. But, there was really no hen or person who cared.. Why would anybody care? What did she give the world?
—

Now, let’s for a moment replace Carry with ourselves, Jim with the world and the other hens as other people. It is likely we have been invested a lot in as well. And it is likely we have many ideas on what we can do as well. But, initially, we don’t act upon them. All we see from ourselves are excuses. 

Now, many excuses later, we almost can’t deny some great ideas we have energy for. These ideas would likely require us to do  more – to volunteer at that not-for-profit after work or to start our own company doing e-commerce after our day job or offer a service online for free just because we look doing or to blog or to study further or to learn a language. Very exciting ideas waiting to be executed. But, no, we sit on the with more excuses and obstinacy. We don’t give them the space they require to grow. We don’t try anything because we feel it will only increase our chances of failure.

And finally, they die.

Over time, we get used to the idea that ‘some’ people can do more and we just can’t. And life goes on, as we know it. We are likely to be bitter about not doing it.. but hey, that’s what we’re meant to do, isn’t it?

No.

Hatch those eggs! Give them a chance to survive. Put some effort into nurturing them. Fail. Laugh. Do again. Pay attention only to those who encourage. Do. As JLM put it, most people are not be impressed by what they did in 1 year, but very impressed about what they did in 5. Put in the effort. There are many eggs within you waiting to be hatched. Make them count.

To know and not to do is not to know.

Hatch those eggs!

Joanne Wilson, Angel Investor, Real Leader 4

Today’s ‘Real Leader’ interview is a very very special one. Regulars here need no introduction to Joanne Wilson. I’ve mentioned her and her cool blog more times than I can count. I started becoming a regular reader on her blog thanks to an interview she’d done with Mark Suster ages ago. And it’s thanks to her blog that I became a religious regular on Fred’s blog and that’s been an incredible learning experience as well.So, in short, I was greatly looking forward to connecting with her and I was really hoping that she would say ‘Yes’ to an interview request for this ‘Real Leaders’ feature and she did. I am so glad! And I could barely conceal my excitement during the call. We had a fantastic 25 minutes where I fired a volley of questions and her answers were full of insight, energy and optimism. Not unexpected at all. But, still amazing. I also realized how thankful I am to this feature as it gives me an excuse to connect with all these ‘Real Leaders’ around the world. Many more to follow..

Excitement aside. It’s time to move to the interview.

Bio: As this is the first question of the interview as well, I thought I would write in a short description of Joanne as I know her. Joanne Wilson a.k.a The Gotham Gal has had many careers – buyer at Macy’s, spearheaded sales at start-ups, dabbled in many business like e-zines and even housing, chaired not-for-profits etc. She is currently an angel investor in NYC.

But, first and foremost, Joanne’s most important job is being a Mom to 3 terrific kids. Her best friend is her husband, Fred – another role model investor and blogger, who I hope to interview soon as well. She has a range of interests including food, travel, art and theater. Do click here for more on Joanne.

The good news for this interview is that I have videos for you this time. I’m still getting the hang of how best to do these videos and this is just a screen recording of our Skype call. So, please ignore some amateurish work, especially towards the end. I take full blame for that. Any suggestions on how I can do this better are welcome.

The total length is about 22 minutes and I hope you enjoy watching them. The transcript is below.

Part I

Part II

How would you describe your story/path?

I’ve had many many careers. I actually think the next generation will have many many careers. No one will stick with one company for thirty years. Leaving the first company was, of course, the hardest thing. But, once you leave and realize you can get a new job somewhere else, it’s kind of empowering. And you say to yourself – if this doesn’t work out, I can go somewhere else!

I’ve been in a variety of verticals because it just ended up happening that way. I’ve been in retail, in wholesale, in the beginnings of the internet, in sales, in helping grow companies and really came back with all of the knowledge I had and the career I’ve had including raising a family and building homes to investing in companies and help entrepreneurs navigate the world as they grow their companies.

And I like it because I like helping people succeed in their dreams and it’s fun to have a bunch of things all going on at the same time and being involved in a little bit of every one of them, which I really enjoy.

And I learn every day, which is great!

What were your motivations to move across so many verticals?


At the beginning, it was just sparked by interest. I got a job out of college in Macy’s training program as I wanted a job in retail. And then the company changed and went private and they weren’t exactly handing out stock options, it didn’t make sense for me to be there. It was basically stock at the top and ‘we’re going to make you work twice as hard’ below. At that point, Fred had just started becoming a venture capitalist and I knew enough to know that continuing was not smart.

And, so, I jumped ship. That was more evolution (of thinking). All of the decisions I made in the post was definitely family oriented.

What is it that drives you/ inspires you/ gives you energy when you wake up in the morning?

I think I’m really inspired by the entrepreneurs I get to meet every day. It’s Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule in practice.

Tomorrow is a perfect example. I have a meeting at 10, 11, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. I’m going to see 7 businesses tomorrow. If you see enough of this stuff, then you can see the whole landscape and see what’s happening, where the economy is going, what kind of business people are getting into, who’s good, who’s not good, what makes sense and what doesn’t. At least from my perspective. It doesn’t mean that I’m right but from an intelligence point of view, it’s gratifying.

You know, I’m not sitting around making cookies all day, though I do that many times too. It’s intellectually stimulating.

What relationship do you have with all these entrepreneurs? Is it as an angel investor or is it different at times?

There’s many of them that I’m friendly with where if they wanted to pick my brain or have a coffee with me, I’d be happy to do it. But, the majority of them that I end up with ask questions like -‘Can you be my mentor? Would you get involved? I would love to see you once a month.’ For the majority of those, I decide whether to invest or not. And I invest at the very very beginning – not the seed round, but the angel round. And then I spend a lot of time with these people.

I’m not the one that says – ‘okay, we need to talk, we haven’t talked in a week’. But I’m always available. If I had an entrepreneur that called me every single day or shot me an email every day with questions, I would call them, I would get back to them, I would help them. If I don’t have the answer, I would find out the answer, if they need to know something that I don’t know, then I’ll find someone in my rolodex who can help.

So, generally, I end up becoming involved in these companies.

What has been the most defining moment of your life? Or a couple of defining moments?
Wow.

Well, I think having kids is pretty defining! And, each time I was able to get into a new business. People say, ‘oh my god I have been home and haven’t worked for 10 years. I don’t know what to do’ , particularly women. But, I’ve seen these women go to meet ups and before they know it, they’re in the industry. They know what’s going on, they know the people. They’ve either started companies or work in the company.
That’s pretty empowering.

Having my childern is the most defning momement. I’ve known my husband since I was 19 yrs old. So,that was more of an evolution that started met him in college and continued in to life.

There was a point when we were forced to live in the suburbs due to financial difficulty and that was definitely not the place for me.
Things changed and we were able to move back to the city and that was a major defining moment for us.

(I didn’t ask questions here but, in retrospect, I realized I’d read about this earlier in Mark’s blog. For more context, please do check this interview out)

Having read your blog, I know that woman entrepreneurship is a topic close to your heart. Could you tell us more?

I think its very important for women to be entrepreneurs for a variety of reasons. First of all, we always hear that there aren’t enough women in corporate offices at the top level, not enough women CEOs, not enough women in technology, not enough on boards of directors etc.

Let’s say I find 100 women entrepreneurs, now we have a 100 women CEOs. So you can change that.

Second is that women have childern. They are the only ones who can! There is more of a partnership in the last couple of generations be it picking up groceries or changing diapers but at the end of the day
women speak in terms of we, men speak in terms of I. Women have this innate nurturing quality. If you can be a woman entrepreneur at any level, its empowering for your children, particularly for your daughters to see that you can figure out how to balance your life.

And if you run the company, you run the show! If you need to go home, go to a basketball game, take a 2 week vacation or be home with your kids, no one is telling you “You cant do that because you dont have 2 weeks vacation”.

I’d like to see all women be entrepreneurs, be it from doing a startup that becomes a multibillion dollar company to a 20 million dollar company or a bakery down the street. I think its better for the economy, for the families and for the community.

The US is going through a tough time. (And, of course, Europe looks to be in deep deep trouble!) In many ways, the world still looks to the US when it comes to entrepreneurship. Do you think , these frequent ups and downs in the economy have changed what entrepreneurship means?

I think the youngest entrepreneurs, ones younger than 30 are looking at their parents and saying “My Dad worked for that company for 30 years and then they laid him off”. I think many people in the new generation are saying it isn’t all about financial success. Of course, you have to put a roof over your head and food on your table, but its also about happiness. And about what am I am passionate about, what I want to do and how I an going to create my own life. And then you read about all these startups, you see the “Social Network” movie and you say. “Hey you know what,I can do that”.

But I think the caveat here is that when people are funding all of these companies, they are not really hand holding them. Many of these companies need to stand back and say ,”I’ve been acknowledged and given money to start something up, I can make a 3 million dollar company.” or “This business is exploding. This could be a 50 million dollar company”

There are all these different levels, and that is something that is going to get flushed out. Everyone who has a business right now thinks they have and want a multi billion dollar business. Maybe that will change a bit. If you are an entrepreneur and you love what you’re doing and can pay for your lifestyle, get up every morning and feel passionate about it what else could you ask for?

How do you manage yourself and your energy? Any tips and tricks that you may have for us would be great.

I don’t have an assistant. I do everything myself from the meetings with entrepreneurs to the evening outings to dinner parties to my children to managing my house, I’m in the middle of 2 major construction projects right now.

This works because I’m extremely organized and I keep lists. I get things done as soon as they come to my desk. One example is with my calendar. One of the reasons my calendar works is because if I email you today and say, ‘lets meet how about Nov 9 at 2 pm’, it goes into my calendar right then.

So, even if it takes 3 days for you to get back to me, you are already on the calendar. And that’s settled.

If I have 2 days in a week that I spend on personal time or real estate projects, they are blocked out on my calendar. I try to work only 1 night between Mon and Thu, although that doesn’t always happen.

And well, at times, it doesn’t all work as per plan. I had a conference call on Thursday afternoon at 5 pm while I was making dinner. Sometimes, that’s what you have to do!

What would your message be to all readers – especially give they would like to be leaders – if not leaders of companies and communities, definitely leaders of their own families.
I’ve always said this even when people worked for me when I was 22 , follow your heart. If you get up every morning for 2 weeks at a job and you think “This is the worst”, move!

You have to be happy and healthy. Life is too short. There is no reason to be in bad relationships, in bad jobs. It’s up to you.

If more people grabbed opportunities and  rocked their boat on a daily basis, it would be a much better world.

—
Firstly, credit to a close friend of mine and RealAcader, Snigdha, for helping with most of the transcription while taking some time off her holiday in Singapore (Id Mubarak to everyone!). I ran out of time this morning! Thanks Snigdha!

I’m sure I’ve made a few more mistakes as I’ve posted this since I’m just heading out for lunch. Will make more changes when I’m back on blog in the evening. Do feel free to point them out in the comments..
—
Overall, this 25 minute phone call was fantastic. I was full of energy and possibilities right after and we have Joanne to thank for that.

A couple of things stood out – the calendar suggestion as an immediate next step that I went about implementing for a bunch of calls that were being scheduled.

But, the line that inspired me most was the  ‘Let’s say I find 100 women entrepreneurs, now we have a 100 women CEOs. So you can change that.’


I’ve blogged a lot about the butterfly effect i.e. the massive potential effect of our positive actions on the world, of working within our circle of influence and making a difference in this world one day at a time. But, that line summed it all up. Every day we get better. And every day we change the world, one way or the other.

Thanks Joanne.
—
More on RealAcad Mondays

On Eskimos, Snow and Negative Words

This week’s book learning draws inspiration from ‘Switch’ by Dan and Chip Heath-

According to an old urban legend , eskimos have 100 different words for snow.
Now, let’s hold that thought for a moment and look at this list.
 
Angry Annoyed Appalled Apprehensive Delighted Disappointed Ecstatic Excited Ashamed Bewildered Betrayed Confused Confident Cheated Cross Depressed Emotional Envious Embarrassed Furious Frightened Great Happy Horrified
These are 24 of the most common emotion words in the English language. Only 6 positive words..
In a more exhaustive study, 558 emotional words in the language were collected -Here, 62% were found to be negative and only 38% positive.
It turns out negative words are our snow!
There were 17 such studies that studied how people interpret events across various domains like sports, politics and love life.
Results again showed that people spend more time with bad stuff, reflect it on it more, pay closer attention to it, remember it longer and weight it more heavily – this is called positive negative asymmetry. 
This topic is a subject of the Building Fires post today too. We have an interesting thread of conversation beginning to develop. Look forward to your thoughts/comments..

Building Fires

There’s been a lot of activity on this blog since Friday night thanks to the post on Bill Gates. I have been posting these blog posts on Hacker News for a while. Hacker News is a news aggregator and essentially, if the circumstances are right, your post could become a superstar post for a day.

That was the case with this post. And the impact was massive, make no mistake. The average numbers on this blog are 150 unique visitors (according to Google Analytics) + 170 odd feed readers and email subscribers. I estimate that to be 250-300 readers a day. And the comment thread generally reflects that as well. The most popular posts have about 10-12 comments.

Hacker news changed this for that post. It’s fascinating to see the impact. The post had about 90 comments, 39 reactions and I was wondering what the visitor count would be.

There you go – ~11,000. (the highest before this was 520)

And that brings me to the point of this post. I was having a short chat yesterday with an important member of this community. He remarked that this post had given this blog quite a readership. And I remember discussing with him the difference between readership and page views for a post.

Real readership would be retaining a small portion of these visitors for the long run. To all our new members, welcome! I hope you enjoy your stay.  :)

This post was an outlier. However, it made for an amazing learning experience as always. Aside from being called ‘gay’ by one commenter, I was screamed at by quite a few and was also asked to examine my values by a couple. I was reminded how difficult it must be to be a child star, having to deal with intense criticism at a very young age. That’s what I realized with Steve Jobs as well – a lot of his crazy neurotic behavior came from the fact that he was in the spotlight at a time he wasn’t ready for it. And dealing with this bashing every day definitely requires a strong set of values and sense of self.

I still remember the early days of this blog. Putting yourself out there is so damn difficult. When people critique your writing and point of view, it feels like a direct attack on you. You feel naked and exposed. And you always remember the ones who critiqued you, conveniently forgetting about the many that did actually have nice things to say.

Luckily, this time, I was ready for this kind of attention. I’ve learnt not to take critiques overly personally. And watching seasoned bloggers like Fred (in particular), Joanne and Mark handle comments on their blog has led me to develop my own style. But, it was interesting nevertheless to be the object of intense criticism – even if that was only the case for a day.

I posted this experience in a comment on AVC and had a couple of interesting replies. Fred said ‘Welcome to the jungle’ (he would know..) and another regular LE sent me a link to this article by Mike Arrington that resonated.

Any blogger will tell you how frustrating the early days are. Getting someone, anyone, to link to you. Your first comment! etc. And as your audience grows you are introduced to the first rule of anonymous human behavior – it’s dark and brutal, and reminds me how thin the veil of civilized behavior really is. If there is something nasty that can be said, someone will say it. Over and over.


A big part of blogging is simply keeping the peace. You set rules on whether or not you’ll allow anonymous commenting, or commenting at all. You decide if/how to moderate comments. You decide if/how to respond to opposing arguments and (more often) personal attacks. And you, involuntarily for the most part, evolve your writing in response to the feedback loop. Those are the days of innocence, simple joys and simple sadnesses.


And this led me to think about the whole concept of Building Fires. I replied to one comment with a quote I’ve posted here before..

There are 3 types of people in this world – some light fires, others tend to them and then there are those who spend their life pissing on the fire. Avoid them at all costs.

JLM’s quote stood me in good stead yesterday. I also realized something different. It takes a fire lighter or a fire tender to be the bigger person in any conversation or argument. It is so easy to criticize, so easy to give advice, so easy to gang up on a person’s idea or execution and make them feel stupid – essentially, it is extremely simple to piss on the fire.

But, the ones who have played their part in lighting fires or tending them know how hard it is to actually go out there and ‘do’. To build is hard. Because the way the world works, you will have opposition even before you start building. And once you begin, you will have many around you letting you know the truth and tell you that you will fail.

But, that’s the way of things. You will always have people pissing on your work and ideas. That’s half the fun, in truth. It would probably be boring without them.

On this blog, and in specific that post, however, I tried hard to let the pissers know they are not welcome in the comments. This is a place for anyone and everyone who is building or tending to fires, or wants to build or tend to fires. Here, we make mistakes. We say a few wrong things once in a while. But we learn. And we are always encouraged. Never shot down. If you are searching for negativity and gloom, then this is not the place for you.

And to all you ‘fire’ people reading this, a passage from Theodore Roosevelt came to mind.

Man in the Arena by Theodore Roosevelt

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.


—
The naysayers often have good feedback for you as well. One of them pointed out that the quotes weren’t very readable. I’m experimenting with a highlighter in this post. Do let me know if you have other suggestions.. 

3 Questions For the Weekend

I have 3 sets of questions for myself this weekend.

1. Do I give more than I get? How much do I ask of others and how much do I give? And in what situations do I find myself ‘giving’ more?

2. Am I consciously building something special? If so, what am I building? What challenges am I facing? What am I learning?

3. What are the most meaningful learning experiences in my life right now? What am I learning from them?

I’m still reflecting on the answers. The answers to questions 2 and 3 are pretty fascinating. They weren’t entirely what I expected.

There were a couple of posts that got me thinking about this. Brad Feld had one ages ago that I stumbled on about giving more than you get.

Seth Godin had an insightful thought this week about building, a post on the difference between Math and Arithmetic. And it ended with this line that stuck with me.

It’s harder to create an original tweet than it is to retweet. It’s harder to find metaphor than it is to work through a to do list. Hard work, true. But worth it.


And, finally, a wiser friend of mine and I were discussing our most meaningful experiences of the moment and our biggest trials. So, I do have half my answers to question 3. The answers, by themselves, were pretty fascinating. Definitely not what I expected.

All these made me take a step back and reflect.

We make our way through life searching for answers. At work, it’s answers to the problem of the moment. In our social time, it’s answers to what would make us happy and what would make for nice experiences with people we love. In our spiritual/philosophical time, we are looking for answers to deeper questions about life and it’s meaning. We’re constantly seeking – from people and life, through our questions.

I just thought I’d flip it around today.

And ask myself a few questions. Give before I get, after all.

Have a nice weekend, folks. I’d love to hear of your reflections/questions that inspire you in the thread.