When you are thankful

There is a lot written about gratitude and understandably so. The saying – “It is not happy people who are thankful. It is thankful people who are happy” – definitely rings true.

That said, I don’t think the test is just about being thankful. I think it also matters when you are thankful.

For example, when I am down with a bad stomach or an injured foot, I naturally think about a fully fit body and find myself giving thanks for the fact that I only have minor niggles to deal with. But, those are examples of forced gratitude – gratitude that is caused by an intervention of sorts. Similarly, it is relatively easy to be thankful for your life or for those of your loved ones when you hear about someone passing away. Again, that’s thanks to an intervention.

So, I think the type of gratitude that really counts is when you give thanks at times when you don’t have any reason to give thanks. When everything is going great, we rarely find the time to stop and give thanks for everything that’s going well. But, I’d argue that doing so is a sign that you’ve got the “being thankful” skill (and it is a skill) down.

And, good thing too. There are few more important skills for a life well lived.

thankful, gratitude

Thoughts on Marketing Strategy and Branding – MBA Learnings

Marketing strategy, to me, came down to one central insight – “Be cheap or be different.” Everything else is a losing strategy in the long run. A brand, on the other hand, is just a set of associations.

marketing strategy, brandingImage source – Example associations for McDonalds

Wal-Mart, to take an example, is built on the “be cheap” strategy. And, it is likely that you associate Wal-Mart with “cheap” as well. Apple, on the other hand, is built on the “think different” idea. And, it is likely you associate Apple with “think different” as well. This is particularly interesting where Apple is concerned because owning an Apple products don’t offer much customization. Every iPhone is exactly the same with limited ability to customize anything beyond colors. So, in some ways, it is think different, but own the same thing. :-) In Apple’s case, I would posit that the source of its differentiation has moved from just “think different” to something that points to being cool/aspirational over time. It has clearly worked well for them.

When the marketing strategy and the brand’s associations align, it is pretty magical. It means all other components of marketing – e.g. advertising – are aligned too. Since alignment is key, it points to why marketing needs to begin with the product. Shoving lots of differentiation based advertising on a bad product isn’t a route to winning in the long term. Customers find out.

The product I was thinking about as I was writing this was me/us. As CEO’s of Me, Inc., I think these lessons raise some interesting questions for you and me. In particular, there were 2 questions that crossed my mind –

1. What is our marketing strategy built off? This a bit of a long-term question – are you going to be cheap? or different? Cheap means undifferentiated on everything except price and it implies an ability to do something with a cost advantage. If differentiation is the goal, however, it likely means being differentiated on skills. There are two ways to be different on skills – either be among the world’s best in one thing or possess a very unique combination of skills. If you’re going down the “world’s best” path, it means consistent deliberate practice to be among the world’s best craftsman in your field. For everyone else, it is all about combining various complementary skills.

The most famous example of the latter is from Dilbert’s author – Scott Adams. Scott Adams, in his own words, combined an average sense of humor, average drawing skills and average corporate experience to create a killer comic targeted at a corporate audience. Some of the most valuable professions today require skills across disciplines. For example, it is certain that business leaders for the next 2 decades will need to be very proficient with data. So, data analytics and statistics are skills that will matter more as time goes by.

But, is there a perfect combination that works for your field? While I would posit that there are essential skills depending on your industry (for example, most non-founder CEO’s of leading technology companies seem to have experience running product organizations), I am almost certain there isn’t one set path. Instead, what probably matters here is to just be a learning machine and to just keep picking up skills. The dots only connect backwards.

2. What are the associations linked to our brands? Ellen Kullman, former CEO of DuPont, said that people who worked with you or know you professionally have a “book” on you. The book typically has answers to 2 questions – “does this person get stuff done?” and “does this person have the ability to inspire people to follow them?” Know what the book about you says because you can shape it over time – was her advice to us.

The third question I would add is – “what are you good at?” As a result, your professional reputation is likely built on your skills, your ability to get stuff done and your ability to lead. But, “how” we do it is something that is unique to our personalities. Ellen’s point was to be aware of what your reputation is and to think intentionally about what you’d like it to be.

A quick note on self promotion – I think of self promotion as advertising. Some brands are fantastic at it and, then, there are others who shun it completely and rely on word-of-mouth/influencers. My sense on advertising/self-promotion is that you need to pick a strategy that suits your personality. You also need to target it in the right places. Mass market brands need to spend a lot of money on advertising. Niche brands are much more targeted and, in some cases, may not need any at all.

The point-of-difference here is that advertising is not marketing. Marketing is the story around your product – the promises it makes and how it keeps those promises. And, as a result, it begins with the product.

The Road Less Traveled

In the “Road Less Traveled,” Scott Peck begins with –

“Life is difficult.
This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.

When he dives into the topics of reflection and change, he raises the question – is it ever possible to become free from emotional pain in this life? And, the answer is yes and no. Yes, because once it is accepted, in a sense, it ceases to be pain. And, no, because competence brings with it responsibility and power. And, when you wield power, you need to make decisions and the process of making decisions with self awareness is a painful one.

I wrote about this a few weeks back when I shared how making it a habit to tell it as it is hasn’t gotten easier with time – even if I do it habitually. To this, Scott has a lovely response – “The best decision-makers are those who are willing to suffer the most over their decisions but still retain their ability to be decisive.” 

I loved that. I’ve found that to be very true. And, to me, that speaks to the difference between aiming for non-attachment and detachment.

A dear friend recommended this book to me a few days ago and I decided to buy a paperback (an unusual occurrence but I’m finding myself drawn to paperbacks again, of late) and keep it by my bedside table. Such a good decision. I’ve found myself nodding once every paragraph. In Yoda’s style, this book would be described as – “Packed with wisdom, this is.”

road less traveled,

The moment we grow up

The moment we look at ourselves in the mirror and say – “I am responsible for my life experience” – is the moment we grow up.

It doesn’t matter whether we’re 20 years old or 80 years old. In some cases, some go through a lifetime without ever growing up – growth is completely independent of age.

The funny thing about this moment is that it isn’t that life gets any easier after you accept this. The difficulty level stays the same. But, we stop focusing on it. Instead, we focus on all the aspects of our life experience we want to fix. And, when we re-direct our focus to something, it fundamentally shapes our experience. The more we focus on things we control, the more we feel our ability to control things expands.

But, it begins with taking responsibility.

(It is futile to wait to be “given” responsibility for our own life experience)

grow, responsibility

A deep life

Cal Newport’s new book “Deep Work” is just out as of this week. I love Cal’s work and downloaded it the morning it came out on Audible and am looking forward to getting through it in the next two weeks.

deep work,

I don’t expect the book’s insights to surprise me – Cal’s thought process generally resonates with my philosophy and he also shares his thought process via his excellent blog. (My framework for doing work that matters is – focus x intensity x hard work – and the book focuses on the intensity portion.)

That said, I am excited about the book because I expect him to bring together all this learning, help condense it into a thesis and also help me think through actions to increase the percentage of time I spend in deep work mode. More depth = more mindfulness after all.

So, I am looking forward to obsessing about “deep work” in the next 2 weeks. After all, as Cal nicely puts it, “a deep life is a good life.”

Here’s to that.

Is it the light?

The lights flickered for a brief moment in our Finance class the other day. Our Professor, who was in the midst of teaching a concept, abruptly asked – “The lights did flicker, right?” Once we’d nodded, he added with a smile – “Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t having a stroke or something.”

We all burst out laughing because the juxtaposition of a usually serious person cracking a joke made it funnier.

Jokes aside, though, it highlighted something important. For all those of us who are generally hard on ourselves, when things go wrong, we often begin by assuming that we are the problem. The better path would be to treat our assumed reason as a hypothesis and test it by checking in with other people if they are involved.

Instead of doing that, we attempt to draw conclusions from our perception of their perception.

This incident was a good reminder of a simple idea – “when in doubt and where appropriate, just ask.”

What you do vs. how you do it

When we think of getting better, we tend to focus on what we do. Learn Photoshop/SQL/PowerPoint, etc.

Source

While focusing on what we do adds a lot of value in the short term, I would contend that the majority of the value in the long term lies in our ability to improve how we do things. Learning to structure problems/design a life that maximizes focus and intensity/be more productive/learn all have huge long term impact.

Sure, go for that skills upgrade. It is probably on your mind because it is urgent.

But, don’t forget the important stuff just because immediate returns can’t be easily measured.

Feeling bad because of something you said

I had a moment yesterday when I felt bad about something I said in passing. It stayed at the back of my mind for thirty minutes after the conversation.

The interesting thing was that one part of my brain was naturally finding ways to avoid the situation. For example, a couple of ideas it threw were to ask questions about a different topic we hadn’t spoken via text about to divert attention to something else.

After realizing this wasn’t going away, I decided to pick up my phone and text – except I expressed exactly what I was feeling and said I was feeling bad about that moment and wished I hadn’t said it.

The best part about doing the right thing is that you know it is the right thing the moment you’ve done it, regardless of the response. I felt lighter and better after that. I heard back later as well – all was good and we laughed it off.

I am a big fan of being direct. This was a nice reminder of its power – when you feel bad about something you said, just talk about it. So much of living life well is simple. The onus is on us to not complicate it.

feeling bad

Investing limited resources

William Thorndike, in his book “The Outsiders,” profiles 9 CEO’s who achieved extraordinary financial results in comparison to their peer group and the overall market. In doing so, he found many similarities in their approaches, but one stood out – these CEO’s excelled in allocating limited resources.

As a CEO, there are 3 broad things you can do your time –
1. Optimize operations
2. Allocate resources (capital, people, your time and energy)
3. Media relations

These CEO’s spent almost no time on media relations and generally worked with a COO they trusted to run operations. They, then, were ruthless about their time, ran extremely lean and decentralized organizations that empowered their people to lead and allocated capital phenomenally well.

As leaders of our own selves, there is a lot we can learn from their behavior. In the final analysis, our effectiveness will be a function of how we’ve allocated our limited time and energy. This means taking the time to develop a set of principles that determines how we will spend this time and energy vs. saying yes to anything that pops up. This also means being intentional about our priorities at any given time vs. mindlessly succumbing to the many distractions that surround us.

Tim Urban had a wonderful post called “The Tail End” on his hugely popular “Wait But Why” blog. In it, he shared the following image –
investing limited resourcesEach box is a week and these are all the weeks in a 90 year lifetime. And, by now, you have probably marked the rough spot that is this week in your life.

There is limited time and energy to go around. Let’s use it well.

Phone out of the bedroom

There’s a benefit to reflection that isn’t apparent when you get started. That’s because it takes time for thoughts to percolate and crystallize into insight and then action.

As I reflected on my use of devices a few days ago, an idea that stuck was that I was very aware of the fact that rolling over to my phone and checking messenger notifications and emails first thing in the morning was a very negative habit. And, yet, I regularly went through phases when I did it. As I rolled over to do it a few days back, I asked myself why this was so difficult.

The analogy that popped to mind was one about eating healthy. The way to eat healthy is not to surround yourself with unhealthy food and test your willpower. Instead, it is to throw all unhealthy food out and only keep healthy food at home. Music piracy in the US became a non issue the moment it became easy to download songs via services like iTunes. Convenience matters.

So, why not keep my phone out of the bed room? I felt that slightly panicked reaction – “How will I wake up without an alarm?”

And, thus, I finally understood why I was so used to keep my phone by my side. This reason had gotten lost over time. Fast forward 3 days, I keep my phone outside our bed room as of 8pm and use my iPad to set an alarm. My iPad is primarily a FaceTime + media consumption device. So, checking stuff first thing in the morning is a non issue.

It has felt wonderful.

Rohan 1, Negative energy device habits 0.

phone bedroomSource