One of the better things I do is play soccer 5 times a week. If I can keep this habit of mine up, I should be able to play soccer when am 60 – which is something I definitely want to do. It is truly amazing to see the 50+ year olds play soccer on Saturdays and Sundays – especially 3 of them who have played the game together for 44 years, and one of whose sons(25 himself) plays as well! There’s almost no need to look outside of the playing field for fitness role models..

One of these is a very cool bloke by name Jackie from whom I’ve learnt some very basic footballing lessons from time to time. I enjoy playing with him because he is a natural leader, a fantastic player who could outplay many a university student on the hard courts despite being 30+ years older! Being a natural leader, he teaches all the time and tells everyone on his team as to what he/she’s done wrong. And there was this one instance in the game yesterday when I reached for the ball but felt I couldn’t reach it and let it go and ran after to throw it to the other team’s goal keeper. That’s when Jackie said loudly, with his trademark grin -‘You got to want the ball a LOT more than that to get it – only if you WANT it can you GET it!’

Changed my performance in the game yesterday, it did…

Gave me a crucial learning for today that could change my life, he did..

Thanks Jackie!

From my rather vast experience in the field of things going wrong(;)) thanks to the unlimited number of screw ups I almost seem to generate, I have noticed that when things begin to go wrong, everything cascades into lots and lots of screw ups! Its almost a situation like when shit hits the fan, there’s just a lot of it all over the place hitting everyone around..

But it is indeed true that when things begin to go wrong, it all tends to go into this loop of self destruction(with me, atleast) and almost everything I touch ends up worse than it was before. Similar to – when it rains it pours. I guess, firstly, it is true that, when you are in a hole – stop digging! But how do you really do that?

The least I’ve figured is that if the screw ups are because of issues within yourself that have to be changed, then, the best way to look at it is that you are doing well and you have done all you can with your current set of values, good qualities etc.. but to move from this peak to the next, you are going to have to climb down and climb again as between two peaks, there is always a valley. Somehow, I find this to be refreshingly positive as I have been trying to get out of a similar loop thanks to my personal refusal to use my own brain but the thought that its just because I’ve peaked prior to this, and am just heading to a taller and better peak is heartening.. :)

I’ve missed 2 learning days in a row. Well, I ‘can’ blame it on long/irregular/busy days among other things but its best if I learnt from this and moved on and hopefully did continue posting a learning a day..

Sustainability – I never really understood the concept till I came across the idea in various similar forms; like consistency, dependability etc. In simple terms, I understand sustainability to be the essential difference between a pro and an amateur, a business and an idea, a billion dollar company and a million dollar company and so on..

In simple terms, the implications are immense – for instance, you would expect Fedex to deliver within a day, whether it means travelling through rain, shine or even thunderstorms. And many such basic examples. What I have further learnt is that it is not easy to think of it in simple terms but in any case, if, hypothetically, this blog had 1 reader who came back for a blog every day and found no entry even on 1 day(forget an unforgivable 2 days..), the chances that the reader would want to come back is never, and when you talk about a service that caters to a few million customers a day, there is just no choice but to be sustainable…. ;)

I can’t help but mention the breathtaking Manchester United victory establishing themselves as the kings of Europe. At this point, however, my learning is based a lot on team dynamics. Both the teams going up to the final(the other being Chelsea) had a bunch of the finest talents in world football. Chelsea would have the edge in terms of experience because of the presence of a larger number of proven match winners. But, that’s really where man management is crucial..

A month ago, in a match between these two teams, there was a very open, and rather shameful, clash between two big names in the Chelsea side. This was so bad that one of their teammates chose to cover his face with his jersey as he couldn’t believe it was happening. Despite going on to win and beat United, it was hard to see them taking that forward with such team dynamics. Their season has been marred with spats with the coaching staffs, players blaming each other etc. And I was curious to see if they would indeed manage to win anything given the enormous internal friction thanks to huge egos and equally poor man management. I was curious to see if this assortment of match winners worth millions of dollars would manage to create history despite(very obviously) not enjoying working with each other. This – versus a young side brimming with all positive vibes, a healthy mix of experience and young talent managed by a manager whose man management skills are probably unequalled..

And thankfully, yesterday night at Moscow, justice was done..

(Note: This learning is with all due respect to Chelsea manager Avram Grant who’s done a great job in managing a side which was never his.. and that was what probably made all the difference in the world..)

I’ve been learning that there is really no such thing as a ‘Self Made’ man and its high time I get my people priorities right. I guess the other important thing is to understand that life is a very natural process of give and take and some of us are indeed lucky that we are in situations where we can keep taking without giving(eg: loving/doting families) and it is important that we do learn where to draw the line.

And more importantly, understand when we are taking the situation/resource/person for granted and start using our heads to add value.

Wiser people call this process of understanding “growing up”..

is a clear reflection of your ability. I guess the ones that realize this and put cent per cent effort into everything they do are the ones who go farther in life. On a honest assessment, I probably do 20% of the things with that much effort and the results show… :)

I guess the greatest thing at this moment is.. thank god there is tomorrow for us to do more than we did today!

There are many popular sayings about standing out of crowds. Like the one I just saw, which went like – ‘You either stand out of the crowd or get lost within..’

I’ve wondered what this really means – as we could define dressing up in multi colored clothes in a formal board meeting would be standing out – in a way. That’s similar to a sports pundit I spotted on TV prior to the final Man Utd game wearing a yellow suit, pink shirt and blue tie if I remember right.

It was then I heard this – ‘To stand out, you must first fit in and then stand out’

Suddenly, it all made sense..

John “Jack” Welch is probably one of the most legendary leaders alive. Within 20 years of being CEO, he transformed General Electric from its worth of a few billion dollars to a net worth of half a trillion dollars! His one constant emphasis to all wanting to do well is to ‘take more swings’ (a connection to his baseball background). And the fact that it doesnt matter how many times you miss, but the number of times you try that really matters!

This insight helped me understand. There are many reactions to the obvious success of the United States. There are friends of mine who love digging up conspiracy theories about the states and, hence its success, yet other dismiss it and keep pointing at the “growing” and “future powers”. As time has passed, these have shifted from Germany at various times to Japan to China etc.(Its helpful to note whats the most in demand language in the world. Its gradually shifted from European languages and Japanese to Mandarin these days..)

Anyway, digressions apart, I’m astounded to know that, of revenue earned by the country, the United States spends 12 times more than an average developing country on research and development. As someone wiser than me once illustrated, it basically meant betting on 2 guys shooting a basketball through a hoop – one guy taking 1 shot and the other taking 12 shots. Now, even if it was Michael Jordan vs me(taking the 12 shots) – notwithstanding my primitive basketball skills, you would bet on 12 shots doing the trick. Sounds like a simple and straight forward answer, doesn’t it?

Voila! Here’s the answer..

One of the most respected Heads of the US Chamber of Commerce was retiring and was asked in his felicitation dinner as to what he would attribute his success to.

He said that it went all the way back when he was a young man in just another ordinary job hardly doing anything of note. One day, while he was walking back home, he spotted a noticeboard outside a local school which said –

‘Your success is directly proportional to the amount you do after you do what you are supposed to do’ …

Here’s an interesting story I heard..

There were a bunch of miscreants who used to harass their old neighbour next door by stealing mangoes from a tree which she grew with lots of care. Every day the old lady would chase these boys out and they would come back again. Till finally, one day, the lady left them $10 at the foot of the tree. The boys were obviously delighted.. and when they came back the next day, they saw $9 and this came down $8 and so on till the day came when they no longer found money at the foot of the tree.

The boys stopped trying to steal the mangoes altogether and a few days later, the old lady met them in the local market and asked them as to what happened and their reply was – “So what do you expect? Now that you’ve stopped paying us to do it!”

This story sounded amusing at first until the power of giving someone something and then taking it away..hit me!