Feeling successful Even the most well-accomplished people can feel defeated. Why should someone feel so even after winning? It could be because(1) The price they paid to win in one area may be too high at the expense of other areas of life(2) They won but not on their terms(3) They had hoped to experience …
Feeling successful | Charisma | Unsolicited advice Read More »
Step away Recently, my struggle to finish the ThoughtLetter made me realize the importance of stepping away. I was trying hard to write and re-write the same thing in different ways but it did not help until I forced myself to take a short break and move from my desk to do something. Mental pause …
Step away | Allow don’t try | Relationship with failure Read More »
Inner state Ambition is the outcome you want to achieve while aspiration is the kind of person you hope to become. However, there is another dimension to consider in your pursuits. It is the inner state you want to be in while you are pursuing your goals. They are your thoughts, emotions, or mental states. …
Inner state | Managing win and loss | Peter Principle Read More »
Enjoyment as criteria More than half of our lives are filled with chasing goals. We usually make SMART goals and evaluate our activities against the performance criteria. We often ask ourselves ‘Did I give my best?’ for everything we do, without knowing what best means in some cases. Then one fine day we realize that …
Enjoyment as criteria | Midnight rule | On his blindness Read More »
Tribute to Daniel Kahneman Behavioral Science is no more about biases and nudges. It has evolved beyond these frames into the multi-disciplinary domain. The field got its prominence because of a few thought leaders like Daniel Kahneman who made behavioral science more visible to the larger world outside academics. Through his work, he proposed to …
Tribute to Daniel Kahneman | Beliefs about power | Contrast makes ordinary special Read More »
Hard thinking In my younger days, hard work was seen as a golden virtue. Many stories and narratives celebrated the hardworking chap who toiled to become successful. As I grew up I realized hard work was not the key to being successful. It was the hard thinking that gave people their edge. It is not …
Hard thinking | Challenging customs | Brain plasticity Read More »
Defining productivity Living on a farm can shift our perspectives about how we define work. As I watched the people carry about their work caring for their livestock, cleaning the pens, I wondered how they define their productivity. Working on the farm is hard work with a lot of uncertainties and constraints. Yet, Farmers seemed …
Defining productivity | Tribute to Wordsworth | Exhaustion and default Read More »
To grin and bear it The marathon event held during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics proved to be quite challenging for the runners. They had to endure unfavorable conditions, such as suboptimal temperature and humidity, as well as overcrowded drink stations. Despite these hurdles, Kenyan runner Eliud Kipchoge successfully won the Gold medal in the men’s …
To grin and bear it | The map is not the territory | I have nothing to add Read More »
Tradeoffs Our choices of who we want to be would mean we make choices of who we don’t want to be. This is applicable both in business and life. Successful businesses choose to serve specific customers and their needs which means they say no to others. e.g. Walmart stores do not serve people in Manhattan …
Tradeoffs | Offering help | Gaining confidence from failure Read More »
Create space for growth When I tried to disentangle a growing mango plant from a the grips of a tiny climber, I was amazed at how the fragile climber could bind the leaves and stunt the plant’s growth. Our self-limiting beliefs can stunt our growth just like these weeds. Some catch us when we are …
Create space for growth | Allow to compound what we value | Focus on what has gone right Read More »
