Contrarian thinking Following the crowd is our ingrained survival mechanism. Being stuck in slow-moving traffic for six hours over the Xmas weekend made me realize that sometimes it does not serve to be where the crowd is. In life and entrepreneurship, we want to go with the crowd for fear of being left out. However, …
Contrarian Thinking | Year-end reflection | Ending Rumination Read More »
Playing a positive sum game Last week I attended a seminar, where I met people who are in my industry as coaches. It was a big learning experience as I interacted with them and exchanged ideas. On reflection, I realized business competition need not be a zero-sum game. Unlike war or sports where a single …
Playing a positive sum game | Our hidden strength | Expressing gratitude to your team Read More »
The power of learning mindset A dynamic young manager shared with me his success story of starting grounds up and now becoming a marketing expert. In his words, “I had a very humble background. As a fresh undergrad, I recall going to my mentor, who had just started his business, and saying, “Please give me …
The power of learning mindset | Taking a higher view | Munger’s wisdom Read More »
Giving permission to understand My work revolves around conversations. Hence, I found this simple advice from Carl Rogers, an eminent psychologist, deeply insightful. “I have found it of enormous value when I can permit myself to understand the other person… Is it necessary to permit oneself to understand another? I think it is. Our first …
Giving permission to understand | Action comes before motivation | Expressing gratitude Read More »
Reminder of Superpower Superpowers are not lost. They are forgotten or taken for granted. The best way to develop superpowers in others is to remind them about it. If you are a person of credibility or someone in authority remind others of their superpower and they will start seeing it again in themselves. Kalpana Chawla …
Reminder of Superpower | Defining Success | Futility of being dead serious Read More »
Readiness for great ideas There is no dearth of ideas to solve a problem. However, there is a reluctance to accept a good idea as it requires courage to change and imagination to see a different possibility. As leaders, you may find yourself fighting hard to convince the people around you of an idea. It …
Readiness for great ideas | Leadership and parenting | First-day mindset Read More »
Removing the creases from our chutes Parachute jumpers follow a unique practice to hang their reserved chutes every once in 60 days for 24 hours to let the creases out, and get the life back into the material. What can we do to remove the mental creases that we have accumulated over the years of …
Removing the creases from our chutes | Reason is not Rational | Having faith in people Read More »
Obaitori – Every flower blooms in its own time When everyone sees everyone else as their competitor in the mad rat race, Obaitori, a Japanese idiom, comes as a great mental model to instill sanity in us. It refers to the four trees – plum, apricot, cherry, and peach that bloom at their own time …
The difficult part of learning Learning is hard if it requires us to let go of our own personal truths. Indian philosophy uses the term Avidya. It means the presence of mistaken conclusions about ourselves and the world that we value as knowledge. The only way to learn is to ask ourselves if what we …
Valuing surplus time We value money over time. As Seneca rightly said – “People are frugal in guarding their personal property, but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.”The decision to spend time is driven by the need …
Valuing surplus time | Vision and purpose as binding forces | Expecting to win Read More »
