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You asked for their help.
They refused.

Maybe they didn’t want to help.
Perhaps they were not in a position to help.

Couple of days later, they need your help.

If you can help them, should you?
Or should you make this the best time to seek revenge?

Asking for help is good.
Not taking it personally when we don’t receive the help is better.
Not being personal when the same person asks for help is great!

Maturity in life is when someone rejects us and we don’t take it personally.
Bigger maturity is when they come back for our help and we help them.
Just because we can.

I am a game builder and I have created a whole new game for you.

Here is how it works.

Each time you play, there is a 90% chance that you will lose!
Yeah, you heard that right – 90% chance that you will lose.
BUT – the amount that you lose, is capped.
YOU WILL NEVER lose more than a certain amount, which is known to you already.

No matter how much you bet, the loss is always up to a maximum loss. Never beyond that.

10% of the times that you play this game, you can win.

And when you win, you can win BIG. There is no upper limit. You can win infinitely. More than you ever needed in life.

In short, 90% of the times you lose with a maximum loss (you will not lose beyond that), and 10% you win with no maximum gain (you can win any amount – no upper cap).

Here is my question for you.
How many times will you play this game?

Here is my answer.
?Every single day of my life!

?If I know that my loss is capped but my gains are infinite, I will play this game as many times as I can, to get to that 10% win probability.

This, my dear friend, is the game of life.

If you are reading this post, you understand English, are most probably consuming it on a smartphone, so you can afford it and also have access to high-speed internet.
What this means is that whatever risk you take in life, your loss is capped.
WHATEVER risk you take – you are NEVER going to lose everything.

We are all privileged. We are never going to die of hunger or poverty. We are never going to be there on the streets.
Our losses are capped.

They are notional in our head – what will people say, I will not have as much as others, others will make fun of me.
These are not losses.
These are feelings.

Our actual loss in life is capped – whenever we take any risk.

But if we win, IF WE WIN – we can change our entire life!

If this is truly the game of life, I would play this game again and again and again and again and again and again!

Would you?

“If I were in the panel, I would never shortlist this resume.”

With that, he dropped my resume, the corner of which he had been holding with his thumb and index finger.

The single page resume floated in the air, before landing on the pristine wooden table.

What could I have said at this moment?

January 2005
Taj Palace Hotel, New Delhi
My interview for ISB

It was my first time entering the grand Taj Palace in Delhi.
As if the nervousness wasn’t enough, the grandeur of the place left me overwhelmed.

I felt small.
A harsh reminder that I wasn’t supposed to be here in the first place.
Applying to an MBA program that preferred 2 years of work experience.
Real-life experience.

I had none.
All I had was a drop-out status.
And a confused state of mind.

My name was called out.

I open the door, to enter a large boardroom.
In front of me are 3 gentlemen.
Sharp suits. Cheerful faces. They looked smart.
Or maybe that’s what I thought everyone from ISB looked like.

Was I even a fit?

They introduced themselves.
2 alums and 1 from the administrative team.

They ask me for my resume.

I had a colored resume.
Blue.
And it had a footprint, as a background.

“Why does your resume have a footprint?”
“Because it was my print on the sand I have walked on?”

I thought that was a deep, smart answer.

“Good thought. But most likely will not work in a corporate setup.”

Oh! There is something called a corporate setup?

They asked me about my US experience, why I dropped out, what did I learn there.

And then came the question.
“What would you like to do, post ISB?”

“I honestly don’t know. I am hoping I will figure it out through the year. My peers, professors and the setting will expose me to a lot more than I know today.”

“But still, what are your preferences?”

“Ummm – I really like numbers and I am good with them. So maybe, finance?”

“If I were in the panel, I would never shortlist this resume.”

The admin team member had the corner of my resume held with his thumb and index finger.
He made this remark, raised it above his head, and let go of the resume.
It came floating down, landing on the wooden table.

Which gave me 2 seconds to digest what just happened.

“In that case, I am happy that you will not be part of the panel.”

WTF! Was that rude? Too direct? Unnecessary? Cocky?

He smiled.
I heaved a sigh of relief.

3 weeks later, I received the email :))

ISB took a bet on me.
I had nothing to offer.
And I, till date, do not know why it chose me.

That 1-year just changed my life.
It changed everything about me.

Because while I went to ISB looking for a job and a career and a salary and a brand and a position and all the nice things, I went to ISB looking for myself.

Who am I?
What am I good at?
What am I not good at?

And the ISB opportunity gave me those answers.

Some people work hard to get the opportunity.
Some work hard once they get the opportunity.

5-step process to remember everything you read in a book:

Reading on a Kindle

When I read a book, I highlight a lot.
A LOT.

Anything that catches my attention, intrigues me, fuels my curiosity.
Sometimes entire pages.

Exporting the highlights

What I love about this is that I do not feel the pressure to finish a book.
Whatever I read, however much, has takeaways in the form of these highlights.

I will then export these highlights into a pdf and email it to me.
Kindle allows that.

Sit with the highlights

I now have my own summary of the book. Not crowdsourced. Personalised.
After a week, I sit down with this pdf for 15 mins. And ask myself one question:
“How can I apply this to my current life?”

Report progress after 30 days

After a month, I would sit again for 10 mins (doesn’t take longer) and see how, if at all, any of the new paths led to some revelations.

Maybe I agree with them more.
Maybe I realised they don’t work for me.

This check-in is critical.

Create a re-read list

Basis the impact and resonance I felt, I add a book to my re-read list, which means I will read it once every year.
These are phenomenal books (for me) where each time I pick them up I have figured something new that has helped me.

There is a twist though.
The re-read list at any point cannot be more than 12 books.

So if I want to add to it and I already have 12 books, one book has to be dropped. This keeps me honest with the quality of this list.

This 5-step process has helped me assimilate most of the knowledge I can derive from books.

It has also made me appreciate the power of books.
How, at the cost of a pizza, I get to download someone’s entire life and learnings!

I recognize this process seems too dependent on a Kindle.

The Kindle just makes the job easier. But the process can very well be done with a physical book too.

If you’re driving on the highway, you choose your speed, within the limits.

As you enter the city, you don’t own the speed anymore.

The clutter on the roads, the traffic and speed of others defines your speed.

That’s true for life as well.

We don’t own our pace, when we are cluttered.

Cluttered with emotions, desires, stories, people telling us what to do.
To get to the speed we want, we have to declutter our life and get from the city to the highway mode in our life.

To own our speed, it isn’t enough to drive our life. Who and what we drive it with matters just as much.

What do I look for in candidates while hiring?

Not their college. Not their work experience. Or their family background.

For me, it’s always curiosity.

Why are we doing what we’re doing?
What would this look like if it were easier?
What is this trying to teach me?
What’s the root cause to solve for?

The curious minds fall in love with the problems instead of solutions.
They enjoy the process instead of the final product.

They know that they don’t know everything.
And that is the best thing to know.

I love working with curious minds who are obsessed with asking the right questions.

“There is no one right answer. Only better questions.”
– Tim Ferris

It is not you who changes your environment.
Your environment changes you.

That is why it is critical to pick the right environment.
Or move away from the wrong ones.

This applies to every aspect of life.

College.
Work.
Friends.
Partner.
Family.
Relatives.

Everyone is carrying a burden.
We just see ours.

Be kind to people.
Be kind to yourself.
Always.

Different career streams to choose from.
Two job offers to pick from.
Deciding whom to build a relationship with.

There are numerous such instances where we face two not so obvious choices to make. And we often find ourselves saying, “I don’t know what to do.”

Do we really not know?

I think mostly we all know what to do. But we crave to know if it’s the right decision. We spend an inordinate time analysing, researching, planning, debating, thinking – in the hope to get to the right decision.

But we won’t ever know if it’s the right decision, until we make the decision.
And this thought paralyses us.

When we say “I don’t know what to do,” what we usually imply is, “I don’t know if the decision I make will work out or not”.

We don’t fear making the decision.
We fear an undesirable outcome.

We all have a definition of who is a poor person. Someone who doesn’t have a lot of money

That’s financial poverty.

But there is another definition of poverty – mental poverty.

A state where someone is not satisfied with what they have, no matter how much that is.
A state where we fail to recognize that we already have a lot to be grateful for.
A state where one is consistently in need of more, because they never have enough.

Financial poverty is visible to others, mental poverty lies within.
Some people are so poor that all they have is money.