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Words. Wisdom. Winners.
Solve for the exception
Imagine you are trying to arrange for a get together with 20 other friends.
And you are responsible for deciding the date and time. So you set out to decide a certain date and time and then share it with everyone, asking “is everyone ok with this?”
And the barrage of reactions start. I am ok. I am ok. I am ok. And then somewhere down this stream, someone says, “can we change it to xyz.”
That’s the first instance of something valuable, right? Because you now know what to fix?
Imagine, you are trying to get feedback n your newly launched product.
You go to all your customers and ask them, “do you like the product?”
Most of them say yes. Until someone says, “actually no. And here is why.”
That’s the first instance of valuable feedback.
It is evident that what we are solving for is the exception. The small percentage that doesn’t agree with us.
And yet, what we ask for, is consensus.
We ask for how many agree with us, when what is useful is the small percentage that doesn’t agree with us.
“Is there anyone for whom this date and time doesn’t work?”
“Is there anyone for whom this product doesn’t work?”
Seek the exceptions. Because that’s what you have to solve for.
The problem
Go back to the time when you failed, when you lost, when you didn’t make it. It was likely as part of the reflection, you blamed someone else.
If only they had not done it. If only the had done it. If only they didn’t say this. If only the had said this. If only they didn’t behave this way. If only they had reacted.
Here is a reminder
Other people are not the problem.
It’s the belief that other problem are the problem, which is the problem!
Are we listening?
People tell us exactly who they are. All the time.
But we don’t listen.
Because we want them to be who we think they are. Who we want them to be.
Not who they truly are.
If only we listened.
No one was born knowing how to…
I see our kids and it’s evident that love is a natural emotion they are born with. The need to bond, to respond, to care, to acknowledge, to display.
But what isn’t natural, is hate.
To differentiate. To judge. To segregate. To distinguish. Based on color, caste, religion, how people speak, how they look, where they come from.
So all that the hate that we see in the world today, was taught!
Hate has been taught! To every single child in this world, that grows up to hate someone or something.
That is pretty hard hitting. It shows that we all collectively failed at some point of time.
We turned a natural born good emotion into a mix of good and bad.
We taught ours kids to hate.
My Top 10 List for 2019: Books, Videos, Articles
You can read my Top 10 List for 2018, 2017, 2016
Every year, I use the second half of December to reflect upon the content that moved me the most in the past year.
Here is my list for 2019
The top 10 books I read in 2019
One of the most powerful books I have read on negotiation. Have used a lot of the tactics in real life, even beyond negotiation circumstances, and its helped tremendously.
Alchemy – The surprising power of ideas that don’t make sense
I first heard of Rory Sutherland on a podcast. Loved his idealogy. Started following him on twitter and realized his view of the world is so dramatically different from mine. Which meant, I had to read his book. And I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Such a wonderful book about being wrong and everything around it.
From one of my favorite writers online, James Clear. A powerful book. Also my most recommended book for this year.
This was long time due and was one of the most recommended books from my readers. Truly enjoyed it. Not necessarily the idealogy I would follow in life, but it is something that is hard to ignore.
Possibly the best step-by-step guide on how to think of growth in a startup. Learnt a lot from it.
MAN! What a story. What a thriller. Couldn’t believe any of it even as I read it, knowing it to be true. Great pick if you want the joy of a fiction, in a non-fiction book.
Enjoyed this quite a lot. Very different take and made a lot of sense when I read it.
Perhaps apt for today’s time and world. Cleared my concepts around democracy and why do I do see what I see, time and again.
Oh man! What a joy and rush to read this one. Hard to imagine the near-death experiences Netflix went through and how it just didn’t give up. To today when it virtually rules our free time.
AWESOME book! Nothing more to say. Pick this up!
The top 10 videos I watched in 2019
My video consumption this year plummeted. I figured I am losing hearing in my ears due to excessive earphone usage, so completely stopped using earphones. Hence, stopped videos too (on YT or others).
That said, some videos made a mark
Yeh Haseen Vadiyan (Sitar Cover)
Balaji Srinivasan at Startup School 2013
The top 10 articles I read in 2019
Peter Kaufman on Multidisciplinary approach to thinking
How Superhuman built an engine to find Product/Market Fit
The psychology of startup growth
6 harsh truths that make you a better person
Not caring: A unique and powerful skill
Have a lovely 2020 everyone!
Someone asked on Twitter. “What advice do you have for a first time parent?”
Someone asked on Twitter.
“What advice do you have for a first time parent?”
Here are my thoughts
1/n
Kids are born with no other fear except that of falling.
Every other fear, they learn while living. As parents we are largely guilty of instilling those fears in them.
2/n
They are born with the ability to immerse themselves. In play.
And focus is a super power today!
As parents we disturb this immersion, by asking them to now eat, poop, bath, study, go for classes.
If only we allowed this immersion to continue.
3/n
They are natural born curious.
And curiosity can be killed. By repeating, “its like this only”.
Give them the freedom to discover. Even if the answer will leave them disturbed.
Don’t kill their curiosity.
4/n
Don’t ever ask any question starting with why.
Don’t accuse them. Don’t make them feel bad about mistakes they made that you could have made too.
Help them see through what happened. Not why!
5/n
To them everyone is equal. And everyone is a friend.
How we deal with people is how they learn how to differentiate between people.
6/n
Kiss them hug them and say you love them, for the rest of your life.
Express yourself. That will tell them it’s ok to do it too.
7/n
Build a routine with them every 2-3 months. Something you do everyday.
It will be school for them.
It will be memories for life, for you.
8/n
Its not what you tell them, but what you do, that will stay with them.
They will learn by observing you. You are a celebrity now. Be aware of that.
9/n
The most real definition of love will be developed in them observing how you love your partner.
Make sure you love your partner with respect and all your heart.
That’s how your kids will come to see love. And hopefully love.
10/n
Let them experience the world in its true raw form. Playing with dirt, falling over, singing aloud, bumping into people, making mistakes.
Don’t tame them.
The world will as it is do that to them.
As parents, free them!
11/n
The best gift you can gift your kids as a parent, is to not be a parent!
Life lessons
I turned 39 some days back
Here is what I have learnt from life, while living it
- Nothing pisses the world off more than you being comfortable with who you are
- Watching your kids grow up is heart breaking. Everyday they lose a bit of their innocence and become just as corrupt as we all are. That’s a precious life going away. One day at a time.
- Money buys freedom. Freedom is a privilege
- Listening to someone without judgement is the most precious gift you can give someone
- Risk and failure is a state of mind. There are no measurement scales for them. We create them. So we can destroy them too.We are not naturally trained to love ourselves. Learning how to do so is this journey called life
- You can neither chose your parents nor what they end up doing to you psychologically. Be prepared to heal yourself, if you have to.
- To not have a plan and be ok with it, is the best plan. It will take everything to get to that point.
- The world is designed to make our lives comfortable. Avoiding the comfort trap is the difference between who you are and who you could have been.
- No one owes you their time and money. And you don’t owe anyone either.
- Losing your temper is a sign you have a long way to go.
- If you are comfortable dancing in public without alcohol or drugs, you are at peace with who you are.
- The world will always keep you in the news if you do the unexpected. No one covers the expected. No one cares.
- The easiest way to learn from mistakes is to read books. The next option is to commit them yourselves.
- Being in control of your time is being in control of your entire life. There is nothing else worth controlling.
- Do not try and remember anything. Write it down. Keep a calendar. Free your mind from tasks.
- Resisting the obvious is a great way to change your orbit. If you do what everyone else will do, you will end up as everyone else.
- The world will constantly be defining success and failure for you. Realizing this is what is called self awareness.
- The years during which you work the hardest with nothing to show will be the years that will build you. Those will also be the years the world will not acknowledge you.
- Compounding is the biggest miracle of life. Founder dilution also is, in a bad way.
- The world fears the person who doesn’t fear anything. But it’s scarier for the world to face someone who embraces fear.
- Holding a grudge against someone requires a lot of effort. Think of all the wasted time spent being mad at someone.
- You are not responsible for anyone else’s happiness. Being responsible for yours is as it is tough.
- Being grateful in life for what you have, is precious.
- Complaining has never ever got someone to the solution.
- Working out teaches you discipline and patience like few other things do.
- You outgrow relationships. And when you do, don’t be ashamed to move on.
- The most dangerous people are those who run away from change. They are also the most energy sucking.
- Being good at something and being happy doing it are two very different things.
- People would much rather work for a competent asshole than an incompetent nice guy.
- The purpose of school is not to teach you subjects and concepts. It’s to teach you how to drop your ego and learn as a student. That’s why life is also called a school.
- Don’t ever fool yourself to believe you deserve to be where you are in life. You are just plain lucky. Born into privilege, love, care and shelter. Sitting on opportunities that people smarter and more hard working than you do not get.
- Spend time with people who are not like you. You don’t want your world to create a bigger version of you. You want it to create a better version of you. That happens when beliefs are challenged and debated.
- Destiny is what happens to you. Life is how you chose to react to it.
- Would you be friends with your own self? Would you marry your own self? Would you be your own boss? What version of you would you much rather not be? Why do you still be that version?
- True respect is when people know everything about you and still respect you. To get respect from a distance is easy. But that isn’t respect. It’s infatuation.
- How you treat someone who has nothing to offer, defines your value system. Your values don’t help you grow. But in times of shit, they hold you together.
- Empathy cannot be taught. Either you have it or you don’t. And if you don’t, compensating it by intelligence doesn’t help. Best is to remain an asshole.
- The hardest thing in the world is to tell yourself that it’s not hard at all.
- You will get what you seek. Not what you desire. Not what you dream. What you seek. Fervently.
Stay awesome
Stay blessed
Do epic shit
The market
Entrepreneurship is a great leveler. Perhaps the best one out there!
When was the last time you bought a product because the founder went to a prestigious school?
When was the last time you referred a product because the founder had been struggling for 5 years?
When was the last time you bought a product because the founder was unable to raise money and had to lay off people?
When was the last time you bought a product because the founder had raised millions and had a fancy office?
No one cares a fuck!
No one gives a fuck about who you are!
The market is the market.
It wants a product that works for them.
And if it does, it will reward you.
If it doesn’t, it wouldn’t even acknowledge your presence.
Most people are not used to this!
They have gotten past a lot of things in life because of where they came from, what they did in the past, who they know, where they studied.
And all of this does work for a lot of things in life
Rarely works as an entrepreneur
Sachin Bansal’s tweet speaks of this
“Success has a thousand fathers but failure only belongs to the founders.”
There isn’t any other way.
The failure is the founder’s
And you should know that before you decide to become one!
Do become one though :)
#startup #entrepreneurship #entrepreneurmindset
The thing about help
Assume your car is broken down. You are trying to get people to stop and help you, but no one is stopping.
Left with no choice, you begin to push your car now. All of a sudden, there are several people who stop to help you with that.
(An alternative rendition from something Chris Rock said)
Help, come to think of it, is a wonderful thing.
People, even unknown to each other, would put themselves through varying levels of discomfort, to get something done for someone else.
However, it’s conditional.
People will want to help you only when they see you making an effort.
And that means, before we begin to ask for help, we have to start helping our own self.
Helping ourselves is the easiest way to attract help from others.
We all change
People were asked how much would they would be willing to pay to see their favorite band perform live, 10 years from now.
The average was $127.
People were then asked how much would they pay today to see their favorite band from 10 years back, perform live.
The average was $80.
We are all told that to progress, we need to keep changing.
The truth though is that, we all change.
We just don’t know it.
We think who we are today, is who we are likely to be for a long time.
And yet, when we look back we see that that’s not the case.
We are all a result of subconscious change.
It’s conscious change that sets us apart.
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