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Words. Wisdom. Winners.
Realization
Most of us have been raised to admire the extra ordinary
To be inspired by them
To be in awe of them
To want to become them
BUT
Most of us have been raised to be ordinary
To be average
To follow the herd
To take the path already taken
To admire is easy
It’s easy to watch great people
It’s easy to see how they did it to listen to them
But it takes a lot to become them
And we haven’t been taught how
As if it’s something we had to be born with
Consistently put yourself into situations others have only watched and admired
This is the worst email pickup line. Ever!
An overwhelming majority of emails and messages I receive end broadly the same way
What do you think of the idea?
Am I on the right track?
How should I plan my life?
What’s the best advice you can give me?
And my personal favorite
Want to pick your brains on this
This form of help-seeking is lazy, at its best.
When we ask such questions, we may think we are being considerate of someone’s time
But if the opposite person truly values their time, then this approach is frustrating
You expect someone to navigate through your story, your circumstance, your context, and then distill all the thoughts into one or two powerful implementable points?
Because you asked?
Try this the next time
Be. Ruthlessly. Specific
And relevant
That shows you have a problem
And you have taken the effort to narrow down the reasons
And have identified someone who could help
And are respectful of their time
While aware of where they can help and how
If you get a response, you know for a fact that you have a conversation going.
With a sense of purpose.
For all the times you ask for generic advice
Someone who could have helped, chooses not to
If you hate doing something – this is what you got to do
Here is a view to life
That is conclusively true
Our brain is a muscle
That requires training
Training that it rarely gets
Because it’s the hardest thing to train
And life is not a bed of roses
It will be hard, supremely hard
At times, or most often
But hard for sure
Just as much as it will be easy or enjoyable
Here is a contrarian view to life
That is also conclusively true
To prepare for these hard times
You have only one route
Train your brain
And to train your brain for such times
You have got to pick up the things you hate doing
And go fucking do them
Hate waking up early?
Wake up early
Hate eating healthy?
Eat healthy
Hate approaching new people?
Approach new people
Hate studying?
Study
Because when you do things you hate
You don’t win some tactical battle
You prepare yourself for those worst moments
That will surely hit you
So that you don’t fall apart
Don’t protect yourself
Prepare yourself
Are you in the “people business”?
When you are dining at a restaurant, or relaxing at a spa, or getting pampered at a salon – the cost of that service is usually ridiculously low compared to what you end up paying.
So we argue we are paying for the softer aspects
The ambiance
The treatment
The expertise/quality of the experience
Ever wondered then – why does the experience diminish if the one serving you gives you the impression that they don’t care?
Why do unhappy servers affect us so much, when it’s not them that we are consuming
An unhappy server serving the best tasting food – not good enough
An unhappy masseuse delivering the best quality massage – not good enough
Here is my prediction why
Because at a subconscious level, we are also paying for that individual’s inability to enjoy life, at that precise moment
When we are sitting having a nice meal, the server is serving us. Not enjoying.
When we are getting a lovely massage, the masseuse is not enjoying
All the occasions when we are being served and enjoying, the server is NOT enjoying.
They are serving us.
Which is why, when we see someone unhappy, we feel our money wasn’t put to use.
And we hate that, don’t we?
If you are in the serving business, each time you truly show that you love serving – people will feel wonderful being served.
If you are in the people business, each time you truly show that you love people – people will feel wonderful being themselves
Help: I want to build a gender neutral workplace but this comes in my way
This post is meant to spark a conversation – I am genuinely seeking help on how to build a gender neutral workplace
This women’s day, I shared stats about women representation at nearbuy.com – a piece that went “mini-viral”
Share of women: 34%
Share of women in tech: 29%
Impressive, I assume
However, here is the reality
This month, 3 women colleagues – great at what they do, had to leave because of a change in their personal situation (got married in a different city or husband is moving to a new city).
In each of the situations, they wanted to continue working with nearbuy – and we tried to figure out options (remote work etc) but couldnt come up with any elegant situation that didnt harm work or their ability to grow.
Early this year, we lost 2 more colleagues to similar circumstances
And I know (as of today) of 3 more such cases before the end of the year
We lost 8 women colleagues, extremely capable professionals, because they got married or their husband moved cities
In 10 years I have encountered only 1 case of a male professional leaving their workplace because of his partner.
How am I supposed to deal with this?
I needed suggestions from the audience – how do I build a gender-balanced workplace in light of the above situation?
PS: Dont need to hear “this is the reality” – I am not looking for validation. I am looking for ideas
Nike and me
In school, I was fascinated with Nike, the brand
I knew it as “Niek” back then
And all day long, on every blank space possible – I used to draw the swoosh and sketch “just do it”
I decided that if I ever get a tattoo it will be the swoosh, on the mount of my palm.
Never managed to buy a pair of Nike shoes though. Never had enough money early on and by the time I did, other similar brands came cheaper!
Last year, I read Shoe Dog, by Phil Knight, founder of Nike.
Hands down the best book of last year. Possibly across many more years.
It rekindled my fascination with Nike, the brand.
I wondered what it would be to run in a Nike
I wondered if it was true, what Eisenhower (founder of Nike) said
This birthday, Ravi gifted me a pair of Nike shoes.
One of the most thoughtful gifts ever :))
And I was so excited
For my Monday run
Yesterday, I wore the shoes
Didn’t feel any different
Walked in them
Didn’t feel any different
Started to run in them
Felt the same as my Puma
Ran for 3Kms
The Nike didn’t feel any different
Then I looked at my timer
What every time takes me 18 mins to run, had taken me 15mins
So instead of running at 10kmph I had ran for 12kmph
I had gained 20% in a day.
On a day when I felt there was no difference
My mind was telling me something that day
But my subconscious had been listening to something else for years
Guess who won
It all boils down to the story you have telling yourself all this while
And if there was none, today’s story will win!
This is the saddest thing about technology that no one talks about
There was a time when content was not democratic
There was a lot of effort put into production. But distribution was almost dictatorial.
Set TV hours for each show.
The TV shows were decided by someone else
Their timings were decided by someone else
Their content was decided by someone else
Same for movies
Same for songs
Same for news
No one got to make them.
No one got to chose what to consume
No 10/20/30 second edits – either you consume all of it or you dont
People hated it.
I can understand why
So then came the biggest technology intervention that few talk about
Personalization
Content today, is a reflection of your interests, your reactions, your engagement.
Its constantly tracking you, and delivering freshly baked content to appeal to your senses.
To get you hooked!
Creating mini-you in the guise of that news item, that movie edit, that user-generated song, that viral forward
This scares me
Personalization is wiping out the ability for us to form opinions.
Technology was meant to help us see things from a different point of view.
Instead, machines are working to make us more and more enclosed in our worlds.
Making us believe that its the entire world
Thats why books are unique
A colleague mentioned this yesterday
I love books, because they are not personalized
They werent written for me. They were written by someone.
So we have no choice, but to consume the perspective of the author.
Accept or reject – but consume first.
Which is far better than being supplied stuff that endorses my point of view and never allows for a different one to set in.
When you do something unusual, it will catch attention. But…
To work on my neck and cheek bones, I got two bricks, placed them on top of each other, wrapped a cotton cloth around them and created a sling knot.
Idea is to hold the knot by biting it with your teeth. That puts pressure on your cheek bones. And if you make your head go up and down, it works on the back side of your neck.
So everyday, I walk from home to the gym with two bricks hanging from a cloth piece held between my jaws.
People give me the looks
People in the gym ask me what’s this all about
People are intrigued
The responses are quite funny, ranging from “is he mad?” to “wow, look at him”
The attention to this unusual thing, is quite amusing
Except,
My cheek bones are pretty much still there
It might take 2-3 months, even more for the effects to show
There might be no effects at all
Another reminder of life
Unusual things will get you a lot of attention
And that attention will make you believe you are on the right track
But it’s not the attention that influences the outcome
Stop measuring the success of your outcome, by the attention your work gets.
The “who to fire” framework. Warning: It’s not pretty
2 traits define people who work with you
Capable
and
Compatible
Despite the best interview processes and intent, there are errors that creep in.
And it’s super critical to take a hard stand on such errors
I have never regretted firing someone. I have only regretted not doing it early enough
The easiest are people who are neither capable nor compatible.
Such cases need deep honest introspection. How did they get past the system, the checks, the balances.
Irrespective of seniority, my experience is that it takes no more than a month to find such people.
Take them out on the first day of the second month!
Next are people who are not capable but compatible
These individuals need attention. Training. Mentorship. Guidance.
If done right, they can win. But organizations need to have the will and more importantly the patience to see them through
In my experience, these individuals can be identified in 3 months. And I would give them another 3-6 months to upskill. Else unfortunately counseled out
Capable but not compatible is a tricky one.
My personal experience – such cases never work out in the long run.
These are hard to conclude, extremely painful to execute and you will almost always want to live in denial.
In my experience, these take easily a year to surface.
Doing the right thing requires immense courage
To me, these decisions is the hallmark of a seasoned entrepreneur or manager
In the long run, compatibility is greater than capability
Let a capable person not tell you otherwise!
People to avoid; people to hold on to
Avoid
People who think of themselves higher than you think of them
They don’t want to grow.
They think they have already done everything
They have a misplaced sense of self worth
Developed largely by their own minds
Not by feedback
Hold on to
People who hold you to a standard much higher than you hold yourself to
They genuinely want you to win
They see in you a much higher order than you do yourself
And they act as the motivating mirror
Always showing you not who you are
Rather who you can be
The most dangerous kinds
People who think of themselves higher than you think of them AND hold you to a
higher standard than you hold yourself to
These individuals give you the impression they wish to help you.
They give the impression they want to fight with you
Not to make you a better version of yourself
But to make you lose
To tell you that even at your best, you are only a shade of who they are
(Most so-called mentors fall in this category!)
Knowing the kind of people around you, is the first step to improving yourself
Eliminating the toxic ones is the best step to improving yourself
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