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Words. Wisdom. Winners.

Yeah, but you also…

You didn’t call me

Yeah, but you also didn’t call me 

You scored less

Yeah, but you also scored less

You hurt me

Yeah, but you also hurt me 

You didn’t work to your full potential

Yeah, but you also didn’t 

You don’t seem to be grateful

Yeah, but you also think the same way

You don’t think twice about the things you do

Yeah, but you also are quite reckless 

 

Tell you what, this isn’t a competition.

Each time you counter your flaws by pointing to someone else, worse still the person opposite, who has the same flaw

Is each time you say no to accepting who you truly are.

Is each time you stop yourself from doing the right thing because someone in your opinion has legitimized the wrong thing.

Doing the right thing is not relative. It’s an absolute. 

Who is your customer?

Everyone of us entrepreneurs is trying to solve a problem. 

A live problem. 

Something worth solving. 

Something hopefully worth a lot, once solved. 

But here is the deal about problems. Everyone has them. 

If you are about saving money, even the richest guys likes to. The extent varies. 

If you are about convenience, even the poorest guy wants it. The extent varies. 

If you are about speed, even the guy with most time appreciates it. The extent varies. 

The immediate question to ask, once you have identified the problem, is “who am I solving it for?”

“Who is my customer” 

Everyone is almost always the wrong answer. 

Good products do not speak to everyone. They know who they speak to. Ironically, that is mostly the reason why the products starts speaking to everyone eventually. 

The way you do the small things 

Each time I interview people, we have the office boy come in and ask for tea or coffee. 

When it is served, I look for the response

No thank you?

Thank you?

Thank you Bhaiya (or equivalent)?

Tells me something about the person. 

—-

I play a sadist game on the office floor. Drop a piece of paper or tissue and then wait for who picks it up. 

Tells me something about the person. 

—-

During a presentation if I point out an error on the formatting, I observe how they react. Do they clear the error right away or note it down as a todo. 

Tells me something about the person. 

—-

I am a firm believer in the power of the subconscious. Our intrinsic thoughts are always governing our external actions. Mostly unknowingly. 

It’s the small reactions, the perpetual thoughts, reactions to everyday things that drives the individual. 

The way you do small things determines the way you do everything

How to react when someone apologizes

As a society, we suck at how we react to an apology. 
Especially when we are mad at the other person. 
I won
Hah, finally admitted their mistake 
I had been saying it all along, hadn’t I 
Don’t ever do it again 
Why did you even do it 
What were you thinking 
It’s too late 

Let’s admit – apologizing isn’t easy. So whenever it happens, can we be gracious and accept it? 
Every single time? 
Thank you for owning up
This just not have been easy
I was hurt, but this helps
I trust you to know what to do the next time 
It’s ok. I am sure you didn’t do it on purpose 
Shit happens

Worst are the moments when we chose not to respond at all. 
Our misplaced sense of victory takes over, places us on a high ground with no foundation and makes us believe that will teach the other side a lesson. 
It doesn’t. But you knew that already. 
An apology from the other side doesn’t mean you won
But if you do not respond, it surely means you lost

It’s an absolute pleasure to work with you

Whenever I have made this statement, I realize the irony of it. 

I haven’t worked with these individuals. Because they have worked on their own. Every single time. 

No instructions were ever needed. 

No prescriptions were ever shared. 

No reviews were ever conducted. 

No follow up was ever needed. 

I technically didn’t work with them. 

I simply observed. 

And was left amazed. 

They placed judgement and initiative at a higher order than obedience

The people you enjoy working with the most are those who create art on their own. Art that moves. 

I am cheating on my wife

The world has a very convenient definition of cheating, based on a highly misplaced sense of morality. 

If you are physically or emotionally involved with a person outside of your current relationship – that’s cheating. 

Strangely enough, the necessary condition is not the physical or emotional attachment, rather the existence of another person in the equation. 

What if it isn’t a person? 

I have told this to Ruchi several times. I am cheating on her with my work. 

I am in love with my work. 

I dream of work.

Every waking second, I think of it. 

Every second I can gather my basic instinct is to go back to my work. 

Work that doesn’t just comprise managing and shaping nearbuy’s present and future. It also includes meeting people, reading about them, introspecting on my own inadequacy and more. 

And all of this is no different to me from cheating on her. 

But here is something I have realized. 

If I am away from work, I will not be happy. And anything else I will do, will have me participate as a reluctant participant. 

I am equally certain that someday I will be cheating on my work. And that too will make me happy. 

Don’t compromise on the things that make you happy 

Don’t let it affect you if what makes you happy is work 

IQ

Vidur loves to build stuff. Elements for his own world. Rockets, aliens, monsters, zoo, farms. 

And when he does, he forgets everything else. He immerses himself. It doesn’t matter what’s happening around him at that moment. 

Unfortunately, as he grows up, this will change. 

Noise will seek attention. 

Social media

TV

VR

People

The next ping. The next notification. 

And he will submit to the noise. 

Just as we all do too. 

How he deals with it will determine who he becomes. 

——

Back in the days of our parents, being smart was a differentiator. 

Your IQ could leapfrog you to the top of the order. 

And it did. 

The smartest people were almost always the most successful. 

Today, smartness I would argue, isn’t a wide range. 

There is information available to everyone. 

Opportunities too. 

The thing that matters today is focus. 

The ability to immerse yourself. And not care about what’s happening around. 

The act of discarding noise. 

Focus, more than IQ, will determine your success today

Focus in the new IQ

Your reality 

I fear failure 

It took me a long while to realize how wrong this statement is. It makes it sound as if failure is a thing. Something that exists. Something that can be felt or experienced. 

We don’t fear failure. 

We fear the reaction of people if we fail. 

We fear the reactions resulting from failure. Not failure itself. 

And that’s when reality struck. 

Someone’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality. 

It’s not the view that’s broken

While at the gym last week I dropped my phone

And the screen cracked.

Over the next few days the crack spread its wings. And now represents an aggressively growing tree branch.

Basically my top left section of the phone is all glass cracks!

It’s been a week. I have gotten used to it.

 

Yesterday, I took a screenshot and sent myself an email with the screenshot.

When I opened the image on my laptop, I was expecting, out of habit, to see the top left section of the image to be all glass cracks.

It wasn’t

And that was a harsh realization.

The actual image wasn’t broken. 

The situation wasn’t broken. 

It was my lens that was broken. 

It was my perception that was broken. 

Problem?

One of my favorite questions of all times, and a hard one at that to comprehend, is

What drives you more – the problem or the solution?

Its hard to comprehend, because no one can claim not to be driven by the solution. That’s the outcome. The purpose. The aim.

And not surprisingly, most of the times, the driving factor has been answered as the solution instead of the problem. 

That was before I found a better question

What do you fall in love with – The problem or The solution?

If you find yourself falling in love with the solution, end the relationship. 

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