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Words. Wisdom. Winners.
That first feeling? Drop it
Imagine an angry mail written to you
Imagine a conversational fight you are in the middle of
Imagine an individual being mean to you
Imagine a situation that requires you to react
At that moment, your instant feeling and thus your instant reaction – is conclusively the wrong one.
It’s the hardwiring of evolution that tells us to attack back when attacked. That’s how mankind has survived.
And while the threats have been less threatening, the damage has become less damaging, the nature of the attack is mostly not even personal, we still react as if to win the war.
Whenever you are reacting towards a situation where you have been attacked, do yourself a favor and DONT react the way you instantly feel like react.
Pick any other reaction except the first one.
The first reaction is our basic instinct taking over.
Drop the first reaction. You will always emerge first because of that.
It doesn’t matter what you know
IQ was what got the previous generation to succeed. Mostly.
Not anymore.
In today’s world of distraction, instant gratification, unlimited access and boundless opportunities – your ability to focus is what will make you stand out.
Focus is the new IQ
Here is the deal about focus
It’s spelled as “consistency”
The irony of today’s world is that everything is instantaneous and yet the time that it will take and the discipline it will require to be sucessful, hasn’t shortened one bit. Infact might have increased.
If one is not consistent – in their thoughts, in their actions, in their conduct and their drive to learn – focus will only be limited to a 5-letter word.
What you know doesn’t mean shit. What is it that you do consistently?
The one word that defines success
NO!
Smart people and nice people think their smartness and niceness diminishes each time they say no to someone.
They believe they are saying no to their own capability of helping.
To their own ability to solve.
What we rarely realize is that the art of saying no is the highest level of respect you can bestow onto yourself.
Each time we say no, we chose what’s important as against what’s urgent (or worst still what’s pleasing others)
Each time we say no, we make ourselves vulnerable to the world’s narrative of ourselves. And we accept it
Each time we say no, we say yes to things that matter. That move us forward.
I get asked for help more than I deserve, on a daily basis.
For funding, mentoring, ISB help, speaking sessions.
And I have a polite template for saying no to most of them.
Not because I don’t want to help.
Because I can’t.
Because there are other things that take precedence. That I have signed up for. That I am already on.
It shocks me how so many people show an absolute disregard to their time and allow others to step on it at will.
They will pick up stuff and crib about it. Projecting they were somehow forced or tricked into it.
But it’s always our choice.
Always.
True success is not how much time you spend doing what you love.
It’s how little time you spend doing what you hate.
It’s about you. Mostly you.
I have a “problem”
I have been trained to think that everything is a consequence of me. I am the source of the current situation. My thoughts, my actions led to what we are witnessing, especially if it’s bad.
I may not admit it all the time, but within I am already cursing myself. Scrutinizing myself. Killing myself.
It is hard being this way. But I don’t know any better. This approach keeps me honest and keeps me up. All the time.
Here is the deal with being honest with one’s own self.
Most of us don’t do it.
It’s so easy to blame others.
It’s so easy to blame external circumstances.
It’s so easy to think that something else led to this. Something we didn’t control. We did the best we could.
Because this approach makes us think we are still good enough
And good enough helps us sleep well at night
The next time something bad happens, start by assuming you are responsible. This is different from blaming yourself, where you will play the victim and console yourself.
Make yourself responsible. What is it that you did that led you to this. Did it make sense? Was it right after all? Could there have been an alternate approach?
Could you be the one that needs to change, and not the world?
If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole.
If you ran into assholes all day, you are the asshole
What’s the first slide of your pitch deck?
Yesterday at lunch with two super smart startup founders, we got talking about their pitch deck.
Pitch decks are super fun. I look at the nearbuy pitch deck every other week – trying to make it clearer, sharper, more succinct. And surprisingly find obvious ways of doing so, that weren’t so obvious before.
I told them – your first slide should be declaring who you are.
And you should be ok with it. Ok with what you you have written. Ok with who you have projected yourself to be. Ok with who you are.
That set me thinking. If you had pitch decks, what would your first slide say?
Would the world get it?
Would they see the same image when they meet you in person?
Would they agree with it?
Would you be comfortable with it?
The first slide of our pitch deck should be what we wish to tell the world. Not what the world wishes to hear.
Which one?
Two emails – selling something to me – eyeing for my attention
Which one will get a response?
Which one went through more effort to write?
Which one will continue putting in the effort, despite the response rate?
If we don’t respond too well to lazy work, what makes us think that the world will respond well to ours?
Which one will you be today?
The question you have to answer, before you seek help
I am privileged that a lot of people write in seeking help.
What shocks me, consistently, is how few of them know what help they need
My standard response to most emails is my favorite question
“How can I help”
Here is the truth
No one will figure out how they can be useful for you. You have to do it for them, if you need them.
How can I help?
The question you need an answer to, before you seek help
Bad answers
- Wanted to bounce off my idea
- Am I on the right path
- Get your views on the product
- 15mins of your time will be really useful
Good answers
- We are also building a supply-led marketplace and your experience at nearbuy will be useful
- You have invested in xxx and we are attempting the same. What do we need to know
- Should we scale categories or cities?
- Are we at the right stage to raise funding or continue bootsrapping?
Help doesn’t come from a spray and pray approach. That’s advice, you are mistaking it for.
People will help you only when you have helped them understand how they can.
Progress half done
Self driving cars
I am amazed at the pace with which this industry is being transformed. There isn’t any month where an incredible video doesn’t surface – from different companies – showcasing real life implementation.
Without knowing much about the technology – here is an admission I would still make.
It isn’t possible that everyone started to build this at the same time for us to see so much action happen simulataneously.
Instead, it seems that “someone discovered” that self driving cars was a possibility. And then the best brains lept at it to prove that they were the best brains.
Mankind gained from this competition, as a consequence.
The tools had existed. For a long time. And very few people bothered to look beyond.
Until one of them did.
And then competition took over.
The race to build something better and before led to attention towards the algorithm that could take over the tool.
And before we knew it – tools had become redundant.
The steps towards progress are clear
People. Tools. Algorithm.
Don’t stop at tools. That’s progress half done.
How will the world talk to each other tomorrow?
I signed up for Amy at x.ai last week. Had been resisting it for a while, not sure why. On paper it’s the tech I should jump at.
An artificial intelligence based calendar scheduler.
Oh. My. God.
The first few conversations were awkward. Especially marking her on an email with real people. Asking for her help to reschedule.
Slowly she began her magic. Replying to my requests
can you share full address of Sector 29 market, or you know the place. I want to make sure the two of you don’t miss each other
I replied with a “know the place”
At lunch day before (incidentally setup by Amy) my friend remarked
It matters how we speak to the AI tech today. Because that’s how they will talk to us tomorrow.
Last night I received the first week email from x.ai
It’s best to be clear and polite. If you think of Amy as a human assistant, you can’t really go wrong
It’s evident
We now have a responsibility
How we talk to AI today is how the world will talk to each other tomorrow
Why “we apologize for the inconvenience we may have caused” is absolute bullshit
Customer service is a hard thing. Especially in India. The Indian consumer is one of the most demanding, and I would argue the most threatening as well.
It’s amazing how high the percentage is of customers emails to us that threaten to go to the consumer courts on their very first interaction. They haven’t even heard us out – but assume we don’t mean well. That’s why the threat.
It’s not personal. I now call it natural. It’s been hard wired in the consumers mindset.
And here is the biggest reason
For years, organizations including and especially the government have dealt us a bad hand. We have had to fight for our consumer rights. Rights as a taxpayer. Rights as a buyer of products and services.
So now our natural mode has become the fight.
Worse still, organizations have mastered the art of offering explanations for their actions.
“We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused”
No cool company
Don’t hint towards the fact that you MAY have caused any inconvenience. You DID!
Don’t apologize and be fancy about it. Say sorry. And MEAN IT.
Speak just as you normally would. You know, human speak
And DONT GIVE A WHY
Solve the problem.
Because guess what – the why may be right. The why may be true. The why may be genuine.
But the customer doesn’t give a fuck about the why.
They care about how you are going to help him. Not why this happened.
Templates have allowed customer service to scale. They are now able to be less empathetic and more robotic to a lot more people than before.
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