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Conversation with my Uber drive this morning

Here is the key to make Uber work for drivers.

Traffic, at a given point of time, is mostly unidirectional.

So when you drop someone, don’t wait there for your next trip.

Because most likely people are just getting dropped there. And not waiting to be picked.

Instead, go to a cluster similar to where you picked your ride from.

In the mornings, wait near residences. In the evening wait near offices.

Common sense, isn’t it?

Yet elegant, powerful, logical, actionable.

Go where your customers are. Don’t wait for them to come to you.

Go where your employees are. Don’t wait for them to come to you.

Go where your future is. Don’t wait for it to come to you.

Go where you wish to go. Don’t wait for life to come to you.

The world loves to celebrate warriors. People who have wounds to heal, scars to show, stories to tell.

And every distress situation generates a warrior.

It needn’t be at war. In fact most warriors don’t emerge from war, as much as they do from real life.

Battling adversity. Fighting against all odds. Suffering.

Unfortunately,

There are no wounds to show if you are happy.

And that night it hard for you to be celebrated. Worse still, feel good about your own self.

And if that happens, do remind yourself –

living a scarless life isn’t such a bad deal.

Here is a sure shot way to make a group of people extremely uncomfortable

Ask them to close their eyes

And then don’t say anything

For 5 seconds

10, 15, 30, 60

Most likely it won’t last for 60 seconds – people would have already opened their eyes.

People find others difficult.

When the most difficult person to spend time with, is your own self.

Can you spend 5 mins with yourself, everyday?

If you could, would you have made friends with your own self?

Revenge is the weakest of human emotions. It indicates one has reached such a point that their “happiness” is predisposed on someone’s misery.

Pause and think about it for a second.

Your happiness depends on someone else’s misery.

You know what else feels like revenge?

Our education system.

The same one that tells us that seats are limited, opportunities are limited, your chances are limited.

So the only way to win, is when someone else loses.

You succeed as much because you are good, as because your competition was bad.

Revenge shouldn’t be the way to make you feel good about yourself.

Because worse than no exercise

Is the illusion of exercise

The 25 mins neck warmup

The 1kg bicep curl

The push up that’s never quite one

The squats that never go down

The counting that jumps from 4 to 6 to 10, when no one is looking

The 4kmph “run”

The “checking your phone because you know, something important” moment

The mirrors serve a purpose

Of making you feel ridiculed and laughed at, by none other than your own self.

These are mirrors of embarrassment.

And I contest, that we need them everywhere

Not just in gyms

What’s the best question to determine moral courage in an individual, during a professional interview?

Tell me of a time you fired someone because that was the right thing to do for the company

It’s fancy to suggest that one should always do the right thing.

However, calling something right means that there is a “wrong” instantly created in the universe.

Firing an individual because it’s the right thing to do for the company, is possibly wrong for the person being fired.

And if you can show that you dealt well with it, I can show you the intersection of empathy and decisiveness.

Choice 1

Nothing that I do at an individual level makes any difference. I could save animals, nature, not lie or steal or kill or harm – and yet the world remain the same. So fuck it – I will live life the way I want to. My way! Nothing else matters.

Choice 2

Everything that I do at an individual level matters. If I say no to plastic, leather, non veg food – it matters. If I am a nice kind hearted person – it matters. It makes me feel happy about myself, it gives me a sense of pride. And hence, I will do it – even if it means discomfort at times.

Choice 3

Nothing that I do at an individual level matters, unless I get a lot of people to do the same thing. Make the same choices. And hence I will build a tribe, a community, that’s represents our choices. Because together we can make a difference.

Choice 4

It’s really really hard to change people’s behavior. It’s best to change the entire landscape. Design the new way. Not optimize the current way.

Choice 1: the observer

Choice 2: the doer

Choice 3: the leader

Choice 4: the inventor

Guess which of these choices does the world need more of?

Guess which ones are dominant right now?

the world has more doers than we need. And less inventor than we need.

You work really hard.

And at some point that work stops becoming a process, a way of life, an approach.

Instead, it attaches itself to a goal.

A goal in your head, created by your expectations.

And then you don’t hit the goal.

Suddenly, while you should have met that moment with the reality of it, you end up meeting the moment with the expectation of how you would have liked it to be.

And at that moment, you fail yourself.

You let yourself down.

Reality generates action. Expectations generates reaction.

Had a late night discussion within the senior management, on the principles of annual bonus.

In question were people who join between Jan – Mar every year and are not eligible for the annual appraisal or bonus, in April.

When they do go through the process the following year, should they be compensated for 12 months, or for 15 months (assuming they joined in January).

Market practice apparently suggests paying on a 12month basis. The clock resets every April.

Logic tells me paying on a 15 month basis. The individual has worked for that period.

Finally we decided to go with 15 months – it seemed logical and fair.

Fuck the market practice.

Do what’s right!