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Words. Wisdom. Winners.

Sense of entitlement

As a country, we are used to being served. There have always been people around us, giving us what we want.
Maids
Helpers
Petrol pulp attendants
The kirana store that delivers, on credit

And that’s given us a false sense of entitlement
My admission is the responsibility of the government
My job is the responsibility of the school
My growth is the responsibility of the company

Guess what.
It’s not.

The sooner we realize that our life is our own responsibility, the faster we will get on our way to having a memorable life.

We are all we need

Leaving for work early

There is something magical about leaving for work early
Little traffic around
You get to see the journey in a different light, observe the signals, realize how wide the road actually is
You don’t brake often
You don’t accelerate unnecessarily
You optimize for your fuel
The stress is invisible, there is no reason for it

This is incidentally the same impact waking up early has
On your mind

Don’t let the alarm clock start your day
You do it for yourself

What’s the deal with money?

We grew up without money. Ma and Papa worked all their life and couldn’t make enough to save. Yet they gave us the best life they could. We went to top schools. Had a fulfilling childhood.
But I grew up looking at my parents having a life of struggle. Of unfulfilled desires.
A life where they had to trade one desire for another.
And almost always they traded their own for ours.

So I grew up hating money. It seemed to be the source of our misery. The only thing missing.

Here is the deal about hating money.
Rarely do we realize when it converts into submission. When money makes us it’s slave.
We think we are winning against it.
When it’s quite the opposite.

I learnt early on, not to respect money
Instead dismiss it, respectfully
It’s like oxygen. You need it. But you rarely stop to feel it’s presence.
You just have it.
Or you don’t

Opportunity cost doesn’t apply to your actions

Opportunity cost is a concept meant for business. Not for human actions.
For human actions we always best the full cost. Not the incremental one.

It’s not just one more abuse
Or one more one night stand
One more act of bribery
One more act of fraud
One more act of cheating

It’s all of them put together. Because the most recent one is as grave as the first one.

Your reputation today is a reflection of what you did this morning!
Yesterday doesn’t matter

Hans Zimmer

Do you know of him?
I didn’t till about 6 months back.

And then I realized
I have known him for a long time. For a really long time.
Because he has composed music for almost all the movies I have ever loved.

At times, you don’t have to be visible to create an impact.
Almost always, the impact thus created, is more ever lasting!

Ahead of the race

When driving, you have two ways of staying ahead

By blocking the road for the one behind

Which is when you change lanes often, you change speeds often, you brake often, you shift gears often. Your mind is driven by the one behind. Not the road.

And occassionally you ignore some other car coming up from behind, that you werent prepared for.

OR

Or by being the fastest on the road

It doesnt matter who’s behind you. Its you who defines the race. And the goal

 

How are you ahead of the race?

 

I should now call you sir

Email this morning

Hello Ankur, rather Hello Ankur Sir..
I recently checked some pics posted by my college Indian Institute of Foreign Trade & saw CEO Groupon delivering a guest lecture. AND it turned out to be you
Pheww…To be frank i never bothered to check out your professional profile and  was talking to you like a friend who needed some advice on a weight loss regime.. Am sort of embarrassed & at the same time humbled by your modesty Sir.
Thanks a lot for replying to all those queries and I sincerely hope we would be able to stay in touch.
Why bother showing off, when humility can get you such long lasting respect, for virtually no hard work?

What’s worse than no data?

I am going to take a contrarian view here and say – worse than no data is multiple sources of the same data.

Therein you have killed all objectivity that the data was meant to bring. It’s now subjective. And worse still you don’t know what it favors. Suddenly everyone is showing their version of the data point, to prove their assumptions. To get data to speak your language. And to confess.

If you torture it enough, even data will succumb

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