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Words. Wisdom. Winners.
Your first reaction
How you feel and how you react to this feeling is often different, and misunderstood to be the same
You feel hurt but your reaction is that it anger
You feel scared but your reaction is that of control
You feel happy but your reaction is that of tears
Only the mentally strong can control what they feel. And that’s fine. It isn’t such a bad thing to feel whatever is it that you feel.
Here is what is bad, though.
Reacting the way you react.
Do yourself a favor and chose NOT TO react the way your heart is suggesting you to react. Pause and chose another reaction instead.
Surprisingly, the second reaction, even if worse off, never impacts negatively as much as the first instant reaction.
Our first reaction to things, especially when we feel negative, are almost always wrong! Just wrong.
First reaction is the worst reaction
What’s difficult about being a CEO?
At the AllHands call last Friday, I got asked this question
A few confessions to make, while I answer this.
By personality, I am a paranoid person.
I bite my nails. All the time.
I hate losing.
I get scared imagining that someone out there might be working harder than me and I am not doing enough.
I worry all the time of whether I am taking the easy path.
I worry that I will be wrong, if I don’t invest in myself.
So I am emotionally very hard on myself. I feel like my heart is always full of emotions. Of things I want to say. Of moments I could cry for. Of just wanting to work so hard that even life bows down.
So the hardest part about being a CEO is to feel the moral responsibility of 540+ people every single day.
I feel responsible for them. For their safety, for their happiness at work, for their career opportunities.
I wake up every single morning with a nagging thought in my head of some incidence yesterday involving the unhappy state of an employee. Something someone wrote. Something someone felt, experienced. Which didn’t make them feel respected or loved.
It’s this journey that is the hardest.
It’s this feeling that is the hardest.
The easiest thing to build is a company
The hardest thing to build is an institution where people love to come to work
Money shouts
Over the weekend, a conversation digressed over to discussing the super wealthy. A close friend heads the strategy function of one such billionaire and has seen their life up close.
Despite being worth billions of dollars, they lead an unpretentious life. Their homes, spread over acres reflect class. Their daily routine shows how money is an output of their life. Not the outcome.
There is also another section that believes in public display of money. Of lavish lifestyles, of making friends that only care about this side of yours.
I have my preference over which life to lead.
Neither is right or wrong. It is a way of life. For every warren buffet there is a Donald trump as well.
However the distinction is clear.
One side makes money work for them. It is part of their life but not the factor that determines it. They know they are wealthy. And it ends there.
The other side lives for money. It is a large reason for them waking up every day. It defines them.
And this starts defining the way they act
Money shouts. Wealth whispers.
Do what they want?
Over the weekend we sent a special email to the early adopters of the nearbuy mobile app
It entitled them to Rs 300 of credit once they upgraded to the new version of the app. Because they have given us the best feedback so far.
It was a thank you gesture. From us
One of those users copied the sexy part of that email. And pasted it on an affiliate forum. Craftfully omitting the conditions or the fact that this was for a limited audience.
The forum went viral.
We got 5000+ downloads
And 33 one-star ratings
in a day
The brickbat was all about how they didn’t receive the 300 credit on downloading the app.
It wasn’t meant for first downloads
It wasn’t meant for the forum
It wasn’t meant for the world
Let’s replay this
Someone made a false promise on your behalf
Without asking you
And when the promise wasn’t delivered, the world went against you
Reminds you of something?
Each day, we meet people. People we influence. People we leave some impression upon.
They, without knowing us, spread these impressions around. Unknowingly make promises on our behalf.
And the world, when it meets you, isn’t a blank slate. It is already clouded by these promises. It is not trying to figure who you are. It is trying to figure if you are what they think you are.
And at that stage, you have got to ask yourself
Will I be me?
Or will I do what they want?
The feeling you get up with
Every morning we wake up with a feeling. A certain emotion.
Somehow the emotion controls our day. The rest of the day becomes captive to that thought you started it with.
Hence, the world tells you – wake up with the right feeling. Go to bed feeling the right things. That sets the tone for your day.
That’s foolish. It is like expecting one to always be happy. And to have happy thoughts always. And to not allow any other emotion to enter.
Instead, think of how you can control your emotion. How you can change it.
Now suddenly it doesn’t matter what you wake up with. You can always reset it to what you want.
Here is the deal about controlling your emotions. It begins by not reacting to it.
Ironically, the best way to deal with a negative emotion is to not acknowledge it and work on it.
Rather dismiss it.
Stop reacting to every emotion you feel. As if by magic, the world around you will change.
How much will you multiply yourself?
The Power Law of Investing as a concept is quite simple.
And quite powerful.
It states that in investing, your best returning investment will almost always give you supernormal returns, exceeding the combined returns from the rest of your portfolio.
The 2nd best will be higher than the sum of the remaining.
So on and so forth.
Each week I spend an hour welcoming the new members to the nearbuy (formerly groupon) fanily.
And I leave them with this precise message.
Rather a question
“In today’s world, even if you left everything to fate and just existed, you would end up being 5/10/20X of who you are today.
Think of how you can be 100X of who you are today
How much will you multiply yourself?”
Here is the deal about multiplying 100X – you don’t know what will get you there.
No one does
People who do are the ones who are constantly on the hunt.
Who are constantly searching for the thing they are super normally good at.
Who are constantly working on themselves. Invest time. And don’t ever get comfortable.
They don’t know how good they can get.
So they never stop!
It’s a lot like investing
Happiness
Happiness is a good feeling
It charges us
It makes us confident
It is the goal for almost everything we do
And it’s source can be multiple things – money, love, appreciation, victory.
And we end up searching for happiness.
All our lives
In all our doings
When instead, the search should be for peace
Because peace is what contains you
Peace is what stays with you
Peace is what you gift yourself
Especially when happiness eludes you
There is a certain magic about being calm. And every single day I tell myself – if I remain at peace with myself, with my work, with my world – I can conquer it.
I don’t have to crave to be happy. That’s not in my control. That is not the reason for my peace.
Sukh hai alag (happiness is different)
Aur chain alag hai (and so is peace)
Par jo yeh dekhe woh nain alag hai (the eyes that realize this are different too)
Chain to hai apna (peace is within)
Sukh hai paraye (happiness comes from outside)
– Sapnon se bharein naina (luck by chance)
Emotional punishment
Punishment 1:
This isn’t what I wanted
Why didn’t you work hard
Why didn’t you work longer
Couldn’t you be more rigorous
This is wrong
You are wrong
Punishment 2:
You have let me down. I trusted you
Guess which of the two is the easy path?
Guess which of the two is the right path?
Don’t tell people they are wrong. They know that.
Instead tell them how you didn’t expect them to be wrong.
And tomorrow they won’t be anymore!
Growth
Growth can hide a lot of things
Employee attrition
Negative Unit economics
Customer churn
High customer acquisition costs
No time for 1:1
Technology debt
Unethical practices
No product market fit
No time for family
No time for your health
But there is one thing growth cannot hide
Your conscience
You cannot lie on stage. The audience will always know it is within your heart.
24
The six of us were in office till 4am this morning
Working
Drinking
Abusing each other
Taking decisions
Moving forward
And it felt like magic. I woke up at 730, with 3 hours of sleep, and somehow unreasonably fresh.
Nothing beats the feeling of having done more in 24 hours than the day expected you to!
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