Blog
Words. Wisdom. Winners.
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.
The four learner profiles – and why you shouldn’t chose one for yourself
I continue to be shocked by how little people invest in their personal development.
I bet there are more people with mutual fund SIPs than people who read 1 book every year.
Part of it is of course intent.
But the sheer number of people who wish to make a change but are unable to do so, if baffling.
My observation is that people don’t know how best to learn. Content and experiences are available to us in multiple modes. But our ability to absorb isn’t as diverse.
In my opinion, there are 4 modes to learn
- By reading
- By listening
- By watching
- By doing
We all react differently to each of these. Never mind the reasons.
Infact, we don’t react the same way all the time. For different lessons, our best learning mode may alter. Should alter.
The best way to drive may not be through reading.
But the best way to learn to code could be.
The other important distinction is between learning and getting better.
“The best way to learn is to do it” is the worst possible advice ever.
Sure, the best way to get better is to do it. But the learning, the foundation, the basis – cannot always be by doing.
Go back in time and we all will realize the number of occasions when we have succumbed to the “let me just start doing it and I will learn”.
We ended up getting bored or feeling inadequate and gave up.
So next time you wish to invest in a new skill
Play around with the learning modes. Give sometime to each. You may figure something else works better than what you thought.
Resist the urge to get into it right away before learning the base.
The best learners know that they need to be a different person each time they learn.
How I fared on my 2016 resolutions
2016 Resolutions
- Record at least 10 cover songs in my voice – 10/10
I sang more than 500 songs this year – and eventually recorded 30+. Might showcase some of them publicly for feedback
- Write at least 150 blog posts and at least 100 medium posts – 7/10
Wrote 197 blog posts
However, medium didnt do so well for me, which is a big disappointment. I really like the medium and one of my goals for 2017 is to move my blog from wordpress to Medium.
Instead, I shifted my focus to Linkedin and ended up writing over 50 posts there. Generated over 250,000 views
Quora continued well – logged a crazy 3.8Mn views this year!
- Have lunch individually with 200 nearbuy colleagues – 8/10
Had 172 lunches with nearbuy colleagues – some unreal, unbelievable stories – some genuinely passionate and driven people – some inspiring to the hilt – some happy to the extent of being contagious.
- Take 7 weekend vacations with family – 6/10
Could manage only 4 vacations this year, much to the dismay of Ruchi. At a personal level, I worry that my need for a vacation seems to have completely gone.
- Not look at my phone once I reach home from work, till my wife goes to sleep – 3/10
Followed this for 2 weeks, I assume. And then was back to my normal self. This is an area where I have genuinely failed. However, one thing that I decided to follow was not bring my laptop home during the weekdays. Everyday I simply come back – not carry stuff back. One may argue that has increased my phone time once home, but not having the laptop does make a big difference.
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