Serendipity and Learning

 It is the Olympics. And one hears stories like these: The Philipines weightlifter  Our very own  Mirabai Chanu . Every Olympic story (even the ones who do not figure among the medals) is a story of grit, determination, relentless practice, giving up a lot of "nice" things in order to achieve something they think is important.  On the other hand, when we see the children study for their IIT/Medical or any other entrance exam we are tempted to say, oh, poor kid - how hard they work at an age when they need to be playing and singing (add your favourite non academic activity) But think of the youngest medal winner - who is all of 13 years old - surely the kid did not win a medal without putting in effort? Surely sports achievers do not spend time singing and dancing or studying - they spend time in sport.  The point being, it is perfectly ok for both types of efforts. The child is working hard regardless of whether it is in sports or academia or arts - and it is ...

I was thinking of some of the lessons learnt in this lockdown - and I dont mean philosophical lessons, I mean, practical issues and some humbling lessons. First up, I admit, like many others around us, we realised how dependent on our maids and cook. But we also realised that, well, we can get by, just the four of us. Yes, it is tough, thinking from meal to meal and demanding kids and vegetable and ingredients not exactly available, but we managed well mostly, substituting with dal-chawal when we could not. A few minor kitchen accidents happened because the burner was forgotten while a call was on. So, yes while it is not easy, it is a readjustment. While we were at home, the kids wanted our time and there have been times where we have been unable to be available for them. But we managed to open all our board games (that were waiting for time) and play all of them. This was the toughest part.  Our internet was overloaded. Of course, all networks were creaking, but with...

1. Approaching work like borrowing books from a library. 2. Yes, And. 3. On Small Beginnings - value them. 4. Seek and thou shall get value 5. Never be afraid to put out your ideas 6. Stretch...thats the whole point... 7. Opportunities can knock - from a small whimper to a entry through the ventilator to crashing the door. The knocks arent always visible and sometimes knock the wind out of you - but they are all opportunities. 8.Speed is essential 9. Dont take an opportunity in desperation 10.When you hear a different opportunity come your way, truly take it with that difference and run with it. For instance, when I got to work on disruption, I had to discard all my learning and start afresh... 11. If opportunities dont knock, go out and knock those doors 12. And last but not the least, each door that closes, simply means you need to look around for another door that is waiting to open...

Trek guides have a difficult time. Their lives are filled with loaded questions of the "Have you stopped beating your wife" kind. No answer will be right. I have written about this earlier, on the learnings from a trek guide . The recent trek we undertook, the guide used a similar 'language'. The perfect balance between authority and free for all. The perfect balance between fear and abandon. The perfect balance between discipline and fun. He kept us on time - each time - he would give us a time and stick to it. He correctly estimated the time it would take for a bunch of people in their 40s and a bunch of energetic kids to reach the place (any place). He took a call on where we should be eating. He kept an eye on the weather and smiled each time his calls were proved right. He kept the group in sight by splitting the local guide to lead and himself bringing up the rear. And after all this, you have the laggards (us) asking him questions like, How am I do...

We were in Goa and wanted to know of a way to get to another beach. And we asked a man, "How do we get to the beach". He looked perplexed with the question, pointed to the sea with an "obviously" gesture, drew a wide arc with his hand and said "like that". It was our turn to be puzzled. We had meant a land route and he meant a sea route. Thats when we realized that he was, after all, a fisherman and for him the obvious way from one beach to another was by water. It was as simple as that. And we course corrected and asked him, "How do we get there by road?" It was now his turn to be puzzled. He scratched his head and mumbled a few directions that we could not comprehend. We thanked him and left and finally found someone who explained the land route in a few steps. But that left us thinking about perspective. Very often, we see things only from our own perspective - land or water. And sometimes, for someone, it is the other perspec...

From Lost Moon: The Perilious Voyage of Apollo 13 by Jeffrey Kluger and Jim Lovell. After 1961, when President Kennedy outrageously promised to put Americans on the moon by 1970, the space agency knew the old way of doing business had to change. The cautious customs of the aeronautical inventor would continue to be observed, but this natural reserve would be enlivened by a new willingness to gamble. So, no ones ever tried building a 36-story rocket to accelerate a manned spacecraft to 25,000 miles per hour, fling it out of a circular Earth orbit and send it on a screaming beeline to the moon? Then its about time someone did. So, no one's ever contemplated how to build a bungalow-sized, four-legged ship so flimsy it can't even support its own weight, but so strong that it can take off and land under the moon's reduced gravity? Then maybe NASA was the place to do it. There is a thin line between arrogance and confidence, between hubris and true skill, and the engineers and...

Yes, and is an improv principle but and for me, in this current journey, it has a lesson that has held up well. As a consultant, a variety of work gets thrown at you. While there are the obvious not-my-skill or not-my-competency or not-my-interest work that comes your way and you anyway have to say no to it, the intriguing part is that the work that does indeed come to you is not packaged like a dream - not always. The work in its initial description comes fuzzily, appears different, sometimes impossible, sometimes tricky, sometimes with rocks embedded before the seashore. And this is what I have realised, as a consultant, work will rarely come in neatly packaged boxes. It will come as a bunch of pieces  - some interesting, some not, some disjointed, some sharp, some edges, some centres and it is your job as a consultant to embrace all that is thrown at you with a yes, and. So to give you a few examples, my very first assignment was a one-of-its-kind workshop (Yes, we have ...

As the Leader of a reasonably large sized team, the team does have ups and down. Sometimes, an initiative we design does not see light of day or is rejected by stakeholders. Sometimes, it is a moment of frustration. Sometimes it is dejection. These things keep happening. One of my managers told me the other day, "The one thing I see about is a never say die quality. Whatever happens - be it the worst thing - you only see it as an opportunity and you always see the positive side" As a leader, we do not have a choice. You cannot be dejected or have a hang dog expression. It is important to keep the spirits up. It is important to show a positive direction to people. And when you go off on the entrepreneurial journey, some amount of optimism is needed. Well, correction. A large dose of unbridled optimism is required. And this time, there is no team. All that optimism is for you, with you, inside you. I have read all I can about this. How to handle rejection. How not to c...

As I completed a year of entrepreneurship, I decided to, coincidentally - take a 5 day trek across a part of the Himalayas. In this process, I learnt many a life lesson. Though there is a goal, the goal has to be attacked in small chunks and stages. Most of the the time, the goal is not visible - at least not in the exact shape envisioned by you. Climb the first mountain only to see the second tower ever so taller in front; climb that and see the third show a daunting face; and so on...Each time the view gets better... When you reach the goal, you will know. The route is never visible, you will only know it as you go forward. The terrain keeps changing - be prepared. The terrain is never the exact way you imagined it to be... It is hard work - and there will be times when you will feel like giving up. At those points, just keep putting one step ahead of the other- and slowly, you will reach your destination. Dont forget to enjoy the sights along the way. Rest. Take a...

A few days ago, our internet connection went down. The modem which has rendered yeoman service kicked the bucket. And we were suddenly like fish without water. Imagine no internet. No google. No download. No customer service numbers.  And of course, our progress in Clash of Clans was affected. And I thought that the little one would be distraught. So, I asked him how do we progress without the internet and what if we logged in back and found our village destroyed etc. etc. (I wanted to check his feeling - and if I may admit sheepishly, I was missing clash of clans.) And he said, “Only if you have the internet you will worry about it. If there is no internet at all, then why will I worry about it. Whenever the connection is back, we can see what to do.” Ahem, I told myself, that is a humbling response. That is a great lesson. Why worry about factors not under our control and feel bad about something that might happen.

Some days ago, I rode into my apartment on my cycle. And there was a little boy who, looked at me coming in - his eyes lit up - and he ran to the gate to open the gate for me. I usually push open the gate open myself, but seeing his smile and excitement I let him open the gate for me. The security staff, were watching him and thankfully did not stop him from enjoying himself. I thanked him and entered - and I showed him how muddy my cycle was and after a quick few words, he went off to play. And I thought later, this is innocence at its best. A few years later, many things will stop the boy from expressing himself, like this. Someone may rebuke him for playing with the security guards or doing the securities job. And slowly, surely, we will make him like one of us. And, we as adults, rarely open the gate of our complex, when we see a known face come in, even if we are centimeters away from the gate. We become conscious of status, of our so called reputations and of course, the c...

The apps market is a pretty crowded place. Anyone who has searched the iOS store or the Google Play store will tell you that is quite tough to cut through the clutter despite the best efforts of the designers. Yet, in this space, over all these years, there are brands. As usual, we were trawling through the app store on what we could download – looking  for that mix of cost and space and entertainment that can be branded as education enough to be ‘marketed’ and ‘justified’ and then made available to the kids. And then, all of a sudden, the little one says, Chillingo – they make good apps. They made Cut the Rope. Endless Road is also nice – therefore this (whatever we were looking at) must be nice. So, we googled, read through the Chillingo site and promptly downloaded whatever they had to offer. And then after a moments reflection, “even Half-Brick is good – they made Jetpack Joyride and Fruit Ninja”. Now who said, making space in a digital store is impos...

This lovely post from Big Think, got me thinking . A long time fan of Malcolm Gladwells writings, it was nice to see this insight. What Gladwell says is very simple, keep doing what you love, whether you see an immediate payoff or not. And we know it, instinctively, but we keep getting distracted by short term speedbreakers. And we have known the same in the Bhagavad Gita, as perhaps the most (mis)quoted stanza of all time , Keep focused on work and don’t worry about the results. Which can be reinterpreted as Do what you love and success will follow. Which is essentially what Mr. Gladwel is saying. Therefore as he says, Do what you love – whether it succeeds or not, you will still be doing what you love! And what is a greater payoff than that! Sometimes, random reading and thoughts come and pop into our minds at the right time (call it coincidence, providence, confirmation bias or anything else). Just when you thought you had it all figured out, there is a ...

A few weeks back, I was invited to deliver a keynote at a college in Mumbai. Since, I have not delivered any keynote ever before, my initial gut feel reaction was to say No. And then I thought about The Flinch and stepping into uncomfortable territories and then said yes! That was the easy part. The tough part was to put the keynote together; in a way that  it goes down well with the audience and then, deliver it as well. First week: So, I started off. Finding out about the audience, what they might be interested, what I could cover and so on and so forth. The initial part of the presentation was reviewed by a few close people and they all felt while, it was good, something was missing. Second week: Search for the missing ingredient meant more reviews, more googling, more reading. And then I got the feedback that “I was not in it” – meaning, what I stood for and why I was delivering the keynote was not getting captured at all. Third week: So, again it was down in t...