Serendipity and Learning

Some years back, I was handed over charge of a new team. As always, I was taking it slow in trying to understand the team from the team members and from the stakeholders. The stakeholders had a lot of feedback, as they usually do, when a new leader takes over. And in trying to go back to the team to see their view on the same, I ran into Nitin. There was new technology lying unused. The teams response, "Only Nitin knows how to use it". There were processes that were broken. The teams response, "Nitin created this process". There were reports that were not being sent. The teams response, "Nitin used to send those reports". The list went on and on. For everything, the buck seemed to stop at Nitin. Nitin clearly was a superhero of an employee. When he was around, everything seemed to run smoothly. Walls were scaled. Crashes were prevented. The bad guys were defeated. And all was well in the world. The only problem. Nitin was no longer a member of t...

Many years ago (and I realized that this movie was a 1991 release) in a Malayalam movie (a classic, remade in multiple languages) - Kilukkam - the lead actor Mohanlal - plays a tourist guide. And a supporting actor plays an authorized guide. In most tourist destinations, even today, there are 'authorized' guides who charge you 'fees' fixed by the 'authority' and do some good 'guiding' if you are lucky. And there are also 'unauthorized' guides who will charge you 'less' and 'guide' you as well. My own experience with both kinds of guides has been iffy. The authorized guide has not brought anything that great to the table. And my experience with unauthorized guides has been equally non descript. But in the movie, the authorized guide is a drunk who cares little about the destinations or the tourists and is only looking to make a fast buck. The unauthorized guide on the other hand, predictably, is the good guy. But as far as...

In the space of the last few months, I have met two 'nutrionists' (spellcheck has put a red squiggly under this for some reason). And my main purpose was to know what diet changes I can make in order to achieve my health goals. Now, a caveat. Most people take pride in their 'interior decoration' skills or 'aesthetic' 'taste' or prize their own 'skills' or 'talent' in something or the other. For me diet and nutrition happens to be one of those things. I read practically everything on 'diet' and it is wont be an understatement to say that I am upto speed into the most of the current 'theories' of nutrition. Like for example: have small meals through the day. Avoid junk food. Have more fibre in your food. Dinner atleast 2 hours before bedtime. Among other things... And this is the basic stuff. At an intermediate level, I am aware of the benefits of flax seed oil, coconut oil (yes, those old theories claiming it to be a...