Another Monday is here. Another week to move your life’s work forward.  If you feel overwhelmed or directionless, here’s what you can do: 1) Before starting any work, set aside 30 minutes and think deeply about what can be your unique contribution to your organisation or cause. What is it that you can disproportionately impact, […]

10000 hours or 10000 reps or 10000 tries? The ‘10000 hours’ principle made famous by Malcolm Gladwell, states that to becomes exceptional at any skill / craft, one has to ‘put in the hours’. But we have also been taught that doing the same action again and expecting a different result is called stupidity. So […]

How many tabs do you have open in your mind right now? The one you really want to work on (AKA key priority) lost amongst many other tabs (distractions, or ‘urgent but not important’ activities?) Another one has a constant irritating audio track playing (AKA inner critic)? How about the other one replaying an old […]

👉  “Less but better”.  Dieter Rams, the legendary German industrial designer, wrote a book titled “Less but better” about his design philosophy. That’s a fantastic way of life too. We live in an age glutted with information. Most of the modern diseases are diseases of abundance (of food, information, choices) and not scarcity. More is […]

When we want to concentrate or focus or when we go to a place of worship, why do we close our eyes? Many a times, the answers lie within. Spend more quiet time with yourself (meditating, reflecting, writing, or even just doing nothing). You’ll be surprised by how wise you really are, when you are […]

What’s the best way to create and sustain a new habit?👉  “Don’t break the chain”.  Jerry Seinfeld is one of the most successful comedians of all‐time. What is most impressive about Seinfeld’s career isn’t the awards, the earnings, or the special moments — it’s the remarkable consistency of it all. Seinfeld is able to produce […]

Productivity is accomplishing what we intend to. Ambition doesn’t seem to be the problem nowadays. Most of you are ambitious, driven, wanting to achieve more. But the issue is, busy-ness is mistaken for productivity. Productivity has become all about cramming the most amount of activity in a given day, or squeezing that extra few mins […]

I spent many years agonising over putting my work and my words out there. Why would anyone care? What if I write something stupid? Who am I to give ‘gyan’? I am nowhere close to an expert on most topics, so why would my words carry any weight?  Then I came upon a mindset that […]

What’s the difference between a hero and a coward? Courage is often misunderstood. Courage is not about leaping without thinking, it is not about being a rebel without a cause and it is not about not feeling fear. Courage is taking the ‘hard right’ instead of the ‘easy left’ each time, in the face of […]

Bruce Lee said, “Be like water”. I say, “Be like Ooblek”. Ooblek is a simple cornstarch + water mixture you can make at home; and here’s the interesting thing: Ooblek is a non-Newtonian fluid. Run your fingers through it slowly, and it behaves like a liquid; but punch it hard and it feels like a […]

One of my favourite SciFi movies is Gattaca. Set in a futuristic world where genetic modification is the norm and there’s a clear divide between the genetically manipulated ‘superior’ children (the valids) and the naturally conceived ‘inferior’ children (the in-valids). Vincent is an in-valid. With genes that indicate a high probability of several disorders and […]

It takes many years, even decades, to become an ‘overnight success’. All the champions we look up to have been at their craft for years. They have put in their ‘10000 hours’ and then, everything they touch seems to turn to gold. If it seems like they are privileged or lucky, it is because fortune […]

“You can’t find your voice if you don’t use it.” – Austin Kleon in ‘Show your work’. To find what you want to talk about, and how you want to talk about it, you have to start using your voice. Doesn’t matter how feeble, someone would want to hear you. Doesn’t matter how amateurish, you […]

👉 When you hit a wall that seems unsurmountable, ask this one simple question: What is the ‘immediate next step’? Project too complicated and ambiguous? What is the INS? (Maybe it is writing a project plan doc).Unsure about how to handle your subordinate or your boss? What is the INS? (setting up a 1×1 and […]

👉 You are where you are for a reason. Don’t question yourself every day, don’t ask if you are an imposter, don’t ask if you belong. Let me clarify. I am not advocating a fatalist / deterministic outlook to life, where you deserve only what you have and nothing you do will change anything. Quite […]

The legendary comedian Dave Chappelle was at the height of his career in 2006; he had dominated the art form for close to a decade, had his own eponymous show on Comedy Central & got offered a whopping $50M to do more seasons. And then, he abruptly quit and went to Africa for 8 years. […]

In a letter to his brother Theo, Vincent Van Gogh shared this thought, “Blessed is he who has found his work.” But how does one find one’s work? “Follow your passion” and “Know your purpose” have become career-coaching folklore, but all of us seem to more confused than ever about the *one thing* that we […]

We all make mistakes. We all fail. That’s part of life. But what sets apart the winners from the strugglers in the long term is the winners’ ability to learn from their mistakes. 👉 They go into [self reflection + ‘root cause analysis’ mode] instead of going into [self & others blaming + defensive mode]. […]

👉 You upgrade your phone’s OS almost every year. When was the last time you upgraded your mental software (your mind’s OS)? The last big upgrade to your mind OS would’ve happened when you went to college, or had a big learning experience (or failure) at work, or had a big life change (got married, […]

The most famous proponent of this, Steve Jobs, took calligraphy classes in college, went to India to ‘find himself’, worked in a video-game company, sold a computer that Woz designed, became CEO, got kicked out and started another hardware company that failed, came back to Apple and then changed all our lives with the iPhone. […]

👉 Most ‘virtues’ are just mental shortcuts to prioritise the long term over the short term. To prioritise self constraint & self discipline vs instant gratification. “But wouldn’t that make life boring?” you may ask. To always hold back, to always take a calculated approach to every decision. To quote Mouse from my all time […]