A Learning a Day

Write to a teacher

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Sat, 25 May 2013 00:35:00 +0000

Today, set aside 10 minutes to write to a teacher. A teacher needn't be a teacher in the traditional sense. It can be anyone who's taught you something, consciously or unconsciously.

Tell them what you're up to, tell them what you're learning, and share your experiences. If you are short of words, just say thank you.

They'd love to hear from you. And you'll feel great after you've written to them.

I sure did.

Inspiration: A talk by Deepak Malhothra from HBS - recommended by a friend.

Stop judging your progress

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Thu, 23 May 2013 22:10:00 +0000

Your lost calories don’t show up when you look at your exercise scores at the end of the first week. They show up after 30 weeks of exercise. By then, of course, you’ve judged your progress as insignificant, stopped exercising altogether, and let the resistance win.

Scr*w the over-analysis of the results. Stop judging your progress.

The first step to making progress is just making progress.

Focus on putting in your best shift and getting work done. The rest will follow. And if it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter… show up and get stuff done anyway. The world will be better for it.

Just Do It

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Wed, 22 May 2013 21:41:00 +0000

Today’s post is courtesy of The ALearningaDay Challenge. We have 11 participants who are going all out on daily blogging, daily book reading, and daily exercise. I’m sure I’ll get down to putting together an index of all their blogs soon. But, for a taste, do check out The Book Bytes Project. With 14-15 book snippets every day, it’s an example of ‘inspiration guaranteed.’

Today’s blog post is a re-blog from Shweta, one of the regulars in the ALearningaDay community.

Just Do It

I just spent an entire weekend with my one-year old nephew. The sweetheart is just learning to walk, and keeps waddling around the house, falling with a loud thump every few minutes. He is also beginning to say his first words and calls everyone ‘appa’ (or father).

Besides serving as an unhappy reminder that I’m growing old, the little tyke reminded me of how important it is to just believe. If babies ever pondered over how difficult learning a language is, they would never get around to mastering one (as they all do).

Sometimes, the walls around me are simply the ones I create. The most interesting people around me are those who have stretched the limits of what is considered possible. I find that most Americans around me grow up with this attitude—they do not let themselves be limited by their perceptions of their abilities, but keep moving towards their goals. It’s an attribute that inspires awe. For it is better to fail than to never have tried at all…

My favorite quip here is “If babies ever pondered over how difficult learning a language is, they would never get around to mastering one (as they all do).”

A very nice reminder the next time I find excuses to weasel out of learning something new.

Changing the world

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Tue, 21 May 2013 22:19:00 +0000

You are the biggest part of your life experience. You see the world through your eyes, process it with your thoughts, and act with your motives and ideas.

When you sign up to learning and changing yourself bit-by-bit every day, you see these thoughts, motives, and ideas change. So, in changing yourself, you do change the world.

It may just be the world you see and experience.. for now. That’s how it begins.

Gates, Allen, Jobs, and Wozniak wouldn’t have been able to help make the world become more productive if the world they saw didn’t have personal computers in it. The personal computer revolution that changed the world that began in their minds and at their desks.

Big changes have humble beginnings.

Expect problems..and..

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:29:00 +0000

Big presentation today? Expect your computer to hang right in the middle of the presentation.

Big product demo today? Expect your phone to be agonizingly slow.

The bigger the stakes, the higher the chances that something will go wrong. It just does, doesn’t it? You’ve probably been in many situations where you’ve asked - why NOW?

You can of course blame it and make a joke about it. But, what you need in your toolkit for next time are 3 important things -

1. Prepare for the worst case. The very worst. Always. Back up everywhere.

2. If something untoward happens, remind yourself that this happens to everyone. Keep calm and work through one solution after another.

3. Find your sense of humor, crack a joke, and move on.

As this wonderful graphic says.. “Expect problems…. and eat them for breakfast.”

Attribution: Bitsofwisdom.org

This is my new wallpaper. What a great thought..

Interview with Ganesh Krishnan, Founder of TutorVisa - On Entrepreneurship, Blue Ocean Strategy, and India

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Sun, 19 May 2013 20:58:00 +0000

We have a Twitter friend to thank for this interview. Jayadev recommended we speak to Ganesh Krishnan, one of India’s best known entrepreneurs and connected us with him too. He had some very interesting views on entrepreneurship in markets outside the US - especially India.

“Making marginal improvements on existing model or even trying to execute better on existing model is a lot tougher than trying to enter blue ocean business model where competitors do not exist.”

“In terms of the future, I see India as a great market not for something like Facebook monetization or for location based services, but more as a medium for delivery. For buying books, music, video, groceries, or even buying fashion goods, I think there’s great opportunity.”

“I play tennis every day 6-7:30 so that helps my metabolism, makes me more productive, and sets me up for the day.” (this one had to go in. :-))

Full transcript on RealLeaders.tv as always.

On the world's first official LearnoGraphic - WillPower

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Sun, 19 May 2013 06:28:00 +0000

I’m interrupting normal “book learning” service today to bring in a special broadcast - the world's first official LearnoGraphic on Willpower.

We've been thinking about a way to summarize books and concepts for over a year and we've been very inspired by the thought of creating "LearnoGraphics" - infographics for learning. Please find our first attempt attached. The full image is available on www.LearnoGraphics.com and the full graphic's home will be here.

Hat tip to EB for all the amazing graphics and for being my partner-in-crime on this one and to Roy Baumeister and John Tierney for "Willpower" - the inspiration behind this LearnoGraphic.

Look forward your thoughts!

If you aren’t happy today..

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Sat, 18 May 2013 02:08:00 +0000

it’s unlikely you will be happy tomorrow.

The promotion, the new car, the vacation, and the exam result aren’t going to change much. Sure, they’ll give you that momentary burst of joy but not much more. If you’re waiting for happiness to “happen,” good luck.

Happiness isn’t too different from the exercise habit. It takes a bit of work, is a bit painful (imagine that), and requires you to make a commitment to being thankful for what you have. If you find yourself having difficulties with being thankful, spend a day at a home for the underprivileged and your issues will sort themselves out.

If you’re complaining about happiness sitting in your comfortable chair, staring into a computer screen, and scrolling down a facebook news feed - shame on you.

Go out there. Do something. Help someone. Play. Read. Run. Laugh. Love. And then repeat everyday.

There’s a reason they say “be” happy. “Be” is a verb.

The Force or the Resistance

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Thu, 16 May 2013 21:26:00 +0000

We will encounter two forces today - the force and the resistance.

The force will support us every time we set about doing things that improve us - getting difficult work done, learning a new skill, improving ourselves, or just becoming better. The resistance, on the other hand, will only support activities that take us to a lower plane. The resistance hates getting work done, learning, and attempting to get better. It would rather have you procrastinate or just watch TV.

The resistance acts just before you get started. That’s when it is at it’s strongest. If you are planning on reading a self-help book, the resistance would say “But YOU don’t need this. this is for those other dorks. You are brilliant the way you are. You don’t need to change… change is bad.”

And then it will use it’s most powerful weapon - rationalization. “It’s good you don’t read this. You are tired today and need to relax a bit. Maybe you’ll get to this tomorrow.”

And of course, tomorrow never arrives as the resistance wards it away till you decide it’s hopeless.

The moment you get into action, however, everything changes. The force begins to take over. You begin to build action-momentum and suddenly you are deep in a state of flow. When you finish your first attempt at creating an exercise routine, you feel good.. really good. When you start your second attempt, the resistance still tries to thwart you but the force is stronger now. Act again and the resistance grows feebler.

Every day, we face a choice. Do we embrace the resistance and stay stagnant and happy in the short term or do we embrace the force and thus embrace painful growth and work for happiness in the long run?

It’s our choice.

PS: May the force be with you! :-)

The importance of feeling stupid and helpless

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Wed, 15 May 2013 20:49:00 +0000

You know the feeling when you’re having a great day. Everything feels within your grasp. The train shows up when you set foot into the train station. You are working on your strengths. The universe seems to conspire to make things work. You are in control and happy.

The crap day is a different experience. The train is late. You try working on a project using your strengths but you have to do something you don’t want on a day you don’t feel like doing much. A whole bunch of administrative tasks backfire and you are left calling your bank to follow up with this and calling up your travel agent to follow up with that. You’re not on your ‘A’ game and get told off a bit. By the end of the day, you are kicking yourself hard for not doing something well and you feel like the universe is conspiring against making things work. Cue feelings of stupidity and helplessness.

“How was your day?” - someone asked. “Crap” - I said.

I was wrong. It’s actually so very important that we feel stupid and helpless often. Strengths and happiness give us a feeling of invincibility which are great in short bursts. But, stupidity and helplessness are equally important (if not more..) because they make us stop, take stock, reflect, and learn. Crap days are not just crap days. They are days of great learning. And history has repeatedly shown that human beings only exercise ingenuity when we are feeling lazy, helpless, and fearful.

So, if you’re having a really bad day, remind yourself that this is the best thing that’s happened to you in a while because today will be a day of great learning. Go back home and write those learnings down! Use the strong emotions to make commitments to get better. It’s because of days like today that you will appreciate good things tomorrow and who knows - you might even exercise ingenuity and shape history.

Bad days.. greater purpose.. who knew?

Staying away from gossip

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Tue, 14 May 2013 21:10:00 +0000

One school of researchers studying the evolution of our brains attribute our large brain size to our tendency to gossip. Human relationships are complicated and the fact that we can hold 150 relationships at one time is testament to our brain power.

Gossip, however, is inherently judgmental. Most gossip is negative and involves us taking the moral high ground. "How could he do that? I would never dream of it."

Before I go ahead, allow me to digress here. There is a big difference between exercising good judgment and being judgmental. We are all called upon to exercise good people judgment when we hire teammates, colleagues, new employees in our departments. We need good people judgment to pick the right friends, right spouse, etc. However, we become judgmental when we attempt to apply quick judgment to every possible situation or person. Being judgmental involves constantly making assumptions and rarely involves giving the other person the benefit of the doubt.

I've struggled with being judgmental. I still struggle with it. I think I've slowly learnt to draw the line between exercising judgment and being judgmental in the past few years. And I've observed this happen thanks to two changes.

- Less gossip. This has been a consequence of living far away from most people I know for the past 3 years. Unintended but appreciated.

- Less insecurity. I think insecurity is what drives us to gossip. This is not a quick fix though. And suggestions to solve this deserve another post.

I appreciate that both these solutions are not easy ones. The first will probably be impractical and the second sounds vague. But I felt it was important to help explain the rationale for my suggested solution - focus really hard on your own problems.

I'm not advocating being selfish or self centred but I am suggesting we think of our own problems every time we are faced with an opportunity to gossip. This is a guaranteed solution because our problems ALWAYS loom larger than those of others. Focusing on solving the problems in our life keeps the demons of insecurity away as an added bonus.

I had a choice today to mentally pass judgment on hearing a story. Just as I caught myself doing that, I quickly thought about 3 pressing issues in my head. The old judgment thought vanished.

So, when you have an opportunity to gossip or pass judgment about someone else in the next couple of days, think about where your life/career/health/relationships are heading. Then repeat again at the next opportunity.

This works.

PS: Tuning out a gossip habit like the the Facebook news feeds helps too.

Align How

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Mon, 13 May 2013 21:06:00 +0000

Many great friendships share their origins in “what” or shared experiences like same school, same neighborhood, etc. Friendships are purely optional in a sense. If both of you want to play, you have a great game. And if you don’t, too bad. You’ll find another partner.

Friendships are inherently flexible. You can have great friends united in the “how” i.e. friends who follow the same thinking/decision making process or in the “why” i.e. similar purposes, dreams, and goals.

We often think the rules that apply to friendship should work just well at work. They don’t. A shared experience rarely makes a great team member. They can help strengthen bonds between team members (remembering that experience in the trenches) but they don’t make working with each other any better. Great companies build cultures that bring together people with similar “why’s”. So, that’s often take care of as well.

The difficulty lies in aligning the “how.” If how you approach tasks and projects, how you make decisions, how you communicate is incompatible, it’s not going to work. There may have been many who shared Steve Jobs’ vision of changing the world but aligning the “how” to actually make a working relationship successful was not for everyone.

If we want to be able to pick great bosses to work with, great teammates, we need to be as self aware as possible - to understand our “how” and look for others who align with it. The rest follows.

On Michael Phelps and Small Wins

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Sun, 12 May 2013 19:30:00 +0000

This week's book learning is part 1 from a 3 part from The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.

When Michael Phelps's alarm clock went off at 6:30 A.M. on the morning of August 13, 2008, he crawled out of bed in the Olympic Village in Beijing and fell right into his routine.

- 3h to go: He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and walked to breakfast. He had already won three gold medals earlier that week and had two races that day. Phelps's first race—the 200-meter butterfly, his strongest event—was scheduled for ten o'clock.

- 2h 30m to go: He began his usual stretching regime, starting with his arms, then his back, then working down to his ankles, which were so flexible they could extend more than ninety degrees, farther than a ballerina's en pointe.

- 1h 30m to go: He slipped into the pool and began his first warm-up lap. The workout took precisely forty-five minutes.

- 45 min to go: He exited the pool and started squeezing into his LZR Racer, a bodysuit so tight it required twenty minutes of tugging to put it on. Then he clamped headphones over his ears, cranked up the hip-hop mix he played before every race, and waited.

Phelps' coach Bob Bowman focused his early training on habits that would make him the strongest mental swimmer in the pool and he did it with "the science of small wins."

Small wins are exactly what they sound like. A huge body of research has shown that small wins have enormous power, an influence disproportionate to the accomplishments of the victories themselves. "Small wins are a steady application of a small advantage," one Cornell professor wrote in 1984. "Once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion that favor another small win."

Michael Phelps cranking up his pre-race hip-hop mix (Img source)

When the race arrives, Phelps is more than halfway through his plan and he's been victorious at every step. All the stretches went like he planned. The warm-up laps were just like he visualized. His headphones are playing exactly what he expected. The actual race is just another step in a pattern that started earlier that day and has been nothing but victories. Winning is a natural extension.

Small wins are part 1 of the Phelps formula. Part 2 coming up next week..

Wish you a happy weekend and happy week!

5 years

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Sat, 11 May 2013 23:49:00 +0000

I started blogging 5 years ago on May 12, 2008. My first post was had longer post scripts than content.

A learning a day..

The name says it all - Its just what the blog is intended to be. To help me re live some of those meaningful learnings. Hopefully, I will be able to keep up writing one a day.

(PS: I tend to have weirdly long days sometimes resulting in the next day being understandable short(36 hrs and then sleep through the next for example). So, the definition of day can be a bit..well.. shaky..

(PPS: That's just me making excuses! Hoping to make it happen..)

I love how I make an excuse to start with (the joys of being 19, eh?). If integrity is the ability to make and keep commitment, I had pretty low integrity in those days as I didn’t have the willpower to follow up on my commitments - I did marginally better on commitments to others thanks in part to an inflated ego.

Five years and 2766 posts later, I can say with confidence that this blogging thing has changed my life. In committing the “A Learning a Day” ideal, I committed to learning more, learning better, treating failure as learning, and showing up every day. I’ve tried hard to live up to all of that.

And I’ve been fortunate to have a small readership that’s been steady, encouraging, and supporting all at once. There was a time I knew the numbers at the back of my hand but then I realized that this readership thing can really get into your head. A year or so ago, I used to check Google Analytics and Feedburner stats every couple of days to see what my page view count was. Now I do so every few months. I realized somewhere along the way that I don’t this to be the most popular blog in the world. it was a great opportunity to revisit the “why” behind this.

I blog primarily because it makes me better. This journey of learning inspires me and I share it in the hope that it will inspire others too. And I am blessed to have a small blog community of folks who subscribe to this blog via their feed readers, emails, and the like and thus take part in this journey. I treasure hearing from all of you - thank you for sharing your stories every once in a while via email and the comments on this blog.

I really am honoured for the time and attention you give my writing. I hope to continue to be worthy of it.

Best wishes and wish you a nice week ahead,
Rohan

Increasing Mindfulness

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Sat, 11 May 2013 08:14:00 +0000

I blogged about attention a year ago. This paragraph from Eric Weiner’s great book sums it up well..

“Attention’ is an underrated word. It doesn’t get the… well, the attention it deserves. We pay homage to love, and happiness, and, God knows, productivity, but rarely do we have anything good to say about attention. We’re too busy, I suspect. Yet our lives are empty and meaningless without attention.

My two-year-old daughter fusses at my feet as I type these words. What does she want? My love? Yes, in a way, but what she really wants is my attention. Pure, undiluted attention. Children are expert at recognizing counterfeit attention. Perhaps love and attention are really the same thing. One can’t exist without the other.”

I’ve always struggled with attention. I tend to be attention deficit by nature and smartphones, social media, and notifications haven’t exactly made it easy (excuses.. yes, I know).

13 months down the line, I don’t think I’m too much better at this. I still struggle with attention.. but I’m hoping to improve by focusing on mindfulness first. Mindfulness is just the ability to “be” in the moment. The essence of zen, as described by a teacher, is the ability to focus on one thing at a time. That requires radical self awareness and mindfulness or conscious action is the first step.

Over the past few months, I’ve been slowly changing habits that increase distraction and thus reduce mindfulness. For example..

- On my phone. All sorts of push notifications are switched off. I switched off email notifications more than a year ago and it’s now moved to applications like whatsapp. This helps a lot.. because I now only get messages when I want to see them or when I want to engage.

- On my computer. I switched off Outlook’s new email alert more than a year ago. That helps a lot. Additionally, I’ve switched off from all sorts of messengers and communicators except when I really need to use them.

- On social media. 5 weeks ago, I decided to experiment with never checking my Facebook news feed. The experiment has worked well and I only get on Facebook to share blog posts, quotes, and the like. It’s one way and I’m loving that.

- On email. I’d tested a project to only check my personal email and social media in 3 hour intervals. That’s been fantastic and has been working for a few months now.

- On meditation. Thanks Headspace - nothing like a daily morning reminder to be more mindful.

I’ve paid lip service to mindfulness and attention for too long. I’m hopeful I will report some improvement in a year from now.

Happy mindful weekend!

Reflections from Dick Costolo's commencement address

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Thu, 09 May 2013 21:10:00 +0000

I watched Richard/Dick Costolo’s commencement address at the University of Michigan earlier this week. Dick C is the CEO of Twitter and previously was a co-founder at Feedburner. I’ve been interested in hearing from him ever since I learnt that he’s an ex-Improv artist and stand up comedian (I love such diversity!).

Here are my reflections from the talk -

- Learnings from Improv. Inspired by Dan Pink’s points in “To Sell is Human,” I recently bought a book on Improv. Improv principles like listen for offers, see humor in every situation, make the other person look good, be open, and make a plan but adjust rapidly resonate with me and Dick Costolo’s learnings from improv struck a chord.

- “Life is unscripted.” We have to be relentless about making scripts and understand the direction while being relentless about adapting. Make plans but be open for change is a worthy principle.

- “Our stage can be absolutely anything.” His Director once pointed out that they weren’t thinking big enough. The stage they were on could be absolutely anything - a space shuttle or an Amazonian forest if they wanted it to be.
It's something we need to keep reminding ourselves. We are the heroes of our own stories and we own the script.

- Twitter went down when Russian President Medvedev entered the office to send a tweet. I’ve often wondered why the biggest IT issues on my computer/internet/Skype happen just when I’m about to record a Real Leader interview. Dick C’s experience with Twitter going down as the Russian President entered made me smile. As a quote I read today goes - “Expect problems. Eat them for breakfast.”

I enjoyed the talk. It’s not often you have a CEO of a top companies channelling inspiration from improv and stand-up. Good on you, Dick C.

The ALearningaDay Scholarship Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Thu, 09 May 2013 09:34:00 +0000

Regulars here know of my interest in all things related to leading a happy and meaningful life. Research has repeatedly pointed to 3 things that help -

1. Excellent Habits - e.g. exercise, reading great books, deliberate practice to improve skills
2. High willpower - to develop great habits
3. Self awareness and reflection - to keep perspective, stay upbeat, and keep learning from our experiences

Applying these principles in my life has meant an often-painful but always-rewarding set of experiences over the past 3 years. You are never "done" on this journey as the success lies in enjoying the journey but you do get better at it the more you try. The hardest challenge amongst the 3 has been embedding good habits into my life. I am still a long way from where I'd like to be - the exercise habit, for example, is one I'm working hard on.

I am, as a result, very interested to see if an intense 6 week burst that involves sticking to these habits for an external reward does result in sustainable long term change.

Hence, the ALearningaDay scholarship challenge. The ALearningaDay scholarships are 2 scholarships worth SGD 600 (around USD 485) for students applying to the RealAcad entrepreneurial leadership program in 2013. I attended my first RealAcad camp at Stanford university as a young university student and learnt a great deal. I've been fortunate to go to a few more camps following my first and continue to work with RealAcad as an alumni contributor.

The scholarship challenge will work as follows -

Round 1 - Paragraph

1. All interested 2013 applicants will register by submitting their name, email address, and a paragraph explaining why they feel they deserve the ALearningaDay scholarship (in less than 150 words).
Registration deadline is 11:59pm GMT on Friday, 17 May 2013

2. A panel of anonymous judges will pick 3-5 students for round 2 and the successful students will be notified by email on Sunday, 19 May 2013

Round 2 - 6 week challenge

1. For 6 straight weeks, the participants in the challenge will have to do the following every weekday (Monday-Friday) starting Monday, 20 May 2013 -

a) Post a book byte on The BookBytes Project from one of the 4 recommended books.
(So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, Willpower by Roy Baumeister, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg)

b) Keep an exercise log and exercise for a minimum of 20 minutes 4 out of 5 weekdays.

c) Create a learning blog/use an existing blog and share one learning from the day.

d) Compile the book byte, learning, and a simple 0/1 exercise score on a google spreadsheet tab to make it easy for the final judging.

2. The challenge will end on Friday, 21 June 2013. The anonymous judge panel will shortlist the final 2 winners and announce the winner on or before Monday, 1 Jul 2013.

FAQs/Questions/Other Notes

· The assumption with the book byte is that you'd have to do a substantive amount of daily reading.
· The applicants will be judged on the quality of the content they put up and their ability to keep up these habits.
· The submissions will be treated with 100% trust. We will make sure the participants are reminded of the dangers of marginal thinking.

The going-in assumption is that this exercise will be beneficial to participants whether or not they win the cash amount. In fact, I am sure that the resulting habits would be FAR more valuable in the long run the scholarship amount.

It will also be a very painful process if my attempts at embedding these habits into my life are anything to go by. But, nothing is good accomplished without pain. It will be a real challenge.. And I'm looking forward to seeing how many decide to take the challenge head on.

If you are one of those applicants who's ready for the challenge, please click here to register. If you haven't applied to RealAcad's 2013 programs and want to participate in the challenge, you have 1 week to get it all done. ;-)

And, to the rest of the community, updates on this experiment on living well will follow! :-)

Thank you Sir Alexander Chapman Ferguson

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Wed, 08 May 2013 22:15:00 +0000

As humans, we only understand the value or magnitude of things when they are put into context. A fact like “Michael Phelps has won 22 gold medals” would mean nothing until it is put into perspective. However, when we realize that Michael Phelps alone won more gold medals in each Olympics he participated than 80% of countries and that he has won more medals in 3 Olympics than many countries ever will, we realize that Michael Phelps is a colossus who might never be surpassed.

Sir Alex Ferguson retired after 26 years at the helm of Manchester United yesterday with 13 English Premier League titles, 2 European Cups, 5 FA Cups, and a whole host of other silverware. He has won more Premier League trophies than all English football clubs except Manchester United and Liverpool. As a fan of the club and the man, my only wish was that he had waited for another European Cup before retiring because he would have put the debate around “Who is the greatest football manager of them all?” to rest forever. Now, there still is room for a bit of debate. But, debate or not, we will likely never see the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson again and the world of football will be lesser for it.

There is fervent debate about who would be the next Manchester United manager. The article that describes the difficulty of the job best is here (please excuse the occasional profanity)

Manchester United have had an aura about them for the past 20 years. As John Nicholson in the article observes, “United were always a huge club with huge support going back to the war. Ferguson didn't make them huge, his achievement was to deliver a level of success commensurate with their status in football.” In his time as Manchester United manager, he has seen more than a 1000 managers come and go. This stability has undoubtedly been a source of the extraordinary success.

A lot hangs on the next managerial appointment. It remains to be seen whether Manchester United will remain a footballing behemoth or whether it will descend to being another football club with supporters’ ceaseless talk about the “glory years.”

Whatever happens, I guess all that matters is that Sir Alex Ferguson will not be in the famous dugout next season. It’s hard to explain the emotions that accompany that… so I will choose to just finish what he might say.. “Bloody hell.”

Cam Graham, Management Consultant and Executive Coach, on removing assumptions, developing leadership, and managing change

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Tue, 07 May 2013 19:41:00 +0000

I met Cam on my first consulting project. The project was a massive post merger integration in the Middle East and Cam was leading the program. I knew I’d learn lots from Cam the moment I met with him. While we only managed to make time for 2 meals (i.e. 2 one-on-one conversations!), we went on to stay in close touch. I owe Cam a big thank you for many learnings over the years – the biggest of which was undertaking a journey to understand myself better and be comfortable with myself.

Cam has influenced many a point of view over these years and I’ve learnt a lot from his questions. (He’s also been the “wiser friend” on more blog posts than I can count!) I enjoyed this interview as it gave me an opportunity to ask him questions!

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Full transcript as usual on Realleaders.tv.

My favorite parts -

“The one that I run into and have to remind myself of most often is to not assume. Don’t jump to conclusions; don’t be too quick to judge. Just pause. Always give the other person the benefit of the doubt. It’s about human interaction. There’s no need to usually rush as much as most of us do. That one I run into every day and have to remind myself of a hundred times a day.”

“I also believe that no matter how many times I’ve been told in my life that we’re all different, and we need to respect our differences, that we are more similar than we sometimes are willing to accept. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t respect the differences, but sometimes we get obsessed with them. Eighty percent of us are essentially the same. We’re the same people with the same motives, the same drives, and the same needs regardless of our religion, our ethnicity, or our profession. That’s been a good guide for me as I’ve ventured into many different types of organizations to see if I can help.”

“It’s often not about overcoming weaknesses. We spend so much time, especially in western culture, trying to fix what’s broken with us. I think we have to manage those things. We have to make sure we’re mitigating risks or severe damage but more and more know who we really are and what our strengths are and let those flourish. “

Enjoy!

Romance is hard work

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Mon, 06 May 2013 20:15:00 +0000

When a friend first pitches the idea of going on 'nature walks' on weekends, “oohs” and “aahs” follow. Everyone is interested. Everyone wants to do it. "Such a romantic idea," "an opportunity to smell the roses" are the sorts of comments that follow.

Then he follows up with next steps/the reality. Wake up at 6am on a Saturday morning and then walk for 4 hours. Suddenly, everyone has an excuse. The romance seems to wear out pretty darn quick.

Everyone stumbles onto the truth - it’s all romance only in theory. In reality, romance is hard work and we have to explicitly choose to do it. Why take that detour to buy flowers for your wife/girlfriend when you can just show up? Why spend all those months learning the piano when you can laze around watch TV? Why go out of the way to treat a customer/client extra special when you can lean back on the default option?

The beauty of this is that once you put in the hard work, the results are..well..romantic.

Try asking the lady who unexpectedly received flowers..

Good News? Bad news? Who knows?

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Mon, 06 May 2013 09:02:00 +0000

You’ve probably heard of this famous parable..

A farmer’s only horse ran away. The neighbors, trying to console him, said, “What terrible news about your horse. What will you do?” But the farmer said, “Bad news, good news… who knows?”

A few days later, the horse returned, leading an entire herd of wild horses. The neighbors exclaimed, “How wonderful!” The farmer replied, “Good news, bad news… who knows?”

The next day, the farmer’s son tried to ride one of the new horses. The horse threw the son, who broke both legs. The neighbors said, “What a misfortune! Your son won’t be able to work on the farm.” The farmer stood still and said, “Bad news, good news… who knows?”

Within the week, news of a war had broken out. Soldiers arrived in the village, taking new recruits. All the young men were drafted to fight, except for the farmer’s son.

Good news? Bad news? Who knows?

I received some sage advice as I was deliberating on a decision the other day.

“Is what you are going to do going to be right?” I was asked. “Probably not. Is it going to be bad? We don't know. Is what you've done so far good or bad? We don't know. It just is.”

“Just keep learning, keep forming opinions, keep testing them out. We have an urge to label things as good or bad. A things isn't generally good or bad - it just is. We choose what we do about it.”

Sage advice, I thought.

On Atoms to Bits and Reversible Business Models

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Sun, 05 May 2013 04:04:00 +0000

This week's book learning is part 2 of a 2 part series comprising of 4 of my favorite insights from 'Free' by Chris Anderson. (Part 1)

Atoms to Bits:

- Encyclopaedia disruption. The encyclopedia business used to be worth more than a billion dollars with Britannica in the lead. Encarta from Microsoft (CD based) first disrupted it before Wikipedia turned the market upside down.

"Free" often turns billion dollar markets into million dollar markets. Of course, while theoretically billions of dollars is lost in terms of market cap thanks to this disruption, the money moves elsewhere/results in other kinds of gain that can’t be measured e.g. productivity gains in case of Wikipedia.

- One winner. The one other distinguishing feature is that while market share may be split in a non-free market between the top 3 companies, in free markets, the top company holds the key to the money with 90%+ share of the market. (e.g. Google in search advertising)

Insight: The moment an industry moves from transmitting atoms (e.g. boxes of encyclopaedia) to bits - free becomes inevitable. So, what can we do about free? Re-think business models……

Reversible business models:

- Denmark gym example. A gym in Denmark offers a membership program where you pay nothing if you show up once every week. If you miss a week, you pay full price for the month.

The psychology is brilliant - if you go every week, you feel great. If you get busy and miss a week (very high likelihood), you'll blame yourself instead of blaming the business for charging you, as is normal. The instinct is not to cancel membership but to double your resolve.

Such 'reversible business models' are being tested all over -

Example 1: Music clubs in Los Angeles began charging bands to play in the club. They realized that bands value exposure more than cash.

Example 2: In China, some doctors are paid monthly when their patients are healthy. If they are sick, it's the doctor's fault.

Sketch by EB

I hope you enjoyed the short series on "Free." For the next couple of weeks, we will be diving into the world of personal finance..

10 seconds longer

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Sat, 04 May 2013 02:06:00 +0000

Let everything you do today take 10 seconds longer - 10 seconds to just revel in the moment.

Look outside the window 10 seconds longer. Lounge around 10 seconds longer. Walk slower, eat slower, and talk slower.

Let’s face it - “smelling the roses” isn’t easy to do every day. Life takes over, we get busy, and time flies.

But, today can be different.

Let today be the day we smell the roses. No need to accomplish anything and no need to solve the world’s problems.

No, today we pause, enjoy the moment, and have a nice day.

All of the serious stuff can be scheduled for tomorrow.

Today, we smell the roses.

To get started, listen to a groovy tune, get a solo dance party started, and enjoy being alive and well..

3 questions to ask before an important interview/task

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Thu, 02 May 2013 20:06:00 +0000

Assuming you have put in enough effort, here are 3 questions that will help -

1. Can I do it?
Recent research has revealed that pumping ourselves up doesn't help. What helps is interrogative self talk, i.e., calmly asking ourselves this question and reminding ourselves of the preparation we have put in.

2. Why do I say I can do it?
Revisit your preparation.

3. What will help now?
Brush up a couple of concepts if necessary. Else, listen to music and relax.

And then it’s show time!

Concert for our ears

noreply@blogger.com (Rohan Rajiv) — Wed, 01 May 2013 21:08:00 +0000

As I was humming away to a song I was listening with my headphones on yesterday, I realized something incredible - I was being treated to a private concert. For my ears only.

If this was 500 years ago, I would have had to be royalty to engage one of the top musicians of the day for a private concert. I would have to be amongst the top 1% of monarchs to engage this musician to be at my beck and call. And there would be absolutely no way to round up all the top musicians in the world in one place; Half of them would probably die in their attempts to make it across the oceans.

Today, all I need is a tiny gadget with a couple of headphones. A couple of finger touches later, I have every musician in the world at my beck and call for a one time fee of $0.99 (for a lifetime) - less than a cost of a coffee.

What a privilege..