Category Archives: Thoughts

The Psychology of Completion

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In a conference, Seth Godin was speaking about how he managed to bring out so many books, articles and columns which made an impact. He said “The key to being a failure is shipping. Keep shipping your product, article or book even if in your mind its not completed. In the many failures I have had, one of the key things I did was to keep on shipping my work”.

Knowingly or unknowingly, I think even i am doing the same thing. After i decided to write each day for 100 days, no matter if it makes sense or does not, I am writing. Its almost 60 days now and I have not stopped. I have not gained many followers nor did people start interacting with me on my expertise, but all it takes is one good article and one good day, am sure i can make an impact.

Coming to Entrepreneurship or even personally, the key to achieving your goal is to keep on shipping out what you do. It might not be complete, will never be, but you will be making an impact.

There is nothing called completion for any individual, its an ongoing process. Be it a product (thats why we have versions coming out regularly) or writings (updated books are reprinted), the completion is never there. It keeps going.

So, the next time you embark on solving a problem, keep trying out the result every day, don’t procrastinate. Keep it going. It will be a mental pressure for you indirectly and you will keep pushing yourself to bring it to shape.

Being ruthless

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If you have watched The House of Cards, you are not new the word ruthless. Being a true leader needs you to be ruthless, ruthlessness to the core in focusing what you want to achieve.

Frank Underwood might be a wrong illustration for depicting this quality in a leader, but surely there are few things we can learn from him – Unmatched devotion to his vision. The vision of being at the center of Power.

All of us love having the power, be it at home, office or in the society. Power gives a sense of satisfaction and ability to shape our surroundings the way we wish to. According to the dictionary, the word ruthless means – showing no pity. This can be read in different ways and all we need to understand is how we can build this quality in us in a positive way.

Building the quality of ruthlessness requires us to work on developing ourselves in various contexts. First, we need to understand the work what we do, second, we need to have a complete understanding of the environment we live in, third, the most important of all, we need to have a very good clarity of what we wish to achieve.

If you look at how FU (these are the alphabets on his cufflinks) operates, he has a complete and deep understanding of how the political parties work and operate. He exactly knows whom he needs to approach for a certain task and how to get through their mind to get his work done. This plays a very important role in building your strength.

While trying to understand the environment we live in, it requires a deep understanding of the work we deliver and how we deliver. This gives the sense of confidence and also allows us to think of various options to get things done identifying the most optimal path.

The third point is where we all get lost and confused. We need to have absolute clarity of what our end goal is, be it power, money, satisfaction or sense of accomplishment. What ever it is, we need to be very clear as to where to get to. Else, the journey is about confusion and chaos. If you look at any successful leader around us, you can clearly identify the clarity in their mind, if you spend some time understanding what they do and how they do.

It is ok to have confusion, most of us cannot identify what we want until we really spend some time in understanding what our strength is. So, as you traverse along, identify where your strength lies, understand the work and environment and be sure to build the right character to reach your goal.

Be ruthless in the right way, and you will reach your destination.

the discipline of freedom

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We all want freedom. Freedom from rules and regulations, freedom from family, freedom from teachers, freedom from friends, freedom from everything. But what is freedom? Is it only attributed to what and how we want?

Freedom is an attribute of mind. The mind needs to have its control over all what is happening around us and that is what the freedom each of us aspires.

 
Freedom, when not controlled, is the most dangerous enemy we will have, and that is why Freedom needs discipline. When thoughts are built with discipline, that is when you experience the complete freedom.
 
The mind and brain even though are interlinked, many times the brain does not follow the instructions of the mind. The mind does not allow you to think objectively, it only sends out emotional thoughts. The brain wants you to get up and run, but your mind refuses to get up (an emotional thought of sleeping for a little more while). It gets caught up in the vicious cycle. It is tempted to do what it is doing (resting, watching TV, reading or writing). How do you overcome this?
 
About a year ago, I started my journey as an Entrepreneur. Suddenly, I had the feeling of emptiness. There were no more late night calls, no scheduled meetings or travels, no escalations and last but not the least, no being artificial self. Suddenly, I felt I had all the time in my day and my brain was not being occupied. Now, I see the morning sunrise, do not rush to have breakfast and don’t look forward to my coffee break, no lunch meetings, no gossips, no rush hour traffic and finally, not going to bed with all the energy lost, just dreading to wake up in the morning to start the cycle again.
 
Days and weeks went by, I rested and let my body accept the new changes. Life was good. I now have all day to myself to do what I want to do and what I was wanting to do. For a long time (even now at times) I kept pushing out things in my checklist – I can do it later, I can do it tomorrow etc. As days passed by, I realized that I am being lesser productive than I was earlier. On 1 Jan 2016, I made a resolution that I am going to write a blog post a day for 100 days and voila, I did it. I used to plan my writings, write during the weekends and set the timer to publish automatically each day at a set time. I was using each minute I got productively by focusing on what energizes me to push myself during the office hours. Off late, I realized that now, because my day is not packed, my mind and body were getting off guard. The commitment to get things done has slowed down (I have all the time, right?).
 
It took a while for me to get back to schedule. Now, I get up in the morning, make a list of things which need to be done for the day and the day goes on by checking off the list. Initially, I used to make a list of things which I need to get done – like respond to the email, complete the presentation, meeting with someone etc. This helped, but the lethargy still exists. Now, I have a list of things which I need to do and I started using an app called Strides on iOS. This is a fantastic app which allows you to make a checklist of your activities which you need to get done each day repetitively. Now, my checklist goes like this – Wake up at 5 AM, Read/Writing time, Meditation time, the list of things which need to be done during the day, Read/Write or Google time.  Notice the Google time. I realized that unknowingly I keep spending time on Google searching for something or the other. Now, I avoid going on unnecessary searches, rather I write down what I want to search in a paper and do it during the specific time in the day.
 
When we have all the time in our hand, we forget how valuable and brutal it is to not be productive, especially when you need to earn your living as an Entrepreneur.
 
This is the reason I renamed my blog to The Discipline of Freedom because freedom without discipline is like living without breathing.

Thinking like a pro

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Thinking is not art, but a skill which needs to be mastered.


In his book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell says that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill. Winston Churchill once said, typically people think 2-4 hours a year and I practiced doing it each day and that is what got me here.


In today’s world of fast changing and adapting technology, only the one’s who practice thinking are making strides in every aspect of their lives. So, how do we begin thinking like a pro?


Thinking is the function of both the left and right brains. It needs constant practice and the will to make your thinking impactful. While the left brain focus’s on understanding the small picture, verbal communication, linear and logical thinking, positive emotions, math, and EQ; the right brain focus’s on understanding the big picture, non-verbal communication, IQ, math reasoning, information interpretation and negative emotions.


Thinking is a tight balancing act between the left and right brains. Like any other balance activities, even the brain needs to be taught and practiced thinking.


If we go with the statistics quoted by Churchill, we would not spend more than 240 hours thinking in our lifetime (3 Hours a year for 80 Years). For us to reach at least 50% of the mastery level, setting a goal of 10 years, we need to practice thinking 500 Hours a year. This translates to an average of 0.057 Hours each day, which is less than 20 minutes.


When you begin learning a 2 wheeler/4 wheeler, you focus on keeping the balance of the vehicle straight on the road while combining using the Accelerator, Brake, Clutch and the Gearbox. Initially, it would be difficult, but the more your practice, the easier it gets.


Similarly, thinking like a pro needs practice. Practicing a combination of activities will help sharpen our thinking. It is not mandatory that one understands every aspect of the functions of brain and practice them, but identifying the right combinations coupled with the passion helps better the chances of the thinking process.


Next time when you have to think about something, try a combination of the skills required and then your output will be much better than it was the last time.

How wearable’s are improving your health

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Wearables have been fast gaining importance. Fitness trackers and Smart watches play the most pivotal role.
With more and more people beginning to use them, there is a lot of data with the manufacturers which can be used for varied research activities. In fact, using an fitness tracker helps one to monitor his/her fitness levels and motivate them. For instance, I keep tracking my steps per day and give my best to ensure I reach my goal each night before I sleep. It has become more of psychological to feel the vibration on my device when I reach my goal.
What should happen next is that this data should be made available for the end user to share with his Physician so that he can be advised on how he should be working to keep his health and maintain fitness levels.
With the Internet of Things slowly gaining important and many devices being connected and all the data collected being consolidated, research is improving to provide information on how one can improve/maintain his/her health.
I am optimistic that this is the new norm of manning health and beginning of building a healthy lifestyle yourself.

Ideas as Platform

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When we have an idea, we focus on building the product. What happens eventually is that the product gets into iterations and over the period of time becomes redundant for various reasons.
What we need to focus on is to build our idea as a platform. Think of it as a broader solution and the products are offerings of the solution. What happens with this is that the ideation has a broader spectrum and it gives us opportunities to build on the platform.
This lays the foundation for the future of your startup. Look at any major organisation, they build their offerings on the platform. Maggie does not just sell noodles, they have soups, pasta’s etc. What is the platform? – 2 minute snack/food.
Look at any car manufacturing company. They specialise in manufacturing a SUV, Sedan, 4X4 etc. The outcomes are quite different and appeal to varied consumers. Maruti in India focus’s on Sedan’s and they offer Compact to Mid-end cars – Alto 800 to Ciaz to Grand Vitara. They have a offering to varied economic diversities. This is how they build their market share.
Entrepreneurs should first identify the platform and then build their offerings to solve components of the problem so that their offering can be varied, affordable, sustainable and if changes are required, only one solution can be altered and remaining in tact.
So, the next time you are addressing a problem – create the platform and not just one solution.

Is your startup ready for tomorrow?

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You have started up. You are excited and you want to look at all possible situations and scenarios where you can build your startup and make it big. Who does not want it?
The aspect of running a company is not just providing a solution/service, but having an immaculate plan of alternative Business Models. What do I mean by this?
Do you remember Kodak? This was one company which rewrote the business of Photography. They had everything available for photographers – from films to cameras to printing solutions. Their business was unbeaten even though they had competition. They were undisputed leaders. However, things started to fall apart with the advent of Digital Photography and Digital SLR camera’s coming into the market. Initially, everyone thought that there is nothing to beat in terms or clarity and quality with the Roll photos, Digital Camera’s were not so advanced. But, by the time Kodak realized, they were being beaten up. Digital photography took over and Kodak was completely out of options. Today, we do not have any more camera rolls. What happened here is the unpreparedness for the competition. Kodak tried multiple options to save the company and its business, but everything went in vain.
Today’s startup’s / businesses focus on the primary business models and miss the fundamental aspect of Business Model, which is sustaining and running the business. What the founder should think is the long-term practicality of the idea and how he can mould the company to withstand competition and turbulent times. This is what makes for a working Business Model.

The Perception Problem

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Let us accept that we do not have answers to all the questions. But, we do not want to accept the reality. It is generally more difficult to not know answers to questions. We try and avoid to say ‘I don’t know’.
What happens when you are thinking of bigger problems like the Economy in the country, or the Healthcare system or Politics? We will go with what the majority of people are saying about the issue and if it matches with our thinking, we go with them. We perceive that what the majority are saying is correct. But, we do not spend time to think if this is the truth or not. If the issue is supported with data, then there is a little support to the bias, but if it does not, then there is a bigger problem. Without understanding the actual facts, we also tend to solve the problem with everyone else.
Apply this to your startup. When you have an idea to solve a problem, doing a market research and evaluating the market potential might give you a certain way to address the problem. But, what really makes the cut is the ability for you to think and solve it the best way which seems possible.
Henry Ford once said “If I ask people what they want, they would ask for faster horses”, he identified the problem and solved it by building a car. He did not go with what the majority said.
When Apple brought out the iPad, there was no competition for them. They were the first. Steve Jobs identified the problem of bringing computers to your hand and the iPad rolled out which not only created history, but the entire pace of computing changed overnight. There is enough competition today and this competition is creating more innovative products.
So the next time you wish to solve a problem, do look at what the majority are thinking, but adapt to your ability to think and address the problem.

Attitude towards Error

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We all make mistakes and we learn from them. Only when you understand and analyze the error can you incorporate into your life and the mistake never comes up again. But, if it is a one off fix, be rest assured that it will come back.
Toyota is quite famous for their Quality and how they incorporate their learning’s back into the system without it occurring back. This is the reason they are epitome of success and many organisations try to incorporate this style into their organisations.
On the Toyota Production Floor, when there is flaw in the production, the employee immediately switches off his machine and all the other machines come to a halt. Managers and other personal gather at where the production stopped, analyze the error and incorporate their learning’s into the system so that they are prepared for it the next time.
As entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs what we need to develop is the attitude towards the error. When we find a flaw, how do we react to it? How do we incorporate our learning’s into our system is the most important aspect of execution.
When there is an error next time, don’t ignore, but study and incorporate into your framework.

Revisiting Expectations

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All of us have expectations. Be it at home, work, with friends and family. Everywhere and every time.
The most important aspect of expectations is that it becomes the root cause of our disappointments.
So, should I not have expectations? You should. We should. All of us should have expectations. But, these expectations should come with the reality. The reality of realizing the expectations. What is happening is that as times change, our efforts come with an automatic interest of expectations. I have done this, so, I should get this. I put in these efforts in my relationships, and I should get this in return. Honestly, life does not run this way. Even though we have not learnt this formally, it became part of our lives.
So, what can I expect? Expect to enjoy the beauty of life. Expect that the world is waiting for your deliver your duties. Expect that there are no returns for anything for which you do. Expect no one is thinking about you.
You need to set expectations based on what you agree with. When you set these expectations for yourself, you start to be living a life. Your life becomes happier and the world around is more happier.
People say the world has changed, it has become a cruel place etc. But, the world has not changed. It has remained the way for millions of years and it will continue to be so. What has changed is the way we think and act. The moment this is taken care, everything falls into place.
Whatever you do, do it with Passion and what has to come back will come back.