In my first ever job interview, someone told me, “We are selecting you because we believe you can do it.” Those words got me started and I never looked back, because I worked really hard to prove them right. Words are energy. They can lift someone up or pull them down. Words create an expectation. […]
The neighbor is renovating his apartment next door. When noisy drilling machines started breaking tiles and walls, it was impossible to listen to anything, including the self. Noise unnerves me like nothing else and the cost of all the development around is noise pollution emanating from cars, traffic, construction and so on. Then the noisy […]
Can you steer a parked car? No, right? When it comes to our tasks, priorities and choices, why do we then try to steer them in our “thinking”? Thinking about things and not doing anything about it is like steering a parked car. It takes you no where. Think only enough that gets you started. […]
Setting goals is important. However, goals are temporary and short-lived. They change based on change in our situation, aspirations, life stage and circumstances. Goals are simply milestones along the road. They come and go. What does not change is your mindset and attitude. Mindset is how you see the world around you. Mindset is about […]
This happens all around us: People try to keep up with what others are doing. This race to be compliant to the larger expectation is also called “the arms race phenomenon” – people will race towards getting the arms (just like countries do) that everyone else has. The “arms” here could be that fancy college […]
Best things cannot be bought, they come from within. You can buy bestselling books or work hard to get into ivy league institutions hoping to learn, but passion to learn cannot be bought, it comes from within. You can buy an expensive house, but contentment comes from within. You can socialise and make many friends, […]
The journey of building a good life is fraught with road blocks, failures and seemingly long roads that take you nowhere. When you encounter any of these, which you definitely will, remember: You can always RESTART. When a computer system got slow, our IT team would always ask us to restart it. That often solved […]
The famous violinist Nathan Milstein wrote: “Practice as much as you feel you can accomplish with concentration. Once when I became concerned because others around me practiced all day long, I asked [my mentor] Professor Auer how many hours I should practice, and he said, ‘It really doesn’t matter how long. If you practice with […]
Writing a blog for over 16 years is a deliberate practice. Working out several times a week is deliberate practice. Creating sketchnotes consistently for 8+ years is a deliberate practice. Keeping track of my financials with a goal to be debt free was a deliberate practice. Before we delve into the mechanics of deliberate practice, […]