First, Let People Work

A corporate executive I was recently talking to, said that on many days, he has meetings from morning to evening — sometimes without even a break for lunch. So I asked him, ‘When do you get to do your work?’ I thought he would say, “I stay up...

The Courage to Admit Mistakes

I hate cowardice. Yet, on a few occasions, I was a coward. When I launched my first startup, I built a product that found zero customers — zero revenue. Something was wrong. Maybe the product was wrong. Maybe, I had no idea how to market. (Now I know that it was...

Small Steps, Big Results

To be fit, you don’t need to run 100-mile ultramarathons or climb Mt. Everest. To build physical strength, you don’t need to be a powerlifter. To build good focus, you don’t need to meditate in the Himalayas for a year. When we seek inspiration for...

Living Beyond Fear

Yesterday, during my evening walk with a retired IAS officer, he said that many officers in his service are unhappy with their professional life. They feel stuck but somehow reconcile to it. And this is not just about IAS but it could happen in any job, especially the...

Earn the Right to Advise

In 1994, when India’s ex-PM Narasimha Rao addressed the US Congress, he told this story about Mahatma Gandhi: Once a lady came to Gandhiji and asked him to tell her son to stop eating sugar. Instead of doing what she asked, Gandhiji asked her to come after two...