Beyond the Startup Drama

The startup world has today become a circus. Once, ‘startup’ meant innovation. Today it has become this drama of VC funding, valuation, unicorn, week-over-week growth, blitzscaling, and pursuit of the next billion/trillion/quadrillion. Now, there is NOTHING...

The Power of Daily Meditation

I have been working out regularly for more than a decade but it took years of struggle to make meditation a daily habit. Without guidance, it was really hard – every time, I would try but give up after a few days. But once I started reading some of the Buddhist...

Handling difficult life-situations

In 2003, I was facing a potentially career-ending crisis. A group of tribals from northern Kerala landed in Trivandrum and started agitating. As the City Police chief, I had to ensure that there was no violence or obstruction. Since these were impoverished tribals, we...

Happiness from Within

In investment banking and Wall Street jobs, the ‘bonus day’ is an interesting one — everybody gets a cash windfall. Naturally, they should all be thrilled, right? Yet, NOT everyone is happy. Why? Did they not just get more money? Here are the two reasons: 1....