2023

When General Norman Schwarzkopf led the US Army's invasion of Iraq in 2003, you would imagine that he would be talking about tanks, planes, tactics, and battle plans.  Instead, he said, 'Shined shoes save lives.'  Is it not weird? A guy whose job is to defeat Saddam...

Over the last 4 years, I have written about 2,000 pieces on LinkedIn and Quora. And while writing may not be your thing, over your lifetime, you will surely have big goals that will require a multi-year effort.  So how does one maintain years of consistency?  Let me...

Many years ago, I got intrigued by the US Navy SEALs, who go through arguably the world's most grueling military training. It includes, among other things, an infamous ‘hell week,’ where for five-and-a-half days, the trainees go through a non-stop physical grind with...

Conventional wisdom states that, as an entrepreneur, I should be slogging 12-16 hrs a day. Yet, on any given day, I never exceed 4-5 hrs of real work. Of course, I work beyond that as well – e.g., on administrative work, emails, etc. But I don’t do long hours or late...

I have practically no memory of what happened yesterday morning. No, I wasn’t drunk or unconscious. But yesterday’s forenoon was a blur. All I remember is writing a post on LinkedIn. Then I checked emails and soon got sucked into a bunch of small tasks. One thing led...

In the past six months, I've lost three friends who passed away unexpectedly, including an ex-boss I was close to (his passing made national news). When you lose friends, it is very hard to accept that it is all over. With one of them (Amarnath Raja), I have still not...

On Feb 22, 2021, I got an email from Apoorba, a participant from our digital detox program Undistractable (it was then called ‘Reboot’). Apoorba was in the middle of a career crisis. His sales team was shrinking and the sales numbers were crashing. Covid had made it...

LinkedIn is ablaze with posts that tell you, “Never quit.” But probably the biggest mistake I have made as an entrepreneur is not quitting when I should have. Let me share this story which started in 2012 when I quit my job and launched CourseBrew, my first startup. I...

A 101-year-old changed my plan for today’s newsletter. I was planning to write about something else until a week ago when I came upon the curious case of retired Navy commander V. Sriramulu. At 101, Commander Sriramulu walks and runs 18 kilometers. He has won many...

The internet is splattered with two life philosophies. Philosophy 1 This philosophy says ‘Discipline equals freedom.’ So toughen up your mind, show up every day, and be relentless. Don’t allow your feelings to mess with your actions. You don’t need motivation, you...

When you consume information, the information consumes your attention. And between information and attention, the scarcer resource, unquestionably, is your attention. So optimize how you allocate your attention. For better or worse, we have an endless supply of blogs,...

At age 10, my daughter started taking swimming lessons with a bunch of other kids. But along with those kids in the pool, there was also a grown-up man taking swimming lessons. When I saw him, I smirked and thought, “What is this guy doing here?” – as if he was...