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Why People Struggle Without Mentoring
During my MBA program, I became a student consultant for local businesses in Pennsylvania, as part of a University-run initiative. And like most of my fellow student consultants, I was pretty useless. Here is why. The program implicitly assumed...
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Why Ambitious Plans Often Fail
Whenever my planning has failed, it is because I did it in "Rambo mode." During my student days, I would sometimes set ridiculous goals, e.g.,...
To start a forest fire, it just takes a spark
I received this email from a young lady suffering from depression and severe weight gain, which is preventing her from socializing and living a...
Why Consensus Doesn’t Lead to Greatness
Long ago, during an evening stroll with a retired VC in New York (from Bessemer), I asked him, "What differentiated your best investments from the...
How Discipline Breaks Down
How does discipline break down? Answer: One exception at a time. But then, how can we be 100% consistent or never make exceptions? That it true --...
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Life Is Finite – Don’t Wait to Live It
Last year, I lost three friends who passed away unexpectedly, including an ex-boss I was close to, whose passing made national news. When you lose friends, it is hard to accept that it is all over. With one of them (Amarnath Raja), I am still...
All our good habits are subject to entropy
As a consultant, I have helped companies cut costs. But 3-5 years later, many of these costs come right back up. In fact, most company initiatives work well for a while, and then, regress. The same thing happens to us individually -- we build new...
Reinvent or Stagnate
One of the consultants at McKinsey I worked with, is today leading McKinsey's digital initiatives. You might say -- naturally, an engineer can't help being an engineer! But this person was NOT an engineer. He was a hardcore Pharma and Lifesciences...
Change Your Defaults, Change Your Life
When you wake up, unthinkingly, you grab your phone and check messages or some social apps. You are doing it for just one reason -- it is your default behavior. Next, whether you work out, grab a coffee or just snooze, it is again driven by your...