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The Power of Problem-Solving Under Pressure
During my consulting days, whenever we felt unclear about what to do next, my panic would start rising. And my instinct would always be to push harder and churn out a few more slides. But thankfully, we would pause, go to the whiteboard, and do a...
Recent Posts
The Biggest Reward
In Dec 2014, I got an award that I didn’t quite deserve. That year, the TiE Kerala chapter gave me their annual ‘Startup Entrepreneur of the Year...
Beyond the Hype
When I was running my previous startup, ConceptOwl, I heard of another EdTech startup that was growing rapidly using strategies that were not...
Distraction = Death
I once thought that the biggest harm from digital distraction (e.g., WhatsApp, Instagram, etc.) was the wastage of time. It is like saying that...
Health comes first and foremost
An investment banker friend of mine working with Goldman Sachs in New York once told me that in their office gym, you would find people running on...
More Articles
Breaking Down Goals: One Step at a Time
One way to run 20 km is to just run the first 1 km without worrying about the remaining 19. And then repeat that 19 times. That is how I often run long distances, and I believe, so do a lot of people. What is true for running, is just as true for...
Commitment
One of my past bosses had a very clear metric to evaluate your commitment – how long you sat in the office at night. In fact, he himself used to sit till 9 pm every day. A very hard-working guy he was. Except that when he was transferred out, his...
Embrace Unsettled Paths
When I graduated from IIT in 1995, I was expecting to soon figure out my life and my career, and quickly 'settle down'. I then joined the Indian Police Service, the ultimate platform for 'settling down'. It was such a stable and predictable job...
Engage your mind, even complex concepts become clear
I often feel that I wasted my four years at IIT. But I sometimes wonder if it was not a total waste. In many of the courses I did, the math was so dense that you had no idea what was going on. For 90% of the semester, I would just be going through...