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Perfectionism is not excellence
Perfectionism is not excellence -- it is a mental trap. When we are anxious and unsure of our work, we keep editing our emails and keep fine-tuning the presentation far beyond the point of adding value. The root cause of perfectionism is anxiety....
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The Lessons of Struggle
In 3rd grade, once our Social Studies teacher gave us a project to build a model of an object that helped humans survive. I built a really ugly...
Pushing Our Limits
About three times a week, I run 10 km in the morning. The distance feels just right to me -- long enough to give a huge endorphin rush, but not so...
Passion comes from mastery
Before my MBA program started, Wharton sent us a self-assessment test on business and finance to see if we needed some extra classes to handle the...
Beliefs, Habits, Routines
Years ago, one Saturday evening, I went to Rockefeller University in New York City to witness a piano competition. To my untrained ears, each of the...
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Life is an adventure
When I and some of my friends got into the Civil Services, many of us said, "Now, our life is all set." But this was not the first time I was hearing this. Years earlier, when I got into IIT, my teachers also had said the same thing -- "Now your...
Overcoming Assumptions and Finding Our Limits
Right from 1st grade, I was the most non-athletic kid in my class. Thin and emaciated, I never participated in any athletic events or sports. In IIT, I flunked the first-year compulsory physical activity course because I hated the morning ‘walk and...
Being Comfortable in Misery
During my IPS training, one day, a fellow trainee who was also a college-mate, told me: “In my last job (before IPS), I once wrote a software simulator for Intel’s 386 processor. And now I am doing this stupidity.” He was a brilliant guy even by...
The Morning Routine Advantage
In 2017, my startup was burning cash and time was running out. Changing the direction of the company was like trying to move a gigantic ship -- it was hard and required immense grit and energy. And ironically, this was also the time when I felt my...