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Today, the access we have to stellar books, podcasts, videos, and blogs is mind-boggling. And yet, if we are not careful, it can quickly become a feel-good swamp. Most of the content we consume is about building a better life -- e.g., building...
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Home is Home
When I quit my job with McKinsey in New York, I moved back to India. And there were many reasons for the move – personal and family. But there was...
A Learning Hack
Here is a learning hack I have successfully tried, especially during my MBA exams. I would often wake up very early (e.g., 3 am), study for two...
Career and Contentment
At my last job with a PE fund, one of my bosses (Victor Menezes) joined Citibank as a fresher, later became its global CEO, and retired as the...
Glamour vs Substance
In 2009, when I had just joined a private equity fund, we were invited to the Oberoi hotel in Mumbai for a fancy presentation by a healthcare...
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Every job deserves respect
Today, I lead a 10-member team at HabitStrong. Many years ago, I headed a team of 3,500 people when I was the Trivandrum City Police commissioner. So which responsibility was harder? Naturally, running the City Police, right? Nope. Even though I...
The Value of Time
In the US, when I had to hire people to help with moving my house, I paid them $25 per hr for the manual work – the money value of time there was quite high. In contrast, physical goods in the US cost the same as in India, and sometimes, even less....
Focus on substance, not appearances
Many people find it quite jarring that I run HabitStrong out of Trivandrum. More than once, I have been advised to move my startup to Bangalore. Why? Because Bangalore just sounds a lot cooler and more ‘startup-like.’ This obsession with...
Temptation Bundling
A colleague of mine has been working out for an hour a day on her gym’s elliptical machine – and yet, she hates it. How does she do it then? While working out, she watches episodes of ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ on her Netflix app – that is how. Since she...