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Earning Respect That Lasts a Lifetime
A few weeks ago, I called a former boss of mine (the then Director General of Police, Kerala) to wish him a happy new year -- he is nearing 80 and is not keeping very good health. This officer was the most draconian disciplinarian to have headed...
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The trap of external validation
I know an ex-civil servant, who joined three political parties with diametrically opposite ideologies, to end up in one of the highest positions in...
Stop planning, start doing
I have seen people adopt two distinct approaches when they want to start meditating: Approach 1: Sit down and meditate. Approach 2: Research lots...
Tips to regulate social media usage
You don't have to quit all social media, though some people I admire (e.g., Cal Newport) are big proponents of that. In the last few years, almost...
It is too late when we decide it is too late
When is it too late to start something? Today, I came across this guy called Lew Hollander, who At 82, finished the Hawaii Ironman and held that...
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Victory is born in our mind, so is defeat
You must have heard a lot of wisdom along the lines of, "Here is what you should do in your 20s." Often, one hears things like: Learn aggressively, try things you are scared of, make mistakes Build relationships and network Explore ideas that seem...
The power of simple finance
A Wharton professor, who taught us valuation, once told this story of Merton Miller, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on the Miller-Modigliani theorem. At that time, our professor was a student at the University of Chicago, where...
If you can’t explain something, don’t do it
A long time back, I was part of an online group of (supposedly) entrepreneurs and investors. About half the chatter in that group was about crypto but there was zero logic in the discussion. Some day people would exult when Bitcoin went up. On...
Have a beginner’s mind
I once was interviewing a professional investor who invests in power plants and infrastructure. But when I asked him "What is 1 kilowatt-hour?" he had no idea. Many people swim in the shallows. They make do by talking about high-level stuff,...