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The Hardest Test of Leadership
The best tonic for your mental health is having a kind boss. Even in the most high-profile assignments, when my bosses have been bad, I have hated the experience. And when I had good bosses, even mediocre work felt worthwhile. If you lead a team,...
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The Power of Vipassana
2,500 years ago, without fMRI machines, research labs, or any understanding of neuroscience, one man single-handedly figured out how to end all...
Knowledge is the ultimate leveler
The value of your college degree is like radioactive material with a half-life of about 3-4 years. So we cannot sit on our laurels and degrees. In...
Give your people the attention they deserve
Long ago, I was attending a conference on drug addiction, where they honored an Australian guy who had dedicated his life to helping people caught...
There are no ‘others’, there is only ‘us’
Living in a country like the US, you come across people of every nationality. And one very interesting thing you find is that they all look...
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Perversion of incentives
A year ago, a startup announced a revenue of Rs 10 crore. And profit? Actually, it lost more than 150 crores! If you are wondering, “In which universe does this all make sense?”, welcome to the magical world of VC funding, my friend! Today, this...
Building mental models
All learning boils down primarily to one thing -- building mental models. During my electrical engineering undergraduate program, we were (involuntarily) subjected to a lot of dense math. At the beginning of the semester, had I seen all those...
Don’t hide from rejection
There are no books on Amazon with a perfect 5-star rating. There are no products that everyone likes. There is no piece of art or music that is universally loved -- in fact, Beethoven's symphonies were widely panned in the day. You can't please...
Don’t forget the real luxuries
The biggest luxury is not Mercedes Maybach. Nor is it holidaying in the $30k-a-night suite in Burj Khalifa. These are just expensive toys and frills. Real luxury is being fit enough to run a few miles without breaking much of a sweat. It is being...