A former McKinsey colleague of mine from Australia once said that his father would claim insulin from the Australian Health System and give it to their dog. But how did the dog become diabetic? Aren't animals supposed to be naturally healthy? Actually, we are all...

A corporate executive I was recently talking to, said that on many days, he has meetings from morning to evening -- sometimes without even a break for lunch. So I asked him, 'When do you get to do your work?' I thought he would say, "I stay up late and do it."...

I hate cowardice. Yet, on a few occasions, I was a coward. When I launched my first startup, I built a product that found zero customers -- zero revenue. Something was wrong. Maybe the product was wrong. Maybe, I had no idea how to market. (Now I know that it was the...

To be fit, you don't need to run 100-mile ultramarathons or climb Mt. Everest. To build physical strength, you don't need to be a powerlifter. To build good focus, you don't need to meditate in the Himalayas for a year. When we seek inspiration for change, we...

Yesterday, during my evening walk with a retired IAS officer, he said that many officers in his service are unhappy with their professional life. They feel stuck but somehow reconcile to it. And this is not just about IAS but it could happen in any job, especially the...

In 1994, when India's ex-PM Narasimha Rao addressed the US Congress, he told this story about Mahatma Gandhi: Once a lady came to Gandhiji and asked him to tell her son to stop eating sugar. Instead of doing what she asked, Gandhiji asked her to come after two weeks....

There is nothing you can't get better at. But conditions apply. For any kind of learning, be it a physical or a mental skill, our neurons have to rewire -- it is called neuroplasticity. Our neuroplasticity is extremely high in pre-teens and remains quite high till age...

The hardest thing in life is not clearing tough exams, getting big-brand jobs, making money, or earning fame. All these are hard but they aren't the hardest. The hardest is accepting your life 'as is' -- no preconditions, no changes -- just 'as is.' For the one who...

This post is written by ChatGPT. Just kidding. But how did you react to that first sentence? With horror? Nobody wants to read a post written by ChatGPT. When I read your post, I want to hear your story. I want to feel your struggles. I want to know your voice. In...

During my police training, our lathi charge training routine was absurd. On the instructor's count, like dance choreography, we would all swing the baton with the right hand while covering the belt buckle with the left hand. One day, somebody asked our instructor,...

Did the McKinsey consulting experience help me in my startup journey? The answer is complicated. Yet, one aspect did -- clear communication. In consulting, when you want to think clearly, you just open a PowerPoint deck and start writing. But to write clearly, don't...

After June 12th, when the UPSC Prelims exam results came out, I received a bunch of emails from people who did not qualify. Many were dejected and called themselves 'a failure.' But what is failure really? Here are two ways to think about failure. Failure as an event:...

Employees responding instantly to your Slack messages is a fantastic thing. Just as the Rolls Royce is a fantastic car. There is only one problem -- the cost. If not, would we not all be driving a Rolls Royce? What is the cost-to-company of 'super-fast response...

I am struggling. In fact, in my startup life, I have always struggled -- there is just too much to do and too little time. And to make things worse, every initiative seems important. In such a situation, what do you do? Quite often, the temptation is to do a lot of...

My friend Vinod Thomas recently told me that while I keep talking about doing 25-minute focus sprints (pomodoros), even focusing intensely for 5 minutes is hard. And Vinod is one of the smartest people I know. So is 25 min of focus feasible or is it just a myth? The...