Here is the common advice I got from my seniors on joining the Indian Police Service – “You have to extract work from the sub-inspectors.” Like you would extract oil from coconut, squeezing out every drop. In fact, one otherwise well-meaning officer told me, “Don’t...

Whatever little goodness I have in my life, I owe it to simple, straightforward habits. All the fancy-sounding self-help formulas, often using terms like ‘energy’, ‘vibrations’, and ‘consciousness’, are mostly nonsense. As an example, when I woke up today I wasn’t...

Many years ago, a fund manager met me to discuss a company I happened to be familiar with. Before the meeting, he told me, “I am a little slow. Could you share a short note on the company that I can read at my own pace, so I come prepared for the meeting? I absorb...

During the offsite at the private equity firm I worked with, there was this German guy who was kicking the football like a rocket. Trying to catch up with him left us gasping for air – not one of us could outrun him. And while we were in our thirties, he was in his...

You don’t quit building good habits because you are inconsistent or weak-willed – more likely, you quit because of perfectionism. When you are building a habit streak, you want it to be perfect. But once in a while, life will get in the way – be it sickness, travel,...

I have made plenty of career transitions and here is my biggest learning – if you are fearless and keep learning, you can catch up with anyone, even in a new field. When I went from studying engineering to becoming a police officer it felt like a big leap. But then...

Here is how I maximize my willpower – I use it sparingly. I don’t touch alcohol because if I start liking it, I will have to fight a battle within myself to moderate it. So I avoid the battle altogether. If I have ice cream in the fridge, chances are, I will end up...

During my student days, one morning, when clearing up my hostel almirah, I found a copy of Michael Crichton’s book ‘Congo.’ I casually opened the book to see what it was about and when I closed it, I had finished the book. About 8 hrs had gone by, I had missed my...

During a video interview, the interviewer asked me this question: What would I do if I did not have any college degrees or any pedigree? Here is my answer: Even if I had nothing else, I would still have Coursera. There was a time when to get a good job, you had to...

The biggest mistake I made in my twenties wasn’t that I lacked focus, ambition, or hard work – none of that. My biggest mistake was that I took life too seriously. I worried about too many things, cared too much about what my bosses thought (including the ones I did...

Here is a simple skill that can accelerate your career: Learning to disagree without being disagreeable or putting others on the defensive. When you tell someone, ‘I disagree with you,’ more often than not, it makes them defensive. If people take it as a personal...

When I quit my last job to become an entrepreneur, I could no longer afford my house rent. So I moved into a place with half the rent. Later I moved from Mumbai to Trivandrum, and my rent further went down by two-thirds. Strangely, even though my 'quality of living'...

At McKinsey, the skill I needed the most was not maths. In fact, the most advanced maths I used was a simple regression. Surprisingly, even more than ‘problem-solving’, the skill I used the most was 'articulation' - writing, explaining, and crafting persuasive stories...

“You want to change the world? Start by making your bed” – famously spoke Admiral Bill McRaven, the former head of US special operations command. How you start your day is often how your day goes. And how your days go, is how your life goes. So if you want to change...

If you ever feel guilty about not figuring out your career path quickly, please take heart – I graduated more than two decades ago, and I still feel like I am just exploring life. Maybe some of us take more time than others. Or maybe we are all like that – I don’t...