Rajan’s Linkedin posts

Don’t Freeze, Keep Moving

Long ago, a friend who took the NDA/military career route was telling me about the bayonet charge routine in the army. In a bayonet charge, you run towards and attack an enemy bunker typically defended by a machine gun firing 10 bullets per second. What are the odds...

Why Consultants Always Have ‘Three Things’

Whenever consultants want to say something, they always have 'three things.' And we mock them for that 🙂 But if you want to communicate well, there is some real science here -- the science of working memory. It turns out that our working memory can hold about 7...

Simple Diet, Strong Health

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...

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Rajan shares insights from his own life journey to help you build better habits in yours.

Healthy body

Every time I go for a run, the uphill stretches of Trivandrum roads remind me what raw agony feels like 🙂 Yet, when I see people taking a gentle stroll in nearby parks, I don’t envy them -- instead, I feel truly privileged. Why is it a privilege to suffer that pain?...

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Shifting Priorities

Earlier, the headlines grabbing our eyeballs would be, “ABC topped the IITJEE” or “XYZ topped the IAS exam.” Nowadays, the more popular headline is, “The highest salary at IIT Roorkee is Rs 2.15 Cr.” Apparently, IIT Bombay and Guwahati got only the consolation prize,...

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Magic inside you

Three years ago, I met this ex-software engineer who returned from the US to take up a nondescript admin job at a private college in Karnataka. He quit software because he was trained in old technologies that got phased out, making him redundant. I asked him gently,...

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Realities of life

Years ago, I hired a journalist (a sub-editor) from India’s top-notch English newspaper to write blog articles for a startup I was then running. That newspaper was so reputed that I did not even test his knowledge of writing -- that would have been like testing if a...

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Lost in Jargon

During my stint with a private equity fund, I once got into a hot debate with a colleague about a loss-making company we owned. He was suggesting that this company launch a new product line. I asked him, “Why launch one more product line when the company is already...

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Micromanaging

Once a good friend of mine at McKinsey was assigned a young analyst for his team. For some reason, my friend was quite unhappy with the analyst’s performance. One day, while I was sitting in his room, I overheard him giving feedback to the analyst. He finally said,...

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Trigonometry and Honesty

Today I am going to give you two examinations, one in Trigonometry and another on Honesty. I hope you will pass them both, but if you must fail one, let it be Trigonometry, for there are many good people in this world today who cannot pass an examination in...

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Busybee

During my stint in the IPS, I had to often attend send-off functions for retiring police officers. And the curious thing was that people always found good things to say about the retiree -- even when he was totally rotten. There was one officer who rose through the...

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Secrets of peak performance

I learned the secret of peak performance from a small-time violin teacher in Kochi city. We hired this teacher for my daughter, whose violin practice was going nowhere -- she went to many violin teachers but quit after a few practice sessions when there was no...

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Start living today

We hear so much talk about life after death. But what about life before death? Are we truly living this very life? We desperately look for water on Mars, and rightly so. But what about another planet with ample water? Are we doing enough to preserve it? While we seek...

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Clarity over speed

I sometimes wonder if I am a little slow 🙂 Recently, when a friend was explaining some data science concepts to me, every once in a while, I would just ask him to stop. We would sit in awkward silence for half a minute, and then, almost imperceptibly, I would find...

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Motivation

Motivation is never the problem -- ever. The problem is something else. And here is how I know. When I was determined to clear the Civil Services, I had zero motivation deficit. There was no distraction, no procrastination. In the police service, I have worked 36 hrs...

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Unicorns

Last month, I had a traumatic experience -- I tried to book a cab. I was in this unfamiliar city of Rajkot, and who wants to talk to a taxi company in a new place? So naturally, I thought of the app-based taxi service unicorns, opened my phone, and booked a cab. And...

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Risk of failure

The best book has not been written. The best ad campaign has not been created. The best painting has not been painted. But who will write the next big book? Or create the next big whatever? The book that beats Harry Potter will probably not be a book about a magic...

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Ego

One of the most humiliating moments of my life came in 2008, on a day when nobody humiliated me -- I did it to myself. At that time, I was working with McKinsey in New York and desperately wanted to move back to India (my family had relocated recently). To find a job...

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Rajan shares insights from his own life journey to help you build better habits in yours.