In my last startup, after a marketing campaign, we were speculating about how many users we would acquire. Our guess waned between 2,000 and 4,000 users. Do you know how many we actually got? One. Yes -- one, not 1,000. And this was not a random marketing campaign --...

When Byju's acquired White Hat Jr for $300 million, folks on LinkedIn went crazy. "Good Lord -- how could someone create so much value in just 18 months?" Today, the company is losing more than Rs 1,000 crores a year. And I won't even get into the other controversies...

Do you know that even the world's top footballers have their superstitions? Superstitions are psychological defense mechanisms that give a sense of safety (albeit a misplaced one). Let us say a footballer plays a wonderful match, where he scores goal after goal. But...

Before I first landed on the IIT campus, I thought it would have a really glitzy atmosphere. After all, most professors had PhDs from US universities and would have seen a good life. But instead, I saw them all moving on bicycles, wearing shabby clothes and chappals....

This might surprise you. Do you know the one productivity hack that lowers our productivity and overwhelms us? Packing your calendar back-to-back with tasks and to-dos. I know it sounds quite ironic but let me explain using an analogy. Imagine that you want to...

Why should we meditate? If it was truly beneficial, would evolution have not predisposed us to do that? After all, our ancestors in Savannah surely never meditated and they did just fine. Then why should we? The problem with this logic is that evolution optimizes for...

The Bhagwad Gita’s principal message can be very confusing. It exhorts, "Do your duty, but do not concern yourself with the results." So we are asked to not desire the end outcome. But how can we pursue goals without that? In fact, the Buddha also echoed a similar...

Two years ago, a dotcom investor funded a serial entrepreneur to the tune of more than 200 cr and lost it promptly in less than a year. That begs the question -- what did the investor see in the entrepreneur? A great idea? A track record of solid value creation? Nah....

“Each of you is perfect the way you are ... and you can use a little improvement.” ― Shunryu Suzuki This seemingly self-contradictory Zen quote summarizes how we should live life. While it could be interpreted in many ways, here is my take on it. Each of us is a...

I was listening to meditation teacher Larry Rosenberg's audiobook 'Breath by breath', in which he relates this story. He was attending a 3-month Zen meditation retreat in Asia. After 45 days, the Zen master running the retreat made a surprise announcement --...

I once went to University of Pennsylvania's medical school, one of the world’s best, with severe chronic back pain. Years ago, I had injured my back. It was a payback for all the long hours of working while ignoring my fitness. The MRI clearly showed the damage to...

Productivity is not (and should not be) about extracting the most out of your life. We are not toothpaste tubes to be squeezed till the last drop. Joyful, calm productivity is about three things: A deliberate life: Working on things that matter -- the things you chose...

CNN's founder, Ted Turner, owns millions of acres of land and forests. Naturally, the idea of owning all that property seems quite exciting. But hypothetically, what if you owned the Himalayas? What would you do with the ownership? Go for treks? You can do that even...

Columbus missed India by a few thousand miles and landed in the Caribbean. But we don't call him a 'failed explorer.' Then why do we call people failed entrepreneurs? Or failed in their careers? Even if you did not get to your original destination, did you still get...

"I go to sleep, I wake up, I work, go to sleep, wake up, work—do that seven days a week." These are Elon Musk's words. He has been suffering from severe back pain, sleep issues, and so on. Musk says -- the pain he has gone through in the last few months, he would not...