A few years ago, I was on a flight from Jaipur to Bangalore. As soon as the flight took off, the plane ran into the kind of turbulence I had never encountered before -- it was getting violently tossed up and down. Sometimes, it felt like the plane was in free fall for...

In the early 2000s, I got into the habit of regularly watching TV. Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong per se with that, but at some point, I started feeling anxious that I would miss out on some new episode or some upcoming movie. In those days, I had not heard...

A few years ago, WhatsApp wanted to charge an annual subscription fee of $1 but later gave up on the plan. Why? Had they charged $1 a year, many would have stopped using the app. But let us do the following exercise: 1. Estimate the time we daily spend on WhatsApp. 2....

If we want employees to do great work, we have to stop expecting them to respond to every email or message instantly, for which they have to constantly interrupt themselves and check their phones/laptops. It is almost like having to open the door of your house every 5...

The best course I did at IIT was not from Electrical Engg but humanities. In those days, the humanities course allotment was done first-come-first-served. Hence, laggards like me who showed up just before the closing time would get the last available course. In the...

Sometimes, we are unhappy about being unhappy. Some of us might be thinking: "Everybody else looks so cheerful -- why do I go through these ups and downs? How can I always be smiling, self-assured, and fully in control?" You can't. Nobody can. The 'always unflappable...

When writing my MBA application essays, what annoyed me the most was ‘word-limit’. I would write a beautiful piece and then find it 300 words over the limit. I would now have to chop the extra words and slaughter its beauty. What travesty! Cursing the admissions...

Leadership carries a price-tag: When the first bullet is fired, you have to be willing to face it before putting others in the line. Also, you never get to say -- "It was not my fault." Whether you are an army general, a captain of a ship, a CEO, or the head of a...

Meditation is not an ATM, where you swipe your card (i.e., spend 20 min) and expect 'blissful calm' to come out gushing. This is one reason so many of us give up on meditation when we don't get instant 'outcomes.' Meditation is a long road to building mindfulness,...

In a 2014 study, Timothy Wilson of the University of Virginia left students in a room for 15 odd minutes with nothing to do (phones were taken away). But they could give themselves a painful electric shock.  Almost 67% of the men gave themselves electric shocks to...

"Would you swap your life with that of an 80-year-old billionaire?"  Almost any sensible youngster will respond to this question with an emphatic 'no'. Yet, almost every few weeks, someone asks me this question: "How do I stop comparing myself with others?" If we are...

After graduation, one of my IIT buddies, a mechanical engineer, took up a job at a large auto manufacturer in India.  Once he joined the manufacturing plant, he saw that they did not have too much respect for precision. If some part of the car assembly did not fit...

I live in a private residential complex owned by a group of IAS/IPS officers in Kerala. And when these IAS officers retire, often as the Chief Secretary (the highest rank in the state government), almost all of them take some post-retirement gig with the government....

Addiction is the inability to control our urge for something that we know is harmful and leaves us dissatisfied. The more we use it, the more desensitized we become and need higher doses to get the same high. All smartphone users - does it ring a bell? - Rajan...

The most enjoyable course I took during my MBA at Wharton was taught not by a professor, but by a librarian. In the final semester of the MBA, no more under any pressure, I took a course outside the business school with the University of Pennsylvania's music...