Sunday, March 30, 2014

Reia gets her license

Friday was the day Reia had been waiting for a very long time. The day of her driving test. She wanted to get here license before she turned 17, which will be on April 2. Her primary motivation to come to the US was that you could get your Learners permit at 16. And she did just that. Got it on her 16th birthday.


The last few weeks Reia has been working really hard. In addition to driving to school, she's been making me take her for parking practice almost every day. And on weekends she makes me take her for long drives, including on highways and parkways. For someone who doesn't get up until noon on holidays, she has been waking up at 7 in the morning. And making me a cup of tea so that I wake up and take her driving.

She has been driving and parking quite well, probably better that me. Nevertheless she was very nervous about the test. She kept the test a secret from not only her friends, but also her Mom. She didn't want them to know she was taking it, just in case she didn't get her license. And a couple of days before the exam, she had a driving lesson in Danbury All Star. And it was in a Mustang. She was excited. And happy. Yet nervous.


On the day of her test, she drove to school in the morning. I picked her up at 10 for her test scheduled at 11.15. She had initially wanted to drive to her test, but I managed to convince her that she shouldn't stress herself and that driving there wouldn't help. Her argument was that the more you practice, the better you become. To which I countered saying, True, but not on the day of the test, and gave her examples of exams and athletic meets and ... She reluctantly agreed, probably to shut me up.

We arrived around 15 minutes ahead of time, and as we walked in to the All Star School, where the test was being conducted. We saw a girl giving her test pulling into the lot, and her mother anxiously trying to get an idea of the result. A few minutes later the DMV inspector walked in and when asked about the girl coming in, said she wouldn't be and walked out with the next candidate.


Reia was now petrified. Not only had the girl failed, the DMV inspector was tall with a beard and a gruff look and didn't appear friendly. I told her, and I believe it, that scary looking people are the nice ones and its the nice and sweet ones that you need to be scared of.

In the meanhwhile, the All Star Supervisor gave what he called his 1 dollar tips on taking the test and it served the intended purpose of putting the candidate at ease. Reia asked him a question. How many people have passed today? And how many have failed? He was hesitating in answering, but finally came up with what I think may have been a white lie. "9 out of the 11 have passed and of the 2 who failed, one drove across a red light and the second could not park." Reia was a little more comfortable.


Soon, it was her turn. And she drove away with the Inspector. I have been in several tough situations and have taken zillions of exams. But I've never been as nervous as I was today. I actually prayed really hard that Reia pass. And I had an exam I was taking that evening. And the deal I was willing to make was that, it was okay if I fail. As long as Reia passed. After all of the effort and hard work, she had put in, she deserved to pass. Probably for the first time in her 16 years.

15 minutes later, she was back, with the result paper in her hand. And her face was a combination of a smile and tears. She didn't know whether she had passed or failed, as the examiner had forgotten to mark that part on the form. The supervisor couldn't figure it out either and walked out to check with the examiner.

The supervisor walked in with a grin. And announced, "You've passed". And thats when the half smiling tearful face lit up with joy and had a smile all the way to the moon. Reia had finally achieved her primary mission of moving to the US. Getting a license before turning 17, and before her Didi (elder sister).


Congratulations Reia. Put in equal effort in everything you do, and I'm willing to bet every dime I have, that you will succeed in Life, beyond your wildest expectations.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

The billion dollar March Madness

Warren Buffett Offers $1 Billion to Anyone with the Perfect March Madness Bracket. Mr. Buffett's company Berkshire Hathaway along with Quicken Loans’ is offering 1 billion dollars,to anyone who can successfully fill out the perfect bracket for this year’s NCAA Men’s basketball tournament. Yes. You read it right. 1 billion dollars. That's a 100 million.


March Madness involves 68 teams playing in a single-elimination tournament to determine the national champion of the men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 18, 2014, and will conclude with the championship game on April 7 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_NCAA_Men%27s_Division_I_Basketball_Tournament

And what does one need to do to earn a billion dollars. Surprisingly not much. The main draw of the tournament consists of 64 teams playing knockout matches. All you need to predict is the winners of the 63 games that will be played.


Intuitively one would think that it couldn't be that much of a big deal. Especially if you are able to use some amount of game knowledge and expertise and permutations and combinations of the various possibilities.

Your intuition would be incorrect. The no. of possible results is around 9.2 quintillion.


The math in this case is simple. The no. of possibilities is 2 raised to the number of games, which would be 2 raised to 63. And that is around 9.2 quintillion. And in case you are wondering, a quintillion has 18 zeros. To put that number in perspective, a million has just 6 and a billion only 9 zeros.

For the interested, the exact number of combinations is 9,223,372,036,854,775,808.

And so your odds of winning are 1 in 9.2 quintillion. But since there are no entry fees, more than 10 million have entered for their chance to win a billion dollars. And possibly the only reasons for this relatively small number of entries is that the entries were capped at 10 million and only 1 entry per household was permitted.

And just in case you're wondering, No, I did not participate. I bought the Powerball Lottery. The likelihood of winning the jackpot prize is just 1 in 175,223,510.


175 million versus 9.2 quintillion. I'm more than 52 billion times more likely to win the Powerball than get the March Madness billion. Who wouldn't want odds improved by over a billion times ?

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Humans of New York

Reia recently showed me an extremely interesting blog "Humans of New York".


An extremely simple idea. Photographing strangers. And having a short chat. The result is unbelievably amazing.


And you need to see it to appreciate it. So go ahead and check it out:


http://www.humansofnewyork.com/

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Imagine Dragons

Yesterday, my daughters Freia and Reia attended an Imagine Dragons concert at the IZOD Center in New Jersey. They had booked the tickets a few months and Reia who wasn't a great fan had even learnt all the Imagine Dragon songs.

As I was driving them to the concert, they were super excited. It was Freia and Reia's first concert and they were going alone. Or maybe that was the excitement. They were attending a concert without any chaperone.


During the ride I realized that I could now be officially called Old. I had no idea who Imagine Dragons were and their music hadn't touched my ears. On the journey I was given an education on Imagine Dragons and various other currently famous, or in modern terms, Trending.


I wanted to close the gap in my complete lack of knowledge of the current music trends. And went to the experts. My daughters. Could they educate me on the latest trends in Music. They chose the easy way out. Told me where I could find what I was looking for. On the Billboard charts.

Believe it or not, some things never change. 30+ years ago when I was their age, we followed trends and enjoyed our music from Billboard. Billboards Top 40. The source was the same. The media had changed. From the radio and cassettes, to TV, CD's, digital and on-line. And it seems to be as popular today as it was a decades ago.


After the concert, I picked them up. And they were ecstatic. It was as if they had won the lottery. I didn't have to ask them what happened. They started speaking and didn't stop for the next hour till we got home. The concert had 2 opening acts. Which they liked and enjoyed. And the Imagine Dragons concert was awesome. They were on Cloud 9 and enjoyed every minute singing along and having a great time.

And after the concert, while they were waiting for me, an unbelievable thing happened. I was late. That was believable. And while waiting for me, the Imagine Dragon group walked out. Not too many people around. And Freia and Reia spotted them. And ran up and asked if they could get a photograph with them. And since they couldn't get a selfie, they got them to click the photos. Not 1. Not 2. But 5.


Reia summed it up brilliantly. They are so famous. And yet so nice. I don't think I would be half as nice if I was half as famous. And maybe that's one of the secrets of their success. Awesome music. Awesomer human beings.

Sunday, March 2, 2014

The Best Advice - My Top 10

I recently saw an interviewer on Bloomberg ask her guest the best business advice he had received. And that inspired a thought. I'm giving below my Top 10. Some were told to me, some I read and a couple I stumbled upon the hard way.


10.
Its okay to not know. Its not okay to not know that you don't know.

9.
Don't expect someone else to do something you're not confident of doing. And when you're not sure, do it first.

8.
God gave you 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason. Shut up and listen.

7.
Listen to people around you. And then follow your gut.

6.
Don't say Yes when you mean No. More important don't say No when you want to say Yes.

5.
Believe in yourself. Especially when no one else will.

4.
Life's not fair. You're probably luckier than most.

3.
Money is like mercury, the harder you try to get it, the further it goes. Do your best and allow it to flow to you.

2.
Do the right thing. Not because it'll help you succeed, but because its the right thing to do.

1.
You can't always do what you love. But you can always love what you do.



It occured to me that this would be a common enough topic and there would be several interesting articles. There were and here are my favorite 3.

Top Leaders Share The Best Advice They Ever Receive

11 of the Most Powerful Business People Share the Best Advice They've Ever Received

Top 10 Best Business Advice You've Ever Gotten