Sunday, December 29, 2019

Lobotics X

This week to mark the end of the year and in the holiday spirit, our office had fun events throughout the week. Friday was "Desktop Decoration" and each of us was expected to do up our desktops to look good. The winner would be that person who not only made his workspace beautiful but also meaningful.

Saying my physical design skills are average would be an exaggeration. Nevertheless, I tried and got in little items to make my desktop look pretty. A bag of animals that belonged to my daughters from a couple of decades ago was laid out neatly to indicator team working together as a team in the jungle called Mumbai. I tried brightening it by getting an Amazing and Pretty Person behind my desk. Her holiday presence overpowered the decorations. But, I was told that it doesn't count.


I was not happy. My workspace looked good, but I didn't feel like it was exceptional. And then I hit upon an idea. I could write some stuff on the glass of my office since I couldn't draw. And so came up with stuff to write which I called, Lobotics X.

Lobotics X became a list of my 10 favorite inspired, original and misquotes.
 
Smile!
It improves your face value.

Think!
Very few people do.

Love Your
Self! Family! Work!

Listen!
There's a reason you have 2 ears. And only 1 mouth.

Aika Jagacha! Kara Manacha!
Listen to the world. But follow your heart.

when you want to do something,
Do It!
Don't talk about it.

Be Honest!
It makes great sense. And you don't have to remember the lies you told.
 
Be Kind!
That's the only thing people will remember.

Follow your Dreams!
No one else will.

Live Today!
Kya Pata. Kal ho na ho.


Happy Holidays. And Best Wishes for an Awesome & Amazing 2020
To your families, friends, near and dear ones and YOU!!

This is the last post for this year and decade. And marks 10 years since I started this blog. To all of the people who read this blog, Thank You. You inspire me to keep writing. Here's to the next 10!

Sunday, December 22, 2019

Chintan Baithak

This week we had a reflective meeting at our office we called "Chintan Baithak". Chintan means Thought and Baithak a sit-down. I guess the closest translation would be a "Thought Sit-down" or a "Reflective Meeting".


Our goal was to reflect on the year that went by, identify strengths and weaknesses of ourselves and our colleagues and elaborate on them to each other. It was an extremely interesting session. I learned more about myself as perceived by others in the 3 hours than I had in the last decade.

Ironically there were several positives that I took for granted and didn't really value. And worryingly enough several negatives that I thought of as positives. What I thought I was doing and or communicating and what was perceived didn't seem to have any co-relation.  I was like a sponge taking all of this feedback being given by my colleagues.

The Chintan Baithak was an eye-opener. And a reminder that we need to pause once in a while, at least once a year and talk to people and listen to their point of view. And to their perception of our actions.

Correcting the perceptions and making minor modifications to correct the gap between the purpose of the action and its perception is relatively easy. Once you understand the gap. The major issue is knowing that a gap exists, what the gap is and finally analyzing why there is a perception difference between what you are trying to do and what you convey.

This led me to wonder if there was anything I could do to increase my self-awareness. And as almost always I found the magic talk on TED. And the title was exactly what I was looking for a quick fix. Check it out.

Increase your self-awareness with one simple fix
Tasha Eurich



"Self-awareness has countless proven benefits -- stronger relationships, higher performance, more effective leadership. Sounds pretty great, right? Here’s the bad news: 95% of people think that they’re self-aware, but only 10-15% actually are! Luckily, Tasha Eurich has a simple solution that will instantly improve your self-awareness. As a third-generation entrepreneur, Dr. Tasha Eurich was born with a passion for business, pairing her scientific savvy in human behavior with a practical approach to solving business challenges..."


Sunday, December 15, 2019

Getting Things Done

Earlier this week during a meeting with a couple of colleagues, one of them asked me a question I was least expecting. "How have you managed to keep your weekly blog going for 10 years ?"


I was surprised. Pleasantly. Since I had no idea that anyone other than Freia and Reia even read my blog. He further went on to say that he had tried writing and it ended after 2 attempts. As was the case with several things that he did. He wanted to know the secret of being able to take up and do things you want to. Consistently over a period of time.

I mumbled a few tips and tricks that I had used over a period of time. And told him my experiences and how my kids nagging, or rather the fear of my kids nagging, kept me going. And while this is partially true, it set me thinking. Could there be a methodology to being able to do exactly what my colleague was trying. And if I could figure it out, it might help him. And me, since I too struggle with the exact same problem on several occasions.

Here are 8 things that I believe might help.

1. Have Realistic Goals.
The probability of success of any goal is determined when you set the goal. If you set unrealistic goals, you have guaranteed failure, even before you start.

Don't start with running a marathon. If you want to run a marathon, start with a 10K goal. And depending on how comfortable you were and whether you enjoyed it, you can bump it up to a Half marathon and then a marathon.

2. Divide the Goals.
Once you've set a realistic goal, divide that goal into mini goals. Then divide these into micro goals. These micro goals should have a high frequency. Daily or Weekly.

If you want to read 20 books in the year, divide the target into 10 books in 6 months. And 5 each quarter. And then 2 every month. And 1 every 2 weeks. And if you keep up and don't miss your fortnightly goal, you'll end up reading 26 books instead of 20.

3. Have a Monitor.
A monitor could be your spouse, your kids, your parents, your friends, your colleagues... Enabling someone else to monitor your progress and hold you accountable will do wonders. Especially if its someone you care for and don't want to disappoint.

In my case my kids monitor my weekly blog. And when I fall a little behind, I get the warning message. Or call. And am left with no option but to quickly catch up.

4. Reward yourself.
A reward is always an incentive to get something done. A reward on completion of something makes the task easier to do, since you're looking forward to the reward. Reward yourself for meeting your micro goals. And mini goals.

As an example, maybe you love watching movies, as I do and don't like reading fiction, as I don't. You could  link the two. At a 1:1 ratio. And only watch a movie for the extent of time that you have read, or like in my case listened to your wish-list of books. And the thought of watching the movies will show you interesting ways to get the reading done.

5. If you miss a goal, don't let it go.
It will happen sometimes, or possibly many times that you miss your weekly or monthly target.

Typically most people will justify the circumstances and say that they'll do it later. And then get into the habit of skipping the missed goal. Till the goal is abandoned. Get into the habit of completing past goals, even if the due date is past. It could be difficult. And painful. But once you get into the habit of not allowing yourself to skip, you'll have an additional incentive to get it done on time.

6. Measure your Progress.
You need to measure your micro progress. Which in turn measures your mini progress and your progress towards the goal.

Map your measurements to your plans. And share your progress periodically with your monitor. Chances are that she will be asking for progress reports regularly. All of this will make achieving your goals that much easier.

7. Re-calibrate. When required.
While setting goals there are occasions when we really don't know how much time or how difficult it's likely to be. When you find that your goals may not be realistic you may need to re-calibrate.

It's okay to accept that the goal was not practical. Life, work and family trump personal goals. And circumstances as well as time could sometimes make achieving the original goal impractical. That's when you re-calibrate. Using the new knowledge you now have. And go about achieving the new goal.

8. Make a Promise. Or have a Bet.
To whoever you believe in. Your God. Your mother. Your kids. Yourself. Or have a bet that you cannot afford to lose.

As humans we tend to be more aware and keep promises made to others than ourselves. And pride ourselves on not breaking our promises. While this may not be scientific and may even defy logic, it seems to work. And if that doesn't work, make a bet which you can't afford to lose. You'll figure out a way to get it done. Since you can't afford to lose.

Sunday, December 8, 2019

Climate Change

It's always assumed that older people are mature and wise and responsible. And the younger group of people are immature, unwise and irresponsible. This is a stereotype that our grandparents had about their kids, our parents had about us and that most of us have about our kids.

I've always been surprised to find that this is untrue about the current generation of younger people which includes my kids, my nephews and nieces, my younger colleagues and most of the younger people I know either directly or indirectly.


And the one place in which this is obvious is Climate Change. I know that I've done very little about it. And don't know any of my relatives or friends who've done much. Even more worrying is that we haven't even thought about it.

At the same time I do know that a lot of the younger generation have been vocal about it and some of them have even done things to make a difference. The people I know have not yet done anything to make a major difference. But I'm a firm believer of "a little is better that nothing". And even if they're vocal about it, which very few of us were, they are definitely doing a better job than us.


The understanding of what's climate change, how it impacts us and what can we do about it has mostly been mired in political debate. The truth is that there is no real scientific debate on the subject. Most serious scientists are in agreement about the broad facts, the impact and possible solutions to slow down the impact.

Do have a look at 2 of the many amazing talks on Climate Change. It's made a difference to me. And in small ways doing the little I can. I hope you do too.

Why I must speak out about climate change
James Hansen
February 2012

Top climate scientist James Hansen tells the story of his involvement in the science of and debate over global climate change. In doing so he outlines the overwhelming evidence that change is happening and why that makes him deeply worried about the future.



The state of the climate — and what we might do about it
Lord Nicholas Stern
September 2014

How can we begin to address the global, insidious problem of climate change — a problem that's too big for any one country to solve? Economist Nicholas Stern lays out a plan, presented to the UN's Climate Summit in 2014, showing how the world's countries can work together on climate. It's a big vision for cooperation, with a payoff that goes far beyond averting disaster. He asks: How can we use this crisis to spur better lives for all?


Sunday, December 1, 2019

Losing Weight


In Sep 2018, I had a bet with Frank that I would lose 7 lbs by the end of 2018. And another 10 lbs by Nov 30, 2019. Frank similarly committed to losing a total of 13 lbs, 4 and 9 lbs in the same period. We would owe the other $1,000 per lb that we fell short of.  Hence each of us could not control what we would win, but totally controlled what we could lose. The high stakes also meant that I could not afford to lose. And I was reasonably confident of making the goal.

In Dec 2018, I did manage to lose the 7 lbs. This wasn't easy and took a combination of dieting, exercising, and on a few days starving. I cut off all desserts and sodas and this definitely helped. Since I had a sweet tooth. And as Ivy put it, "Didn't know that water is the staple drink. Not Soda."

Come 2019 and all was forgotten. I did not go back to all of my bad habits, but as my weighing machine would testify, by end September I gained back all of the lost 7 lbs and a few extra lbs in interest.

2 months to go. And the 10 lbs I had to lose, had become 20. It seemed that there was no way I would make it. And I could not afford to not make it. Learning from my previous tryst with the weight loss, I decided to try and do it in a manner that I would be able to keep it off.

I made a plan. Actually I made 4 plans. Plan A, B, C & D. I was hoping and would do my best to achieve my goal with Plan A. Plan B, C & D were backups, since I wanted to do everything possible to not lose the bet.


Plan A consisted of 3 parts. What I called (Actually I just made it up now), the DEF Plan. Diet. Exercise. Frequency.

Diet
The Diet was a healthy diet. And it was as much as I wanted to. It was anything and everything. Except Desserts, Bread & Rice. Consisted mainly of salads, fruits, meats, veggies, ... I wasn't obsessed and on the several occasions that I had to go out for dinner or have a meal at a relative's or friends place, I would eat whatever was served. However, I was extremely disciplined when I was on my own. Which fortunately was most of the time.

Exercise
I would go for 1 hour on the Treadmill. On as many days as practical. Again while I tried to be disciplined, due to my schedule it wasn't always possible. I just did the best I could. On as many days as I could. And averaged 3 - 4 days a week.

Frequency
I was using the Intermittent Diet Methodology. I would try and have my dinner by 9 pm when I could. And I would as far as possible have my first solid food after noon. In the intermittent period, I would have Water (Yes, I finally discovered it), Club Soda (You can't disown Soda, can you ?), Green Tea and Black Coffee. Lots of the Coffee.

Around Nov 15, I was close. But, not close enough. I started ordering the items I needed to carry out Plans B and C. And researched where I could execute Plan D. Just because I was preparing for Plans B, C and D does not mean I gave up on A. I continued doing Plan A.


On Nov 21, when I woke up, I saw a WhatsApp message from Frank. With a picture of him having reached his goal. He now had a 3 lb allowance for Nov 30.

I felt the pressure. And weighed myself. And I couldn't believe what I saw. I too had reached my goal. And now I too had a 3 lb allowance for Nov 30. I was almost home. 9 days to go.


While I tried to keep up the tempo, the allowance made me lax. And did not lose any more weight. The good news was that I didn't put on any weight either.

I had not lost the Bet. But did lose a lot of weight in the process. And I hope to make this WhatsApp message to my family come true.
"Least weight in the last 20 years. Max weight of the next 20".

Sunday, November 24, 2019

The forgotten art of Reading


I've never been a big fan of reading. At least not in the last 30 years. Prior to that, I did read as we did not have TV or Internet or Smartphones or ... And the only available entertainment was Books.

While my elder daughter Freia did read a lot and still does, Reia hated books. And reading. And like me, we preferred the easier "Watching".

While my elder daughter Freia did read a lot and still does, Reia hated books. And reading. And like me, we preferred the easier "Watching".

Around 6 months ago, while going through my credit card statement, I found a charge for "Audible". I was surprised and checked with Freia and Reia if either of them had added Audible. Neither had. I went back and checked and we were paying Audible for over a year, helping make Mr. Bezos the world's richest person. It seemed like 1 of the 3 of us had mistakenly or assuming its Free, clicked on Audible and Amazon had made it easy by charging the attached Amazon credit card. And none of us even knew.


We always knew we had Audible credits. And had assumed it was free with Amazon Prime. Like Movies and Music. I went back and checked and found that while Freia and Reia had used some credits, we had lost around 6 credits, that had expired. I wrote to Amazon and they were nice enough to give me back the credits. And another interesting thing happened. Now that we were paying or rather we were always paying, but now knew we were paying our interest in Books increased. Exponentially.

I never in my wildest dreams thought Reia would love Books. And like most other things, anything I'm sure about, I'm surely Wrong. Not only did she start reading, or rather listening to books, she became a voracious listener. And started recommending books for me to listen. And I loved most of her recommendations.

I'm giving below 3 of her recommendations that I found to be awesome and must reads or listen.

- The Third Door
Alex Bunayan
The wild quest to uncover how the world's most successful people launched their careers.

- Delivering Happiness
Tony Hsieh
A path to profits, passion and purpose

- Super Pumped
Mike Isaac
The battle for Uber

What's interesting is that Reia tweeted about it. And the author responded. Thanks @reialobo and @Mikelsaac


And here are 3 of my favorites.

- The World Is Flat
Thomas L. Friedman
A brief history of the twenty-first century

-  iWoz
Steve Wozniak
How I Invented the Personal Computer

 - The Gray Rhino
Michele Wucker
How to recognize and act on the obvious dangers we ignore


I guess this is one of those times where a mistake turned out to be awesome. For Reia. And for me. And I strongly encourage you to keep the not so smart phone aside or use the smart phone and start reading or listening. It allows us to do the one function we were built for and yet don't do often enough.

THINK !

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Inner Engineering

Around a year ago, my colleague Kurund had done a course "Inner Engineering" and highly recommended it. He felt that it was extremely useful. I've always found Kurund's recommendations to be "on point" and so wanted to do this course. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find a time when the course was being held in my city and me being there.

A few weeks ago on Diwali, I saw an ad for the online version of the "Inner Engineering" course. And best of all, it was free. I immediately signed up. And did the 7 part course over a 2 week period.

It was definitely interesting. And educative. And there were several takeaways. And like most good education adds yet another layer and dimension to Life.

What is Inner Engineering?
Inner Engineering is a 7-session online course that provides tools and solutions to help manage stress, overcome anxiety and live joyful life. This course is a combination of methods derived from the ancient science of yoga that addresses every aspect of human wellbeing. The program includes guided meditations and deeply engaging discourses about the nature of the mind and practical wisdom to manage life’s situations.


Empower Yourself - Take a program Online with Sadhguru at your own Convenience: https://www.InnerEngineering.com/

I recommend that you watch a few videos of Sathguru on YouTube. And if you find his style and thoughts appealing, do consider doing it. Most of all, you need not consider it from a spiritual or religious perspective, but from a philosophical perspective.

Here are a couple of interesting talks by Sadhguru.
 
 
 

And as I did, we need not agree with everything or even most of the philosophy or the content. We just need to listen carefully, evaluate it and then take those parts we agree with, learn from them and implement them.

Sunday, November 10, 2019

Better Conversations

If I said my conversation skills were poor, I'd probably be exaggerating. And I always assumed that some people are naturally gifted and most people made decent if not excellent conversations. And I was one of the few who sucked at it.

Recently I started keeping track of conversations which included multiple people such as meetings. And after the meetings casually checked with, as many of the participants as practical, what they thought of the conversations we had and what they got out of it.

An interesting pattern emerged. Most times people felt that they had contributed significantly and most of the others had wasted their time as they already knew everything the other speakers discussed. I also had my own list of the value of each of the contributors to me.

Ironically I found that the ones who scored highest in my model had a very high appreciation of the others and a reasonable level of their own contribution. Even when their contributions were huge. And the rest minimal. And those who in my opinion had contributed the least had a bloated opinion of their own contribution and a very low opinion of everybody else.


This seems to be a pattern in life. When we were discussing Training and Education a thought that occurred to me was:
"Those who need training, don't think they need it. And hence training will be wasted on them.
And those who don't will keep training themselves because they believe they need to improve and so keep getting better."

Now a new thought occurred. Maybe I wasn't doing enough in conversations and its time I start getting better at conversations. And went to the fountain of all knowledge aka TED. There were several dozen talks on the subject. And one that stood out. It was practical, made sense and seemed like could be applied by most of us. Including me.

Celeste Headlee
Writer and radio host
When your job hinges on how well you talk to people, you learn a lot about how to have conversations -- and that most of us don't converse very well. Celeste Headlee has worked as a radio host for decades, and she knows the ingredients of a great conversation: Honesty, brevity, clarity and a healthy amount of listening. In this insightful talk, she shares 10 useful rules for having better conversations. "Go out, talk to people, listen to people," she says.



In her talk Celeste mentions the most important part of a conversation is the ability to listen. So here's 5 ways to listen better

Julian Treasure
Sound consultant
In our louder and louder world, says sound expert Julian Treasure, "We are losing our listening." In this short, fascinating talk, Treasure shares five ways to re-tune your ears for conscious listening -- to other people and the world around you.


My takeaway "... most importantly, be prepared to be amazed."

Sunday, November 3, 2019

Diwali

Monday was Diwali. And just when I thought I would not have an opportunity to have good Indian food to celebrate, a friend invited me for Diwali lunch at their office. It was a sumptuous and tasty Indian lunch.

When I got back, my colleagues whom I had told I was going for a Diwali feast, wanted to know more about Diwali. And while I told them the things I knew, I realized I did not know  enough. As I suspect many of us. And so I found out more about Diwali.

And here are the 3 videos that in my opinion gives an insight on Diwali.

Lets start with the Story of Diwali.

Ramayana : Story of Diwali
Mythological Stories from Mocomi Kids




What is Diwali?
Global News




And finally lets celebrate with Diwali Carols. Yes, Diwali Carols.

EIC: Ultimate Diwali Carols
East India Comedy


Sunday, October 27, 2019

Funding

Our CyberSecurity platform for SMB's is gaining very good and significantly much more than expected traction. And hence we believe that this would be a perfect opportunity to attract funding in order to take the platform to the next level. You can check it out at:
https://cyberguard360.com/

Not knowing any VC's or not ever having raised funding earlier, I decided to see what a Tweet would do. And so I tweeted.

 

The response was encouraging. And while we haven't got any signed checks, at least not yet, Freia's retweet and comment made the tweet totally worthwhile.

 
While chatting with Freia after having tweeted, she made an extremely interesting and insightful comment.

"... Raising money would be 100x easier if you had just graduated vs having 30 years experience."

 

While reviewing funding options, I cam across an extremely interesting concept and methodology. Who knows ? We may decide to try it.

Sunday, October 20, 2019

The Phone Call Isn’t Dead, It’s Evolving

When Freia was evaluating joining a startup "TTYL", I was a little anxious. Mainly because I couldn't understand why an app that allows a phone to be used to talk made sense. Wouldn't people just use their phone. However after several years and times of being wrong, I knew that she got what I didn't.

Yesterday it seems like others are beginning to get it too. And TTYL was featured in a "The Wall Street Journal" article. And the summary said it all.

"Here’s a crazy idea: What if people started using their smartphones to actually speak to each other again?"


It was an interesting article and you can read the same at:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-phone-call-isnt-dead-its-evolving-11571457605

The excerpt of TTYL appears below:
...
“Calling is fundamentally broken,” says Alex Ma, 26, co-founder and CEO of the company behind audio-chat app TTYL. “We went from landlines to the iPhone X but we haven’t changed the way we call people.”

After Mr. Ma graduated from college, he found it hard to keep in touch with friends; texting didn’t make him feel connected enough so he started calling them weekly. But the calls felt like they had to be scheduled events.

The app he launched last summer is like a voice-only version of Houseparty, the popular video hangout app recently acquired by Epic Games, the maker of “Fortnite.”

With TTYL (as in “talk to you later”), you put your earbuds in and open the app, then your friends get notified you’re free to talk. People can either keep a “room” open for others to join, or lock it for privacy. The app is designed for small, close groups: You wouldn’t have as many friends on TTYL as on Facebook or Instagram—only people you’d actually want to hear from.

“What our app allows you to do is in a single tap, jump into someone’s ears and start a conversation,” says Mr. Ma.
"
And since the image of the app published in the article has Freia in it, she'll probably start claiming that she's appeared in the WSJ. And she's probably technically right.

 

Sunday, October 13, 2019

Philly - The City of Brotherly Love



Last week Reia moved to Philly to start on her new and first real job. And since I was nearby, we drove down with her to the "City of Brotherly Love".
http://www.ushistory.org/us/4c.asp

The first time I heard of Philly almost 20 years ago, was when along with my brothers Don and Frank, we visited our cousin Vanitha who lived nearby. Don who was a foodie even then, and wanted to have an authentic "Philly Cheese Steak". Vanitha said she knew the perfect place and off we went. After driving round in circles, for over an hour, we landed up in a mall. And the rest is history. Suffice to say, Don wasn't happy. For years. Make that decades.


So my first advice to Reia was that when Don visits, tell him you have no idea of the local places and can he please choose.

I subsequently also visited Philly with my sister Mabel so she wouldn't feel left out and this time we once again had "Philly Cheese Steak". This time too the expert on the subject Vanitha was consulted and she engaged a local to give a recommendation. And while it wasn't Awesome, it was a notch above the mall.


While exploring where to go in Philly, I found a recommendation video, which showcases the city and its amazing places. While I've been to many of them, I plan to go with Reia to each of these over the next few years, since I expect to be visiting the city not infrequently.


And finally, how can a blog on Philly not reference "Philadelphia", a path-breaking and possibly the first mainstream Hollywood movie to "... acknowledge HIV/AIDS, homosexuality and homophobia."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_(film)

And the iconic "Streets of Philadelphia" song in the movie by Bruce Springsteen.