Posted in Books

Are You Really Reading More?

The number of books sold in 2023 surpassed that of 2022. And similar numbers were reported for 2022, where more books were sold compared to 2021. These numbers point that an increasing number of people are being drawn to reading books every year despite the other digital distractions and an ever busier life.

However, not all books sold are read. Unfortunately, this statistic is not widely reported. In a survey conducted by Gallup they found that the average number of books read is going down every year. People buy a lot of books but most people are unable to read them for a plethora of reasons. I’m sure all of us have a bunch of unread books at home which we bought with great hope but unable to find time to turn those pages.

If you are also sailing in the same boat and miss reading books, here is a simple workaround you can try till you get the control back on your reading time. I have been using this for the last couple of years and have found this to be an effective alternative. Yes ! I am asking you to switch to audiobooks. These are great alternatives to physical books or Kindle if you are unable to find time to read.

There are various great apps available for both IOS & Android. Also an increasing amount of books are now available in audiobooks format. I primarily use Audible. I use my commute time to listen to audiobooks and have managed to finish 6 audiobooks in 2023. In comparison i could only finish 2 short books in the physical book format. It goes without saying that switching to audiobooks has reduced the amount of music I listen to by almost 80% but as it is said life is all about the choices you make.

Sharing my book recommendations from the books I have read in 2023 – please do share your book recommendations.

Posted in Leadership

Building a Learning Organization

How to create a learning organization?
This probably is the question on the minds of many leaders and founders who are immensely passionate about building great teams and building great organisations.

Peter Senge, provides a model to solving this problem in his widely read book The Fifth Discipline. He  describes a concept called “Systems Thinking“.  According to Senge, systems thinking is very important in creating a learning organization however as the title of his book goes – it is the fifth discipline not the first. The first four disciplines are (1) personal mastery, (2) building shared vision, (3) mental models, and (4) team learning. The 5th discipline is very important as it fuses the other four together to foster a culture of learning and co-operation.

People frequently ask if systems thinking is same as strategic thinking. Systems thinking and strategic thinking are somewhat similar concepts however they are applied in different situations. Both involve looking at the big picture and taking a long term view

Systems thinking 

  • Focus: Looks at the system as a whole, including interactions and relationships
  • Goal: Considers if the system can work differently
  • Use: Can be used in design thinking to understand the user

Strategic thinking 

  • Focus: Makes decisions to achieve specific outcomes
  • Goal: Identifies the gap between where you are and where you want to be
  • Use: Can be used to explore the context of long-range goals

Learning organisations may encounter various challenges or obstacles which Senge refers to as learning “disabilities”. He goes on to describe what these disabilities are and how companies can rid of the learning “disabilities” aka detrimental habits or mindsets, that threaten their productivity and success. He also elaborates on how organisations can grow by modelling the strategies of learning organizations – ones in which new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, collective aspiration is set free, and people are continually learning how to create the results they truly desire.

Senge states that “At its core, learning organizations build great teams – the trust, the relationships, the acceptance, the synergy, and the results that they achieve.” You can look around for yourself and see that unless there is trust within the teams, there can be no synergy and team members will not sacrifice personal goals to work towards a common goal – the success of the organization.

The startups that thrive today can vouch that their teams have “a strong ability to learn, adjust and change in response to new realities.” that is the only way to thrive and grow as per Dr. Senge in the fast changing complex world that we live in.

The distinguishing characteristics of a learning organization include a learning culture, a spirit of flexibility and experimentation, people orientation, continuous system-level learning, knowledge generation and sharing, and critical, systemic thinking.

 It is worthwhile to read more about Senge’s 11 laws of Systems Thinking. These will help you to understand business systems and to identify behaviors for addressing complex business problems.
In brief the 11 Laws are –

  1. Today’s problems come from yesterday’s solutions
  2. The harder you push, the harder the system pushes back
  3. Behaviour grows better before it grows worse
  4. The easy way out usually leads back in
  5. The cure can be worse than the disease
  6. Faster is slower.
  7. Cause & effect are not closely related in time & space.
  8. Small changes can produce big results, but areas of the highest leverage are often least obvious.
  9. You can have your cake & eat it too but not all at once. Not either/or. allow time for solutions to work.
  10. Dividing an elephant in half does not product two small elephants
  11. There is no blame
Posted in Life Gyan

Three Beautiful Stories

Storytelling is the most powerful way
to put ideas into the world.

– Robert McKee

From time immemorial stories have always fascinated mankind. And story-tellers have used various means to convey their message viz. narration, theatre, cinema or by writing. Some people tell stories to entertain and make you laugh. Some to impart life lessons. Yet others use this as a medium to touch upon difficult topics of social importance. And some tell stories to hide the truth.

No matter what the medium is, or what the end goal is, the job is said to be well done if you are able to convey your ideas in the most impactful manner to your audience.

Now there are few other type of stories. Those that leave you with a question to ponder or provide you some food for thought. They make you revisit the assumptions that you had always believed in your life. They do not just fade away after you have turned the page – they stay in your psyche for a long time. Some can even alter the way you perceive and live life. Today I am going to share three such stories with you which did just that for me.

The stories are itself simple but the life lessons they hold are really valuable. I urge you to go through each story one by one and reflect on the lesson rather than rushing through this post. Once you have gone thru them, pause and reflect. And if possible do share your thoughts in the comments section below.

So which story did you find the most impactful?

Posted in Life Gyan

Communication Before Internet

I remember very vividly the day when I first surfed the net. It was the last quarter of 1998, I was in Kolkata, West Bengal. A few cyber cafes had mushroomed in few neighbourhoods. Getting a first hand experience of the internet, to understand what was “surfing the internet” was on my bucket list for sometime. However, there was no pressing need to really “surf” the net. Also the budget was tight – i was fresh out of college and did not have any source of income yet . Also internet access was pretty expensive and almost prohibitive at Rs. 2 per minute, that is a whopping Rs. 120 per hour. Rs. 120 was a big amount back then and people without any income were not expected to squander it away just like that for “experience”.

Today internet is ubiquitous and inevitable. It is nearly impossible to imagine life without internet access . However, about 25 years ago, internet access was still in the nascent stages in India. People were still trying to grapple with the idea of internet and the possibilities it offered.

I smile when I remember those days – there were so many myths and stories about internet at that time. People were in awe of what could be done with the help of internet. Sending emails from one end of the world to another, almost instantaneously was considered pure magic. Everyone talked of Hotmail and Sabeer Bhatia.

Politicians, leaders, media and tech evangelists were unequivocal in narrating bold visions of 21st Century and what it had in store for the masses. Everyone talked about the 21st century as the Holy Grail. The mobile and the internet services were launched in 1995 in India. However, both mobile and access to the internet remained out of reach for majority of people in India for a good decade after their initial launch mainly on account of two reasons (a) infrastructure (b) costs outweighed the benefits.

In those days, sending letters by mail  (now referred to as snail mail) was the preferred and most affordable mode of communication. Business establishment would often send business communication via couriers (these were faster than snail mail but still took a few days to deliver) and for urgent matters there were overnight couriers to select cities. 

There was another form of communication which was fast but you could only send a short message (like a tweet) – it was the Telegram. A telegram could only be sent from one post office to another. It was transmitted by the use of morse code. It was expensive and was supposed to be used only in case of emergencies. More often than not the arrival of Telegram to anyone’s home would be assumed to be containing some bad news about family members from other cities.

Back then, mobile phones had not yet arrived on the scene and not all had access to a land line phone. Also most telephone exchanges used to be manual with operators connecting the phone line on request in real time. For those who had a landline, or had access to one in the neighbourhood could place or receive long distance calls called Trunk Calls. These calls would be of fixed duration (3 minutes to be precise) and had to be pre-booked with a telephone operator at the exchange. And the funny part was that the operator would be listening to your entire conversation all throughout the call and would alert you when few seconds were left for the call duration to be over.

Between the landline and the mobile, Pager was another popular device. However, it was short lived once the text messages were made affordable/free on mobile phones. The pager was a small match box sized device which people clipped on to their belt. It used to beep when a new message arrived. In my case, my pager was linked to critical client systems in production. A beep on the pager meant trouble. I had to login immediately to check system health no matter what time of the day or night it was.

As the communication revolution continued, PCOs became very very popular. Anyone who could not or did not want to own a landline, could go to a PCO to make phone calls. Though the PCOs were common sight , the call rates were still very high and you would be billed by the second. In those days if we were staying in a different city we would call our parents only once in a week. In those days hardly anything was “instant” and there was no pressure to share minute by minute updates of one’s life with others.

Coming back to my story of my first “encounter” with internet. Let me tell you that this was the pre-dot com bubble and pre-Y2K fever days. Cyber cafes were slowly getting popular. And they started a variety of paid services. Here is a glimpse of the services they offered –

  • Email ID creation – Rs. 300 (in reality creating a Hotmail ID was free but since common people did not know, these shop keepers would make most of the opportunity)
  • If you did not know how to access email or did not want to create a mail ID – you could receive email on the cafe’s email address. If you enrolled for this service, the cafe owner would call you on your landline to inform you if any email was received in your name.
  • If you wanted they would print the email and delivery it to you at your doorstep for a fee.
  • They would help you send an email to anyone – again for a fee.
  • And if you knew how to use a computer and navigate the internet, you could pay Rs. 2 per minute and surf the internet yourself.

Anyways, one fine day I made up my mind and went to a nearby cyber café. Asked him if he could show me what actually “net surfing” was. I told him to sit at the keyboard while I would sit right beside him and watch. He showed me some of the popular sites like Yahoo (the world had not heard about Google yet) Then the cyber cafe guy gave me a demo on sending and receiving emails. I might have spent hardly about 10-15 mins in the cyber cafe before I ran out of options of what to do next. So i concluded my session early, paid the Cyber cafe guy and walked back to my room thinking about the new questions that had now started popping up in my head.

Surprisingly these memories are still crisp in my head. And when i look back I am amazed to see how the world has changed over these years. For those who are born in the 21st century, it might be difficult to imagine how life was without 24×7 internet access or how people would meet at busy public places without having mobile phones or how people would wait days and weeks to receive the reply of their letter.

I am sure you might also have memories and experiences to share from that era. Please do share in the comments below.

Posted in Life Gyan

Three Enemies of Success

I am a huge fan of Brian Tracy’s work on how to prepare yourself to be successful in life. He offers a lot of thought provoking questions and concepts which when applied for onself will surely result in transformation. I wanted to share some insights from what I have learned from Brian.

He talks about the 3 destructive traits that he calls “enemies of success“. By being aware of them we can avoid these traps in our own lives and can move faster towards our goals in life.

The first and the foremost is the Comfort Zone. It is like a slow poison. You become comfortable doing with what you are doing. You don’t realise that you are doing anything wrong but slowly you start slipping into the comfort zone. The daily routine is comforting. You know the drill like the back of your hand. You are able to navigate thru the daily hurdles with skill and you consider yourself successful. And all this while without realizing that you are getting deeper and deeper into the comfort zone. When you think about it you know that change is good and beneficial however you feel it is too much effort to move.

The next enemy is Learned Helplessness – where people think “i can’t do it”.  This is the next stage of Comfort Zone. As you set your sight on new goals and decide to move in that direction, the inertia pulls you back giving you various reasons why you should not pursue the goal or why it can’t be done. To navigate the way out of comfort zone, you must break the inertia and move forward.

Now you come across the third and final enemy – Path of Least Resistance. So you have decided to move out of the comfort zone and you have also handled the inital resistance from your mind. Now you have started taking the steps towards your goal. Soon you realise that it is a long journey and requires a lot of hard work. When the first fatigue sets in, the goal starts to look distant and again your mind tries to look for short cuts. You may even think of changing your goal to something much more smaller and within easy reach. Bur remember nothing worthwhile can be achieved without hard work. Anything worthwhile requires a long period of hard work with many failures on the way. There is no shortcut for sustainable success.

So beware of these mental traps and do not lower your goal – instead increase your effort.

Posted in Life Gyan

Each Day is Special !

Let me tell you a short story. 

A friend of mine opened his wife’s wardrobe and picked up a silk-paper-wrapped package:

“This, he said, “isn’t any ordinary package.”

He unwrapped the box and stared at both the silk paper and the box.

“She got this the first time we went to New York, 8 or 9 years ago. She has never put it on, she was saving it for a special occasion. Well, I guess this is it.”

He placed the gift box on the bed next to the other clothing he was taking to the funeral home; his wife had just died.

He turned to me and said: “Never save something for a special occasion. Treat every day of your life as special”.

This story had a huge impact on me when I read it for the first time.  And since then I might have read it scores of times. What I find interesting about this simple yet impactful story is that it connects us with our mortality. Often, we save the best for the last. But we do not know how far into the future “the last” is. And those little joys that we could have experienced right now never get fulfilled waiting for those “special moments”. This story emphasises – Treat each day as “special”. Let us live our life to the fullest with what we have right now. Surprisingly, it also brings the focus back to the things that matter. It is a reminder to live your life in the present.

Obviously, I am not advocating to throw everything to the wind and just indulge yourself with a blatant disregard for prudence. We must make long term plans for the future and in the process we even consciously defer short-term gratification for those long term goals. However, we must remember that reaching the milestone or long term goal should not become a pre-condition for us to be happy. Life is lived in the present moment. It should be looked upon like a series of experiences to be lived and cherished, not to be survived through.

All I want to tell is that don’t postpone the simple joys of life. The quality of life that you are living today matters. Don’t confuse life with lifestyle. For example If you have the opportunity to spend a few hours with your friends, don’t defer it. Those moments are priceless. Another way to look at it is, if you feel like using your crystal glasses every day, do it. Don’t wait for a special occasion to take them out. Don’t save your special perfume for special occasions – use it whenever you want to. Dress well. Don’t always keep the best dresses in the wardrobe for the special days. If it gives you joy, wear them whenever you feel like it.

Enjoy the little things in life for one day you will look back and realize they were the big things. Try not to delay, postpone, or keep anything that could bring laughter and joy into our lives. As someone has aptly said, Life Is Not Measured By The Breaths You Take, But By The Moments That Take Your Breath Away.

Each day, each hour, each minute, is special. Celebrate everyday.
Celebrate Life.

Posted in Art & Craft

Creativity & Passion – A Recipe for Success

I came across Parth Kothekar when I clicked on the Republic Day doodle (see above) which was crafted from hand-cut paper and had elements of the annual Republic Day parade. You can see the fingers in the center holding the paper.

Intrigued by the creativity I visited the website link provided and look what I found.

“Parth is known for his intricate papercuttings. His journey began in 2010 when he decided to drop out of conventional studies and take on making art as a full time occupation. In 2013 he held his first exhibition showcasing his first 100 artworks in Kanoria Centre for Arts, Ahmedabad. This exhibition was a pivotal point in his career as a papercut artist as the response he received confirmed his path forward.”

I am reproducing some of his finest works. They are really inspiring. Please do take time to visit his site and see for yourself the amazing variety of paper cuttings he has made.

Posted in Books

Who is Savarkar?

“Who is Savarkar? And why is he so important?”

I asked this question to myself a few months ago when I heard this name repeatedly in various news articles regarding some controversy where the BJP and Congress had locked horns and were fighting. Incidentally, I came across the this article which aroused my interest even further and I deduced that he might have been an important person who like many others had been left out of the entire narrative regarding the Indian freedom movement.

When I look back at my school days and the history we were taught I don’t remember the name of Veer Savarkar very prominently and neither have I seen his frequent mention elsewhere. We do remember the names of Mangal Pandey, Bhagat Singh and Chandrasekhar Azad but not much of Savarkar.

My interest was further aroused when i came across this book and decided to read it to learn more about Savarkar.

After completing the book here are some notes –

  • First of all it is a gripping narrative. There was never a dull moment in the whole book. So you can go for it.
  • Kudos to the author Vikram Sampath for the painstaking research he carried out of the vast range of original archival documents across India and abroad. He has also provided ample amount of references that the reader can cross-verify if he so desires
  • Another commendable aspect is that the author has not tried to thrust his opinion of Savarkar on the reader. He neither tried to glorify Vinayak Savarkar nor condemn his actions. He has presented the facts and historical events of that period in an objective manner
  • The book is an eye opener. We get to know so much about the Indian struggle for Independence. This part of the history has been completely kept hidden from the Indian population and we were made to believe that India got the freedom only due to the non-violence movement of Gandhi ji.
  • When you read this book you will realize that the armed struggle was not some random historical events that we read in school books. You will understand that the armed struggle was a very well coordinated movement and had spread to large parts of India and many countries abroad.
  • The amount of surveillance British had to put on Savarkar is also an indication of how important he was at that point of time.

Read this book if you want to enhance your understanding of the Indian Struggle for Freedom. Highly recommended.

Posted in Life Gyan

Keeping Your Mind Active !

The mind is very comfortable when you follow your old habits, you eat the same food, you wear the same colours, you take the same familiar route to work. For most of these things in our daily lives, the body is on auto pilot, you do not have to apply a lot of thought. For instance if your drive to work then you do not have to navigate the route consciously, your sub-conscious takes care of it. You might notice that if you happen to get a phone call on the way, your sub-conscious takes over the driving while your complete attention is on the conversation with the person on the phone. You do not even realize what you saw on the way but you reached your destination. 

The moment you introduce anything that is different from what you usually do, the brain becomes alert and starts to takes notice of all the new inputs.  The new inputs could be being aware of the neighbourhood through which you are driving or  making note of the landmarks on the way if you took a different route from the usual to reach your destination.

The point I want to drive home by the above example is that for the mind, routine is boring and anything new makes it excited. So if you want to keep your mind active and develop the ability to think on your feet, you need to provide new inputs to the brain on a regular basis.

The idea is to keep your brain sufficiently challenged and active. Step out of your comfort zone – just a little bit once in a while for example you can use the below for starters and then develop your own –

  • At every opportunity do some mental math. Resist the urge to use the calculator for simple calculations. For example, If your milkman has sent you the bill for the month, see if you can do the math mentally or at least on paper before reaching out to the calculator.
  • Every once in a while take a new route to the mall you frequent or to work. See how your brain suddenly becomes alert
  • Try your hand at a new activity or skill for example try solving the Rubik’s Cube or a Sudoku or Crossword
  • Pick a different author or genre of book from what you usually prefer
  • Watch a movie from a foreign language

It is by continuously giving new inputs to your brain you not only enhance your knowledge but also become a more confident person in the process. It helps tame your fears and makes you more adaptable and open to changes.

Also by trying different things you develop empathy and humbleness. Empathy because we get a chance to look at things from the other person’s point of view – understand a different perspective. We become more accommodating as our world view widens. Humbleness because when we understand that the world has so much more that our limited view of things, it is a truly humbling feeling. We realise the vastness of knowledge and what we know in comparison – it is akin to standing at the sea beach and realizing the endlessness of the ocean in front of us.

What are the interesting things you do that excites your brain? Please do share your inputs.