The Boomerang

 Hey there - Hope you and the people around you are fine, considering everything!

I am back to blogging and writing and this time I know how to do it using my mobile, so I am hoping this can become a habit. :)

Well, the idea of me coming back to this is primarily because I feel life gets the better of us sooner or later and so let's all do the things we have always wanted to do. For me it's about training to be a writer with superior level of mastery in the art if writing.

And I just got to know about this book by Barbara Minto on communication. I hope to read or listen to it and practice those tips in my regular writings or blogs. 

If you too are looking to read something, happy reading!! And don't forget to share your interesting pick! 

Tapping into the Start-up pulse

Bangalore - the city popularly referred to as the Silicon Valley of India is where I have the fortune to be living right now. As I decided to take a plunge into the start-up pool and test the deep waters around, I came across the very popular (but hitherto unknown to me) trend of "meetups" and open houses. Since the time I first came to know about these events, I have attended four such events and it's been less than a week! Each had something unique to offer whether in terms of takeaways or things I could now consciously steer away from.

The first one....Earth Day Yoga at UB City:

One of the finest ways to spend Saturday mornings is to wake up at 6 and head to the posh UB City for a free yoga session. It was a nice breezy morning and to add it, the company! I happened to reach out to alumni fro ISB the prior evening to check if he was interested and so it made things easy to have a known face among so many unknowns there. We connected and had an extended conversation about the start-up opportunities out here and he dawned a mentor sort of a role for a newbie in this space. I am deeply grateful to him for all the alumni gyaan and to this day, he has been sending me information about events and groups that would be helpful. Can't thank him enough for this. :) I found a great friend and guide.

The next one I went to was the open house with the Karnataka IT-BT minister Priyank Kharge at the Yourstory office:

A jam-packed auditorium, lots of hustle and bustle and our minister standing in the front ready to brave all sorts of questions from the vibrant entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs or hustlers :) There was lot of energy in the room right from the moment I first entered it. And, it's nothing short of a very pleasant surprise to me to see a legislature reaching out the way Priyank Kharge has been to boost the entrepreneurship spirit of the city. Whether it is in the form of Centers of Excellence, grants or providing a forum to have a dialog wit the government, he has been instrumental in portraying the government's genuine eagerness to support the start-up ecosystem in Bangalore. As he joked, he was the one taking the biggest risk in the room in lieu of the upcoming elections!

It was especially a great revelation that many people are planning to relocate back from countries like the US to pursue their entrepreneurship dream in the city of Bangalore and were up for a POC before they make the final move!

I also found Shraddha (Yourstory co-founder) to be a very charming and candid lady - very comfortable in her banter like on-stage conversations with the minister. Very confident and sure of her space at the launch of the BengaluruStory. The vibes were quite inspiring.

The third one I went to was a BBC World Service sponsored event at the NASSCOM Warehouse:

The event was primarily an accelerator initiative for start-ups to complement media technologies like language translation, especially in the video news domain. It was interesting to note that the audience was more adept with terminologies like bootstrapping than any of the presenters. The awe about the possibilities of the tech start-up ecosystem was quite visible in the presenters.We also had Yourstory co-founder, Ramya,  curious about the ways to handle video content in low bandwidth areas. Some coffee, tea, carbonated drinks, cookies and BBC labelled pens were on offer. I noticed most of the Indians picking up the water bottle over a fizz can - health conscious! :)

The fourth one was the Societe General Catalyst 2.0:

Again an accelerator program for technology start-ups whose product offering had some overlap with the tech requirements of the firm. These were in the areas of Predictive analytics, AR/VR, Artificial Intelligence, Data Cleaning, etc. A lot about their presentation reminded me of my stint at Goldman - the awe of having an opportunity to work directly for "the end customer", the highly conservative attitude when it came to data sharing but very crisp with the ask, the timelines, the IP ownership, the contract etc.

It's very clear that large organizations like BBC and Soc Gen have realized that they cannot afford to miss out on the gains from the developments in the Silicon Valley of India. however, by virtue of they being the very large and successful and established global organizations that they are, the hesitation and the rigidity is quite apparent- which they are certainly trying to hide, but it's there and it's very much visible. This is also the reason why I don't feel very certain about moving back to a set up like this and especially in an IB or a global bank set up. But I guess most established firms that offer me a job will be the same....except in some sense the real Strategy/Management consulting giants that allow it's employees to get staffed across multiple projects with a plethora of clients from different industries. That's the only use case where one can hope to get the same experience - So I feel!


Let's see how it turns out for me. For now, I have vowed to myself - I won't give up- ever!

Power to me :)

The Power of Discernment You Chose to Have

This is a brilliant piece quoted from one of Victor Cheng's several insightful emails. It's a treasure trove and worth going through from time to time...

"

You possess a power that can determine the quality of your life. This power is called discernment.It is the skill (or lack thereof) to discern which people you want to associate or spend time with.

Discernment is choosing which friends to be close to.

Discernment is choosing whether or not to work for a particular boss.

Discernment is choosing which spouse to marry.

The ability to discern who is good for you to get close to and who is not is a skill.It’s an important skill because the quality of your life is directly related to the quality of people around you.Going through life’s adversities with friends who put you down... harms your life.Deciding to continue working with a boss who doesn’t respect you... harms your life.Choosing a romantic partner that doesn’t offer any emotional support... harms your life.

The inverse is true too.

When life gets impossibly difficult, but you have amazing friends there with you... your life benefits.

When your boss respects and supports you, your professional life benefits.

When your romantic partner is a true partner to you through the ups and down, your life benefits.

The ability to discern is a skill that’s worth developing.

However, many people never develop this skill.This occurs because many people (myself included for most of my life) assume that we have no choices.For some of us, we don’t choose our friends. Friendships kind of just happen and we get who we get.For some of us, we don’t choose our boss. We kind of end up with the boss we get.For some of us, we don’t choose our romantic partner. We kind of just end up with someone somehow.

The first step in developing your discernment skills is to realize that you have the inherent right to choose which people you do and do not want in your life.You can invite those you want in your life to be a closer and bigger part of your life.You can distance yourself from the people you do not want to be in your life.However, if you waive your right to choose... you will never develop your ability to discern.

Recognizing that you have a choice in all of your relationships is the first step to developing discernment.

"

Self Exploration

Having toyed with the idea of exploring my interests and passions and eventually implementing them in real life - to make a difference and maybe make some bucks out of it as well, I finally quit my well paying full-time job at Goldman. Does it sound weird? Most likely it does. Why would someone quit a nice cushy job just to be able to follow her passion and make an impact - is how most people think about it.

However, the decision had been long thought through. I knew in my heart of hearts that I was cut out for something very different. Something that also recognized the human being/the person that I am. And so one day, when it became excruciatingly unbearable I decided to call it quits. Most folks were surprised that I had quit without an offer at hand and to tell you the truth some part of me was astonished too. But the fact is I could not bear to continue with it anymore. So just 2 weeks before the year-end bonus announcement I went up to my manager and spilled the beans. To me, this wasn't difficult at all. I had rehearsed this in my mind probably a zillion times. Every moment of most of my days there felt hapless, and I felt lesser in control of where my career is headed and most importantly missing out on any valuable learning from my time spent there. I had also become increasingly conscious of the fact that I am going further away from what the industry or the general job market desires in a likable candidate and additionally not even doing stuff that interests me or "makes me come alive" as would Oprah say.

Anyway, the day happened and over the next couple of weeks, I transitioned everything to my teammates. A lot of people thought that my decision was driven by my superior's decision to quit just a couple of weeks ago. Nobody ever realized that it had actually made things easier for me. A major reason why I couldn't wait for two more weeks until the bonus announcement.

So here I am one month into literal and actual joblessness or SELF EXPLORATION is how I like to call it. As time goes on I want to narrate my experiences, highs and lows, tears and laughter to all of you. Hope each one of you has a take away from my experiences.

And hoping, it turns out very well.

Negotiation: Cleansing moments before leadership begins!

Courtesy of the brilliant OB professors that I have come across in my B-school, there are quite a few tidbits I would like to share here for the benefit of all and for later references.

So, beginning right away, the first learning:
What is the biggest source of your power on a negotiation table? It's information. Information about your best alternative to the current deal (BATNA) and information about others (business intelligence).

second learning:

Attractiveness influences 36% of the variance between a yes and a no! Attractiveness comes not just from looks but also from the following other traits: tone of voice, crisp communication, positive mood, humor, likability,  credibility and consistency and mirroring of actions.

third learning:

How do you increase value in a negotiation? Expanding the size of the pie by monetizing the intangibles!

In short,
Keep things simple!
Less is moe.
Be grateful!
Don't worry too much about the past and the future.
Live well! :)

Writitng down my own thoughts and views

For a long time I have believed in taking notes of the most insightful readings and messages I have come across. Now, I also wish to begin writing about my personal views and opinions. And when it comes to me, what better subject to write about than leadership,  motivation, public speaking, emceeing and optimism.

So here I was attending my clc class on a not so ceremonious Monday evening. The class began with a host of knowledge dump on meta-programming and NLP. It's surprising how the theory around technicalities is always difficult to absorb and assimilate even when it is the subject you have been yearning to learn about. Nevertheless, I managed to stay on track with the instructor until we arrived at the most interesting part - breakout.

I was coached by a middle aged SAIL professional who felt imprisoned by the forced thoughts, beliefs and ideas from the people in his surroundings and nurtured a dream to coach them some day.

His optimism and toward'ness toward his goal amazed me. This person had spent 7-8 years of his seasoned life trying to read extensively (both online content and relevant books) and felt these years of dedicated reading on the subject had helped him broaden his horizon and look at life from a more reasonable and practical perspective.

His story inspires hope in me about the possibility of a future that I can chose to design.And guess, what - this small conversation with coaching in mind actually prodded me to begin writing once again.

It's amazing how simple questions can prove to be powerful tools of direction in ones life. In this case I was asked quite a few questions by my "coach". And this one question inspired me to regain interest in blogging: Do you also write about your own ideas?

Bang it came to me and I felt a bit ashamed to say that I knew writing was imperative to getting me closer to my goal; and despite being fully aware of this I had discontinued it...

And thus came this post :)

On Improv and Writing

I am beginning to pick up a lot of content on communication, OB and a host of other things related to personality and leadership of late. With a lot of onformation getting into my head, I also wanted the one way traffic to end and hence this post on improvisation, writing and more.

First I wish to talk about to writing and this is one piece of advice from the author of popular non-fictions Fountain Head and Atlas Shrugged that I would definitely want to take seriously; which is - the secret to really good writing is, you write without giving any thought to whatsoever lies outside the purview of content and then refine your writing through iterations. Her point is that if you try to structure your writing write when you begin writing a piece, you tend to lose the flow of thoughts and the content gets compromised. On the other hand if you continue to pour out your mind onto the piece, you will have a fabulous story to present and can always go back to edit the usage, grammar, structure, organization etc. I found this advice quite useful especially because I realized I had been postponing writing for a long time simply because I wanted to reach that uber utopian stage of the perfect author. The irony is, one can never reach that stage if  there hasn't been a start. You can't expect to go from a stage 0 to a stage 100 in one article/essay.

Ayn Rand was a Russian and began learning English only once she moved to the United States at the age of 20. It is impressive how she has successfully published her great works having been a stranger to the language for the first 20 years of her life. Commendable indeed!

Next, Improvization...Well junk your script and resort to improvisation. While improv comedy is most likely the most popular institution to use improvisation as a technique to refine  performance, it can be a great tool in our day to day lives as well. The essence is, at tmes it is imperative that we humans slow down our lightening fast thoughts and just be in the moment - be it a speech, a debate, a casual converstaion or any other communication for that matter.

Happy reading and great living until next time!

Communicator Authenticity and Charisma

Somewhere on the way to becoming a passionate leadership coach aspirant I got convinced of the necessity  for a leader to be both authentic and charismatic.

The first question then is, what is authenticity?

Authenticity, in my opinion, is a frank expression of emotions as perceived by your audience...be it positive or negative. It must feel real and open. Authenticity is also about demonstrated congruence of words backed by actions with consistency.  As Nick Morgan says, we believe people are authentic when we know what makes them tick - because they have told us and their actions bear it out.

Essentially, when someone bares their heart in front of us, we consider them authentic. Expressiveness therefore is at the heart of it. It's essentially a quick and readily available proxy to authenticity in our short-cut prone world. :)


Now how about charisma?

What is charisma? When do we find someone charismatic? How do we react to someone who is charismatic?

Well  charisma manifests itself in different forms. It is the capacity to inspire devotion, follower-ship and enthusiasm.

It manifests itself in several aspects. Firstly, the charismatic individual is aware that all eyes are on him/her. The positive outcome of this is when you have this awareness, you conduct yourself differently. Thus the heightened awareness is the trick to exude charisma. If you have a feeling that people are looking at you, they probably are! :)


Secondly, charisma is also about expressiveness of a wide array of emotions. For instance, consider John Oliver. People watch him for the content yes but also as much for the expressiveness with which he cracks those jokes. While that array of emotions may not be prudent in a core serious corporate set-up, the gist of the matter is that expressiveness counts; and it may be worth your while to make sure you utilize the permissible array of emotions to be able to exude charisma. The opposite is just boredom.
But this is also the most difficult bit for most business leaders who have always been trained to keep their cool despite situations around them going awry. Nonetheless, a range of appropriate emotions is an important step to charisma.

Thirdly, charisma is also about enjoying being in the limelight, being comfortable in, thriving and most importantly enjoying when all eyes are on you. A wink or a nod or a zest to show that you are not taking it all too seriously can go a long way! :)

But both these aspects of ones personality are interwoven by two prominent pillars of communication: 1. Content and 2. Non-verbal component. The latter being the more important one. Why because we are all unconscious experts at reading it correctly.

Every communication has two parallel conversations. When we talk about topics closest to our heart the non-verbal component comes through a split second earlier than the conscious verbal content. It's essentially the non-verbal conversation that will make or break you as a communicator. Understanding it is not something you can leave to chance; especially because if the two components are not aligned people tend to believe the non-verbal without fail..

Norms: Social and Market Driven

Today I want to talk about the two different norms that exist and how each of them play out in the long run, how they impact our relationships, a products market perception, brand loyalty, drives virtual ownership and makes offers and ads work or in some cases not work.


Social norm is driven by the emotional aspects of our behavior and our perception towards people and situations. Therefore, reciprocity, empathy and even virtual ownership (a sense of ownership and not actually owning something) can make a huge difference to how we behave. This aspect is widely used in product/service promotions for instance when consumers are offered automobile test drives, or trial period premium cable TV subscription at a heavy discount. The mere act of test driving can create a sense of virtual ownership as the mind starts visualizing the test drive vehicle as something the individual owns. This then has the potential to influence purchase decisions because he/she starts valuing it much more than when there was no sense of a virtual ownership here.

Similarly, once we begin to experience the goodness or additional benefits of a premium subscription, letting it go becomes way too harder than paying the extra bucks for the premium subscription. All this because the mind gets used to it as something we now own and letting it go gets difficult.

Market norm is driven by the rules of  a rational economist or a rational player as espoused in Game theory. Cost benefit analysis and assessment form the basis of decision making when market norm is at play.

The remarkable point is we do have some control on which norm gets triggered in a situation,for instance by the choice of words we use... More on this later. Until then, have  a good rest of the week.

Tuesday morning ramblings

It's been a while since I wanted to restart blogging. it's not just for the ethereal pleasure of having created something in writing of my own, but for the simple fact that two way traffic works better.

Let me explain this to you, better. Of late I have been consciously immersing myself into reading a lot more than I have ever read out of school. So it occurred to me one day that if I begin writing about even a small fraction of all that I have been reading and all the stimulating ideas these readings have led to, I will most certainly end up creating a treasure trove I would cherish,perhaps all my life.

I am particularly inspired by a friend sc who has moved from one roll to another because she disliked the former one, she has been an achiever throughout and continues to pursue her hobbies and interests in addition to doing phenomenally well at work. She writes beautifully on life's sensitive subjects and ardently pursues constant self improvement and self development as a way life. I have seen her grow as an individual tremendously, especially in the last 2-3 years. Now given that an year passes by pretty soon(I recently posted my graduation pic on facebook from April 2015!), it's not that hard a goal to achieve something similar; And I have now set my eyes on it.

Today I want to cover a bit about life after retirement, how a 24/7 busy living comes to a screeching silence of non-activity, somewhat suddenly. I chose to begin with the assumption that it's not a great place to be, even if one had all his/her finances more than figured out. While I don't intend to undermine the importance of financial stability as one of the most important pillars one would lean on, I strongly suspect there is a lot more to it.Given improved average life expectancy over the last couple of decades, we certainly live longer now and this translates to at least a decade of active life post retirement.(well in most cases). My dilemma is how best to pursue these active years? What can be done in our most busy years so our least busy years turn out fruitful and  gratifying.

My belief is it can be done; and for some reason I have harbored my hopes on my interest in reading, writing public speaking, teaching and probably dancing as well. So the challenge today is to figure out ways to dedicate enough quality time to these hobbies and interest so I may end up spending the better part of my subsequent years pursuing my interests for a living! Let the resolution survive and prosper!

'If' by Rudyard Kipling

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!” If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!