And suddenly it's up to you...

I distinctly remember the first time I had this feeling.  I was a years out of college, and into my first stint in management consulting. I was working with my team to set up relatively complex spreadsheet to analyse and track the group's financial wellness.  I had to through piles of data and do tons of analysis.... something I had limited experience with. 

The terrifying bit was discovering that, in the small team where I worked, I was the person who knew the most (or rather just had more time) about what kind of analysis we should run – terrifying because I knew I didn’t know enough, and I definitely knew less than what was expected.

In retrospect, since most of the gap in what I knew was technical I should have found a way to find SOMEONE who could help me bridge the gap.  But how to better navigate the analysis wasn’t the important bit.  The important bit, the part that sticks out is the “this can’t possibly be up to me” moment I experienced.  I felt like if it was all in my hands then something was massively broken, it was a temporary glitch in the Matrix and we’d soon get back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Because what did I know?

These moments are hitting people earlier and earlier in their careers, because we’re no longer asking people to walk a path or climb a ladder.  We’re starting to recognize that whole industries (music, books, finance, technology, energy, infrastructure, philanthropy, healthcare) are either already unrecognizable or will be within 20 years, so we don’t need young people to master the old tricks of the trade, we need them to reconceive everything.

I can shout that from the rooftops but I probably won’t get you to believe that it all should be up to you, today.

But I bet I can get you to notice the next “this is up to me” moment and have you pause for a second and say, “Wait a minute.  Maybe that’s exactly the way this is supposed to be.  Maybe I’m the perfect person for the job.”

Because you are.

Why I blog..

Absolutely true! 

I was here

The last few weeks have been a bit harrowing. My efforts to start a not-for-profit have gone on pause, due to a lack of funding. My work, is unenjoyable and I seemed to be languishing in the fact that I wasn't doing anything "worthwhile" in life.

As I sat brooding over the sudden change in events, I  realised that brooding was never really going to help me. So I did what I thought was natural, I called in sick and decided to spend my day doing things I love....

I baked some amazing cakes, went and volunteered at a local charity, cleaned out my closet and donated all my old stuff to The Salvation Army and spent the rest of the day reading in the sunshine. Nothing amazingly spectacular if you think of it.

But that night, just before dinner the lady from Lentil as anything (the charity I volunteered for) called to say thank you. She said the few hours I spent at there was exactly what they needed and that my jovial nature was infectious. I was so touched, I did not know what to say...

It was then that I realised that "worthwhile" was making my community a little bit better, "worthwhile" was putting a smile on a random persons face, "worthwhile" was talking to a stranger on the bus and making a friend..

Life is made up of the small stuff.....and it is wayy to short to be spent doing things you do not enjoy...


I'd like to leave you with this amazing video of Beyonce singing at the UN, her song really touched a chord.

Change

“Change is not a bolt of lightning that arrives with a zap. It is a bridge built brick by brick, every day, with sweat and humility and slips. It is hard work, and slow work, but it can be thrilling to watch it take shape.”
- Sarah Hepola

Moving piece by Sarah Hepola on her long struggle to quit drinking

A Chilling tale...

Just came across this info-graphic and had to share. 

Here's a chilling look at the 648 journalists murdered since 1992, by the numbers and faces. Scary isn't it??

Above and Beyond

No one’s going to tell you that now’s the moment.

Olympics Vs Mars

A rather interesting and appalling graph that compares the cost of the Olympics vs the cost of landing curiosity on Mars - a tragedy of priorities perhaps??

What do you know?

“Who are you to be spouting all of these ideas?”

“What do you really know about this?”

“You’re not an expert.”

“There’s nothing new here.”

“Who cares what you think, really?”

And on and on.

No, that’s not what your critics are saying.  

It’s what the little voice inside your head is saying, the one that’s holding you back.  The one that is petrified that you might discover how much you actually have to offer.

Dear Left Brainer....

Dear Left brainer,


It’s never helpful, when asked for your input to list three or 10 or 20 things that need to be fixed without mentioning a single thing that is great. Really. 


I say this with humility, and mind you this isn’t a strength of mine – and I’m working on it (forever, I expect).   I empathize with the sentiment: you just want it (whatever “it” is) to be great, so let’s talk about why it’s not great yet and fix it.

The thing is, to make something great more often than not you need to amplify the things that are already really, really good.

Error correction alone does not get you to greatness.


Love,
Rohini

Change

“Change is not a bolt of lightning that arrives with a zap. It is a bridge built brick by brick, every day, with sweat and humility and slips. It is hard work, and slow work, but it can be thrilling to watch it take shape.”
- Sarah Hepola

Some monday morning inspiration, for all you folks out there desperate to make a lasting change in the world. The path is long, slow and arduous at times - but keep at it and remember you are here not for a paycheck, but for a life time of crazy adventures :)

Nervousness

I attended an Indian theatre workshop yesterday. It was a fun exercise and I met some rather interesting people. One meeting in particular stands out - the one with Angilique.

Angilique is a beautiful, demure french girl who was a ball of nerves when asked to perform a scene we were working on. I vividly remember sitting next to her, watching her fingers fidget over the script as she tried to memorise the lines.  She turned to me and said "Gosh, I am so nervous". My default response was to try and explain why there was no reason to be nervous. Everything was going to be fine. I tried to diffuse her anxiety with a few silly jokes. 

But now, when I think back to the situation, I cannot help but feel I  did her a great disservice.

Because anything worth doing, any creative endeavour, any new experience will come with a healthy dose of uncertainty. Trying to paint a picture that turns unknown into known is not only unrealistic, but also frames uncertainty as a bad thing. And action in the face of uncertainty as something to be avoided.

As Kierkgaard said "Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom" - it is a signpost of possibility.

If I could relive that moment again, I wish I had said -  I understand you're a nervous, so am I, but that's okay. It's really just your mind and your body saying that what you're about to do is something that really matters, that can be really cool and it's something that's a new experience for you. That's an amazing thing, because that's where the great stuff in life happens. In this place where we feel a little nervous, where we're doing something we've never done before.

I  guess its a lesson we all need to learn - that eliminating uncertainity is not a  pre-condition to action. Rather, nervous energy is a sign that you're about to do something that matters. 

What do you think??

Failure

You once described the inventor’s life as “one of failure.” How so?

I made 5,127 prototypes of my vacuum before I got it right. There were 5,126 failures. But I learned from each one. That’s how I came up with a solution. So I don’t mind failure. I’ve always thought that schoolchildren should be marked by the number of failures they’ve had. The child who tries strange things and experiences lots of failures to get there is probably more creative.

Not all failures lead to solutions, though. How do you fail constructively?

We’re taught to do things the right way. But if you want to discover something that other people haven’t, you need to do things the wrong way. Initiate a failure by doing something that’s very silly, unthinkable, naughty, dangerous. Watching why that fails can take you on a completely different path. It’s exciting, actually. To me, solving problems is a bit like a drug. You’re on it, and you can’t get off. I spent seven years on our washing machine [which has two drums, instead of one].

Sir James Dyson on invention and failure. 

Just like the Stars...

Just incase you aren't feeling up to facing the many challenges life throws at you....

Just incase you feel down..and your not sure if you can stand up again...

Just incase you are happy and feel like celebrating the magnificence that the universe is...

Just incase you just feel like celebrating...

Just in case you need a reason to smile...

Take 3 and a half minutes to watch this video and realise the world's most astounding fact ...



Happy Friday Everyone!

To Do lists...

I have always thought of myself as a bit of a juggler that likes to do a million different things at the same time. For instance, I am currently juggling 2 part-time jobs and also working to set up my own little venture, whilst also practicing yoga and zumba daily. It doesn't sound like much...but let me tell you this much - it has been a challenge.


Every once in a while, I tend to have a massive winge about how much there is to do...and about how I never have any "me" time anymore. 


That was until I discovered Thomas Edison's list of things to do. 

Among Edison’s “things doing and to be done,” while he wasn’t busy inventing and scandalizing cinema, were:

• Cotton picker 
• New standard phonograph
• Hand turning phonograph
• Deaf apparatus
• Electrical piano
• New expansion pyromagnetic dynamo
• Artificial silk
• Phonographic clock
• Marine telegraphy
• Chalk battery
• Ink for blind

What is on your to do list?? 

Judged or Ignored?

So I went to an interview last afternoon, and as exciting as it was, it was also really scary. Here were a group of people judging me (and my entire life/set of experiences )based on a 15 minute presentation. I walked away feeling like I hadn't done justice to conveying my potential...and consequently was a little bit sad.

But that was exactly when I read this amazing post by Seth Godin:

(being judged and Ignored) Those are pretty much the only two choices.

Being judged is uncomfortable. Snap judgments, prejudices, misinformation... all of these, combined with not enough time (how could there be) to truly know you, means that you will inevitably be misjudged, underestimated (or overestimated) and unfairly rejected.

The alternative, of course, is much safer. To be ignored.

Up to you.

I choose judged over ignored any day...and I really hope you do too!

Lessons for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

1. An untended garden quickly becomes a field: plant what you want to grow.

2. Have partners, but don’t do the same things: make sure you both do something you enjoy.

3. Hire people for what they can teach you, not for what you can teach them.

4. Everyone should be able to take criticism: creative trust is built on critical honesty.

5. Design is only one part of the puzzle: savor the discussion, development, debate, and dissemination of your work just as much as the making of it.

6. Goals may be arbitrary, but not having them will be maddening when there’s no one else to tell you if you’re doing a good job: set 3-month, 6-month, and 1-year goals at the outset.

7. When you take your favorite clients out to lunch, it’s a good time to propose what you’d like to do together next.

8. Knowing more designers doesn’t necessarily translate into having good clients: spend your development time wisely.

9. Be known for something: it helps.

10. You will never work harder than when you’re building something: find balance. Sometimes the best way to solve a creative problem is to take a vacation or read a book

Advice on design entrepreneurship from Rob Giampietro. 

I realise these lessons are set within the context of design, but I still think these rules apply to all entrepreneurs :)

The future has arrived...

Forget the jetpacks, researchers at Virginia Tech have developed an interactive 3D-printing vending machine and the future has officially arrived! 

iPhone Business Cards

Now this is creativity...

iPhone Business Cards by Frederic Tourrou. Oh my!

Don't Try..

In a letter to good friend, fellow poet, and founder of New York Quarterlymagazine William Packard in 1990, then-70yr-old Charles Bukowski discusses the art of writing, reiterating his belief that a writer's words and ideas should come naturally, and not be forced. Four years later, Bukowski passed away. Carved into his headstone are the words, "DON'T TRY".

Here's the transcript of the letter (i've highlighted the bit that really struck a cord with me):

Dec. 23, I990

Hello Wm Packard:

No, you're not down, maybe I'm down, sometimes I feel like my skivvies are down around my ankles and my butt is a target for hyena turds.

Listen, your Pincus is awful hard on the poets. I thought I was hard on the poets. Well, I'm glad I get by him. And he's right on WAITING. Only if the octipus has you in its tentacals you can't wait too long.

On WAITING I know what he means. Too many writers write for the wrong reasons. They want to get famous or they want to get rich or they want to get laid by the girls with bluebells in their hair. (Maybe that last ain't a bad idea).

When everything works best it's not because you chose writing but because writing chose you. It's when you're mad with it, it's when it's stuffed in your ears, your nostrils, under your fingernails. It's when there's no hope but that.

Once in Atlanta, starving in a tar paper shack, freezing. There were only newspapers for a floor. And I found a pencil stub and I wrote on the white margins of the edges of those newspapers with the pencil stub, knowing that nobody would ever see it. It was a cancer madness. And it was never work or planned or part of a school. It was. That's all.

And why do we fail? It's the age, something about the age, our Age. For half a century there has been nothing., No real breakthrough, no newness, no blazing energy, no gamble.

What? Who? Lowell? That grasshopper? Don't sing me crap songs.

We do what we can and we don't do very well.

Strictured. Locked. We pose at it.

We work too hard. We try too hard.

Don't try. Don't work. It's there. It's been looking right at us, aching to kick out of the closed womb.

There's been too much direction. It's all free, we needn't be told.

Classes? Classes are for asses.
Writing a poem is as easy as beating your meat or drinking a bottle of beer. Look. Here's one:

flux

mother saw the racoon,
my wife told me.

ah, I said.

and that was
just about
the shape of things
tonight.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

P.S - This post is dedicated to a dear one who had a really hard day yesterday :)

The story of tomorrow

Watch with headphones, watch until the end, and watch with your whole heart...


And once you do....Get out there and Explore!!

What they don't tell you...

…when you set out to change the world, is that the bottom right part of the table is actually MORE frustrating than the bottom left.

If you’re stuck there, I hope you choose to keep looking for the top right (succeeding), rather than retreating to the bottom left (not trying)

Is life good?

The secret of happiness, in a simple flowchart. Need a hand with that change in finding purpose and doing what you love? Here are some more flowcharts to help

Should I check email??

Should you check your email? A flowchart by the brilliant Wendy MacNaughton (previously: I II III) for a Forbes article on how and why to ignore your inbox.

Don't work. Be Hated. Love Someone

This witty yet piercing commencement speech  is one of my favorite reads. It resonated deeply with me and so, I'd like to share it with you guys. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did

—–

Written by Adrian Tan, author of The Teenage Textbook (1988), was the guest-of-honour at a recent NTU convocation ceremony. This was his speech to the graduating class of 2008.

—–

I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It’s a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.

My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.

On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.

Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.

And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you’ve already won her heart, you don’t need to win every argument.

Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.

The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You’re done learning.

You’ve probably been told the big lie that “Learning is a lifelong process”and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters’ degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don’t you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.

The good news is that they’re wrong.

The bad news is that you don’t need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You’re in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.

I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I’m here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.

You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There’s very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.

Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.

So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you’ll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.

Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they’re 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn’t meet their life expectancy.

I’m here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.

After all, it’s calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.

Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.

That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.

If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don’t need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.

What you should prepare for is mess. Life’s a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.

Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.

What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.

Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.

The most important is this: do not work.

Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.

Work kills. The Japanese have a term “Karoshi”, which means death from overwork. That’s the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there’s nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.

There’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are “making a living”. No, they’re not. They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.

People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan “Arbeit macht frei” was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.

Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.

I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn’t do that, I would’ve been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist.

So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don’t imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I’ll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.

Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don’t, you are working.

Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I’m not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.

In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.

I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.

One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.

The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.

I didn’t say “be loved”. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one’s looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.

Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We’ve taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.

Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.

Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn’t happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.
You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.

You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.

Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don’t, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.

Don’t work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.