Six types of blogging days

1. “This is such a great idea!  People will love this!  I’m a wonderful blogger!  It’s so easy!”
2. “What the #*$%# is wrong with my  #%*$%$ computer!!”
3.  “I’m not used to writing here/at this time of day.”
4. “Gosh I thought this post was going to be easier to write.  This is taking forever and it’s still not there yet.”
5. “Is this post good enough?”
6. “I have nothing to say.  I’ll never have anything to say. It’s all been said before.”

The hard part is: you have to post on all of these days.  And the dirty little secret is that no one, not even you, can tell which is which.

Keep at it.

(p.s. this post isn’t just about blogging)

The 8 Commandements

Just like the 10 commandments form the central pillars of Christianity, I believe every person on the face of this earth has certain values/commandments that they hold close to their hearts. These values drive their actions, their initiatives and their choices.

For example a 10 year old that spends an entire day/days playing video games without worrying about food or showers, is only doing so because at that stage in his life, he values the joy he gets out of video games over anything else. Similarly a man that spends most of his time at work values financial security a bit more than family time.

At the beginning of this year, I did a  quick evaluation of what things I value more than others....and the list I came up with was pretty interesting. Whilst I will not go into the details of what things i hold more close than others (perhaps on another post), I would like to share with you the 8 commandments that I have created for myself: 

1. Love what you do  - I think this one is very very important. We spend the major part of our days at work and unless we learn to love what we do, or do what we love...we turn into mindless zombies that worship inefficiency and sitting at the desk idly. 
2. Trust your Intuition - Intuition is a hard one to define. Its that nudge/voice from the inside that often guides you. Many of us drown out the voice and listen to what people around us have to say. We get caught up in other people's opinions and projections that we often don't hear our inner guidance systems.
3. If an opportunity scares you, you need to take it. - This is one commandment I hold very very dear. I think very often when an opportunity lies outside our comfort zone it scares us. What we fail to realise is that these opportunities are the ones that help us grow and reach our potential. We often try to side step them by letting ourselves worry about what other people will think/ say about us if we pursue the opportunity. My solution is to tell my self, in a month's time anything silly i do will only be an interesting dinner table story. In a years time, there is no way they will still remember the incident. 
4. Don't be a complainer, either make things better or let them go - If something annoys you, don't sit there and complain about it, be proactive and do something about the problem. Like someone once said the best way to complain about something is to make it better. If you can't fix a given problem or make the situation any better, let it go. No amount of complaining is going to change it.
5. Make time for side projects and treat it with as much importance as your full time job - I saw this talk of a guy who landed the job as Google's creative head because he was involved in a creative side project that google heard off. They were impressed with his work and hired him. This didn't stop him from pursuing small projects on the side. During his tenure at Google, he started another side project that garnered a lot of interest from Facebook. In a years time, they head hunted him to be their creative head. I guess moral of the story is to pursue project that you enjoy because you never know where they will lead you
6. Surround yourself with like minded people - I strongly believe that people are a reflection of their environments. Think about it, no matter how happy an old person, if you stick them in an old people's home with people constantly dying around them - their health will deteriorate rapidly. No matter how hard we try, characteristics of our environment stick to us and become part of our character. So make it a conscious effort to surround yourself with like minded folks.
7. Ignore haters -No matter how hard you try, there will always be someone you cannot please. Ignore them, there is nothing you can do to change their minds/opinions and there is no point wasting your energy on a situation your can't change. 
8. Seek to Inspire others  - I recently checked my sister's Facebook page, and on her list of role models, she had my name. As flat erring as it was to know that she looked up to me so much, I also felt the responsibility and the need to be someone worth emulating. If you constantly strive to work towards inspiring people around you, you are working towards building a better version of yourself.

I would love to hear what your commandments are.

Stay Curious

The Future Belongs to the Curious from Skillshare on Vimeo.


What a wonderful way to start the week.

The future belongs to the curious.

How to ask for Help

My previous post sparked a lot of interest, with lots of people asking me 'how' exactly did I ask Zumbo for an interview.

"Isn't cold calling scary? What if they yell at you??What if you give for self a bad impression? What do I say? How will I respond" - all these questions sparked of the need for this post.

Its one thing to ask for help, but how exactly do you ask for help. Well, here's what I've learned about how to do this well:

Be concise.

Be nice and use pleasantries but not too many (if you're too obsequious or indirect it can be hard to figure out what you actually want).

Be appropriately selfish. It's ok to ask for things. It's ok to ask for things from someone who can help you more than you can help them right now. The startup community runs on people paying it forward. Just stay within reason, and don't ask people to do things that seriously puts their reputation on the line.

Always have a one sentence summary if you're passing something larger along (like a description of an event you want sponsorship for). You might think your three paragraph message is short, and it might be if the person you're emailing happens to get no other email. More likely she's got hundreds of messages in her inbox and your message feels anything but "short."

Be specific. Don't ask to meet for coffee or to be introduced to someone who can "help your startup." Those things are too vague. I might know someone who I'd be happy to introduce you to and who could really help your company, but the set of people I know is large, and if you're nonspecific in your request, you're offloading the effort to figure out who'd be helpful onto me.

Include the relevant details. If we're meeting, include your cell. If we're Skyping, include your username. Include specific days and times you're available; don't just say "I'm free whenever you are" (especially if that isn't true).

Remember: You can maximize your odds of getting what you want by minimizing the work the other person has to do to help you.


Hope that helps! Happy Asking everyone, the world is your for the taking :)

Asking The Impossible?!

Inspired by this amazing blog, I was hoping to have a fortnightly interview series on this blog. The series would feature entrepreneurs from a variety of different fields and sectors and would aim at chronicling their journeys from having a job to creating jobs.

Since I wanted the series to start of with a BANG - I was hoping to get Adriano Zumbo, (The crazy inventive pastry chef from Masterchef) to be my first interviewee. I quickly presumed this was going to be  a hard task and that I might have to do some cold calling/stalking on Facebook fan pages/friend on twitter, to ensure this dream was a reality. Before I even began my quest, I remember telling myself that as an entrepreneur I needed to be comfortable stepping out of my comfort zone...so it was ok to cold call, it was ok to stalk etc..

After an entire day of having long debates inside my head, and throwing up thoughts of abandoning the project - I decided to stop thinking so much and just contact the man. I quickly did some research online and found an email address that, maybe, just maybe would reach him. I wrote up a quick email, changed it and re-changed it over a million times and finally sent it away.

I told myself that a man so famous, would get a million emails like the one I just sent and  if I did not receive a reply in 48 hours, I shouldn't be disappointed. instead I should take it as an opportunity to device an alternative/more creative way to reach him. Needless to say i spent the evening plotting my strategy to contact Zumbo.

As I checked my emails the next morning, my mind abuzz with crazy ways to reach the man, I saw an email from a name I did not recognise, I opened it - and to my surprise it was an email from Zumbo's personal assistant.

I couldn't believe it. I had made contact - OMG.

And so ladies and gentleman, through this little adventure/challenge,  I learnt one of life's big lessons, if you want something - sometime, all you have to do is ask :)

In fact, When starting a company/new project you frequently have to ask people for things -- introductions, advice, a meeting, sponsorship, money, etc. Its how the entrepreneurial world runs - so if nothing else, learn to be comfortable with asking for things.

Oh and yes, my first Infinite Inspiration's Interviewee will be the King of Pastry himself Adriano Zumbo.

Interesting Conversations

I had a very interesting conversation with my mother last evening. I was telling her about my plans to relocate back to India by January next year and start my own business. I quickly outlined the potential investors I was talking to, the capital i planned on raising and also the possibility of having a 'shop front'. She listened patiently to all that I had to say and finally asked me one question - "Why? Why can't you get a job like everyone else? Why all this risk??'

I burst out laughing, partially because I thought she was joking, but mostly because I was so surprised by the question. I did not know what to say. 

How was I going to convince my mom that sometimes there is more to life than running the treadmill of uni-job-marriage and kids. How was I going to convince her that the world has dramatically changed since she was a little kid? That following your heart and starting a new venture, though risky ...seemed much better than being a mindless drone that sat in front of a computer all day. That failing is ok? 

I took a deep breath and tried to convince her with my passion, my enthusiasm and the careful planning. What ensued was a conversation that lasted 3 hours. My poor mother, hadn't changed her mind at the end of it, but she was opening up to the possibility of embracing risk and starting something new. 

I quickly realised if I was going to succeed at doing this...I would be asked this question many many times. If instead of looking at it as an opportunity to crystallise my idea better, I looked upon it as a personal attack, with the world against me - I was going nowhere..

Theory of Cycular Progression

I have just finished reading this book called the "Immortals of Meluha", by Amish Tripathi. The book intersperses Indian history with Indian mythology to create a spell-binding plot. Whilst the story is fascinating, what I found more interesting was the author's take on societal change....


The author suggests that societies are either predominantly 'Masculine' or 'Feminine'.  Male societies are described as orderly, lawful and very rigid much like monarchies whereas female societies described as free, romantic and fluid much like democracies. He proposes that when 'masculine' societies reach their zenith, the rulers i.e. kings tend to get drunk on power and the rules get rigid with people becoming very unhappy and wanting a revolution. Society then goes through a dynamic shift to take on a more 'feminine'  role -  a democracy where people have the freedom to choose and pursue whatever they want. He also suggests that when 'feminine' societies reach their pinnacle, they are messy, chaotic and bureaucratic and cause a shift towards a more masculine system...and so the cycle continues.

I agree this is a very simplistic explanation, but it caused me to look back at world history and think.  Didn't most of the world live  in the 'monarchical' form in the past - and mind you a lot of progress was made in this system - think of China and India...and then it seems like the majority of the world went through this dynamic shift to embrace the more feminine side i.e. democracies...


With the Occupy movement, the arab spring and everything else happening around us, I wonder if we are in for another shift?? 


What do you think??

Comparisonitis

I was at a particularly difficult yoga class last evening and was trying extremely hard to keep up with the pace of my teacher. Being an ardent yoga practitioner, I had very smartly positioned myself in the first row. A row, reserved for those who practice frequently and lead the class. During most classes, I feel comfortable being in the spotlights....but today was a different story. I wished I were at the back of the class...where no one could see my agony. I wish I did not stand out like an inflexible sore thumb, compared to all the other practitioners in the first row. 


As my mind went wild with these festering thoughts, my yoga teacher said "Remember, you are on your mat for yourself, not for anyone else. Stop constantly comparing your journey with everyone else" - And it struck me...I had spent the entire class, feeling insecure because I was constantly comparing myself to someone else. 

I think 'comparisonitis' is a chronic disease. It goes into remission when we're happy, have great company around us and sleep enough..but the moment something doesn't go the way we want it too, it flares up. 


The only way to manage the disease,  is to awaken to the fact that there is no such thing as perfection. The person with a job will always compare himself to others with better titles, the person with no job will compare himself to everyone else who has found a job so easily. No matter what the situation is, we can always find someone better to compare ourselves too...


I think the key here is to realise that what we need most is our own approval, our own acceptance of our work. Everything outside of that is outside our control. When we realise this we set ourselves free from the feeling of unworthiness and the desire to sat one-step ahead of some perceived competition. We set ourselves free from the anger, the guilt, the frustration we beat ourselves up with 


As Theodore Roosevelt one said " To do the work, not with error and shortcoming, but with enthusiasm and great devotion " is the way to fight comparisonititis. Each go us needs to be proud and embrace our our unique voice and identity and forget trying to fit in, and rather own how we stand out.

Happy New Year

I took two and a half weeks off at the end of the year to rejuvenate, reflect and welcome the new year. The longish break from regular blogging was a chance for me to reflect on many things, but one that stood out was...why people read blogs and, as a corollary, how we blog.

There are a bunch of basic reasons people are reading  blogs: 

1. To stay up to speed on their industry (or an industry they’d like to be part of)
2. To find interesting content that they otherwise wouldn’t stumble across
3. To be entertained
4. To get useful tips of one sort or another.

But I think most people want more than just that basic gist. I think most people want to hear your voice, hear what you have to say that only you can say.  Hear something that they wouldn’t hear anywhere else – something that inspires them, challenges them, pushes their thinking.  Something that sharpens their focus, or even changes their paradigm altogether.

In all honesty though..... I don’t know how to be infinitely inspirational, and you probably don’t either – even the notion of trying to do that seems like a fabulous way to create writers block. 

What I do know is how to try and show up every day, to say something that I think is relevant and about which I have a unique perspective. And every so often, when everything goes right, something exceptional comes out.  I don’t know how or when....But I do know that the only way it can happen is if I keep on showing up – knowing that some days I connect, some days I miss, and once in a while something great happens.

So here’s to another year of aiming high.  Thanks for taking this ride with me, and I wish you a great 2012