Decision Making

Choose Must

November 4, 2020 | Leave a Comment

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” ~ Rumi

At 7 a.m. on April 8, 2014 Elle Luna clicked the publish button for an essay titled The Crossroads of Should and Must. Little did she know that her words were going to touch a chord with millions of people worldwide. Over few short weeks Elle’s article was shared over 5 million times on the internet.

Goes without saying that I was one among those readers who drew boatload of inspiration from Elle’s post.

[Read more…] about Choose Must

The Uncomfortable Solution

October 21, 2020 | 1 Comment

We often wish to pursue things that bring about a lasting change in our life.

During this process, often our challenge is not that we don’t have a solution to our problem but rather that the solution is one that makes us uncomfortable. And given that we have an aversion to discomfort (who wants to move out of the comfort zone?), we tend to avoid that uncomfortable but the most effective solution and keep looking for a painless and comfortable, but ineffective, answers.

Deep down we know what we need to do but due to fear-based reasons, we keep ourselves trapped in a kind of physical, mental, and emotional holding pattern. This way we end up wasting more and more of our time, potential, and energy.

Does this sound familiar?

You see, some of us have been circumnavigating change, growth, and success for years.

We talk, we plan, we intend, and we hope. Day after day.

We read such articles, nod in agreement, see ourselves in the words…but still fail to take action.

The Best Career Advice I’ve Ever Received

July 7, 2020 | 6 Comments

Over the past 25+ years, I have received a lot of wise career advice. Here are the ones that have served me well.

Always do the right thing. The best life one could live was not one in which a person did big, great things that influenced the lives of millions, but one in which you made a difference in the part of the world you touched, no matter how small. A life in which you helped only one person because that was the only opportunity you had to help someone else was just as great a life as that of someone who changed the lives of millions. ~ My Papa

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. ~ Steve Jobs

Look for the job you would take if you didn’t need the money. You really want to think about what will make you feel good, when you get older, about your life, and you at least generally want to keep going in that direction. ~ Warren Buffett

तस्मादसक्त: सततं कार्यं कर्म समाचर |
असक्तो ह्याचरन्कर्म परमाप्नोति पूरुष: ||

Translation – Without being attached to the fruits of activities, one should act as a matter of duty; for by working without attachment, one attains the Supreme.

~ Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 3, Verse 19

Minimize Your Regrets

May 22, 2018 | 11 Comments

“The cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing.” ~ Seth Godin

One of the nice books I came across recently was Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths. In one chapter, the authors talk about Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.

Before he decided to start Amazon, Bezos had a secure and well-paid position at the investment company D. E. Shaw & Co. in New York. Starting an online bookstore in Seattle was going to be a big leap — something that his boss then advised him to think about carefully.

Before You Quit Your Job

May 13, 2018 | 28 Comments

Getting out of your comfort zone is the most difficult thing in the world to do. But then, the thing that I learnt early in my life (thanks to an advice from someone I respect a lot) was that the time to quit your job is before it starts to feel painful.

The worst time to quit is when the pain is the greatest, simply because decisions made during great pain are rarely good decisions.

So, sometime in 2010, I decided to quit my job just as I was starting to get comfortable in it. That comfort was leading me to stagnation, and thus pain. I quit in 2011.

That my spouse was strongly by my side – not just emotionally, but also rationally – was an important factor that helped me in my decision making. Our second child was on the way when I had decided to quit, but that acted more of an incentive than a deterrent to quitting my job. The thought of taking care of my kids, and seeing them grow every day, encouraged me to move fast in this decision.