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The Familiarity Trap
Many professional thieves exhibit a curious behavior pattern -- they follow the exact same methodology and rituals (modus operandi) every time they commit a theft. In fact, policemen even call them Modus Operandi (MO) criminals. But this phenomenon...
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We all get the jitters
A few months after I moved out of the US, just near my erstwhile apartment building, a plane landed in the Hudson River, near New York City. The US...
Where You Start Does Not Matter
In 1995, during my final year B.Tech placement season, everybody was obsessed with salaries -- companies like Cadence, offering Rs 10,000 per month...
Learn Like an Intern
Quitting the Indian Police Service allowed me to restart my journey, like a fresh intern trying to make sense of the world. I totally loved the...
These are Your Key Assets
When I quit my job to become an entrepreneur, it felt a bit weird, but not for the first time. Years earlier, to do my GMAT and MBA prep, when I...
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The role of struggle in achieving success
During my days working in private equity, I once met an entrepreneur who manufactured orthopedic implants (typically used in surgery for fracture victims). His company was worth about Rs 100 crores, and he had built it single-handedly from scratch,...
Consistency is the key
Starting in 2018, I have been writing nearly every day, for almost 1,000 days (on Linkedin, Quora, HabitStrong blog). Writing per se was not the hard part. The challenge was to keep writing DESPITE the ups and downs, and the thousand different...
Managing Social Expectations
My most terrifying moment at McKinsey was not handling some really tough client, but the invite I got to attend the New Year’s ball, a fancy black-tie event on some island near New York. For most people, these lavish events are the compensation for...
You Fail Only When You Quit
Every once in a while, an old back injury of mine flares up with excruciating pain, wrecking my workout routine for a week or two. And once the routine is broken, the momentum is gone. With every passing day, you feel even more like a failure, and...