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Unconscious Competence
A few years ago, I was interviewing an expert physics teacher for my previous startup. And to any question I would ask, he would rattle off formulas like a machine gun. But I was not getting a sense that he really understood things. So I asked him,...
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Pleasure of life
During the time we spent in terrorism-affected North-East (as part of the IPS training), you couldn’t step out without at least three machine-gun...
Truth is an assumption
I have lost track of the late nights I have done in my past life but here is the funny thing -- whenever I had a constraint, e.g., I had to go out...
Peace of mind
During my stint with McKinsey, I was going through a period of intense stress -- my family moved back to India and I was all alone in the US. I...
Why are we so busy
Why the hell are we so busy all the time? This disease called “back-to-back meetings” is spreading faster than Covid’s Delta variant. In today’s...
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Focus bubble
A few years ago, a friend inadvertently showed me the secret of extreme productivity. Here is the story. This friend was on a short sabbatical and popped into my office, asking if he could help me with anything. Knowing how bright he was, I asked...
FOMO and addiction
To get addicted, you don’t need the ‘white powder’. Here is my story. In my early days as an IPS officer, when I was back home after an intense, stressful day, I wanted a break. Since I never partied or socialized, watching TV became my ritual. And...
Finding joy in pain
During my Civil Services training in Mussoorie, an especially memorable trek was to a place called Rabbit Farm, though we neither saw any rabbits nor any farm. During this trek, people grumbled especially loudly -- the hours of climbing and...
The high cost of being busy
I was once attending a drug addiction conference in Melbourne, where the speaker on the stage had lost his beloved son to a drug overdose. He started by talking about the loss of his son, and how he could not get timely medical help when he...