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How to Stay Calm in a Crisis
The first time I fired a 9mm Browning pistol was at Mussoorie's Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy. The instructor lined up five of us, 10 yards from the target, and told us to shoot. After five carefully aimed shots, we excitedly went to check the target...
Recent Posts
Simple Steps to Shift Your State of Mind
Do psychiatrists also get depressed or anxious? The answer, unsurprisingly, is yes. Just because you know how your brain works doesn't change its...
Everybody Needs Downtime
Back in the days when I headed a police organization, we had 1,200 armed policemen in our reserves for handling contingencies. These policemen were...
Keep Life Simple
A TikToker Canadian mom got hospitalized after drinking too much water as part of a '75-Hard' challenge. Another influencer died of starvation after...
The Familiarity Trap
Many professional thieves exhibit a curious behavior pattern -- they follow the exact same methodology and rituals (modus operandi) every time they...
More Articles
Why We Seek Validation
Why do we do social comparison even though we know it is toxic? Why do we seek external validation knowing that it ruins our happiness? Turns out, this is an outcome of evolution. Humans evolved in small tribes and groups, and in the wild, if...
The Three Career Curves: Choose Your Climb
There are three kinds of jobs: The 'flatline' jobs: Here you do the same thing for the same inflation-adjusted salary, all your life. E.g., a mailman sorting parcels. The 'linear growth' jobs: Here, you grow at a steady pace. E.g., start as a...
Work Behind the Glamour
At the beginning of the Ukraine war, Russians were abandoning their tanks at an alarming rate due to breakdowns and technical glitches. On CNN, one American general was asked why. He said that whenever an American tank convoy rests, the crew...
Leadership is Hard
Stress spreads like a contagion. Just one person needs to have it -- especially the boss -- and soon, everybody around will feel it. Once the boss is snappy and angry, team members get scared and are on the defensive. Everybody's fight-or-flight...