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Career Growth Hack
The first time I did a course on valuation at Wharton, I did not learn much – it was way too technical and conveyed little intuition. So I ‘illegally’ gatecrashed an undergraduate class on valuation by Prof. David Wessels – I and a few other MBAs...
Recent Posts
Benefits of meditation
Today morning when I woke up, I was not feeling good. But after an almost hour-long meditation, I felt like a different person – calm, mindful, and...
Biggest revenge
Some guy wrote an abusive comment accusing me of joining the Civil Services because I enjoyed the crumbs of power. And he said many other nasty...
Motivation
For some reason, I don’t feel super motivated today. So what? Our goals are still alive, and so are we. Then what is there to wait for? Time won’t...
Cherish everyone
During my stint in the IPS, once my IGP (Inspector General of Police) flared at me in anger because he did not get a good seat at a cultural event....
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Prioritize substance over hype
When I launched my current startup, HabitStrong, I decided to not go the conventional route of painting a growth story and trying to impress the VCs. Instead, here is the startup guide I followed: 1. Don’t worry about scale – instead focus on...
Focus
If you keep hearing that startup life is about non-stop hustle and working 16 hours a day, rarely sleeping before 2 am, let me assure you – that is total nonsense. Of course, if you choose to go that crazy, nobody can stop you. But there is...
Lessons from Policing
One fine morning in 2001, when I was heading the Trivandrum City Police, students from a particular political union in Trivandrum’s University College went on a rampage. But since we were anticipating the violence, we were ready. With a good number...
Acknowledge your mistakes
During my stint with a private equity firm, we lost hundreds of millions of dollars because of a simple reason: We could not accept the truth when it was unpleasant. One of our investments was in a tech company that was blowing up money from day...