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Brilliance Is Nice, but Grit Is Everything
Early in my startup journey, an IIT/IIM guy reached out to me, wanting to join my startup. And he was simply brilliant. So after a discussion, I made a joining offer, which he accepted. And I was thrilled that we would be building it together! But...
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The Yerkes-Dodson Law
Why do deadlines improve performance? It makes no sense because deadlines create anxiety, which is the enemy of focus and productivity. For that, we...
Pain is Private While Success is Public
What happens when you take a risk? If you succeed, people will sing folklore about you on LinkedIn. And if you get really lucky, Harvard will write...
Not Everything Can Be Intellectualized
Today, I saw an article in 'The Print' in which the author explained why he quit the 10-day Vipassana course run by Sri SN Goenka's organization. He...
AI Will Not Kill You — But Distraction Will
A year ago, virtually every second LinkedIn profile mentioned 'Web3' as a skill. Today, nobody is doing that. Similarly, I recently saw an ad...
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Focus on Your Own Journey
One funny thing I saw in B-School was how secretive some people were during their job search -- you would have thought they were recruiting with Mossad. I understand that people don't want competition. And it might be somewhat understandable when...
The Courage to Quit
LinkedIn is ablaze with posts that tell you, “Never quit.” But the biggest mistake I have made as an entrepreneur is not quitting when I should have. Let me share this story which started in 2012 when I quit my job and launched CourseBrew, my first...
Leadership Requires Discomfort
Every leadership training I have been through, be it for the Indian Police Service or at McKinsey, was missing a critical element -- training people how to dissent. Without the ability to dissent, you only have yes-men (or yes-women), not leaders....
Your Story Need Not Go Viral to Be Real
We love rags-to-riches stories. That is why every social platform is full of them. And they make us wonder -- how come everybody gets lucky except me? The reason is that stories other than rags-to-riches are not considered stories! They don't...