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Why Constraints Make You a Better Writer (and Thinker)
Back in the days when LinkedIn had a 1300 character limit for posts, writing was a real pain -- I often had to edit out even seemingly essential stuff to fit the character limit. Today, with a 3,000 character limit, your creativity is no longer...
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Why Even Billionaires Go Broke
I know of billionaires who have gone broke. And here is why you should care about it. No billionaire has ever gone broke by consuming too much --...
Choose Good People, Not Glamorous Projects
In my 4th year in college, we had to choose a professor to guide us for the BTech project. At that time, I had become very good friends with a young...
Why Yoga Classes Won’t Fix Workplace Stress
When companies feel that their employees are stressed, they organize yoga and meditation classes. But does it address the REAL problem? Is it not...
Success Doesn’t Require Perfection—Just One Strong Spike
A decade ago, I met an entrepreneur in Goa who had built a giant medical devices company (probably worth a few hundred million dollars today). So...
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Managers Should Lead, Not Do Their Team’s Job
In my policing days, a fellow senior officer was very fond of daily night-patrolling and catching criminals. Sounds cool, right? In fact, the media loved and glorified it. But here is the problem -- that was not his job. His job was to guide his...
Why Even the Smartest People End Up Doing Meaningless Work
An ex-colleague of mine once worked for one of the world's best known private equity funds as an analyst after graduating from Harvard. His job was to make financial models for billion-dollar acquisitions that the fund would typically do. For one...
Real Character Reveals Itself Only in a Crisis
One of my bosses in the police service was a soft-spoken man -- more like a college professor than an intimidating, toughened-up cop. But the first time I was caught up in a violent student agitation, I suddenly noticed that he was standing behind...
Your Career Can’t Grow If Your Attention Breaks Every 5 Minutes
Everyone wants to make good money and build a great career. But you CAN'T build a great career if you disrupt your attention every 5 minutes. For our 'Zen Productivity' pilot program, we got about 500 applications and found that 50% of us are...