Rajan’s Linkedin posts

Take charge of your life

A video game maker would love it if you spend 12 hrs a day playing their game. A social media company would love it if you check their app every five minutes. They don't care if you are miserable. They don't care if your mental health is failing. They are not on your...

Professional success

During our college placement season, many of us were fixated on the salaries. If a company offered even Rs 2,000 more, it felt infinitely more attractive. But looking back, the initial salary had practically zero correlation with how well people did in life. Some who...

The secret to building a good life

When I was working with a private equity firm, in the middle of our office was a gigantic TV screen that could raise your anxiety within a minute. This TV was always tuned to CNBC, which would constantly stream the latest market news and the Sensex level, by the...

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Rajan shares insights from his own life journey to help you build better habits in yours.

Happiness is in the now

The guy working in a small company wants a job at Amazon. The one in Amazon doesn’t want to work at all. We all want to jump out of our current life; we want it to be somehow different. That is what creates stress. Because, while we can change our tomorrow, how can we...

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Mental health – remove stigma

Years ago, when I was a civil servant, a young IPS officer was briefly posted under me for training. A sensitive guy, he was struggling with some mental health issues. Unfortunately, his anxiety got aggravated, resulting in a near breakdown. A few days later, I...

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Work where you are respected

We often hear, 'Don't pick a job just for the salary.' But if not salary, then what? Typically, the answer is - role, company culture, growth opportunities, brand, etc. And admittedly, all these things have serious merit. However, in my opinion, here is the most...

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Keep pushing the boundaries

I first read the book ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull', more than a decade ago. Since my wife was raving about the book, I got curious about all the hullabaloo. When I read the book, I found it stunningly disappointing. No storyline, no hero or villain, no suspense -...

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This game stops when we stop

Most small goals in life are like a football match -- you can win, but you can also lose. If you are looking to crack a job interview or clear a particular exam, success is not guaranteed. But fortunately, the really big goals in life are like a different kind of...

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Sometimes luck comes well-disguised

While I was running near the Rajbhavan in Trivandrum, the streetlights went off at 6 am. It was still dark but I kept running, daydreaming in my head. Then suddenly, I was abruptly brought to my senses. In the darkness, I tripped on the uneven roadside pavement and...

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Learning is the antidote to aging

A few years ago, I had to visit a hospital because of a persistent chest infection. It so happened that the senior doctor was unavailable and hence a relatively junior doctor had to attend to me. During the consultation, this junior doctor seemed really apologetic...

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The best is already here

When I was a kid, our family train travel was rarely in the AC compartment. Therefore, we kids were always sitting near the windows staring at the rivers, mountains, and everything else. India felt so amazing. But sadly, in the last few decades, even the very rare...

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Take your time, focus hard, and get it done

In movies, you see heroes spraying light weapons in automatic mode, killing dozens of 'bad guys.' In real life, you never do that. Here is why. An AK-47 will finish a full magazine of 30 bullets in 3 seconds, and they will almost all miss the target. It is so much...

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Face your fears

I spent my 4 years at IIT mostly lazing around, wasting my time. But I had other classmates who slogged hard. In the final year, most hard-working guys had great career options lined up, including scholarships from some top US universities. I told myself that it...

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Let us allow people to enjoy their work

In my very first engagement as a McKinsey consultant, we were trying to schedule a meeting with a senior leader at a pharma client. She literally threw up her hands, saying, "I am back to back with meetings the whole day." I was sorely tempted to ask her, 'When do you...

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HabitStrong Scaling

Our obsession with 'billion' has made us lose touch with reality. If you are building a startup, it HAS to be a unicorn. If you are an entrepreneur, you have to be a billionaire. Gentle reminder: A billion dollars is more than Rs 7,000 crores. The benchmark for...

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