I once was interviewing a professional investor who invests in power plants and infrastructure. But when I asked him "What is 1 kilowatt-hour?" he had no idea. Many people swim in the shallows. They make do by talking about high-level stuff, without really...

We hear two extreme philosophies of life. One says, "Spend less, own less, and be minimalistic. The other says, "Live it up, enjoy the luxuries, and have fun." So what should you do? While there can't be a prescriptive answer, let me lay out a framework to think about...

In this deafening clamor of notifications, pings, and rings, do you know the one thing nobody cares about? You. And your attention, your well-being. Nobody cares about your attention because you can always work late nights and get work done. Then why bother? We have...

On his desk in the Oval Office, US President Harry Truman famously had a wooden sign which said, "The buck stops here." No shifting responsibility, no passing around blame -- when the push came to shove, Truman promised finality. And true to his promise, Truman took...

If you want to rapidly rise up the leadership ladder, these are the things to do: Don’t wait for people to tell you what to do. Identify problems or areas where can you contribute and then offer specific help. Take responsibility, even if small ones – and deliver....

Procrastination is NOT laziness. And unless we understand this, we can't fix our procrastination problem. We procrastinate when we don't know how to handle the negative emotions generated by a task (e.g., anxiety). We then avoid working on a task even when we know...

When looking for a job, first find out what you hate. Here is why I say that. During the networking events in my MBA (and even post that), I found it impossible to tell anyone that I was looking for a job. Whether it is selling my candidature or a product, I really...

At an investment fund I worked with, one of my bosses (Victor Menezes) did something remarkable — after graduating from MIT’s MBA program, he never changed jobs. He worked at the same firm (Citi) all his life, becoming the global CEO of Citibank, and retiring as a...

When I decided to leave consulting and join private equity, my biggest consideration was not money — instead, I wanted my life back. I wanted to rediscover my health and peace of mind. I wanted to see the sunset and sunrise, at least on some days. I wanted to feel...

Why do we need to remember things when everything is just one Google search away? (Or these days, one ChatGPT query away). In fact, this was the logic once proffered for why we didn't need to learn multiplication tables -- or for that matter, anything factual. The...

Stop hoarding PDFs, podcasts, videos, e-books, and online courses. We already have enough. The problem is something else. Can you guess what? Our reflex answer -- 'I don't have time.' Not true. Here is what is going on. When we have to pick a task, we only pick the...

Flow, the 'secret to happiness,' is closer than you think 🙂 Here is a step-by-step guide for experiencing flow (almost) every day. Quick recap: What is flow? It is such a deep immersion in a task that you lose track of everything, including the passage of time. Like...

I was once talking to a UX designer in Bangalore, who was supposed to be quite good at her craft. And she explained to me some nuances of UX design quite well. But when our discussion shifted to other social issues, she seemed quite lost. At one point, she decried why...

As a consultant with McKinsey, one of my projects was to advise a Fortune 500 healthcare company on whether to launch a new service line. And here was the funny part -- the company had already done the study they hired us for! They had put two people on the project,...

Your smartphone is useful but dangerously addictive. And every day, we are sucked into it for hours on end not because we love it, but because we think we have no choice. We often assume that we only have two options: Give up our phones, OR Use the phone without any...