If you visit the Trivandrum Zoo, you will see a name on a granite stone in front of each enclosure. And no, it is not what you think - it is the name of the politician who inaugurated the enclosure. This means each enclosure was inaugurated with fanfare and the names...

During my training with the Indian Police Service, we were taught how to hit with a club/lathi during lathicharge, in a step by step, almost comical manner. Interestingly, this training answered a question I always had: Why do humans keep doing stupid and outdated...

During my stint with the Kerala police, we once faced a massive protest in which the opposition parties vowed to blockade the State Assembly to prevent the budget presentation. This has never happened anywhere in India. Naturally, we could not allow this and made a...

Bollywood produces mediocre movies not because we don't have the cameras, or the technology. We just don't care - period. In an upcoming movie, Anil Kapoor dons the uniform of an Air Force officer (Air Commodore) but wears it with the finesse of a headload worker. He...

One evening in 2008, in our small two-bedroom house in New Jersey, standing on the staircase with a colorful plastic ball, my daughter asked me, 'Papa, let us play.' I brusquely told her, 'No, I am very tired.' She accepted it and did not badger me further. At that...

Some of us are checking Slack/Microsoft Teams every 5 minutes to 'stay on top of things'. How about an occasional break to get to the 'bottom of things'? Remember: Being busy did not save Yahoo or Blackberry. Nor will it save you or me. So, slow down. Step back. Take...

Lately, I have started loving deadlines. Sounds crazy, I know. But let me tell you why. As the activity level at my startup (HabitStrong) has gone up, my to-do list has started looking scary. And when there is so much to do, we worry about ALL the things...

Whenever I go running in the morning, I face two choices - run on the road OR in a stadium. With Trivandrum’s undulating terrain, road running can be hard - the uphill stretches make you feel like your lungs are being torn apart. On the other hand, in the stadium, not...

If you have to shoot two birds in the sky, what should you do? If you try to shoot both at the same time, you will shoot in the middle and miss both. The right answer is obvious: Shoot one by one. But if you focus on one of them, won't the other one fly away. It...

A McKinsey colleague once told me a funny yet sad story of this old lady working at a client company. He had to meet her a few times with some data requests. Since she used to always appear busy and overworked, he asked her what her job was. Turns out, she used to...

Here is a powerful lesson in focus and getting things done, from an age-old army tactic - 'bayonet-charge'. During a bayonet charge, army units are trained to scream their war cry like maniacs. Why is that? Because if they attacked silently, the enemy soldiers may...

Before you quit your job and become an entrepreneur to earn untold riches, please read this story. In the early 2000s, when I was serving as the Trivandrum Police Commissioner, my office staff one day asked me, 'Sir, can we send our office jeep to police stations for...

Do you know why instead of hitting hard, our words come out limp? Because we sabotage ourselves. We dilute our speech with fillers like "Umm, Uuuu, Right, Basically, Actually, You Know." I have myself used enough fillers for one lifetime. When we are thinking about...

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...

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...