Just before I was leaving the Civil Services for my MBA, I went to say farewell to many of the senior folks I knew. One of them said that he also wanted to attend some program for senior executives at a US university, but only to network, not to learn. He said, "After...

9-to-5 jobs are not slavery. Slavery is something that sucks your soul, energy, and hope but you can't escape because you need the money, the brand, or some semblance of stability. And this kind of slavery can come in any form -- a full-time job, solopreneurship,...

You don't walk into an annual performance appraisal meeting and boast -- "I sent 20,000 emails last year." You don't flaunt the number of meetings you have attended. Because nobody cares about those things -- these metrics are meaningless. But if they don't count for...

1 year ago, I met a VC who had told me that my first startup idea won't work. And you know what ultimately happened? He was right. Thankfully, when I met him this time, he did not remember that meeting. Nor did I remind him. 😊 But why did I not accept his advice?...

When we were running the pilot batch for our Zen Productivity program, some participants said that it is practically impossible to focus while at work. The first culprit is the 'open office plan' that encourages people to interrupt each other any time for casual...

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 -- after all, how many designer clothes or jewellery can you buy? Instead, the super-rich go broke by 'investing', and doing...

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 professor of electrical engineering, who was kind, generous, and brilliant. But his area of work was not glamorous. Had...

When companies feel that their employees are stressed, they organize yoga and meditation classes. But does it address the REAL problem? Is it not yet another bandaid applied on the poor human soul, which is already heavily "bandaided?" People are stressed for many...

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 when I went to meet him, I expected to see a swanky office. But his desk was covered side-to-side with a 1-foot high stack...

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 police station heads...

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 such deal in the...

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 me. He had come to...

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 checking our messages...

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 after a few days, he...

I became a 'first-time manager' on the day 1 of my first job, when I took charge as Assistant Superintendent of Police in Karunagappally, a suburb of Kollam district in Kerala. I had two police inspectors and seven police stations under me. And both my inspectors were...