As a fresh consultant at McKinsey, for the first time in my life, I had to go around seeking time for meetings with clients or senior leaders at the Firm. Prior to that, while serving as the Police Commissioner, if I wanted to speak with someone, I had to just pick up...

When I was serving as the Trivandrum Police Commissioner, I once skipped a useless meeting called by a senior government official. The next week, when my assistant shared my weekly timesheet, she showed an internal meeting that I had never conducted. When I asked her...

Conventional wisdom (some of which I also fell for): - Leave your job. - Chase VC funding. - Spend all the money on ads and a huge team. - Pray for the next round of funding. A better way: - Don’t leave your jobs until much later — start by working evenings and...

An email you almost never get: I need your money. An email you often get: I need your time -- can we jump on to a call? Is your time less valuable than your money? Of course, not. If you clutter your calendar with calls and meetings, you can say goodbye to focus. And...

In my previous startup, we once reached a point where only had cash left to survive three months. Even worse, we had huge expenses coming up over the next 8 months – the office rental itself would kill us. I personally did not have the money to invest and save the...

Job loss is not a blot on your career. It is an unfortunate feature of the free market economy. Gaps in your resume are also not a blot on your career. They reflect the realities of human life. One of my best hires at HabitStrong was freelancing for many years instead...

Whether it is working on my startup or preparing for the Civil Services exam, I have never needed motivational videos or a pep talk to get going. In fact, you ONLY need these three things to achieve any goal: 1. Take up a goal only if you are willing to happily accept...

When I was leaving my job at McKinsey after a relatively short stint of 18 months, a classmate remarked that I was being hasty – in the initial few years on any job, one has to pay the dues. I disagreed – and still do. There are no dues to be paid. We are born free...

During my stint in the police, I was once overseeing a jampacked swearing-in ceremony for some new ministers at the Kerala Raj Bhavan (Governor’s official residence). The crowd was in a celebratory mood and hard to control. So when the Chief Minister’s car arrived,...

Most of us suck at managing our time. And here is the biggest mistake we make — we try really hard to finish our to-do list. When that does not happen, we get frustrated and blame ourselves for being lazy. In fact, we feel absolutely certain that there is some hack...

You can’t sustain a habit unless you learn how to NOT quit. We rarely quit because we decided to. Instead, this is what happens: 1. After sticking to a habit for a few days or weeks, for whatever reason, the streak breaks. For a few days or weeks, we don’t show up. 2....

In a project at McKinsey, I was loving it totally until I started hating it. At that time, I had joined the Firm just a few months ago. And when the project started, there was so much to do that my manager gave everybody full autonomy. I did my own research and expert...

After reading about some unicorn founders recently indulging in financial fraud, I was wondering, what prompts such highly accomplished people to do that? One reason is that we have glorified unlimited greed. Today, it is not enough to have 10 crores or 100 crores –...

In 2009, when I quit McKinsey, I was at my unhealthiest. For the previous 10 years, through various jobs and my MBA, I had worked long back-breaking hours and had stopped exercising. On top of that, I was chronically sleep-deprived. I was so unfit then that I couldn't...

One of my best friends had joined the 5-year MSc Physics program at IIT Kanpur. He loved physics but his parents were very unhappy with his decision. They considered a science degree sub-par even though the physics program at IITK was highly coveted. They wanted their...