Panwali was going to be our Waterloo, we were warned. This was a part of the 9-day trek during our Civil Services training that included a near-vertical climb of 2 km in the Panwali mountain range. In the words of our Physical Training Instructor, “Panwali ki chadhai,...

In a semiconductor course tutorial at IIT Kanpur, Prof. Aloke Dutta pointed at me and said, “Please come and explain the functioning of an NPN transistor.” As I sprang to my feet and walked up to the blackboard, my friend Ashish Agrawal was gaping at me: The task was...

In one of my McKinsey projects, every Friday, sharp at 5:30 pm, our engagement manager would pack up and vanish while the rest of us kept slogging till late in the night. And for the next 24 hrs, he was unreachable even if the world melted down. What was the mystery...

There are two people I knew, who tragically died of cancer -- one somewhat recently. One was a professor and another was doing some research study. And in both cases, they kept working nearly till the end. Why did they do that instead of taking it easy? My speculation...

In 2008, while looking for a job, I met this big shot in Mumbai -- tall, handsome, and extremely articulate, this Ivy League graduate was a top leader at one of India’s biggest business conglomerates. At that time, I was urgently looking to move back to India due to...

When we started HabitStrong, our first month’s revenue was less than my one day’s salary when I was working. Every journey starts small. Don’t mistake the size of the seed for that of the tree. Keep compounding, keep growing -- be at it. One day, you will surprise the...

After crossing the finish line of my first half marathon, I came across this guy who had completed the run barefoot, and that too in just over 1.5 hrs. This was fantastic timing for any amateur -- much better than mine, for sure. Post-run, my friends and I were...

When I was working as a consultant, I longed to see the sunset, but I couldn’t. We rarely got out of the office before 11 pm -- often much later. And even after that, my journey back home was long -- a cab ride from New York, followed by picking up my car from a New...

In 2011, I met this struggling entrepreneur who had come to us for fundraising. At that time, I was working with a large private equity fund. Since we made only large investments (at least Rs 200 Cr), his startup was too small for us. Moreover, his company was not...

I have rarely felt as hopeless or defeated as I did on Jan 14, 2000. In front of me were a million people caught in a massive traffic jam, which I was unable to prevent. At that time I was the Police Chief in Sabarimala, one of India’s largest pilgrimages. Every year,...

I won only one lottery in my life -- and it changed everything. My father grew up in an impoverished village in UP, surviving on subsistence farming. Yet, despite attending a local village school, he managed to land a job in the armed forces. That stroke of luck...

One day, during my stint as the Trivandrum City Police Commissioner, a communist party leader walked up to me and said with a smile -- “Looks like you are getting ready for war!” That day, the Communist Party was conducting a protest march to the Chief Minister’s...

During my days at McKinsey, one day we got a funny email from the engagement manager of another team working with our client. This manager informed everyone, including the senior partners, that henceforth, he would check his email only at certain times during the day,...

This happened a fortnight ago. It was around 1 pm and I was feeling this terrible low-grade anxiety, making it difficult to focus on anything. And when I can’t focus, my anxiety ramps up even more, and soon, the day goes downhill really fast. I then realized the...

After landing in Kerala, an IPS batchmate lamented to a senior officer -- “Sir, Kerala is so far from my native place that even if I draw a circle of 1,000 km radius, I will not find a single relative.” The senior officer replied, “Make your circle’s radius 3,000 km...