Rajan’s Linkedin posts

Sleep deprivation

I recently saw a prestigious consulting firm’s post on LinkedIn about ‘sleep deprivation’ becoming a huge crisis, and how the ‘sleep-tech’ industry is coming to our rescue. Really? On reading it, I felt like irony died a (sleep-deprived) death. I have never been as...

Self-Authenticity

During my stint in the police service, when senior officers called me, they would sometimes ask, “Where are you?” The implication was that if you are in office, you are working – so you are a good boy. But if you were at home, you are slacking off. Nobody said it out...

Unique Privilege

My biggest privilege has been that I did not grow up in a wealthy, privileged family. Growing up, we had enough money for necessities, but not enough for random indulgences. For many people in my situation, the hunger for success and the drive came naturally – parents...

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Rajan shares insights from his own life journey to help you build better habits in yours.

Failure vs a life of regret

Five years into my first job with the Indian Police Service, I was unsure what to do next -- something had changed. In the beginning, everything was just so exciting --- nothing like anything I had done earlier. After spending years doing crazy math in the name of...

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Hard or easy is in our mind

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,...

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Change tomorrow’s story

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...

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Value your time and attention

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...

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Meaning of life

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...

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Age is not a barrier to learning

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...

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The journey of growth

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...

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Happiness within

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...

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Free elf

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...

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Life is an unpredictable journey

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...

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Overcoming challenges with perseverance

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,...

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The biggest lottery

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...

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The Ripple effect of small changes

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...

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Pausing for deep thinking

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,...

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The mental benefits of physical exercise

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...

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Rajan shares insights from his own life journey to help you build better habits in yours.

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