After June 12th, when the UPSC Prelims exam results came out, I received a bunch of emails from people who did not qualify. Many were dejected and called themselves 'a failure.' But what is failure really? Here are two ways to think about failure. Failure as an event:...

Employees responding instantly to your Slack messages is a fantastic thing. Just as the Rolls Royce is a fantastic car. There is only one problem -- the cost. If not, would we not all be driving a Rolls Royce? What is the cost-to-company of 'super-fast response...

I am struggling. In fact, in my startup life, I have always struggled -- there is just too much to do and too little time. And to make things worse, every initiative seems important. In such a situation, what do you do? Quite often, the temptation is to do a lot of...

My friend Vinod Thomas recently told me that while I keep talking about doing 25-minute focus sprints (pomodoros), even focusing intensely for 5 minutes is hard. And Vinod is one of the smartest people I know. So is 25 min of focus feasible or is it just a myth? The...

Your sanity is under threat from the zillion WhatsApp groups that everyone seems to be a part of. These WhatsApp groups are for all and sundry -- folks from school, college, work, close relatives, distant relatives, extraterrestrials... and so on. Honestly, why? Do...

A while ago, I was talking to a friend who once led a top-tier Indian university. One day, a psychologically distressed student came to him and somberly said, "I am 25. At my age, Mark Zuckerberg was already a billionaire. And what have I achieved? I am nowhere in the...

Yesterday, I asked my colleagues -- "Which app do you find most distracting or addicted to?" And I heard a surprising answer: Swiggy. One team member candidly admitted that around 12:30 pm, when the Swiggy offers start pouring in, she can't help scrolling through them...

If you want to have unwavering focus but have struggled to achieve it, this Buddhist story has an answer. Once a king gave one of his subjects a challenge. He said, "You have to walk around the palace carrying a bucket full of hot oil on your head, with one condition...

When you are overwhelmed, what do you do? Read this quote from Anne Lamott's book 'Bird by Bird.' "Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. It was due the...

Sometimes, life feels like an out-of-control mess. We want to fix it, but we don't know where to start. If it feels like all bad habits have descended on us at once -- procrastination, smartphone addiction, lethargy, low energy, lack of confidence -- what do we do? We...

Many years ago, after late-night work and minimal sleep for a few days, I was struggling to stay alert. But there was a ton of work to be done. So a colleague suggested taking espresso shots. I don't normally consume coffee or tea. But on his advice, I took two...

Even after running for a decade, my 10km morning run today felt just as hard. But then, should habitual actions not become effortless? Why bother building a habit if the task is going to still feel hard? Because even though I find running hard, my desire to run is...

Unpopular opinion: VVIPs visiting sites of accidents and natural disasters is counterproductive. It looks good on cameras but it actually hurts relief and rescue. VVIP visits distract officials, who, instead of doing relief and rescue, have to: Take care of VVIP...

You have potential. So do I. But even a rock sitting on a hilltop has potential energy. Yet, there is nothing it can do until it starts rolling down the hill. Movement unleashes the rock's potential energy. Our potential is very much like that. Whether we realize it...

"9-to-5 jobs are slavery. You work on someone else's dream -- and have no freedom, no flexibility. It is a shitty life. "I was also like that once. But look at me now! I quit my job and work a few hours a day. And I earn a 7-figure income, live on a beach, and no...