The Logic Logjam

 "Logic is invented by humans and may be ignored by the universe. - Will Durant"

Ancient cultures of India, china and greece have developed and documented formal logics. The laws of deduction, inference etc are fundamental to these. Observing the happenings, analysing, debating, rationalising, linking behaviors and root causes to results are all part of our human learning.

In spite of centuries of such learning, it seems inadequate and the universe surprises us constantly. Give enough time and humans contradict/trash their own learnings.

Have we missed some variables? Do we need to observe and analyse more? Or as Will Durant said, the universe does not follow any logic?

If the world cannot be explained, how can its micro components be considered understood?

Is the endeavor of logic, self perpetuating and will forever remain inadequate by design?

On the other hand, should humans submit themselves to the vagaries of universe, ' go with the flow' and stop figuring it out to the extent possible, to make their lives a little better?

Faith vs Truth ( in tough times!)

During storms, people would like to hold on to something strong to stay stable and weather the storm. That something varies for different people. It could be preparedness, faith, religion ….

when something completely unexpected comes long ( like a personal tragedy, grave sickness or a pandemic), one may not be prepared. People then turn to religion/faith/science/rationality and so on. when the event is unexplainable , one may turn to relegion and faith. Since faith is not absolute but graded ( and is determined by mental condition) it tends to be fragile when bad things happen. ( E.g. why is this happening to me? Why God isn’t helping?).

Since faiths come from religions ( most of ) which demand blind faith and do not encourage doubt or questioning, the faith becomes fragile and the person becomes fearful/doubtful and vulnerable. Many look down upon those who question or doubt as 'non-believer' and ostrasize.

While those with blind faith may be able to weather the storm, those without absolute faith, waver and falter.

Compared to faith, truth is a different animal altogether. Absolute truth destroys fear and doubt. Ancient Indian philosophies encourage and infact insist on Mimansa ( consideration, thought , discussion) and Tarka ( debate) as paths to finding the truth. While a master or text may initiate someone to the truth, debate and reasoning is encouraged to self experience the truth so it stays absolute . Truth and knowledge set one free and get rid of fear/doubt and help one become mentally strong to weather the storm. With the help of reasoning, it explains the world and its happenings to help one be unwavering and strong.

In tough times, truth makes one strong compared to a fragile faith.

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( this post has no title, and it's not by mistake)

When are we most peaceful and happiest?

There are 4  States of consciousness. The first one is the conscious state. The second one is the dreamy state. The third one is the subconscious state. The fourth one beyond all three is the happiest.

We are in this state every night when we go in to deep sleep. There are no thoughts,the mind is not active and there's nothing to distract.

This is the happiest and the most peaceful state. We all know it ,yet we try to avoid it all the time.

Be it our need to be recognised ,to be part of a group ,to be continuously in touch,to be continuously busy ....

Technology and more importantly the businesses are trying to help us do all the above, not for our sake but for their commercial needs.

While it's easy to blame the technology to keep us forever busy, it is our innate need to be a social animal that makes us embrace these technologies with gusto.

What is forgotten or ignored is to be at peace with nothing and nobody. That's really the deep sleep state in which we are the happiest.

The more desperation with which we try to be in the first three states ,the more restless and unhappy we become.

Our natural state is the fourth state. You are at once more peaceful and blissful when you tried to be in the fourth state than the others.

That is not a technology issue but your own choice.

Simple trick to teach money to kids

Disclaimer: this idea is not mine. I learnt this from a friend of mine who did this to his kid.

Many parents struggle to help kids learn about money. Here is a very simple practical way to do it.

Based on the kids age etc, decide on the money you want to give at a periodicity. The amount and the frequency are not material.

The kid can do only THREE things with the money ( the only three things anyone can do) - spend, give,invest.

The kid can spend 1/3rd on anything he/she likes. The kid needs to give away 1/3rd to anyone in need. Another 1/3rd, the kid must invest. Put it in a bank or buy a share etc.

To get the next installment of money, the kid needs to explain what he/she did on the 2nd and third items.

It's that simple.

'Services only ' future

,Over the last few years most of the world's new wealth is going only to the small portion of the population. Is this simply the capitalists plundering the country's resources or is there something deeper?

1. If you look at the the richest individuals and the richest industries making the most money, you will see a pattern.

Most of them are services based ,almost none from agriculture and very few from manufacturing.

2. If you look at the industries needing  government help in the form of trade subsidies protectionism and bailouts, most of them are again in manufacturing and Agriculture.

When did you hear about services industry needing bailouts?

3. If you look at the US, world's largest economy , it's almost entirely based on services, with less than 2% coming in from agriculture. Just to put this in perspective ,agriculture was majority in the US few decades ago.

What are the above facts telling us? The world is moving towards service based economies while both manufacturing and agriculture do not seem to generate much differential wealth.

What are the implications of this? A service based economy is very much skill and expertise based. It also expects stakeholders to be very agile in adopting to the changing world.

while technology is automating quite a few services ,it is still services that are building incremental wealth.

How do the populations and communities build skills to be ready for a  Services based world?

How do they plan their finances to be continuously reskilling themselves every once in a while?

How do they become self dependent instead of expecting government doles and entitlements? ( No government or a tax base can perennially fund a losing business forever!)

How do they learn the key skills and attitudes of pivoting ,reskilling, migration and adapting?

How do they celebrate risk taking, failures , innovation and continuous learning?

These are the questions that I feel, the leaders, politicians and parents need to find answers to.

Sense 'less' senses!

While we cannot function without full use of the senses ( see, hear, touch, taste and feel), they have a limit.

When you are thinking of a new business idea, new way of doing things, new project or new anything, let the power of thought and abstraction be not limited by your senses! They operate at a much lower level of creativity and flexibility and would only constrain.

Ground breaking ideas may not have come through a simple process while the output may be simple. Senses are based on the laws of evidence while the ideas are not. Not every hypothesis is a fact to start with. But that should not limit you from creating such hypotheses. They may not appeal initially to the evidentiary  world. 

Put simply, don't do the mistake of justifying to conventional senses when you are ideating. 

They should come much  much later!!!

Life is short, world is small

In business and competitive world, backstabbing, back biting, scheming, talking behind one 's back, politics are unfortunate realities.

But life is short and world is small. You never know when you need help from someone and how long this life lasts!

Is it worth burning bridges and holding grudges?

In the long run, you might see the current disturbances as mere blips in bigger scheme of things.

Forgive and forget - for your own mental peace at least!

Be nice to people no matter what they are or how critical they are to you right now.

Share without expecting something in return always!

Pass on your learnings to others so they start ahead and not go through the evolution!

Be a net giver rather than a taker!!!

Jumping the hoops

As MOOC (massive open online courses) get popular and world gets more integrated thanks to internet, the traditional steps of learning process get blurred.

With global best practices and learnings become available much easier than ever, opportunities to jump the hoops covering multiple steps at once become available.

If the learning includes leveraging others ' experiences instead of academic approaches alone, you can learn two or three steps at a time and move ahead.

Let's take an example : suppose you want to open restaurant. In the traditional route, you may want to work in a restaurant and experience things first hand and then decide to start small. In the connected world, what if you are able to connect with other  restaurateurs and learn from their experiences as well?

You can jump multiple steps in your evolution as a restaurateur and start much ahead. 

Can you apply this to your area of interest?

How 'Big Data' person are you?

Technology tries to mimic and automate human behaviour and those who get it right, succeed!

In a sense, the key attribute of 'Big Data' is key to success for you as a leader, human being, team player...

Big Data looks at disparate , unstructured data from multiple sources to identify patterns, deductions, conclusions or insights.

If you need to be successful, you need to do the same - connect data points from multiple sources/instances/events/contexts to bring together a perspective/insight that nobody has seen before. 

The more you master this to an art form, the more successful you would be , in any endeavour - a job, a business, an initiative/program or a project.

Go ahead and acquire/sharpen your 'Big Data' skills - not the technology but the underlying concept!

What defines you?

What defines you?

A title, a role , numbers, teams , colleagues , superiors , team members ....?

You start much earlier and end much later than any of the above.

So what / who defines you? 

Why successful people fail?

Why do people successful in one organisation fail in the next ?

What makes someone successful ? the individual or the system ? Or combination?

Organisations hire people for certain skills and strengths. But many a time it's the combination of skills from multiple people and ecosystem that makes a an individual successful.

People tend to have an exaggerated sense of self importance and a lower sense of ecosystem contribution to success. This is what makes them fail or underperform in other ecosystems.

That reverse also happens. 

Somebody who underperforms in an ecosystem may perform much better in another.

It is important to understand is dynamic before making deductions on one's critical success factors.

Positivity and Perseverance

"When you are searching for honey , you must expect to be stung by bees!"

Honey is sweeter when it the path to get it is tougher and is ridden with obstacles.

Many careers and jobs need the two qualities in the title to become successful.

Whether you are trying to create a new product/offering to differentiate, whether you are trying to crack open a customer account , whether you are trying to find the right job that satisfies you, whether you are trying to reach any goal worth pursuing....

Most often you would come across surprises, failures, obstacles, rejections, criticisms and so on....

Easiest reaction is to get demotivated, blame yourself, personalise failure, blame it on the world, give up.....

Pretty much every successful actor got rejected for roles early. Many successful executives have been fired from their companies. Most artists have seen failures as often as they see the sunrise.

Examples: Steve jobs ( fired from Apple), Amitabh Bachchan ( rejected by All India Radio), Sports team captains ( crucified for every failure), Film actors who struggle so much for their first break....

How did they react to these?

The famous names we hear today have all dusted up, changed course, altered their ideas, tried something differently and fought another day.

'Positivity and perseverance'   - truly valuable traits!

Rational vs abstract

This has been bugging mankind for generations. Should you be rational or  abstract?

All the scientific educational system teaches us to be rational. Being rational is likely to leave you with more questions than answers. Being abstract leaves you unconnected with the every day realities.

To understand life ,its complexities and concepts , you need some level of abstraction. You cannot be creative if you apply sheer logic.

Can you come up with an iPhone by applying a formula ?

Can a masterpiece be created in an assembly line ?

Do all groundbreaking and life changing ideas come up by structure thinking ?

Master of one ? Jack of all?

Should you be a jack of all of the master of one?

A successful enterprise needs both. But as usual , there are risks in both. 

Core skill means you are idle when the skill has no demand. Jack of all, means you don't command a premium. 

Core skill may also mean you operate in a silo and not a team player.

Jack of all makes you a potential entrepreneur. Core skill means you need to get ability to manage others to whom you outsource the rest.

What is a core skill today may become a commodity tomorrow that makes you not so valuable. 

Tough choice!!!

Life after work

Life after work - Click on this !

Opportunity to change your next Avatar

Many of you must have seen the James Cameron Blockbuster 'Avatar'. Do you believe in Avatar ? Do you believe that this life is one of the Avatars and it could be different in the next.

If this is true, what are you doing to make your next Avatar better? Human beings are some of the very few who have the OPPORTUNITY to DESERVE a better next Avatar, based on the deeds done in the present one. Perhaps this is because we can think, choose and act. Perhaps none of the other species have a chance to do something to improve the quality of their next avatar.

What are you doing to make your next Avatar better than the current one?

Rules for creators

If you are in the habit/business/ profession of creating, the following lines from 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand may be of help.

Disclaimer : please replace 'man' with person. The following were how Ayn wrote them in 1943.

You've gone beyond the probable and made us see the possible, but possible only through you. Because your figures are more devoid of contempt of humanity than any work I’ve ever seen. . . . I came for a simple, selfish reason . . . to seek the best.

Howard, I’m a parasite. I’ve been a parasite all my life . . . I have fed on you and all the men like you who lived before we were born. . . . if they hadn’t existed I wouldn’t have known how to put stone to stone. . . . I have taken that which was not mine and given nothing in return.

“Freedom (n.): To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.”

“You have been the one encounter in my life that can never be repeated”

“Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. man had no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons,and to make weapons - a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and we have comes from a single attribute of man -the function of his reasoning mind.”

“It's easy to run to others. It's so hard to stand on one's own record. You can fake virtue for an audience. You can't fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is your strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running. It's easier to donate a few thousand to charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement. It's simple to seek substitutes for competence--such easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for competence.”

“Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you're thinking seriously of building that way, when and if you are an architect?"
Yes."
My dear fellow, who will let you?"
That's not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”

“Never ask people about your work.”

“I don't wish to be the symbol of anything. I'm only myself.”

Posturing and Intent

Many people in positions of influence and decision making tend to 'Posture' especially in front of colleagues,peers. Posturing is putting up a stance or behavior.

Posturing may be required by a new boss to establish himself/herself , create an aura, make a political move, impress someone etc.

Don't confuse this posturing with real intent. When you meet the same person alone, their behavior would bd quite different from the posture since none of the above apply there.

Be sure to distinguish Posturing from intent. It's a useful distinction.

'Dignifying' everything with a response

Every interaction need not be responded to. Two reasons:

1. Many things people say don't deserve a response.

2. The moment you respond , you are no longer in control. The conversation is.

Eg. How many provocations, comments , criticisms do you think Cricketer Sachin responded to , in his career? What %?

Do not dignify everything that is said, with a response.

Excellence

As the legendary coach vince lombardi once said " one's quality of life is directly proportional to one's commitment to excellence". The battle between excellence and real life compromises are everywhere.

While life and business demand that one makes compromises, the passion to pursue excellence should not be given up.

It's the journey as much as the goal, that make it worth it. Such a path provides purpose, motivation and satisfaction that cannot come from material gains.