Author: Suresh Dinakaran

 

…and EVs to Elon Musk?  The original expression (also goes by ‘preaching to the choir ‘) means that it is a waste of time and effort to be pitching or marketing something to the already converted. They are already onboarded.

 

Enrollment is crucial. If people are not on the journey that your bus is taking, consider yourself going unnoticed, ignored and simply not open to be marketed, influenced or talked to.

 

The best way to bring about change is to enroll people who are already on a similar journey and then equip them with the knowledge, the tools and the motivation to onward engage with the people around them. They are the ones who wield the megaphone and spread the word. Bring the network effect into play.

People like us do things like this. Nothing like the power and velocity of the peer-to-peer connect. That is what shapes the culture and makes our world. It begins with a quorum like a choir and builds on. The chasm between the innovators, early adopters, late adopters and the laggards keeps getting bridged. No need to wait for them. Start with the one already on the boat.

 

If your work is worth spreading, impacting, preaching to the choir is not a bad place to begin.

 

ENDS

 

Some years ago I was fortunate to be invited to make a presentation at a rather large conference. Though I had done presentations earlier, it was to very small audiences and was never to an audience of more than 500 and an aware, agile, adept one at that. And I was also conscious of ” Death By PowerPoint “.

 

Irrespective of preparation, research and rehearsing, I was a nervous wreck. The slot allotted to me was just after the lunch break(usually tagged the ‘Death Hour‘ at conferences as lunch and carbohydrates have their say to lull the audience into sombre stupor). Getting audience attention is a task at the best of times. Sweaty palms, and palpitation were my best allies. I wasn’t sure if I was making my discomfort conspicuous but I had so many things in mind, I wouldn’t have even known.

 

I got onto the stage and the heaviness in my chest began to offload little by little. An encouraging audience offered me nods and smiles. I began to move away from my Republic of Discomfort to finding my feet. At the end of it, it didn’t go as bad as I envisaged. And the learning from not being in your comfort zone was priceless.

 

We spend a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by making things certain and definite, black and white, good and bad. Our whole life is set up in the path of least resistance. We don’t want to suffer. We don’t want to feel discomfort. Time to counter that.

 

When you feel discomfort don’t default to the thinking that something is wrong with you. On the contrary, it is the other way. Something is right with you. Your body is sending out a signal of readiness, agility, preparation and wanting to take that leap of faith. It is sending you a signal to break away the shackles and embrace the unknown or the fear as it may. So that you can emerge in your new, superior form.

 

No need to restrain, run away or disassociate from discomfort. It is not an enemy but an ally, a guide, a navigator. It is that signal emerging from the wisest parts of your being urging you to explore, grow, move, transform. It is the GPS that travels with you to a future you would have never imagined.

Without the mistakes we make, the decisions we regret and the experiences that didn’t live up to our expectations, we would be very short on material for our creative work.  These things are all just ingredients for your soup, material for making meaning and making art.

 

Ready?

 

ENDS

 

 

 

A lot of us suffer from what we call the ‘ Hero Trap ‘- an over reliance on our ability to handle something that becomes infuriatingly urgent which could have easily been avoided had it not been the temptation of the short term hack.

 

And when you see urgency becoming the default mode, it is time to introspect and look at the processes and systems that might not be in place. Considering that it is now still the beginning of the year and the urgencies are still few and far between(hopefully), how about utilising the time to ‘do something now‘ so that ‘ later when urgency calls ‘, becomes the exception rather than norm.

 

Developing a team that does not need micro managing and which can deliver on time, quality and budget. Building a reliable team of suppliers. Upping the ante on both internal and external communication. Having a priority list and spend quality time on it so that the urgent is almost redundant. Mine data that can be leveraged effectively in time, respect and with context. Give up on the trivial many and focus on the vital few( Essentialism, any one?).

 

Most urgency seem like emergencies and comes with a license to throw caution to the winds, abandon systems and processes, roll up your sleeves, get into the trenches, and solve(hack?) it as only we can. After all we are heroes. And it is precisely this license why we get stuck and the next urgency(read emergency) is likely to come up sooner than later.

New Year resolutions never really work. Though habits and systems do, more often than not. Hacking on the short term is short changing yourselves. Spending time on avoiding that and investing it in solid practices and habits is probably the best work you can do this year.

 

Here’s to a new hero. You.

 

ENDS

 

My friend Thomas Kolster has written a book by the name Hero Trap. You can know more about it here on this link https://thomaskolster.com/product/the-hero-trap-by-thomas-kolster/

 

“Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” This quote most of us recognize from the fabled story Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The mirror is owned by the Wicked Queen who asks this question every day. The mirror never lies. Or so is the belief.

 

Reality does not demand it. Yet, we have made it an obsession. It is said never judge a book by it’s cover, yet we spend oodles of time getting the cover design right rather than investing our time and effort into making the content of the book better. I know people who hire professional photographers to get their profile picture the best ever to reflect on their social media handles because we are so caught up looking at ourselves and admiring the vanity that stares back. What if the focus were to be directed at posting content that is generous, progressive and builds connections?

 

More of the same- we find plenty of time to respond to trolls and memes rather than invest it wisely in serving our best customers. When did you last befriend someone on social media based on the designer Hawaiian shirt he was wearing or actually bought a book because the fonts on the cover were brilliantly designed.

The perception is that your tweaking and polishing and making things as close to perfect is being done for those whom you seek to serve. Reality is that the community is not so demanding and it is all our own making, the fuss around mirror magic. The thrill of the chase is in showing up and shipping out your work or craft regularly, authentically and generously, not in chasing vanity.

 

Let the mirror remain on the wall, not be your wall to go over! And in any case, every mirror has two sides.

 

Time for some reflection?

 

ENDS

 

Daily. No, I am not talking about a newspaper, though even that makes it count day after day. Not letting go of the opportunity. Being relentless, slipping under your door(or in front), come hell or high water. Enough metaphorical talk.

 

A new day, is a chance to create better process, habits and assets. What are you doing every day that compounds and something that you can build on? Something you create or learn that makes you more valuable, more sought after, respected. Curiosity skilled the cat.

 

Every day is a lot of days. And in the long run, what you do in the short run accumulates. When you spend every day working toward achieving your ultimate goals or just living your purpose consistently, you will be happy. Most probably, you will be happier than most.

So, whether it is practicing gratitude, learning something new, drawing on your well of creativity and expressing yourself, investing in me time, facing your fears, finding something you love and doing it, you would have done pretty well for yourself.

 

ENDS

 

It seems like a toss up. Well, it isn’t. Choice architecture has its say and it is actually pointing us in the right direction. Provided, we are prepared to walk that path.

 

A slight recalibration is all that might be required. To alter a habit, for the better. You want to be heard. Or have you considered listening instead? The temptation is to doom scroll on social media and post a nasty comment. Or would you opt to call someone and make their day? Taking a nap looks enticing. Or you go for a walk and get some me-time. You can make a purchase for interim joy and the thrill of the chase(and add to the Stuffocation at home). Or, you can consider making a donation. Reacting angrily to an email might be the go to default. Or, perhaps a polite conversation can clear the air.

There is a GPS setting of our mind. There too, you can avoid tolls. It might be the route less trodden but a journey worth embarking on.

 

Ready to be a Contrarian? Or, you prefer staying the course?

 

ENDS

 

 

When I talk about links and connections I am not referring to airports or airlines. The rant here is about us humans in full protein form.

 

Social media has made ‘connections to be the vanilla metric’ to thirst after. And we do wave the number of connections flag with impunity.

 

All these said, there is a yawning gap. We all want to be connected. But we shy away from being the connector. We want to be respected. But, are you delivering on that front with your side of the bargain? Trust deficit is a collective responsibility. We want to be trusted but do you trust?

There is so much opportunity we are leaving on the table. Connections, hope, optimism, progress, resolution, possibilities are all birds of the same feather. A collective bias can give it immense energy and meaning.

 

We don’t have to wait for everyone to get going. It can begin with someone. You.

 

When you wear a new lens and begin to re-imagine, in a lot of cases, you are offered perspectives that are better, richer and game changing. You might find the video on the below link interesting or even inspiring.

Knew Thinking. New Possibilities.   

 

ENDS

 

It used to be called the ‘Welcome Kit‘. When you applied for a credit card, especially a premium one, and you were fortunate enough to be validated and considered eligible. The courier would come with a fancy pack  and a collateral running into over 150 pages. While the onus should ideally be on us to read all the pages, the clauses(clawses?), the ‘fine print‘, rarely do people go through it in entirety.

 

Deep into the booklet, somewhere on page 74, will be those easy to miss fine print in font 6.5 size which houses the shock & awe. Just when you are settling into your newly acquired status of hypermetropia. Those clever clauses which reaffirm that it is top down and you can only be a mute spectator. Where even caveats have back up caveats. Disclaimers and thatclaimers where you end up having nothing to claim. Do they still call it ‘Welcome Kit‘?

 

Organisations and individuals do it all the time. Your data is trespassed on unabashedly – apparently the fine print that you ignored coming to terms with offers carte blanche entitlement to the organisation to spam you. To lend it to other vendors. Use it behind your back. Imagine if they are doing all these, you are left wondering what else are they doing?

 

Nothing in fine print is ever good news. As they say “Read the fine print or be imprisoned by it “. No, I am not going there- Instruction Manuals. Every time someone looks to the manual for instructions, they’re acknowledging that you know something they don’t know. The worst instructions fail to have empathy for that gap.

 

In an era which is increasingly considering ‘designing for trust‘, isn’t it time to say Not Fine?

ENDS

 

 

 

Scholars believe that the term “race to the bottom” first appeared in a 1933 Supreme Court ruling in the case of Liggett vs. Lee. Justice Louise Brandeis, writing his opinion on the case, argued that in order to gain a competitive advantage, firms are incentivized to undercut one another while governments are incentivized to deregulate(Investopedia).

 

Being cheaper in the quest for short term gain is a calling. It is a trap. It is a race to the bottom.

 

If you are a freelancer, you have experienced this more often than not. In the ‘gig economy’, the ‘yet another‘ is always a commodity. You are short changing yourselves to land business thinking that the next project might fetch you better or higher. That remains a myth. You have just boarded the one way train in the race to the bottom.

 

The problem with the race to the bottom is that you do feel that you are winning. In reality you are far from that. Because you are facing the brunt of the brutality of less and inferior. Solution- find better clients. And there are better clients I assure you.

 

Although there are legitimate ways to compete for business and investment dollars, the term race to the bottom is used to characterize unhinged tit-for-tat competition that has crossed ethical lines and could be destructive for the parties involved.

 

This could be because of cut throat competition. But, it is a vicious cycle, a whirlpool from which you cannot extricate yourself without compromise. When companies engage in the race to the bottom, its impact is felt beyond the immediate participants. Lasting damage can be done to the environment, employees, the community, and the companies’ respective shareholders.

 

The other side of the coin is consumer expectations for perennially lower prices and the squeeze on profit margins for organisations. The domino effect being sub optimal quality of goods and services and needless to say the market for such goods and services dry up. It is a bottomless pit with no winners.

 

A better alternative is: You’ll pay more than you hoped but get more than you paid for.

 

Ready, steady, race…?

 

ENDS

 

 

 

Our track record of prediction is abysmal to say the least. The world is far far more complicated than we think it is. That in itself is not a problem, except of course when we don’t know that we don’t know. Little wonder that some wise men(read A Lincoln | P Drucker) ended up saying “the best way to predict the future is to invent it”. 

 

Being prudent in hindsight is a given and most of us are quick to pat ourselves on the back for our ability to narrate backward and in connecting the dots to make sense of what transpired(after the event only mind you), at inventing stories that we have a good handle on the past. Little regard is given to what Nicholas Nassim Taleb calls Black Swan moments.

 

Despite the extremely shallow empirical record we have about predicting, we continue to crystal ball into the future and ‘project‘ as if we are masters at it. The truth is far from that. There was no prediction about Post It notes, fax machines, computers, internet, touch phones, laser etc. And the appreciation of all these took a while to come into being. Needless to say , they were all Black Swan moments but our civilisation continues to look the other way.

Yogi Berra is one of the great baseball coaches of our times and he had to say this “It is tough to make predictions, especially about the future“. He later said “the future isn’t what it used to be“. The ‘enterprise of predicting‘ has several holes that can be plugged only with what may seem contrarian thinking.

 

Talk about contrarian and look at this- the gains in our knowledge and our ability to model(or predict) the world is dwarfed by the increase in its complexity- implying a greater and deeper role for the unpredicted. The larger the role of the Black Swan, greater the difficulty in predicting.

 

With predictions now having a digital walkway and more data being available at your fingertips than ever before,(ideally) we ought to be getting better at predicting what’s going to happen next and determining who’s good at that and who isn’t.  That said, our biases and beliefs are a strong force and confidence(based on accumulated knowledge) and volume(multiple used cases if you may) are certainly not a replacement for seeing the way things are and understanding ground reality.

 

ENDS