HabitStrong

Your mind CANNOT focus on a task if it subliminally fears that you are missing out on something more pressing. When you have that fear or anxiety, it does the following: 1. You multitask or leave a task incomplete (e.g., a half-written email) and jump to some other task. Ever done that? Who hasn't? 2. To escape that anxiety, you check your WhatsApp, Instagram, Slack, whatever... 3. When anxious, the most intelligent part of your brain -- your prefrontal cortex -- is less in control. It affects your ability to focus, control temptations, and act logically. You act like your intelligence has gone down. I am not trying to scare you -- this is really what happens. That is why we need clear priorities. And you can start with something simple -- at the start of each day, look at all your tasks and pick two or three that you want to get done. There are many frameworks to prioritize (e.g., do an urgent vs. important rating), but I don't want to get lost in the weeds -- the important thing is that you prioritize, and pick just a few tasks. Then drop everything else and work on the stuff you picked up. This is not theory -- I have extensively practiced and tested it. A man who can drop 19 out of 20 things, gets one thing done. The one who worries about all 20, does nothing. - Rajan *** Break free from phone addiction and boost productivity with our self-paced program. Build focus and improve mental health. https://www.habitstrong.com/undistractable/

In 2010, at an investor event at the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai, I was dazzled by a company called Opto Circuits. Their polished presentation, storytelling, and impressive product display left no doubt that a medical device giant was emerging from India. The founder won the ‘NextGen Entrepreneur for the Year’ Award for 2012 from Forbes India. And today, the company is dead. Underneath all the dazzle, the company was selling commoditized products from China, without any brand or technology. They were pushing sales to hospitals but payments were not coming in for the next 10 months, and many would never come in. However, all this hype jacked up the share prices to Rs 250. And to keep up the facade, the company did an acquisition in the US that bombed. Finally, 10 years later, the stock price was down by 99%, and then, the company shut down. The company fooled people and raised money, hoping somehow that the fake will become real. But what if they had gone slow and taken the time to solve a real problem, the right way? If there is a lesson here, it is this: There is no rush. Life is not running away. You don't have to become a unicorn in three years. You don't even need an award from Forbes. You can't fast-track life just as you can't make a tree grow overnight by pouring buckets of water and manure. Life takes time. Give it that time. - Rajan *** Boost your productivity and peace of mind with our 6-step system—less stress, more efficiency - https://www.habitstrong.com/zen-productivity/

Over the years, I have discovered this recipe for simplifying life and getting rid of melodrama. Allow me to share it: 1. Don't chase anything at the cost of 'peace of mind.' 2. Your health comes first – mental and physical. Everything else comes fifth (or lower). 3. Live within your means – don't get caught up in showing off. Tell yourself, ‘I am too smart for that.’ 4. Only do things that make sense – don’t chase optics. E.g., far too many entrepreneurs waste their life trying to impress investors or sound cool. Waste of time, if you ask me. 5. Focus on your journey – you don’t have to defeat others to win. Success is not a zero-sum game – it never was. 6. Never borrow to consume. ‘Debt’ is ‘death.’ 7. Anyone telling you how to make lots of money, quickly, is a scamster -- run from them. - Rajan *** Boost your productivity and peace of mind with our 6-step system—less stress, more efficiency - https://www.habitstrong.com/zen-productivity/

The cheerleaders are quiet. When Pharmeasy acquired Thyrocare, online influencers were cheering how Indian startups have 'matured' and how a nascent startup acquiring a mature company showed their 'coming of age', whatever that meant. Just a year or two ago, all you could hear about was fundraising, unicorns, and acquisitions. Nobody was asking if these businesses were viable. Somehow, funding and 'growth' would take care of everything. Now, that things have gone south -- as they had to -- the cheerleaders are silent. Everybody, including VCs, has suddenly discovered the importance of profitability and is talking about a funding winter. What the hell is funding winter? Has the economy tanked? No. Has the demand declined? No. The economy is just fine. The only thing that has changed is the investor FOMO. What was going on was a subtle ponzi scheme, where the entrepreneurs and early stage investors were getting rich at the cost of the late stage investors. But like all ponzi schemes, this also came to an end. The only lesson from this whole saga is this: Never forget the fundamentals. The more you ignore them, they harder they will bite you. - Rajan *** Boost your productivity and peace of mind with our 6-step system—less stress, more efficiency - https://www.habitstrong.com/zen-productivity/

In a leadership course at Wharton, the professor would ask, "What qualities should a good leader have?" Some student would say, "Vision." The professor would then parrot back, "Yes, without vision, you can't have leadership." Then another student would say, "Integrity." The professor would repeat, "Yes, integrity is the backbone of leadership." And this charade went on and on. With that course, I lost all faith in how leadership is taught in B-schools. And this is not a reflection on Wharton -- I consider it one of the best B-schools in the world, if not the absolute best. But this class was an exception. What is leadership? Can it be taught in classrooms? Why is teaching it so hard? One reason leadership is so hard to teach is that there is no single quality called 'leadership.' Different situations require different skills to lead. Sometimes, you need to inspire. On other occasions, you need to display courage under fire, kindness, smart problem-solving, and so on. But whichever aspect of leadership you take, it is a quality of mind. And reciting from a list of qualities hasn't helped anyone. Case studies and examples that lead to a robust discussion may have some value. But ultimately, learning leadership is a lot like learning how to ride a bike. Get on the bike, take a few falls, and then learn. If you have never been on a bike and never fallen, you are not a biker. The same goes for a leader. - Rajan *** Break free from phone addiction and boost productivity with our self-paced program. Build focus and improve mental health. https://www.habitstrong.com/undistractable/

The biggest killer of productivity is not laziness -- it is anxiety. You can have the greatest productivity software, but if you are anxious, you can't get anything done. Here is why. To do any thoughtful work, our brain's pre-frontal cortex (PFC) has to do the problem-solving, planning, and focusing. Like the conductor of an orchestra, our PFC directs our attention and controls the neural circuits responsible for getting the work done. But when we are anxious, as a safety measure, our brain switches off the PFC because when we are in danger, it is the time to act, not think. Thinking can slow us down and get us killed. Now, we can no longer plan, focus, or respond thoughtfully. As a result, anyone suffering from anxiety will 100% have focus and productivity problems. It is not their fault -- this is the nature of anxiety. That is why, creating a low-stress working environment is the highest ROI thing any organization can do. - Rajan *** Boost your productivity and peace of mind with our 6-step system—less stress, more efficiency - https://www.habitstrong.com/zen-productivity/

On the D-day of a consulting engagement at McKinsey, the team thrilled the client with a proposal to cut millions of dollars in cost. But the senior partner heading the engagement told the client, "What we are doing is polishing your furniture while your house is on fire." I have shared this story earlier but am resharing it because today, everybody seems very busy and is glorifying long hours. As an entrepreneur, I can work 20 hrs a day and still not be done with my work. And I bet the same is true for you. But are we working on stuff that truly matters? People think that startups are hard because you have to work hard. Wrong. Startups are hard because it is hard to figure out the right thing to do. So every few weeks, step back and ask yourself, "What can I do to create the highest impact with my time?" The biggest lesson I have learned as an entrepreneur is this: If you get your priorities right, hard work will help. Else, you will also just be polishing furniture. - Rajan *** Break free from phone addiction and boost productivity with our self-paced program. Build focus and improve mental health. https://www.habitstrong.com/undistractable/

We think we want money. But what we really want is for our days to be happy and joyful. We want to love the work we do. We want good relationships. We want the freedom to spend our time the way we like. We want good health and peace of mind. In short, we want a good life. But since all these things are hard to get, money becomes a proxy for everything. And in the beginning, money is not a bad proxy -- it does seem to work. But soon, its benefits start tapering off. However, our mind says -- that can't be. Surely, money can do more -- I just need more of it. So you try to earn more and go for fancier vacations, flashier cars, and bigger houses. But all in vain. And by the time you realize it, most of life is over. That is when people find solace in other things (e.g., spirituality). I don't have a solution to this conundrum nor do I have any great wisdom to share. But one thing I can say -- if you are going to do something when you are sixty or seventy, why not do it now? Don't wait for the lottery -- it won't change your life all that much. - Rajan *** Boost your productivity and peace of mind with our 6-step system—less stress, more efficiency - https://www.habitstrong.com/zen-productivity/

Years ago, I was involved in organizing the National Games in Trivandrum, where two people did a skydiving demo for the opening ceremony. In this insanely dangerous stunt, these parajumpers were to land in a stadium, inside a busy city. And once the parachutes opened, you could see that they were drifting off course. Though they managed to correct their descent, one of the jumpers (a lady working with Railways) landed on the side of the stadium, where her leg got caught in a drain cover. She broke her leg in one of the most horrifying accidents I have seen. A few days later, for the closing ceremony, they had again planned some parajumps. We watched with our hearts in our mouth but this time, the jumps were done by thoroughly trained Air Force guys. They kept a white bedsheet in the middle of the stadium and almost every one of them gently landed right on the bedsheet. If you had only seen the Air Force guys, you would have imagined that parajumping is a cakewalk. When someone makes something seem too easy, it is often because of their expertise. If you become exceptionally good at anything, people may feel that what you are doing is a cakewalk. Sometimes, you might not even get full credit. You may not feel happy but that is the highest compliment you can get.Years ago, I was involved in organizing the National Games in Trivandrum, where two people did a skydiving demo for the opening ceremony. In this insanely dangerous stunt, these parajumpers were to land in a stadium, inside a busy city. And once the parachutes opened, you could see that they were drifting off course. Though they managed to correct their descent, one of the jumpers (a lady working with Railways) landed on the side of the stadium, where her leg got caught in a drain cover. She broke her leg in one of the most horrifying accidents I have seen. A few days later, for the closing ceremony, they had again planned some parajumps. We watched with our hearts in our mouth but this time, the jumps were done by thoroughly trained Air Force guys. They kept a white bedsheet in the middle of the stadium and almost every one of them gently landed right on the bedsheet. If you had only seen the Air Force guys, you would have imagined that parajumping is a cakewalk. When someone makes something seem too easy, it is often because of their expertise. If you become exceptionally good at anything, people may feel that what you are doing is a cakewalk. Sometimes, you might not even get full credit. You may not feel happy but that is the highest compliment you can get. - Rajan *** Boost your productivity and peace of mind with our 6-step system—less stress, more efficiency - https://www.habitstrong.com/zen-productivity/

Most professors teaching leadership in B-schools have never been in the hot seat or held leadership roles. Most consultants advising companies have never worked in business roles (I was one of them). Most people mentoring startups have never done startups. What does it tell you? Telling others what to do is easy. Doing it is hard. - Rajan *** Break free from phone addiction and boost productivity with our self-paced program. Build focus and improve mental health. https://www.habitstrong.com/undistractable/

In 2008, I had a lunch-cum-job interview with a very successful New York-based fund manager, who had made hundreds of millions of dollars from investing. I asked him, "What has been the hardest part of your job?" He said, "There was a time when for two years, I had nothing to do. The stocks were so overpriced in the bull market, that I could not make any investments. "So every day, I would put on my suit and tie, come to office, and maybe meet a friend for lunch. Then I would go home." It might look like he wasted those two years. But that is what saved him as he did not fritter away his capital, and when the opportunity showed up, he was ready. Sometimes, the hardest thing in the world is to be patient and just wait. Everything is impermanent and keeps changing. And someday your chance will come. But when that chance comes, be ready -- whether it means sharpening your skills or preserving your capital. Play the long game. If you can combine patience with readiness, your success is pre-destined. - Rajan *** Boost your productivity and peace of mind with our 6-step system—less stress, more efficiency - https://www.habitstrong.com/zen-productivity/

A friend of mine was once interning with a major Wall Street bank. One day, on a Friday evening, his boss asked him to make a presentation and share it by Sunday, ensuring that his weekend was ruined. My friend did not understand the urgency but there was little he could do. So he did the work and sent out the document on Sunday morning. But he also added a 'read receipt' to the email. And it turned out that his boss opened the email only on Monday afternoon. So much for the urgency. In the corporate world, a lot of the deadlines are just made up by somebody. And the junior folks end up spending late nights and unreasonable hours chasing them. What is the solution to this? I think we need a culture shift. We have to normalize people probing the deadline and its underlying basis. All we should care about is getting the best work done -- not indulging in power plays. And the best work doesn't happen on late nights or weekends -- it happens when we are fresh, mentally alert, and happy. - Rajan *** Boost your productivity and peace of mind with our 6-step system—less stress, more efficiency - https://www.habitstrong.com/zen-productivity/

Conventional wisdom says: Prioritize tasks that are urgent AND important. No -- this advice isn't good enough. If something is urgent and important, it is called 'firefighting.' And firefighting destroys peace of mind. So you should be asking: How did an important task become urgent? Did we procrastinate on it for too long? Did we not anticipate the deadline? Something went wrong -- what? Important things should ideally be done before they become urgent. Of course, some tasks inevitably show up at the last minute. But that should be a rarity. To grow your career, here is a metric to track: What % of your time are you spending on important but non-urgent stuff? My guess is that 50-70% would be a great outcome. Living from crisis to crisis leads to only one thing -- burnout. - Rajan *** Boost your productivity and peace of mind with our 6-step system—less stress, more efficiency - https://www.habitstrong.com/zen-productivity/

About 20 years back, I stopped watching TV. It all started with this addiction to TV I had started developing in the early 2000s, when I would mindlessly switch on the TV after a stressful day at work. Soon, I started worrying about missing this or that episode, or some random movie. FOMO (fear of missing out) had kicked in. I was so disgusted that one day, I stopped watching TV for good. And within a week or two, all the FOMO was gone. For the same reason, even though I have a Netflix subscription, I have not opened it for 6 to 8 months. Because once you get in the groove, it starts playing on your mind. To overcome FOMO, just step out of it totally for a week or two -- it will automatically subside. So does it mean we should stop consuming entertainment? Not really. But always ask yourself how you feel about it. Does it enrich your life or give you lasting joy? If not, put hard boundaries on how much you consume these things. Our mind will want whatever we feed it -- whether junk or nourishment. And what we consume is what we become. So choose carefully. - Rajan *** Break free from phone addiction and boost productivity with our self-paced program. Build focus and improve mental health. https://www.habitstrong.com/undistractable/

Long ago, a friend who took the NDA/military career route was telling me about the bayonet charge routine in the army. In a bayonet charge, you run towards and attack an enemy bunker typically defended by a machine gun firing 10 bullets per second. What are the odds of making it alive? Hardly any. So to increase the survival rate, soldiers scream so loudly that it terrorizes the enemy (in addition to boosting their own morale). The enemy soldier in the bunker often has enough time to shoot the attackers. But in the ensuing terror, if he loses focus, he gets killed. Whenever we face tough challenges in life, we are somewhat like that soldier in the bunker. We likely have what it takes to survive. But we get overwhelmed by the circumstances and freeze. And once you freeze, that is the end. Whatever your challenges in life, keep doing what has to be done. Learn to blank out the threatening noises around you. Don't freeze. 99 times out of 100, you will make it. - Rajan *** Boost your productivity and peace of mind with our 6-step system—less stress, more efficiency - https://www.habitstrong.com/zen-productivity/

Whenever consultants want to say something, they always have 'three things.' And we mock them for that :) But if you want to communicate well, there is some real science here -- the science of working memory. It turns out that our working memory can hold about 7 things (actually, it is 7 plus or minus 2 since there is some variability among people). Therefore, if I rattle off a 7-digit number, you will likely remember. But if I make it 8 or 9 digits, you may struggle. In fact, some people have argued that the working memory is not even 7, but more like 4. Regardless, it is easy to hold 3-4 things at a time in our memory. That is why phone numbers in the US are read in groups of 3 or 4 digits. And this is how I learned to communicate as a consultant. If you have a group of 10 or 12 things to communicate, never do that. 1. See if you can club them into sub-groups of 3-4 items each. 2. Give a thematic caption to those subgroups 3. Now you are back to 3 things on your list. That is why consultants always have 'three things.' Because the consultant who had '8 things' did not get more clients and had to start doing a real job :) - Rajan *** Boost your productivity and peace of mind with our 6-step system—less stress, more efficiency - https://www.habitstrong.com/zen-productivity/

A former McKinsey colleague of mine from Australia once said that his father would claim insulin from the Australian Health System and give it to their dog. But how did the dog become diabetic? Aren't animals supposed to be naturally healthy? Actually, we are all supposed to be healthy -- if we eat natural food, live a natural lifestyle, etc. But economic 'progress' has made that nearly impossible. And when we start feeding our dogs the way we eat, they also develop our ailments. When we talk about diet, we make it enormously complicated. Every discussion on diet sounds like we are preparing for a Mars mission. But it can be kept very simple. The US Navy SEALs, who have one of the toughest physical standards in the world, follow this special diet: Regular food. Their motto is 'lots of colors on the plate' and three glasses of milk daily. Occasionally, we may need some dietary supplements (e.g., Vitamin D, B12, etc.) or extra protein. But in general, don't complicate things when you don't have to. If a regular balanced diet works for the SEALs, it is likely to work for most of us. - Rajan *** Boost your productivity and peace of mind with our 6-step system—less stress, more efficiency - https://www.habitstrong.com/zen-productivity/

A corporate executive I was recently talking to, said that on many days, he has meetings from morning to evening -- sometimes without even a break for lunch. So I asked him, 'When do you get to do your work?' I thought he would say, "I stay up late and do it." Instead, he smiled and said, "Some days, after the meetings, I just shut down my laptop and go home." To all of us debating whether people should work 8 hrs or 16 hrs, we have to first let them work :) - Rajan *** Break free from phone addiction and boost productivity with our self-paced program. Build focus and improve mental health. https://www.habitstrong.com/undistractable/

I hate cowardice. Yet, on a few occasions, I was a coward. When I launched my first startup, I built a product that found zero customers -- zero revenue. Something was wrong. Maybe the product was wrong. Maybe, I had no idea how to market. (Now I know that it was the latter.) Regardless, my startup idea was dead. However, after investing so much time and money, I just couldn't accept the truth. So I told myself, 'The product is fine. All it is missing is this one critical feature. Once I add it, it will fly.' But when I added that feature, nothing happened. So I came up with another feature to add. And on and on it went. The more time and money I spent, the harder it became to accept my mistake. Accepting that I was wrong, needed courage. But somehow, I couldn't muster it. If life has taught me one lesson, it is this: Everybody makes mistakes. But once you realize it, shamelessly accept and fix your mistakes. Tell people that you were wrong. No matter how painful it is, the more you delay, the more painful it gets. Physical courage is rare. Moral courage is rarer. But probably the rarest is the courage to accept, "I was wrong." If you can find that courage, you will be undefeatable -- no matter what life throws at you. - Rajan *** Boost your productivity and peace of mind with our 6-step system—less stress, more efficiency - https://www.habitstrong.com/zen-productivity/

To be fit, you don't need to run 100-mile ultramarathons or climb Mt. Everest. To build physical strength, you don't need to be a powerlifter. To build good focus, you don't need to meditate in the Himalayas for a year. When we seek inspiration for change, we naturally come across these extreme examples (like David Goggins), which can be unintentionally misleading. These stories might persuade us that since we can't achieve these superhuman feats, we might as well give up and accept the status quo. Don't do that. You don't need to do anything extreme (unless that is your passion). Even if you run 3-5 km regularly, you are fitter than 90-95% of the people. Even if you go to gym 4 times a week, you are doing great. Setting the bar unrealistically high only becomes an excuse for doing nothing. Instead, set goals you can hit this week. Aim for 80-90% consistency. And then, repeat, week after week. That is all you need to flourish in any area of life. You don't have to be a superhuman. Then what's the excuse for doing nothing? - Rajan *** Break free from phone addiction and boost productivity with our self-paced program. Build focus and improve mental health. https://www.habitstrong.com/undistractable/