Hustler = bad, hustle = good

A few months ago I sat with my friend Scott Pollack, discussing our common hatred for being called Hustler. We have all heard - Entrepreneurs need to be Hustlers, Business Development folks need to be hustlers. As Scott said in his blog 'an enterprising and often dishonest person, esp. one trying to sell something.'

The book 'The Startup of You' by  Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha does clarify the terms a big. Hustler is bad - you don't want to be known as someone who could be potentially dishonest. But to hustle - To move or act energetically and rapidly - is good. To pursue opportunities aggressively is good. All while maintaining integrity. So hustle, but don't be a hustler.

5 ways to listen better - Julian Treasure

Here are the 5 ways?

1. Three minutes of silence a day

2. Mixer -  how many channels of sounds can I hear in a noisy place

3. Savoring -  enjoy mundane sounds your dryer, the fan of your computer

4. Listening positions-  You can listen in different ways - active vs. passive, reductive vs. expansive, empathetic vs. critical

5. RASA (i.e., juice in Sanskrit) - Receive (pay attention to the other person), Appreciate (via little sounds), Summarize, Ask

Amazing TED talk by Susan Cain

If you are an introverts, or know any introverts (all of you!), this is a must see talk! After watching this, I realize that I am an ambivert - actually love social gatherings, love to take the limelight in Public Speaking and Improv, but after a few hours, want to retreat back to my shelf.

Scarcity

There was a time when information are scarce. News took forever to travel. Now with a a few clicks and keystrokes, you can know a lot.

Information is no longer scarce. Ability to apply the information and change habits is still scarce. Really 'grokking' concepts is still scarce. Initiative to act on the information is still scarce.

Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

Yes, as you might have guessed, this post is about Steve Jobs. I was deeply saddened at the passing way of this legend. And at a young age of 56.

Bloomberg Businessweek has a special issue dedicated completely to Steve Jobs; his life from childhood to his passing. Did you know that

• Steve smoked pot and hash as a high schooler, and reminded employees and reporters over the years, dropped LSD.
• He stuck around Reed college for one and a half years after he dropped out, sleeping on friends' floors, depositing bottles and living off the money from that.
• He was fascinated with Buddhism and traveled to India with his friend from Reed College

The more I read, the more I realized - the Apple commercial below is all about Steve - the crazy one.






Oh. One more thing. I also saw the TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert - the author of "Eat, Pray, Love." Her message is that none of us is a genius. We should instead think that we "have" a genius within us. But Why?

Being creative carries an inherent problem - there is a high risk of failure. A high chance that no one would care for your work. And even if you succeed, what happens after that? Is your biggest success behind you? Are you never going to be as successful as you were before?

This is a great burden to carry for anyone. That is why she advocates believing in a that you have something within you that 'creates' the creativity; something you can not completely control. And it is not your burden to be creative, but joint responsibility with the genius within you.




I am not sure if Steve believed in this philosophy. But I believe that he probably did. This is why he had all the success that he did, one after another. And this is why when he passed away, it was not because of anything to do with his creativity. So cheers to the genius within all of us.

P.S. Some of this blog post might be cryptic unless you see both videos

Sources of Inspiration

What are your sources of inspiration? What do you do keep yourself from giving up, from continuing to work on that business, or that business school application, or that next big presentation?

I believe that working on the tasks and visualizing achieving the end goal is a powerful motivator to keep going. However, I try to practice regular routines to keep myself inspired.

1. Every 3 days or so, I watch a TED talk. I try to go and find an inspiring talk that is not necessarily related to anything I am working on.

2. I blog. Blogging requires one to reflect on one's life, and reflection often highlights to me all the great things I am blessed with. This inspires me to keep going.

3. I read. My reading list normally consists of business books with an inspirational flair. Currently, I am reading Onward by Howard Schultz and Do More Faster by Brad Feld and David Cohen.

4. I spend time with family and friends. This is a great energizer and inspires me tremendously. I am a pretty friendly guy in general, but its those few close relationships that I cherish the most.


What inspires you?

The 3 A's of Awesome

It is pretty awesome!

Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

TED Talks Steven Johnson: Where good ideas come from

Ever feeling down and uninspired? Need something to energize you? For me, watching to a TED talk is often the way to re-energize me. Recently, I watched a TED talk by Steve Johnson, author of the book 'Where Good Ideas come from.' Here is a quick summary of the talk:

1. An idea is not a single item; its a network

2. Ideas are the combination of two or more 'plain old things'

3. Ideas come together in chaotic environments where people from diverse backgrounds come together. Thus your work place should be just a little chaotic, with people sitting close to each other

4. When people share their mistakes and thoughts with others (e.g., around a conference table), it is likely to generate a lot more ideas

5. While great ideas might seem to come in this one magical moment, they have long incubation periods. They have been there in your mind: you just realize it around that one moment you might think of as the 'Eureka' moment

6. Allow your hunches to connect with other people's hunches. The value of protecting Intellectual Property is overrated. We should spend more time sharing ideas than protecting them

Kellogg Convocation for 2nd years

This Thursday, I attended Kellogg’s convocation event for 2^nd years, hosted by the KSA and by the Dean’s office. The convocation was held to welcome students back to school for their 2^nd year, and the event was followed by welcome reception, giving us a chance to catch up with our peers over friend chicken and brownies (that’s what I ate).

KSA president Zach Hollander kicked off the event with a welcome from the KSA, reminding us of our responsibilities as 2^nd years, to help and guide the first years. I think that atleast 90% of Kellogg 2^nd years would end up helping 1^st years in some way or another. Why? Well, quite simply put, we received an amazing amount of help from our seniors. And we are going to give back. For me, that means leading the Public Speaking Club, helping with the High Tech Trek to the west coast, and helping students with case prep as part of the Consulting club. And helping in any other way that I can.

Zach’s speech was followed by the customary look back at the 1^st year through a slide show of pictures with some irrelevant music playing in the background. One good think that they did this year was to crowd source the selection of pictures, by letting us upload pictures to a Google document. As a result, we did not end up with 50 pictures of the KSA leaders and 20 of their best friends. Well done KSA!

Dean Blount took the stage next, and updated us on all the work she has been doing since she joined Kellogg. It’s quite remarkable how much she seems to have achieved in a few months. Her key message to us was – take some time off the self-reflect. Some of the most successful people that she knows achieved the success because they took the time to listen to the voice inside, which was telling them what to do. She suggested that we spend 5 hours away from all phones, people, email, Facebook, twitter etc. – at which we all gasped. 5 hours? I mean if she had said 30 minutes, I might have been OK, but 5 hours? Such is the level of addiction with all these gadgets, social networks etc., that I am struggling to finish this bog post without checking email or updating my status to ‘writing a blog post.’

After a few more updates from Dean Roxanne Hori from the Career Management Center and Professor Michelle Buck, Kellogg’s director of Leadership Initiatives, we got some invaluable advice from Professor of the Year, David Besanko. He had a very simple and inspiring message, “Learning Hurts, Embrace the Pain.” He explained that he meant the following: We all have a tendency to self-select courses, teammates, situations that are within our comfort zone. It takes effort to step outside the comfort zone, and to do activities that will truly develop us. Professor Besanko said that his is most likely the last 9 months we would have dedicated to our learning, and to take full advantage of these, we should try to do the following:

1. Take courses outside your comfort zone. So if you are a marketer uncomfortable with numbers (I am totally stereotyping here), take Financial Decisions. Or if you uncomfortable with speaking in public, take a course which will force you to voice your opinions, or join the Public Speaking Club (blatant advertising for my club, of course).
2. Build teams from people you typically you do not work with. I noticed that several of my teams from 1^st year largely consisted of Indian guys. Not that there is anything wrong with Indian guys, it’s just that we lose out on the variety of opinion that a more diverse team might bring. So this year I am consciously trying to team up with people who I have not worked within the past.
3. Take a principled, fact-supported stance on issues being discussed in class. Debate, express your opinion, even if the majority is against you.
4. Last, but not least, build some work product that you are proud of. This might be a case that you write with a professor, which gets used in subsequent Kellogg courses.

I left the convocation really excited for the 2^nd year. One of the things I am really looking forward to this quarter is the Venture Lab course, through which I will be working with OCA Ventures as an intern. So here’s to the 2^nd year, and beyond.