About a month ago, I hit my 600 day streak on Duolingo - that is almost a year and eight months. Sometimes I manage only two minutes, sometimes 20, but for 600 straight days - now 625, I have been learning a language (Spanish if you’re curious) every. single. day.
Talk about consistency.
I recall having thought of putting it on LinkedIn or Instagram for fun back at 600 day streak, and as I had not done it until last night, it got me thinking: can one be really consistent in certain areas of life, and horribly inconsisten in others? And if so, why?
For example, my streaks at a broad level:
Ice bath everyday: at one point 2.5 years; now at least once a week for 5 years
Paying bills on time, and NOT paying credit card fees: ~ 20 years (couple of misses)
Work email inbox zero - at least once a week, often more: ~ 20 years
Personal email inbox zero - at least twice a month: ~ 20 years
Some sort of exercise 3-5x a week: ~27 years
Why then, my consistency on LinkedIn and Social media is so poor?
LinkedIn: -negative 1 year. I have got my idea board with ~50 posts, assuming I post once a week.
Instagram: -negative 4 years. I thought of creating a travel blog during Covid as I was about to travel after a break for for the first time in June 2020. I could have been the next Khaby Lame by now (one can dream!)
The few reasons I can think of are:
Too many options: myriads of topics to write about, too many travel pics to choose from, that in the end, I do nothing.
Close vs open ended: my consistent habits are about ONE thing, a closed ended problem so to say. Vs LinkedIn or IG, which is just open ended in terms of content, format etc.
Tangible vs intangible results: obvious
Overthinking: maybe I am trying to make every post ‘excellent’ and that’s stopping me from doing it altogether
Or, perhaps I am just avoiding sinking my time in to Social Media as many researchers advise!
What do you think? What are you doing to be able to post on your blog/LinkedIn etc with consistency?
Earlier this week, one of a founder I am mentoring and I were talking about prioritisation and focus vs experimenting and expanding. I recalled an article James Clear recently wrote on this, which summarises thus: “When nothing is working, explore and make a lot of small bets. After something starts working, double down on what works best. When that stops working, explore and make a lot of small bets again.” (link: https://jamesclear.com/3-2-1/august-17-2023)
We then spoke about 'getting things done'. How to get things done is one of the oft-debated topics- efficiency vs efficacy, speed vs velocity, and so on and so forth. We ended with this question: doing clever stuff poorly or simple stuff brilliantly?
Is it counter-intuitive in this age and era to say that “doing simple stuff brilliantly will beat doing clever stuff poorly any day of the week?”
> Simple, boring workouts done consistently will get you much fitter than clever ones that you don’t do or do poorly and get injured.
> The simple, boring investments made over a long period will likely get you rich.
> Similarly, the simple boring work done over a long period will make you stand out.
>> It is not the cleverness of the idea but the simplicity of the execution that wins in the long run.
Combining the above two: James’ theory about experimenting, and excellently doing simple stuff is one of the most assured ways to create value and win.
Yesterday I read The Techno-Optimist Manifesto by Marc Andreessen, founding partner of Andreessen Horowitz and founder of Netscape and Opsware.
One part inspirational, one part funny read - as if it were written by someone high on something. That joke apart, I found it a thought/provoking read and tried to take some positives. Some interesting points:
1. Civilization is built on technology.
2. There are only three sources of growth: population growth, natural resource utilization, and technology. Of these, the population is decelerating or even declining; natural resources are limited. But technology is the only perpetual source of growth.
3. Free markets are the most effective, and the market economy is a discovery machine.
4. Centralized Planning is bad and doomed to fail.
4. Markets lift people out of poverty, and markets are an inherently individualistic way to achieve superior collective outcomes.
5. People only do things for other people for three reasons – love, money, or force
6. AI can save lives, and slowing down on AI can actually mean deaths.
.... and so on it goes. At one point, it claimed that the Earth could handle 50 billion people, and that is when I started questioning everything in there.
So I don't see things this way, but we can leave that aside. What I focused on instead and took inspiration from, was this quote "Give us a real world problem, and we can invent technology that will solve it."
On top of my head, five of the biggest issues we face as humanity are, and that both worry and excite me the most to work on:
1. Climate change
2. Pollution, especially plastic and micro-plastic pollution, which is seriously impacting everything from mountains to sea and all the flora and fauna.
3. The dichotomy of poverty and malnutrition on one hand, and obesity on the other. This is closely tied with overall health (no, not ageing.)
4. Inequality - and the acceleration of inequality in most countries in the past 30 years.
5. Energy resiliency and sufficiency - without impacting the Earth
What would you add to (or remove from) this list?
Here is to hoping the techno-optimists as well as other technologists, will focus on the key challenges more and more, rather than funding yet another [take your pick here] business pumping into the consumption economy.
For the curious-minded, here is the link to the article. Happy reading!
The ongoing Asian Games 2022 have been the best ever games for India. India have won a record 107 medals as of the end of Saturday - the penultimate day. This 107 is over 50% more than the 2018 games. What a phenomenal achievement by the wonderful athletes and may they continue to be even more successful! These folks have been through a lot of hardships - physical, emotional, financial and I am so happy to see them succeed.
It got me thinking about the old times, when we would be happy with whatever we won. And especially to Asian Games 2002, which I watched while in South Korea with Samsung. I traveled from Seoul to Busan just in time to see India win a Gold Medal in Women's 4 × 400 metres relay. Overall, India won 36 medals.
So what changed to have this threefold increase in 20 years and my five key takeaways that we can apply in life.
Priorities: Back in 2002 (or even until 2015), almost all parents and children prioritised education over sports or arts. Mind you, not all, but almost all. Study hard, go to an AIIMS/IIT/NIT/IIM, find a good job were what we were taught. This changed first slowly and then fast after the 2008 Olympics and the 2011 cricket world cup win. Now sports is a first choice career for many. #Prioritisation
Professionalism: Sports has become professional. India now has players and coaches who who know the deal, and have been to events at regional/global level. They have targets in mind. Compare this to when I was competing (at university level), we did not even have a half-decent coach. The ‘coach’ was mainly an administrator, who I saw twice a year - once at the athletic meet, second at award ceremony. #Professionalism
Access to facilities and information: the current athletes have access to world class (or soon to be world class) training facilities, and thanks to Google, YouTube and internet in general, they have access to all the information - from nutrition to training to rules to competitors and even remote coaching. #InformationIsKey
Access to sponsorship and money: there was never dearth of talent. But the talent did not have the means to go all the way. Now there are avenues for them in the form of grants, sponsorships, TV deals and so on. And the more you win, the more you get. #Incentives
Government and leadership: the leadership matters and how they go about it, matters even more. Earlier prime ministers and ministers used to declare an award, and that was it. Now it is totally different. The current prime minister has had a minister who is an Olympics Silver Medalist, and a few other Olympic level folks in his council. The prime minister also regularly posts about sports wins and losses, and invites these athletes to his residence. It is not an optic or just a 4-year drama anymore. And I am sure there are medal targets. #Leadership
Bonus # 6: age is just a number: the gap between the youngest and oldest medalists is 50 years! Roller skating bronze medallist Sanjana Bathula is 15, while Bridge silver medallist Jaggy Shivdasani is 65. The biggest lesson I draw from this is that it is NEVER TOO LATE. So if you have that business you have wanted to start, the fitness plan you want to get on, that country you have wanted to visit, just go for it! #NeverTooLate
The last decade has seen a craze for investing in start-ups. There are multiple avenues - angel investors, syndicates, VCs, secondaries and so on. Somehow, angel investing, just like VC, became too glamorised in circles. In my undergrad WhatsApp group, someone asked a question about the pros and cons of investing in start-ups? Having invested in 15 start-ups, I shared my views which resonated with the group. So I thought of sharing here in a bit more detail.
Pros:
You learn a lot: Business model, understanding of industry, product, or solution to a specific problem
Contribution: sometimes, you can make a very meaningful contribution to a founder's and startup's journey. Rarely, but it happens, it can be a matter of survival for the startup.
Connections: You make good connections, that can sometimes be helpful in your own career
Investment diversification: Good old diversification
If you're lucky, like very very lucky, you can make good money. Good enough to retire.
Cons:
High risk: your investment may not yield any return. Some investments, by nature, will not even return the principal.
Length: the bad investments go down fast. The good ones take a long time to fruition. You sit on paper gains for years, even over a decade.
Time Commitment: most investments need time commitment. More so if you want to learn/contribute.
Addictive: it is very very addictive. I don't know anyone who tasted a decent success to get out of investing. Beware.
It depends on your goals, what stage of life you are in and if you can afford to lose/park money for long. A wise man told me almost a decade back: invest in start-ups only what you can afford to lose.
I have found investing in startups very good for learning and have met some really interesting people - even a couple of rock stars in their fields. However, I have yet to make real money (not paper money) through exit in a startup.
What would you add to the list?