Month: October 2020

The downward spiral

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

As usual, over the weekend I tried to catch up with newsletters and articles to make sense of the world over the past week or so. Over the past few weeks, I had been following the narrative of things going wrong in business, and as I read some of those articles, that gnawing feeling came back – something’s not right with how things are in the business world.

Over the past few months, there has been constant reporting and scrutiny of how big tech companies, which at one point of time were hailed as superlative, are now being called out for wrongdoings. It’s been the same with startups too. And with companies in other established industries.

Well, one of the reasons for this level of outrage could be the disconcerting factor of how the current situation has resulted in small companies and businesses folding up, traditional setups destroyed, while tech-led businesses and large corporations have flourished.

Another could be the fact that after years of hoping that the online economy would open up channels of equality and grounds of fair play, we have realised that it is after all still the same old place, with people having better access to resources winning over those with less. And hence the backlash.

Or it could be just the fact that people have finally woken up and realised that all is not right with the world that we live in and they need to call out and correct the wrongdoings.

Whatever it may be, what I have realised is that without a doubt, there has been a constant churning for the worse. Companies that began with a heart of pure gold (or so they claimed), have compromised on their values. Leaders who espoused equality and fairness, have squandered the opportunity to abide by what they said initially. And startups which came into being to solve a problem and be different than the others, have disintegrated into being a newer version of those ‘others’.

In my mind, it all boils down to one aspect – it’s the human(s) leading the charge who have led this downwards spiral. The founders, the leaders, the executives, people who were tasked with leading the new wave and rising above others, haven’t been able to fulfil the potential that was expected or promised.

Having built a business myself, I know it’s not easy to be in those shoes. When one is in the saddle, every small bump has to be negotiated. Hurdles at almost every step have to be crossed. More so, if you are a startup or a company out to prove yourself in a new market. And there’s constant pressure. From your known ones, people who have invested in you or the company, from the customers et al.

And while your intention is to navigate all of these in the most ideal way possible, there are times when you fall down. When you have to take a detour to avoid a wide ditch. In times like those, you have to decide. Decide to do the right thing for everyone, without knowing what’s the correct answer. Taking a leap of faith sometimes.

As long as your heart is in the correct place, things would turn out to be fine. It’s when you allow those moments to move you into a different zone, one which you aren’t comfortable with, that things go wrong.

When investors advise you to adopt a different strategy contrary to what you wanted to do, for the sake of the market. Or competitors demand you to be more aggressive, forcing you to adopt practices not consistent with your values. That’s when the fault-lines appear and if not taken control over, lead to a crack, large enough to cause a chasm.

The trouble is, in a lot of the successful cases recently, these chasms have led to superior growth, opened up new vistas for the business, and led to the belief that the decision taken in those trying times was right. And as nothing succeeds like success, the new thought becomes the de-facto.

And then the downward spiral begins. Feeling reassured by the success and by the belief that things are fine, the chasm grows. Practices and policies get diluted. Things begin to change for the worse. Chasing numbers or growth or glory, decisions are taken that move away the company significantly from where it wanted to be, at the start. And that’s why the current backlash.

It’s not that the world is replete with these examples. There have been quite a few cases where the leaders have refused to budge and succeeded despite odds stacked against the right way of doing things. But they are far and few in between.

Perhaps, it is time for us to think about our responsibility individually and as we grow up in life and work, to resolve to do the right thing whenever we are leading the charge. Even if it means that we will take time to succeed. Or that we have to call out and correct the wrong-doing.

Because, the downward spiral isn’t something worth living for in the long run!

That Sweaty Feeling…

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

This Friday, I overslept and missed my morning workout. The day ended without any exercise as I ended up working till late.

It isn’t that I am an everyday workout person and can’t live without sweating it out. Although I do try and keep fit, it is usual for me to workout for only 4-5 days a week. The other 2-3 days, I catch up with some rest. Or on weekends, end up watching a late night movie or reading something, which keeps me in bed for long the next morning.

In fact, all my adult life, I have tried to imbibe some kind of fitness into my routine. But it has always been for a few days a week, never on all the 7 days. Only during the Army days, was there a disciplined approach/push to do some physical exercise every day. However, that was a special setting and a specific purpose.

But over the last few months I started noticing that on the days I worked out, I ended up being more active and felt better generally. Perhaps the side effects of age! Or maybe I can attribute it to the ill-effects of the pandemic induced work from home!!

So, last month I promised myself to engage in some or the other physical activity every day. Except for Sundays (got to keep one cheat day at least). And to measure it, I engaged the services of my smartwatch – constantly checking whether I have closed my rings or not and ensuring I do so every day.

And while keeping up the commitment hasn’t been easy, it has been a fun ride with brisk walks, strength training, treadmill runs, and so on. The time spent in the activity spares me from the daily humdrum of life, allowing me to focus on random trains of thought. And the sweat worked up during that time is refreshing, allows me to feel a rush within, which is always welcome given the otherwise sedentary lifestyle.

More importantly, it has given me a reason to get back to a routine everyday in the morning and helped avoid a lacklustre start to the day, which was something that was happening quite too often during the initial lockdown period.

As I lied down to sleep on Friday night, I felt guilty. For not having given myself that 30-45 minutes of time. I missed that sweaty feeling. And while somewhere in my subconscious mind I tried to justify the miss, as I drifted into my sleep, I promised myself to be more disciplined. Hopefully…

Recovering oneself

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

Goodnight, sleep tight! That’s what we said to each other at times. Wishing for the other person to sleep soundly and recover fully. The other day, as I was watching my daughter sleep next to me, I was reminded of this phrase.

There she was, sleeping in all her glory, without a worry in the world. Lying next to her, watching her angelic expressions, I was jealous and amazed at how she could just leave everything behind in her train of thoughts and go to sleep in 5-10 minutes, even when she wasn’t really very tired.

As I was wondering about it, I compared it with my own sleeping patterns off-late. I have never been one who slept immediately after hitting the sack. Always distracted by multiple chains of thoughts going through my mind, weird dreams about never-land, bouts of endless debates in my mind, and so on.

However, whatever sleep I got and maintained was always sufficient for me to be fresh for the next day. Whether less or more. Whether tired or not. It never used to matter.

But I noticed something unusual started happening in the last one year. I started getting erratic sleep, with my mind taking more time to switch off. And then, bang in the middle of the night, again getting activated. Preventing me from sleeping for a couple of hours at times.

At first, I ignored it, guessing that it was probably a passing phase. However, when it became a regular phenomenon and started affecting my waking hours, I resorted to hacking the problem.

Armed with a sleep tracking app on my smartwatch, I thought of understanding the core problem. But even after multiple days, I was nowhere close to cracking it. The erratic patterns continued. I even used sleep inducing music at times, tried shallow breathing lying on my bed, etc. But to no avail.

And then, it dawned upon me. I was having trouble sleeping, as I was not able to switch off mentally. With multitude of things needing my attention during the working day, there was a propensity to leave some things/discussions hanging in between, to be completed later. There were always a few things that were unresolved at the end of the day. And that was creating a dissonance within myself, leading to the heightened mind activity during the night.

Having understood the root cause finally, I consciously started trying to plan my day better and ensuring that I close on all the conversations/discussions the same day, or bring them to a logical point, from where to start off the next day. This simple hack made my mind accept the interim state of affairs and made it less anxious, resulting in some respite for me in the night. And slowly, the sleep pattern has improved.

It has been about 2 months that I have made those changes and it has helped me immensely professionally also. I seem to have more time on my hands to finish off things on the new day, without the burden of past discussions. My daily planning has led to a more structured and focused work pattern and better outcomes. And it has taught me one important aspect – closure, in whatever way, helps.

As we navigate the complex world of work, along with the various other aspects of life, I think it is imperative upon us to structure it better and give ourselves enough time to close matters on any given day. After all, winding down and recovering after a hard day’s work is the best remedy for being at your best the next day…

Success!?

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

A conversation with a friend over the weekend, on what’s happening around with people, led to an interesting perspective when we ventured into the topic of how are people reacting to the situation…

We were discussing about how the pandemic has hit people and business. We talked about friends from the business side, who have been hit hard by the slowdown. And about people who have lost their jobs or are in companies which are asking employees to leave.

And as we discussed this gloomy scenario, as well as when I was brooding afterwards, there were a few examples of how some have weathered the storm well or adapted well to it. A professional who had always been very conscious of his expenses and continues to exercise that caution and manage work well; a business-man who has identified new opportunities and pivoted his business to suit ground-reality; a senior manager who has made peace with hitting the ceiling in the organization.

This made me think about how we should measure success…

Humans are naturally competitive. We have been blessed with the survival instinct since our ape days and what made us save ourselves back in those times, has also helped us evolve and grow in the modern age. And that keeps us ticking as a race.

However, as we have grown and prospered, so has our hunger to succeed in everything we do. Whether it is studies, sports, work, or life in general, we measure our success relative to others.

A student is fed about how his success in life depends on studies and goaded to try harder. A girl playing sport (if the parents allow it after all) is made to focus on how to succeed at the professional level. Everyone at work is seeking the summit. And all of us want the best house to live in, the best car to drive, and the best vacation.

While there is nothing wrong in seeking the best or aspiring for the same, it creates a lot of pressure on us as individuals. It forces us to forego certain charms of daily life and/or miss the moments that matter after all. And in that race, sometimes we lose ourselves also.

As I thought more about it, the question that was tops was – then how do we cushion ourselves? How do we be a part of the society and try our best but without driving ourselves to the edge? And how do we maintain peace with the way life has laid down the cards for us and go on with it in the best way possible?

One of the plausible ways is to define the ceiling or floor for oneself – the room that we can live in comfortably without feeling lost. Another possible approach is to decide on what’s the parameter for success at every milestone and go about it in a methodical manner, without worrying about what lies next. Maybe dissociate ourselves from what others think or talk about us and focus instead on what success means to us.

There is no single right answer here. All of us have our own thought process and background to contend with, which makes us approach this question in our own way. However, if ever there was a question that we need to answer for ourselves, to make our life less complicated and more enjoyable, it is perhaps this. By defining our metrics, aligned with our life’s purpose, we can do a world of good to ourselves and to the ones who we love.

Will perhaps save many a heart attacks. Will also perhaps make the world a better place to live in!