What “triggers” a flow state for you? Is it nature? Exercise? A specific activity like writing or a physical sport? Music? All of these stacked together at once?! If you want to get into flow states on a reliable and consistent basis, an important aspect of this is learning what gets you INTO flow in … Continue reading How I use flow triggers at work to improve focus, memory, and learning
Not Everyone Is Motivated by Money
Towards the later days of BrainGain, shortly before I ultimately moved on, I learned an important lesson about motivation...and how it’s different for everyone. While many of us believe that money is the sole motivator in life, from my experience I have seen that it’s actually quite the opposite - Money is the easy low … Continue reading Not Everyone Is Motivated by Money
How to encourage inclusion and ideation at work
While running BrainGain I liked to have monthly “State of the Union” style meetings to have a comprehensive overview of what we accomplished throughout the month. These meetings often went well for the most part, but there was a key ingredient missing. Ideation. I found that my teammates just didn’t have ideas to contribute. OR, … Continue reading How to encourage inclusion and ideation at work
The Power of Positive Constraints
Knowing when to dial back and how to do it One of my worst habits is my ability to perpetually bite off more than I can chew. I have periods of dormancy, where I’m anxious that I don’t have enough work on my plate, and then, feeling this anxiety, I go out and create work … Continue reading The Power of Positive Constraints
Stop chasing new customers if you’re neglecting your current ones
One of my (many) problems with the glorified startup culture is the mindset of grow, grow, grow. Everyone seems to be focused growth. Traffic, signups, downloads, paying users,etc., If you’re not growing ____, then you’re failing as a business. While yes, this is a healthy mindset to have (the goal is always to grow your … Continue reading Stop chasing new customers if you’re neglecting your current ones
How to become less reactive and more emotionally stable
Whether you’re studying Stoicism, Buddhist Meditation, Mindfulness, or simply practicing How to Not Give a Fuck, the underlying principle remains the same – How to become less reactive and more emotionally stable. How to cultivate a healthy indifference. Note that this is different than avoidance or non-reactivity. The goal here is NOT to become an emotionless … Continue reading How to become less reactive and more emotionally stable
My nightmare of a fundraising story
Around two years ago, when trying to scale my recruitment company BrainGain, I tried to raise a round of funding...and failed miserably. It was a great story with a lot of learnings so I decided to document it all. I hope you enjoy the ride 🙂 …. After living in Bangalore, India for the better … Continue reading My nightmare of a fundraising story
Top performers rise to the surface
I don’t believe that job interviews work. They are outdated. Why do I say this? Good communicators can talk their way into a position and then perform poorly. Poor communicators (who could have been great at the job) don’t speak well in the interview and get passed on. Interviews don’t accurately demonstrate who will perform … Continue reading Top performers rise to the surface
Give people the opportunity to surprise you
Goal setting is an important part of your business, but not for the reasons that you think it is. There’s a famous study (that I can’t find right now but you probably can) in which they found that people who exercised for only 5 minutes per day were more likely to build a habit than … Continue reading Give people the opportunity to surprise you
How I spoke at Harvard
Roughly 3 years ago I was invited to speak at Harvard Business School, Cornell, Upenn Wharton School of Business and Rutgers university despite having 0 experience, 0 credibility, and knowing 0 people there. How did I do it? It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. To back up and give … Continue reading How I spoke at Harvard