Category Archives: Monday Morning Wake Up Call

#MondayMorningDelight

Leave a reply

Waking up to something delightful is always a smashing way to kick start the day #MondayMorningWakeUpCall

A few days ago a friend of mine shared an sms exchange he had with one of his friends (someone I don’t know) a while back.

Piano classes in Mumba

The text exchange of course made my day.

Wake up and smell the coffee is the oft used idiom to jolt us into action. I however think focussing on the remarkable or even notable aspects is a way more powerful tool to ‘wake us up’ and spur us on in full gallop.

It definitely holds true for me. Is it because I don’t drink coffee?

Should we ‘look up’ to Housing.com’s brand campaign?

Leave a reply

Look up #MondayMorningWakeUpCall

When I first saw the Housing.com billboards, I didn’t really get what they were trying to say. The alien in me was part searching for UFOs and part wondering if Housing.com is all set to create a housing colony in space already.

Added to that, one of the billboards read “make room for more happiness” and I was mentally cursing them for taking the “happiness” route (cos that’s the route I’m hoping Skillzot takes). At the same time I was silently impressed that they are talking “values” that are higher up the ladder on Maslow’s hierarchy and not about the product or even the benefits.

Fedex talks about ‘peace of mind’, L’Oreal sells ‘self-confidence’, Nike honours ‘great athletes and great athletics’, Housing.com, I figured, wants to be about ‘innovation and optimism’.

They are not talking about having the best interface or exclusive properties or the number of properties listed.

The best marketers know, ‘marketing is about values’.

Good Job!

Leave a reply

There are no 2 words in English language more harmful than “good job” (from Whiplash) #MondayMorningWakeUpCall

In the movie Whiplash, Terence Fletcher, a music teacher, is obsessed with pushing his students beyond excellence. While his methods might be questionable, something I personally wouldn’t advocate, his philosophy on “good job” did resonate with me.

What he means by the above quote is that with the intent of encouragement we are developing a culture of being overtly safe in giving feedback. This often results in becoming complacent with our outcome which more often than not results in mediocrity if we do not push ourselves (or get pushed) to pursue excellence.

While one could argue that for many mediocre could be ‘good enough’, that they would be happy with doing a ‘good job’. But for those who have an extra appetite for excellence, I too like Terence Fletcher, would ask you to drop ‘good job’ from your dictionary and turn a deaf ear to the phrase whenever you hear it.

Would you work for free?

Leave a reply

Are you doing what you’d be doing @ work if no one paid you to do it? #MondayMorningWakeUpCall

Nope, it does not mean that you should work for free. If you go by the ‘Joker’s’ philosophy, he says “You should never do anything you’re good at for free.” Neither does it mean you should not want pot loads of money for the value you bring to your organization.

What I’m hinting at is, is what you do at work something you love doing. That it is not a chore you are forced to complete day in and day out. Only then do the lines blur between work and play and you enjoy every moment of your day. Then there is no distinction between week days and weekends, time spent at home or time spent in the office, work days or vacations.

L.P. Jack, a philosopher in the early 19th century, explains this very lucidly. He says, “A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.”

And Confucius articulates this in one line. “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

An easy way to find the answer to the question is to ask yourself, do you do what you do at work also during your holidays and your free time.

Busy does not equal important

Leave a reply

The idea is not to become a busy bee. The idea is to just be #MondayMorningWakeUpCall

“Busy does not equal important” – Seth Godin

I often see people priding themselves with having to skip lunch because they were so busy solving world hunger problems. Flashing the number of missed calls because they tuned out ‘just’ for an hour for some peace of mind. Not being able to take out 2 minutes to breathe because lo behold, the spinning of the world depends on them.

But then “What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare” – W.H. Davies

Equally important I wonder, if this ‘busyness’ is a facade to appear important or an inability to plan and manage time or even worse, a desire to fulfill insatiable greed. The answers we will know only if we ask ourselves the questions.

And if we do try and answer in all honesty then I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to find 14mins a week to share some doughnuts 🙂

Which road should I take?

Leave a reply

“Sometimes the road less travelled is less travelled for a reason” – Seinfeld #MondayMorningWakeUpCall

This was a joke Seinfeld cracked in one of his episodes when he could not make it for a performance due to a blizzard. Little would he have ever imagined that he would have to cancel a performance because the organizers couldn’t make arrangements for parking.

I don’t know any of the inside details but whether it was reasons related to the organizer’s incompetence or the bureaucracy and the corruption of the authorities in power is moot. These kind of incidents, excuses and practices do no good to attract explorers to roads less tread upon. If anywhere, they end up leading to the opposite direction of progress.

For our part.. I hope we continue to take more less travelled roads despite *%$@ trying to ruin the scenery by adding man-made obstacles.

True Colours

Leave a reply

Our true colours, however chaotic, are far more pleasing than 50 shades of grey. Be yourself #MondayMorningWakeUpCall

True Colours

True colours vs 50 shades of grey. Which do you prefer?

 

I love colours. I suspect most of us do. Yes, once in a while the odd picture or the noir movie looks classier in black and white, but I’d be hard pressed to imagine us (and a world) in grey once we’ve seen the rainbow.

Yet we are often tempted (sometimes even prefer) to live in the grey and hide our true colours. We are embarrassed by what others will think of us, seek glory even though we ‘break bad’, are wary of being judged.

Apparently the Gods were also not immune to this. One of the stories around the origin of Holi is about Krishna’s insecurities of the colour of his skin.

The story goes…In his youth Krishna used to worry whether fair skinned Radha and other Gopikas would like him because of his skin colour (he was blue). His mother, tired of his incessant cry for self-approval, asked him to approach Radha and colour her face any colour he wanted. This he did. Radha and Krishna became a couple. And we continue to celebrate the festival of colours.

I wonder if Krishna formulated this story into his life as a lesson for us, so that we at least once a year we use artificial colours to let our true colours come out and remind ourselves of the joy it can bring.

Be your true colours… even if they are 50 shades of grey.

Need vs Greed

Leave a reply

Don’t let NEED become Greed #MondayMorningWakeUpCall

Whether you have a Maruti or a BMW, the road still remains the same.                                         Whether you travel economy class or business class the, your destination does not change.           Whether you have a Titan or a Rolex, the time is the same.                                                            Whether you have Apple or Samsung, the people who call you remains the same.                          There is nothing wrong in dreaming a luxurious life. What needs to be taken care of is to not let the NEED become GREED. Because needs can always be met, but greed can never be fulfilled.            

           – Rajnikanth (while this has been doing its rounds on the net attributed to Thalaiva, I suspect                 this may have been first posted by a Prof. K.K.Patel –            https://kkpatel7.wordpress.com/2014/11/08/thought-of-the-day-do-not-let-the-need-become- greed/

I couldn’t have said this better so I took the liberty of re-posting. I’m super lucky to have a team that understands this, at least in the bootstrapping context of our startup. Thank you guys for switching off the lights when no one is in the room, not cribbing about using old laptops or handsets, selecting the least priced products, exploring free software tools and platforms and a bunch of other stuff that I’m sure I end up missing.

I also want to add that greed is often mistakenly just solely attributed to the ‘Material Girl’. I don’t think it ends there. It creeps into our relationships (expectation from others), our pseudo thirst for knowledge (it becomes a chip on our shoulder), our achievements (they become pride in the name of glory). Even an altruistic greed to serve others could result in an unattainable horizon chase.

There’s a thin red line between need and greed. Let’s watch out for it.

Secret to the impossible

Leave a reply

I don’t wake up for early morning flights but I’m up for the Oscars @ 5:30am. Love makes you do impossible things #MondayMorningWakeUpCall

And I’ve been waking up (happily) for the Oscars since they started getting telecast live here.

We inherently know that when we do things we love (or even for someone we love), work doesn’t feel like a chore and time goes into hiding. Yet, more often than not we tend to forget the simple truths and we end up chasing our non-existent tail.

Thought a reminder to ourselves would be good on a day when the quality of art is celebrated and not the quantity of money it rakes in.