Category: Life System

In the prime of our life, many of us do not pay much attention to our health – though this is changing rapidly, especially among the young. I am not the gymming type. I do a morning walk for 35 minutes 5 days a week, and that’s about it. At some point in the past, I used to do Yoga daily but that did not last long. I do control what I eat, and ensure my weight stays in the 65-67 kgs range. I look at my health through the BETH lens – blood, eyes, teeth, heart.

I get an annual blood test done, so my sister (a doctor) can track my health parameters. Many years ago, she started me on daily cholesterol medication (statins) – given my high levels then. That brought it under control and it has stayed that way since. Every year, I put the test results into an Excel file so I have my full progress report available at a glance.

Eyes have been a problem since age 10. I have high myopia, and now, perhaps borderline glaucoma. For the latter, I have to put eye drops daily to keep the eye pressure under check. For the former, I use progressive glasses – it is amazing how well these work.

Teeth was a recent problem – four wisdom teeth needed to be extracted, and some fillings and cappings needed to be done. I have now started taking better care of my teeth. I use the Oracura water jet for proper cleaning daily.

Eyes and teeth care both need good ophthalmologists and dentists one can go to every year for checkups. The mistake I made was that I skipped dental checkup for a long time. I learnt my lesson. Dental tech has also become very good; the nightmare scenarios of pain I remember from childhood are no longer the norm. So, there is no excuse other than laziness to not get periodic check-ups done.

That leaves the heart. A check-up every five years or so is a must, especially if one has a family history. Listening to signals from the body is very important – there are generally early indicators which we must not ignore.

Health cannot be delinked from food. I have a disciplined Jain diet (though I make an exception occasionally for potatoes). Once the pandemic started, I did away with a full dinner. So, it’s a heavy breakfast, moderate lunch, and some fruits (banana and apple) in the evening. No drinking or smoking. With food, it is very important to be able to say No to temptations.

Health is wealth, as has been so well said. Without good health, it is very difficult to lead a good life. Too often, we delay taking care of ourselves until things are irreversible or it is too late. Having a good doctor is the first step to ensuring one stays healthy to lead a full life.

I did not grow up with money, but I was lucky enough to end up with a lot of it when I sold IndiaWorld in 1999 at age 32 for $115 million in a largely cash deal. My wife, Bhavana, ensured my feet stayed firmly planted on the ground, and success did not go to my head. Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur. And entrepreneurs know that failure is many times more likely than success in a venture. Two decades after the IndiaWorld sale, as I look to the future, my attitude to money is to use it to leave a legacy and build institutions that can be enduring and great.

There are three key questions to address when it comes to money: how to earn, how much is enough, and what to do with it. For me, the earning question has been easy to answer – it’s always been entrepreneurship. I am not much of an investor either in startups or stocks. For me, it’s the joy of solving problems, of creating solutions, of building products and companies. This is also a path ridden with micro-failures – more than 30 in my three decades as an entrepreneur. But there have been two macro-successes in IndiaWorld and now Netcore.

I recently calculated the CAGR on the per share price for Netcore over the past decade. Since we don’t yet have an investor and therefore an external validation of the share price, I did my own estimation of what I think Netcore is worth. The per share price has grown at a CAGR of over 25% over the past decade. And I am confident that if we keep running the business well, we can repeat a similar CAGR growth for the next decade. 25% for 10 years means a 10X increase in value. I don’t have the mindset of an investor – I like to do things myself and am willing to bet on my capabilities. I will get many things wrong in the journey but as long as they don’t kill the business, I also have the confidence that I will get a few things right. This is exactly what happened in both IndiaWorld and Netcore. “Consistent compounding” is a great way for wealth creation, and for me, entrepreneurship is the best approach to making it happen.

How much is enough? It is a question each of us has to answer. All I can say is that it is better to keep one’s needs simple, rather than get into the spending mode. There is no aspiration for a bigger car or bigger house. There is not the desire for being richer than someone else for there will always be someone up the ladder irrespective of where one is. So, keep one’s needs minimal, and the mind is much more at ease to enable the focus on the business.

What to do with the money? As I have crossed 55, I have started to think about the future a lot more. One idea I have is to use a significant part of the wealth to build institutions for freedom and prosperity in India. I want to look at creating one new institution a year for 10 years. That becomes a good legacy. I want to bring my entrepreneurial approach to solve problems in the social, political, academic, cultural and economic (SPACE) arenas. The US has many examples of great institutions – from the universities to the think tanks to research powerhouses. It is something I want to start thinking and working on in the years to come.

I still remember the gist of what Bhavana told me the day after I sold IndiaWorld: “We have got a lot of money at an early age. If you keep thinking about it, you will not do anything productive in your future life. Think of us as custodians of God’s money on earth. There is a purpose for the money. Figure it out.” And that’s what I have to do now!

My attitude to social media is one of benign neglect. I have accounts on Twitter and LinkedIn, but I am not very active on either. I had an unused Facebook account which I deleted a couple years ago. The reason for abstinence is two-fold: the social media platforms are designed to “hook” and become addictive, and in my blog, I have a very good alternative for expressing myself.

In a recent interview, I was told that as a founder, I am making a big mistake by not being active on social media since it can go a long way towards employer branding and attracting talent. While I agree, I believe the costs will be much higher than the benefits – and there is an alternative middle path. Once you get on these platforms, it is very difficult to exercise self-control. There is always someone to be responded to, and in the desire for immediacy and brevity, it is not very difficult to make comments that one will regret later. Reputations take years to build, but only moments to destroy. In the desire to be witty or cheeky, it is possible to overstep the line easily. It also becomes difficult to draw the line – whom to respond and whom to ignore.

I remember when I had an active Twitter presence – around the time when I had started Niti Digital in 2012. At that time, I got some very obnoxious comments from people because of my political support for Modi and BJP, and questioning how I had earned my money (the IndiaWorld deal). My initial temptation was to respond to each of these trolls and set the record straight. But a wise colleague said that this would be my biggest mistake because that is exactly what they wanted – a verbal joust and there will never be a path for me to persuade or win the argument. The best solution was to ignore them and not let what they were saying affect me. This was one of the best pieces of advice I got. It was then that I also decided to stop blogging because I realised that even though I was working on the political periphery, I would eventually become a target and my words would be twisted irrespective of what I said.

My middle path is to write on my blog – a passion I rediscovered in April 2020. By this time, the active political pursuits were behind me. What I do on LinkedIn (with the help of a colleague) is to post a link to my blog essays and media interactions. Keep it simple. There is the downside of limited engagement, but in today’s world, there are multiple ways people will reach out to me in case they have to. Besides, I am a very reluctant active conversation starter!

Social media, as the world has discovered through the years, can cut both ways. I have made peace with my digital minimalism: writing on my blog, reposting on LinkedIn, and staying away from Facebook and Twitter, except for clicking on the occasional links to interesting content sent by friends. There is much more to life than scrolling through the endless feed of mind-numbing content.

Closely linked with meetings is messaging. We have to constantly interact with others. It is not always possible or even necessary to meet them in person or call. That’s where the messaging apps come in.

There are three messaging apps in my life: email, WhatsApp and Slack (recently switched from Flock). Maybe because I am an older person, email is much more central to my life than the other two. I check email multiple times a day (Thunderbird on desktop, and the native apps on the mobile and iPad); I do try to reply to most messages within a day or two. In my email inbox, I use a few folders to organise messages. I don’t use a lot of them because the search function tends to work quite well, and every additional folder means additional bandwidth to be used to decide when the message has to be moved. I like the inbox to be as clean as possible. A zero inbox is a rarity – I normally get to that state only when I am going on vacation. But that’s a momentary high because very soon the new emails arrive in the inbox!

I resisted WhatsApp and Flock for a long time but eventually had to give in a few years ago. My colleagues at work found it hard to send me an SMS or an email of something that was being discussed in a WhatsApp or Flock group. The one advantage I have is that I have very few people directly reporting to me. I also ask them to make decisions on their own as far as possible. So the inflow of messages that need immediate action are limited.

I try to avoid checking messages when I am in a meeting. There is nothing so urgent that it cannot wait for a few more minutes. It is also extremely disrespectful to the other persons in the meeting when one is on the mobile; it is the clearest indication that one has “switched off”. There are perhaps only 3-4 people in the world whose call needs to be answered right away. For me, they are my immediate family and Kalpit (Netcore’s CEO). Everyone else can wait.

I have muted notifications for most individuals and groups, and there are no sound alerts when new messages come in. My approach, like dealing with incoming calls, is to control when I see and reply, rather than being in a continuous reactive mode. Also at times, the impulsive answer can land one into unnecessary trouble. Wrong words spoken or messaged cannot easily be taken back.

It is very important to ensure that our lives are not run by our messaging apps. We need contiguous time to think, read and write. Every interruption brought about by a message requires a context switch, so it is best to control when we see them rather than letting them run our life.

PS: Among other apps, there is a game I play for a few minutes daily (prodded by my son, Abhishek) is “Clash of Clans.” I think everyone should have a game where they can create a mini-world and play for years. There’s a lot to learn from games – how they use micro-incentives to create long-lasting habits. (I have been playing CoC for nearly 7 years. The only rule Abhishek and I have is that we will not spend any money in the game.)

My digital devices are not my life; my spiral writing notebook and pen is. I can travel without my mobile and iPad, but not without my notebook. Having said that, digital devices are now extensions of our body and we have to accept that. In my case, the three primary devices are my mobile, desktop and iPad. The secondary devices are my desktop at work and my laptop.

My mobile is a Samsung Galaxy A52. I use it for a few basic things: WhatsApp, checking email when I don’t have access to my desktop or iPad, and some utility apps (Clock – for the alarms, Google Pay, Amazon, Swiggy, EazyDiner, BBC, Maps, and the occasional use of Spotify, Paytm, Uber and Ola). I am not much of a photos person so the in-built camera does the job well, except when I am on vacation when I carry a separate Canon digital camera. Of late, I have also been using Amazon Music for my songs collection.

I generally ignore any incoming call with a number not in my contacts. If someone calls repeatedly and doesn’t message about the purpose, then I may send the number to my assistant to call and check. This has worked well for the past few years, except for the one time when my wife, Bhavana, misplaced her mobile and tried to call me from a shop and I ignored those incoming calls. I got quite an earful after that and then decided that if I get 2-3 calls in quick succession, maybe I should answer! I also will ignore incoming calls if I am in the middle of something – choosing to return the call at a time of my choosing rather than interrupt the flow of what I am doing.

When at home or office, I use the Windows desktops I have at both places. I like the full-sized screen and keyboard, with the external mouse. I am not much of a laptop person – I generally find the keyboard and screen too small. Most of my substantial writing happens in the mornings on my home desktop. My Windows laptop is only for travelling. Dropbox ensures my files are synced across devices.

The iPad Pro is my other primary device. My browsing generally happens on the iPad because Safari has a “reader view” which enables me to mail articles (rather than just links) to myself or others as plain text. I read books on the iPad either via the Books app or the Kindle app – second best options after hard copy.

When travelling, I take my Bose QuietComfort 45 headphones. The noise cancellation is absolutely amazing. On flights, Hindi songs on my mobile and the QC 45 transport me into my own world.

There is no escape from meetings. In the corporate world, a day is a continuum of meetings. This is because they are important to get things done. A senior leader in an organisation needs to ensure coordination across teams, and meetings can be more effective than just emails or Slack/WhatsApp messages going back and forth.

My approach to meetings is two-fold: to focus on the pre-meeting, and then the post-meeting. Think of the “pre” as meaning preparation. Every meeting needs some homework to be done so it doesn’t descend into a rambling match. At the start of each day, I will list key points that I need to make, understand or ask during the meeting. This makes me go into the meeting with a plan – even if it is not a meeting I have called. At the end of the day, I will go through the meetings, and list out key points from them – these could be ideas that came, follow-ups that need to be done, or commitments that I made which need to be kept.

None of this is possible if one doesn’t have a notebook (or digital device) to make notes. I have gone into many meetings and am shocked when I see people go through and not make any notes. Either they have incredible memory or they don’t really care about the outcome. Most often, it is the latter.

During a meeting, I make detailed notes. It keeps me focused and it ensures I can replay the meeting at the end of the day. It also helps me make side notes about ideas that need to be explored or a memory which flitted past and needs to be explored later. So, even as I let my mind wander occasionally, the note taking ensures I stay focused through the meeting.

If I am running a meeting, there are a set of principles that I follow: the meeting must start and end on time, at the start of the meeting (ideally, before) everyone needs to be told the agenda and flow, and everyone present must be given an opportunity to speak and voice their views.

If I am a participant, I ensure that I have a few key points listed as part of the pre-meeting work. When speaking, I try to make sure I am not interrupting someone – this is much easier to do in physical meetings than on Zoom where the visual cues are missing. I also do my best to not raise my voice to make a point just because I have the highest designation; this is not always possible because at times the silliness of others just gets to me.

What I like best are the customer meetings. I pay careful attention to the words and phrases they use, especially when describing their problem or discussing the product. Listening to customers is the way I have got many ideas. The pandemic years have shifted some meetings online and more often than not, I end up doing meetings where the others have their video turned off. (I really cannot believe that there are still unsolved “bandwidth issues” more than two years after the start of the pandemic and the cheapest Internet access in the world.) Speaking to a black window takes away some of my energy, but I have decided that it is too rude to force others to switch on their video. For my part, I always make sure I join meetings with video on, unless the number of attendees exceeds 25.

A final piece of advice from a Wall Street Journal article: “There are four basic types of meetings that managers should convene, Ms. Rita King says. Learning meetings generate knowledge. Innovation meetings generate ideas. Commitment meetings generate decisions. And alignment meetings generate a road map. Each type has an objective, such as solving a specific problem or generating actionable ideas. A lot of bosses skip the first three types of meetings and spend most of their time convening big groups for alignment meetings that fail to produce the intended results… Great meetings are small, fast and don’t involve status updates.”

So, meetings are a necessity. It is up to each of us to create our own system to increase their effectiveness. Preparation and post-meeting reflection are a must. Putting across our views and thus participating actively is the approach to follow, rather than being passengers with minds wandering elsewhere.

PS: My previous post on “One Meeting, One Idea.”

I buy a lot of books. I think of myself as a book collector. I cannot and do not read every book I buy. I like to have them around knowing that some day the wisdom in that book will be useful and transformational. Books have served me well through the years: which other product gives you a person’s lifetime of knowledge for a few hundred rupees? It is we who have to make an investment many times greater – with our time – to absorb and learn. And in today’s world of instant-everything and tweet-sized content, a book is a true joy to behold. Ploughing through the daily social media feeds may seem exciting but most are empty – like junk food. They can provide that instant gratification but they do not provide the depth needed to enhance our learning. That is something only good books do.

Over time, my reading has broadened from just the tech, business and management books to reading about economics, history, political science and philosophy. These books require the creation of contiguous time where one is not distracted with the urge of checking messages on our devices. At times, they require re-reading to better understand the concepts being explained.

While I don’t mind reading fiction on digital devices (mostly the Books app on my iPad), for serious reading I like to hold the physical book in my hand. There is something about reading the printed word on paper and turning the pages which lends an element of seriousness to the exercise. That is why I like to buy books, even with the knowledge that I am unlikely to read them right away. At home or in the office, every once in a while, when I am struggling with a problem, I find that immersion in a book – any book – helps me find pathways to solutions.

The “Thinks” section of my blog has also ensured that I keep a steady base of reading – not just books, but also good writing in the form of essays and columns. The daily reading of news and views does not replace the book – both have their own place. Together, they help shape our mental models which then help us make better decisions. The discipline of posting 3 links daily in the Thinks series ensures that reading becomes embedded in daily life.

Not all my reading is serious stuff. I like thrillers. A good story transports you to a different world – it is the equivalent of dreaming with eyes open. Some authors that I like include Daniel Silva (Gabriel Allon series), Michael Connelly (Bosch and others), Anthony Horowitz, Scott Turow and John Grisham (legal), David Baldacci, Joel Rosenberg, David Ignatius, Brad Thor, Jeffrey Deaver (Lincoln Rhyme), Ken Follett, and Ruth Ware (Agatha Christie type thrillers).

So, the best thing one can do is to set aside some time in the day to read. Be it the serious books or the fast-paced thrillers, some diversion in the form of being transported to the ideas and stories as envisioned by the authors is a wonderful addition to daily life.

PS: My previous post on a book club I was once part of.

Commitments are an integral part of our life. To quote Peter Drucker: “Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes… but no plans.” They can be small ones (meeting someone, returning a call, sending a short note) or big ones (marriage). Some commitments – like decisions – are consequential and irreversible. Every commitment needs steps to be taken to fulfil it. As Jean-Paul Satre said, “Commitment is an act, not a word.”

My motto on commitments is: never make one that you cannot keep. People must respect your word – it should be as good as a written contract. Many a time, we say we will do something, and then promptly (and perhaps conveniently) forget about it. The thing is other people remember; they don’t forget. And some day, our reneging on a promise we made will come back to haunt us.

Once a commitment is made, the words need to be converted into actions – especially for those tasks which require time. An email that needs a time bound reply, a deck to be sent in advance of a presentation one has to make, a meeting that needs to be done, a cadence that needs to be kept – it is the small commitments that create the discipline of ensuring the big commitments are kept.

We commit in meetings to do some actions by a specific date or time. No one should remind us once we have made a commitment. To ensure I don’t forget, I write it down immediately in my spiral notebook at the top of the page, so it becomes a clear actionable. If for some reason we are not going to keep the commitment, then we should notify the counterparty about it, offer a reason and if needed, a new date and time. Only with a track record of meeting commitments will people around us know that we are the “keepers” – things get done once a commitment is made.

This also means that we should not make commitments we cannot keep. That means saying No and perhaps disappointing the other person. But it is better to say it upfront rather than keep things hanging. Many a time, I have been asked to advise someone, or join a Board. My answer is a clear No, because I know that (a) I don’t like it (b) I don’t want to be distracted from the things I am doing. A commitment will require time; it is not to be taken lightly. Hence, better to be upfront and decline rather than do a shoddy job to give momentary delight to the other person, and then hope for a memory lapse later!

The corollary is that we must be thoughtful before making a commitment to obviate the need for a possible backtracking later. There is no need to say an immediate Yes or No. Some of the requests require some thought before a decision can be made. In such cases, the immediate commitment can be a date by when the answer will be given.

I will end with a quote by Michelle Obama: “If I made a commitment, I stood by that commitment – and try to make it real. Because when you become leaders, the most important thing you have is your word, your trust. That’s where respect comes from.” This is something we can all learn and live by.

PS: My previous post on “Disagree and Commit.”

There are two ways to live life: either trust others or be distrustful of them. The second approach can take us down a slippery slope. All it needs is one bad experience to push us down the path of questioning other people’s intentions and suspecting their motives. We rely on the kindness of strangers for many things in our life, and if that belief breaks, it will make life hard. We will go through bad experiences when someone lets down our trust. We must deal with those situations as one-offs rather than generalising to everyone and mistrusting all others.

In my early days as an entrepreneur, I went through some experiences which made me question my trust in others. People whom I trusted let me down. As an entrepreneur recovering after multiple early failures, each of these experiences made me question my approach of trusting others implicitly. I decided that the overhead of not trusting was simply too high. I accepted what had happened and moved on. My core belief has always been that there is some good which comes out of everything, even some unpleasant and difficult situations. And as I look back, I think that belief has more than justified itself.

Trust is a two-way street. One has to give trust to get it back. In business, you have to believe that if you make an advance payment, the other party will not simply abscond with the money. In India, there is little recourse through the legal system. In general, most transactions will be fine, but there will always be a few that go wrong. A few years ago, I decided that we should do our checks on the counter-parties, but there is no way of achieving perfection. So, we simply set aside 2% of revenues as bad debts and move on. It is just the cost of doing business. The alternative is trying to negotiate very stringent contracts with the other 98% and that will simply make business undoable.

With trust also comes openness. I have always been open to sharing my ideas and even business plans. I have found that the more I am open, the greater is the reciprocal candour. My blog is written in the same spirit. I share my ideas, and do so with no expectations. I just find that being open is better than being closed, being transparent is better than being opaque. Each of us will be shaped by our experiences, and we will have bad ones where this trust and openness is violated, even by people we know well. But the alternative life – of being wary of everyone we meet – is just an impossible one.

PS: My previous post on open-sourcing ideas.

As I have grown older, I have worked hard to resist the temptation to get angry and shout at people, especially those who have no way of answering back. I have become more patient – even if someone else makes a mistake (which I then do point out). I have realised that getting angry doesn’t really get you anything. It is just a demonstration of power and it ends up creating resentment in the other person. In most cases, if anger has to be directed, it has to be towards oneself because we are the originator of more mistakes than others.

As I think about it, I perhaps realised the futility of anger during my early years as I saw my father get angry at other people. Of course, he calmed down very quickly and moved on, but in those few minutes, I saw the helplessness in the eyes of the other person. I myself was at the receiving end many times. I realised that the same thing which is said by shouting can also be said calmly to the other person and the impact is likely to be much greater. After a point, the angry words are just discounted by the person at the receiving end.

In the past few years, there have been a few occasions when I have gotten angry with my teenage son, Abhishek. On every such occasion, as I reflected after the event, I realised that my reaction was disproportionate to what had happened. All Abhishek would do is cry – he could not answer me back or show his anger. And it was through these (and much talking to my wife, Bhavana) that I realised that self-control is a very important trait to learn. In almost all cases, I was upset at something else and I found Abhishek to be the victim whom I could unleash my inner frustrations on. Whenever it happened, Bhavana ensured that I saw my mistake and apologised to Abhishek to ensure that the damage caused did not create an unbridgeable chasm over time.

It is not that I keep my anger bottled up inside me. I use my notebook to write down my feelings and get closure. I find that writing out my thoughts helps clear the mind; it is almost like talking to someone else. The writing forces me to reflect and that helps dissipate the momentary anger.

Anger has little place in daily life. We cannot stop becoming angry when we see something wrong happen. What we can control is our reaction. More often than not, we will find that the root cause is perhaps of our own making – unreal expectations, imprecise instructions, or simply, fury at our own follies.