koolhead17
Why is it so difficult not to move beyond transactional relationships in our life? We are all humans and deserve some love, empathy, and respect. Why is class, race or money has to take preference over humanity?
A taxi driver, waiter or your co-worker is as human as you are. How difficult it is to treat them all with respect? Are they all not trying to make a living?
Treat others as you would like to be treated.
Similarity and likeability play a vital role in any relationship.
Does it also foster a limited thinking mindset?
Do we end up creating a zone that is built on limited ideology, knowledge, and belief?
Would it not be great to go out, explore meet people with a different ideology, expertise, and skills?
Why do we have to live like a cocoon in its little world and limited knowledge?
When was the last time you made a surprise visit to your parents?
When was the last time you joined your best friend for dinner unannounced?
When was the last time you took the entire team for an excursion, a day trip on Monday morning?
Little things, surprises matter. People cherish it for life. Time is the most valuable asset for us. Give some of it to your loved ones.
When you are working in a team, the first thing you have to do is to let youngsters be independent. There should not be a blocker or a god-like figure under the shadow of whom they are living.
This hierarchy and living under the shadow of someone is a big blocker for the growth of youngsters and the organization.
It should be told to the youngsters that they are part of a team and not under the shadow of anyone. They are independent to question, give their feedback.
This whole culture of designation is screwing up the independence and free-thinking for the organization.
I liked reading the moonshot game by Rahul Chandra. It is his journey, a collection of entries through his days of starting Helion Ventures to closing it.
I have my personal 5 takeaways:
You will have to read the book for more. This book while being a personal journey of Rahul, has many learnings for us all.
Our human mind dislikes letting it go. A lot of it has to do with sunk cost. Our capital, emotional attachment to the cause, relationship et all.
I keep reading and motivational speakers and social media marketers championing: Don’t Quit. What they don’t tell you is the opportunity cost.
Our sunk cost takes over our opportunity cost. We get blinded by we can do it, it will work. Our rationality goes for the toss, we are only getting closer to death and trying to work on a product, relationship which has no future.
Smart folks know when to leave and let go things. The only permanence in our life is the very nature of impermanence.
I was reading Daily Rituals: How Great Minds Make Time, Find Inspiration, and Get to Work.
The common pattern and learning were:
People left their brains on autopilot.
Once you develop this habit, a daily ritual the brain stops getting distracted. You get into your world where you are super productive. Cal Newport calls it Deep Work and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it Flow.
To be productive, you have to stick to a daily routine and over some time, everything starts happening on its own.
To make use of this precious time of your life, you need to find your ritual and stick to it for a long period aka dispose of it to Type 2 brain.
During the time of reading the book, I created some rituals for myself. I am following some of it, while some will still take time to take on to autopilot. Our life is a continuously evolving journey.
Why do we have to find a reason behind everything? Why can’t we let things rest as it is? The constant questioning is not worthy.
Why do we have to postmortem everything happening to our life: good/bad? Leaving past behind and focusing on now does better.
Why did this happen to me?
Why are they helping me?
We turn into detective instead of living in the moment, taking life as it comes.
I keep hearing from my founders’ friend about the star player in their team. Someone super-efficient. We become so dependent on him/her that we start defining companies process at their convenience. That is a huge mistake. This effects the overall growth of companies’ development and culture suffers.
Do not let your company or product development run in the hand of a star player. He or she can end up becoming the biggest bottleneck for the future. On top of that keep a strong code review process, that way if he/she leaves nothing remains at their mercy.
As a founder company is your baby, people will come and go. Don’t be a hostage in the hands of these star players. Treat, incentivize everyone and keep a level playing field.
People switch jobs like taxi ride finishing a trip. There is no sense of commitment. People are willing to let go of their year-long hard-earned respect and trust.
Finding people who will abide by their ethics is like searching for wise men in daylight like Diogenes.
Any kind of perk, freedom or trust is valued as peanuts when an employee finds a newer pasture. Most don’t even stick by their virtues and commitment. The willingness of ethics is for philosophers, not job-hopping employees.
My learning, if someone wants to move on: have them quit immediately. Their presence gets burdensome for the entire organization especially when you have a pizza size team.