atul jha – Page 217

Notes from barcamp, bangalore on happiness.

For a change I spoke about happiness this time during Barcamp bangalore event. I think we had 10-12 people out in cafeteria for this session. I am a big fan of James Altucher & Kamal Ravikant, they are very successful in life. I rate them as my happiness mentor.

Since barcamp is a unconference i made no slide, I will just add entry of my notepad which has meat of the talk.

We were born naked

One of the things which a dying person says, I wish i was more happy.

So what is happiness?

— Buying clothes/jewellery during flipkart`s #bigbilloin sale.

— Planning to spend evening at microbrewery drinking IPA

— Or asking out hottest gal in your class for coffee/dinner

What if things don’t work out?

— Flipkart server crashers, your money is sent back to your account.

— The microbrewery says IPA is not on tap tonight.

—The gal says, you are cute but i have other engagements.

In all these 3 scenarios one thing is common, our need is dependent on actions which are not in our control. The end result is, we end up being un-happy. OOh we go tweet, shout at poor waiter or block the girl on whatsapp.

Is it going to change anything? I don’t think so.

James Altucher on Happiness

Only thing that matters to you is your happiness.

Not happy with job, change it.
Not happy in a relationship, break it.
Exercise
Meditate
Smile
Don’t let external forces affect your state of happiness

Kamal Ravikant on Happiness

Its your life and if should be in your hand.
Be kind
Love yourself
Money will come & go, what matters is you, your state of well being, your mental state.

I would strongly recommend you folks to follow Kamal & James on Twitter & also read the books they have written.

James Altucher Choose Yourself

Kamal Ravikant Love yourself like your life depends on it

Lastly you can get these 2 books for free by participating in James Altucher’s Ultimate Book Giveaway

Ibn battuta: The less known, greatest traveler world has ever known.

I am fascinated by achievement of Ibn Battuta, his travel achievement of 7400+ miles. Being a muslim, he traveled most part of the world where Islam was practiced. I am not sure if this was the reason for him not getting credit he deserved by the western historians.

This post is not enough about his journey details, i have added footnote with references for more detailed read.

Some notes about his life & journey I made :

He was born in family of scholars and judges in .
He started his first journey at age of 21 years for Mecca to become the best known traveler to the world.
When he returned back home, his parents were dead and his country under threat by the christian ruler.
His resolution was not to travel same route more than once but found himself in Delhi twice & mecca 4 times. 🙂
He practised Sufism.
During his entire journey he traveled over 40 country including India, China, Russia & most parts of Africa.
He was appointed as ambassador to China by sultan of Delhi. [Never imagined this part]

I am yet to find an interesting book to read about him & his journey. I found From pilgrim to world traveler: Ibn battuta really interesting. I will update the blog as I find more references.

journey

How to Start a Startup note #1

startup

I know everyone is watching, reading, following @sama course how to start a startup. I am keeping this notes for myself, if it helps someone else good karma gets added on me. 🙂

Lecture 1: Welcome, and Ideas, Products, Teams and Execution Part I

My notes:

Don’t build a startup for money, join a startup at early stage & get rewarded.
Most successful startups came out fixing real world problems ex- airbnb, uber.
Idea comes first & startup second.
If you have too many ideas pick one of them & give your best to it.
Get into mission oriented ideas.
Build a product, company next, PR/Press/VC will follow next.
Get a small group of users who love your product rather than 1000 others who just likes it.
At early stage spend most on word to mouth, get referenceable customers.
Don’t worry about competitors & all the buzz they are getting around press/VC other circuits.
Go for a smaller, unique market, find a problem solve it & become the market leader. The growth rate will be much higher.
Do not copy an existing idea unless you have some value add on it & will address a specific problem which was missed out on initial product.

Disruption in print/TV industry, who will survive?

disruption

Few days back I got mail from a colleague of NewsX. He was one of the best journalist & prime anchor for the the news channel that time. After having conversation over Skype he told me a lot of things have changed, people are moving to online space. A lot of new online mediums like qz.com, scroll.in making good wave in India. He also mentioned that at few places where he went for interview, they asked him about data journalism & basics of web development i.e html/css.

What is this happening?

If we google a bit, it will not be difficult to find out :

1. Trends show online ad revenue will overtake print for Uk This similar trend will follow across globe sooner or later.

2. Every other day you will find famous print edition going only online like this

3. Mass level layoff happening at various media agencies like this

How can we survive?

The new age media is data driven & social. It gets to users as it comes. Some people call Twitter is the killer behind old age media, we got news of Bin Laden Death on Twitter before anywhere else. People are more interested & are connected to devices. It makes sense to move everything online.

What are the tools these days new media journalists are using?

Blog Blog Blog

Blog is the best way to let world know about your thoughts. Internet is full of platforms for publication WordPress, google, medium. Pick one of it, write interesting things there.

Data Driven

Todays world data plays key role & in journalism, mapping those data in more presentable way add 10X value. Check the softwares from http://projects.knightlab.com/#toolbox You can do awesome stuff with many such tools. But you will get your hands dirty with web technology as well. 🙂

Twitter/Facebook Others

These are the best medium to reach your potential audience, once you write a blog spread word about it in all these places. Create a page for yourself on Facebook, share your interesting stuff there. Follow interesting people on your domain out there on twitter, exchange your thoughts with them.

Audio/Video casts

Podcast is a best way to bring your thoughts on a topic to the word with audios. Softwares like audacity is excellent tool for same. Once you are done recording, add it to soundcloud & connect the feeds to iTunes. This will increase more audience.

Similarly using software like Google+ Hangouts on air, one can add a lot of participants in a discussion & later upload the same video for others to watch.

Build your audience, learn new technology is the only way to survive in this disruption.

Things i love about Mumbai.

I stayed in the city for over a year, i agree i was never part of it. People say Mumbai is not for everyone, i have no comment on that. My one year stay has been a mixed feeling & I would like to share the positive side of it.

Autowalas: I have traveled & stayed in many cities Delhi, Pune, Chennai, Bangalore [insert city name here] Mumbai has been the only city where these folks will take you anywhere by meter. I never felt bad taking a ride & was never scared about the security part.

auto

Nobody Cares: No one has fucking time to see what his/her neighbours are doing. I have no idea who stays next door & i have never seen them.

Night Life: The only city which is awake till 1 am out here in India. Most of my night out has been after dinner post 10 pm. I remember missing my flight to Delhi because i was over confident that i will make it to airport after the party.

Food: From variety of vegetarians i.e gujarati, marathi to mughlai food. Ooh don`t forget the wide number of restaurants serving international cuisine. I spent good time at pop tates & jughead, you should try there sizzlers its mouth watering.

food

Friends: I made good number of interesting friends here & met many old ones. I will be meeting them whenever am here.

friends

What next: I am headed to Bangalore, looking forward to meet all my old friends. Bangalore has a fascinating technology community, i will try to be part of it.

Things or two I learnt following James Altucher.

foo

A lot people like Peter Theil is not a big fan of Twitter, everyone has an opinion or belief and we should respect it.

About me, I have always been a connector & Twitter is one of the best things happened to me. A few months back a tweet from @jaltucher landed in my timeline, it was a Eureka moment for me because I was going through turbulent times in my personal & professional life.

I made a small list which I have kept as a sticky note after going through his blog & podcast.

1. Be Honest with yourself.

2. Ask whenever you need something.

3. Fail fast & start something new.

4. Your health is key to your successful life.

5. Stay away from those who don’t respect you or are pessimistic.

6. Be Naked, always open to accept & exchange ideas.

7. Help help help others without expecting immediate returns.

8. Get into the habit of reading.

9. Being crazy is good.

10. You have an idea, work on it forget about the end result, give it a try to start with.

In case you want to know more about James Altucher, please follow him on

Twitter

Homepage

Amazon Page

I will keep adding more to the list over time. I am hoping next year I will be in a position to buy all his books as am still catching up with all his blogs & podcasts.

Crazy Dreams about my death

Okey, here i am in mid air writing about this experience of mine. It might appear hilarious/funny but every once in a while I get this weird dream of me getting killed in a head on car collision or flight explosion in mid air. I would hope it never comes true.

death

Am is scared of these dreams?

Fucking no, it keeps reminding me that death is imminent & I should better spend every single day of my life to fullest. Its working so far well. 🙂

What would you do if you were me?

But we keep complaining !!

Its going to be a RANT, if you are interested please keep reading.

Found it in no litter zone at North Sikkim. Packed it & dropped it in a trash in Gangtok.

So every now and then i keep hearing, our government is not doing this, they are not doing that.

1. No water supply, this government is good for nothing.

Please ask yourself:

a. Your water tap is leaking but you have no time to get is fixed. That means you are wasting water. Can you fucking get it fixed.

b. Why every freaking day your tank goes on water overflow wasting many liters of water to drainage?

2. We don`t get 24/7 electricity, this government is waste

a. Ooh but are you paying the bills?

b. ooh and are you using electricity sensibly, do you close fans/lights when its not needed.

3. Man see the city is so dirty.

a. Do you throw the garbage in bin?

b. Do you carry bags when you go out shopping or your dependent on polybag shopkeeper gives you.

Please ask yourself how we can fix the problems. I know our city & country is not perfect, but we can work together in making it better. 🙂

Things I will miss if I die anytime soon.

This August month made me think what all I will miss if I die anytime soon, You may call me stupid for this. I have made a small list of things I will miss incase I get hit by a truck or die in a plane crash or something else.

20131223_151023

Parents: I love my parents & want to be with them every minute of their life. It will be very unfortunate for them being without their son.

Love of my life: Ooh, I have fallen in love a few times before, but still waiting for that REAL LOVE which people claims, when it has to happen will happen.

World Trip: Ooh, I really want to see the world or in simple term all the known continents, I don’t want to die without seeing them all.

Beer oh beer: I love beer & so far have only tried 50-60 odd brands I want to try at most 500+ brands before I die.

Meeting Razique: I don`t want to die before meeting Razique, he is in Canada & we have been interacting for over 3 years, thanks to OpenStack project. I want to meet him, hopefully sometime next year.

The Porsche: Well, when it comes to driving a car, my saying is either ride/own a Porsche or don`t ride/own a car. I am yet to learn car driving, will do once i will buy Porsche.

Akshaya patra pledge: I want to donate enough money every year which will feed 20 street children, Akshaya Patra the NGO works on same direction.

PS: I am 100% in my senses & not stressed, so no need to call/ask/inquire why did I blog this. 🙂