How Jim Carey helped me in my Career....

It was the beginning of the April 2016. I had just started out my career as a Freelance ERP consultant. I had no prior experience as a Freelance Consultant. I did not know how the freelance consulting worked, how a consultant received leads, how they were converted to opportunities, how consultants set their price, how they branded and marketed themselves....

Except for updating my LinkedIn profile title as  'Independent ERP Consultant', I had done nothing. I did not know how to proceed.

That is where Jim Carey appeared out of nowhere.

The education of a Value Investor: Guy Spier

There are some ideas that, while relating to investing and belong to 'Penny Wise' blog, are so full of Life Lessons, and hence by default belong to this blog on personal growth. This post is one such.

I had heard about Guy Spier while reviewing the book 'Dhandho Investor' (Buy the book at Amazon) written by him and Mohnish Pabrai. You can read my review of the book here

This is a part of the 'Author Talks' series of Google Talks. Guy Spier is a Value Investor and has written the book 'The education of a value investor'. (Buy the book at Amazon)

This is a unique talk. If I expected full on maths, analytics, number crunching and investing strategies and PE Ratios, I was in for a surprise.

Nine rules for becoming a success

In his book, 'The 12 Universal Laws of Success', Herbert Harris talks about the nine rules for becoming a success. These rules are:

1. Do not procrastinate: Do not wait for conditions to become right to become a success. Realize that procrastination is a state of mind and the same can be replaced with an action oriented state of mind

2. Do it now: Take the first step. There is always something that you can do now.to move you closer to success

3. Stand up on your own two feet: Do not depend on anyone or anything for your success. They may be depending on you. Believe that you already have everything you need to get everything you want.

4. Do not fear failure: Failure proves that you are trying. Every opportunity for success also contains the possibility for failure.

5. Do not sell yourself cheaply: You are worth exactly what you say you are worth. Know your full potential and true value of your talents. Recognize that you have boundless capacity for health, wealth, happiness, love, success, prosperity and money

6. Develop the success habit of being goal oriented: Set realistic goals for yourself. Determine what must be done to achieve the goal. Persevere till you achieve your goals

7. Visualize your goals and believe you can attain them: See each goal clearly and in great detail in your mind's eye. Develop a sensory relation with your goal. Know how your goal looks, feels, smells, tastes and sounds. See yourself as though you have already attained your goal. Know that you will achieve your goals in a timely manner

8. Plan your work and work your plan: Analyze your goal. Write down all the action that must be performed to accomplish your goal. Make a schedule to achieve the plan. Execute the plan. When you execute the plan, universe will give you all the help required.

9. Do not quit: Winners never quit Be prepared to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes.

My Zipline Adventure in Dubai

6-Dec-2017:

I did the Dubai Zipline adventure sport in Dubai Marina

As usual, it was Kannan who initiated this. He had told me, bout 10 days ago,  that Zip line has opened in Dubai Marina and the cost was 650 AED (about 12000 rupees).

I had not heard about Zipline. So I asked him what it was.

"A rope will be tied across two buildings. You will be harnessed to the rope at one building and you will slide on the rope across to the other building. The speed will be about 60 Kmph", he informed.

It sounded exciting and as usual with any other adventure sport sounded a little scary.

Since it had not started commercial operations, I did not give it any further thought.

On the morning of Monday, 4th of December, I booked for Dubai Skydive for Tuesday, 5th of December. This was a birthday gift that I had promised to myself. While booking for Dubai Skydive, Kannan asked me if I wanted to book for Zipline also.

Having booked for skydive, I was in a kind of high. So in a sort of casual, almost flippant way, I just waved my hand and asked him to go ahead.

So there I was, with two back to back extreme adventure sports bookings, if you see what I mean.

Probably, I had wanted to impress my team. Probably I had wanted to prove to them that age is just a number. Probably, I had wanted to show them I was a superman.

Probably, I was plain stupid... 

Who knows what I think?  

I had already completed my skydive on Tuesday as I was leaving for this adventure on Wednesday. The action was to start at 12.00 Noon. The office of X Line, the company that was organizing the zipline was located in 'P' Level in Marina Mall. Once I reached the 'P' Level, I got a little confused. So I asked Hussain, the owner of one of the shops in the P Level, if he knew the office of X Line. It turned out that he had a friend working for X Line and he had already completed the zipline adventure during its testing phase. He was very keen to show me the office of Xline. 

One the way to the office, I asked him, how it was.

He assured me that the ride was awesome, and that he was sad that it did not last more time. 

"It is just one minute", he told me

Surprisingly, I was feeling a bit nervous about the impending ride. I tried to cover my nervousness by indulging in small talk.

"Where are you from?", I asked Hussain

He said he was from Iran.

This was the perfect time to bring the topic of Skydive. I had met Parviz, who was from Iran, yesterday in the Dubai Skydive venue.

"Yesterday I did the skydive", I informed him

If he was surprised at the sudden change in the topic, he didn't show it. He was impressed.

"How was it?", he asked.

"It was a bit scary, but fun", it was my bravado answering.

"I do not have the courage to do skydiving", he told me in a matter of fact way.

 I did not say anything. 

But I was a bit scared of this zipline. It was difficult to visualize the you will be hanging high above Dubai, hanging all alone, harnessed to a wire. The possibilities for creative imagination was endless.

I tried to analyze my fear. What was I scared of? Was it the decision making? I was I suffering from Buyer's remorse? Was it the fear of heights? Was I afraid of the helplessness of it all? Was I afraid of the fall from a height to the ground level? Was it a fear that something will go wrong?

It was definitely not the last one. I knew that nothing will go wrong and I will have the best experience. Also, only the day before, I had dived from 13000 feet.

That was different. That was Tandem. I had someone strapped to me. Here I was all alone.

We reached the Xline office. The team was very young and very professional. Most of them were Filipinos. By now I was very nervous and asked if I could opt out.

"We have a 48 hour cancellation policy", they informed me. "Why don't you try sir, it is going to be fun", they tried to encourage me.

Marina mall is the end point of zipline. The starting point is the terrace on the 42nd floor of Emaar Building, about a kilometer away. 

We were taken in a van to the Emaar building. As we were approaching the building, my face must have displayed the nervousness. Judith, the Filipino support staff tried to calm my fears,. "This is nothing sir", she told me, "We did regularly during the testing of the zipline. It is a lot of fun", she told me.

"Do you have a break or something to control the speed", I asked Judith.

"No sir. The normal speed is about 60 Kmph, but it depends on your weight".

 "The heavier you are, the slower you will ride, right?", I asked her hopefully.

"No sir, the heavier you are, the faster you will move", she laughed her pretty laugh.

I racked my engineer brain. Somewhere there is a formula linking weight, acceleration and momentum.

I should not have eaten all those parathas.

"When did it open to public?", I asked.

"Yesterday. Today is day 2", she replied.

What !!!

You see, I am not the 'Early Adopter' type. I don't stand in lines to buy the first release of the new iPhone. I don't go to movie to watch First Day First Show. I will allow others to try something first, read their reviews and decide not to try it. 

Here I was almost an early adopter of zipline. 

We reached the Emaar building. As the lift was going up to the 42 floor, I was getting more and more nervous. Once at the terrace, I was very sure that I was not going to do the zipline, 650 Dirhams be damned. 

Except, I did not factor in the technical support staff at the starting point.

"I am very scared. I don't want to go through with this", I told the support staff. I was looking at the street which was 42 floors below. On this day, it seemed to be excessively teeming with tiny, ant like moving vehicles.

"Sir, it is quite normal to be nervous", he told me, "why don't we do one thing? Please wear the safety gear. If you still want to give up, you can always do".

So I wore the gear.

I told him, I was still scared.

"Sir, let me take your video. After that, if you want to give up, you can do that", he told me patiently.

In between my fear, I could sense the grandmotherly approach. You progressively move them to do what you want them to do. I was kind of embarrassed, if you ask me.

I stood for the 'Pre ride' photo and video. 

"Tell the world how you are feeling", told the support guy.

I told the universe that I was feeling nervous and was not sure if I wanted to go through with this.

"Sir, let them set you up at the starting block. Before starting, if you want to give up, you can do", the guy told me.

I looked around. One couple was just getting set to take the ride. There was nervousness in their eyes as well, but they were going ahead with the ride despite. If they can do it, why can't I?

I also couldn't figure out one thing. Just the previous day, I had done a dive which must be 1000 times scarier, but I did not feel the fear. Here  I was getting nervous about a ride that is going to last about a minute. 

Such are the ways of the mind, I suppose.

There were two girls waiting in the line behind me. I could see fear in their eyes as well. If I give up now, probably they will as well.

This male ego is a terrible thing. It makes you do stuff that you probably wont on your own. My male ego told me that I cannot let down the damsels.

So, between my instinct at self preservation and the stupid male ego, the latter won. 

I mechanically lied down, face down on the platform. They tied the harness to the rope. Once, everything was set, the support staff counted 3,2,1 and Go

I was off. 

It was nothing as I feared. From the first second, it was not scary at all. As I slid down the rope at about 60 Kmph, I could see below the magnificent Marina canal lined with yachts of all sizes. I could see the afternoon traffic of Dubai Marina and the beautiful Marina Mall at a distance. 

It was very beautiful. My eyes took in all I could. 

In about a minute, it was over. I had landed on the landing pad at Marina mall. It was all over except for the Video.

"How was your experience, sir?", the video guy asked.

I was all enthusiastic. "It is great. Not scary at all. I am sad that it is over so soon", I gushed

The young team clapped.

I did the ride in the afternoon. Perhaps an evening slot would have been good. I could have got a better view of evening Marina.

After the ride, while walking towards the office to collect my bags and stuff, the Xline associate commented, "This is nothing. Skydive is scary"

I told him I did skydive yesterday. He looked at me with new respect.

I felt proud. 

My Table Tennis Heroes...

I would like to say I had a difficult early teens, but raking my memory, except for the fact that I was aimless and clueless as I entered my teens, I can't say anything else about my teens.

Yes, I matured a bit early. I developed hair on my face much earlier than my friends did, my voice started changing earlier than my classmates. Just like all teens who go thru such episode, I was a child inside, but everyone considered me a grownup and set their expectations likewise.

And I was aimless, I did not have any goals and did not have any mentors who could guide me. 

But in my mind I knew that I was intelligent, I used to read a lot and write a lot, I had a good grip on the English Language and in a curious sort of way, I also realized that I was perfectionist.

When I did anything, I was not content with doing it piecemeal. I went the whole hog.

But without an aim or a goal in life, there was nothing worthwhile to go the whole hog about, if you see what I mean.

During those days I used to play a lot of table tennis. I used go for tournaments across Kerala. There were a few good players whom I got used to appreciating. There was Bona Thomas John a young boy of my age who went on to dominate Table Tennis scene in Kerala for a long time since, there was P Sudhir, who joined Medical College and went on to become a doctor....

And then there were V Kumar and Srinivasan...

Both of them were from Trivandrum and were leading players during my time. V Kumar flirted between State No. 3 and State No. 5 for a long time and Srinivasan, while he was ranked in the 20s was the captain of Kerala University TT team, a formidable team that won many tournaments those days. 

What fascinated me about these two guys was their intellect. While playing a lot of Table Tennis, Kumar found time to study and do exceedingly well in his academics and did Electronics graduation from Kerala. During those days getting admission into Electronics was the ultimate achievement for a teenager in Kerala. 

Kumar was a soft spoken guy. He was always courteous and respectful to everyone. While he did not go out of the way to talk to people, he would engage with them pleasantly.

Srinivasan was another brilliant guy. He scored 10th rank in Class 12 exams in Kerala and went against the public perception and social pressures to join graduation in Mathematics and Physics from Kerala University. 

During those days I was doing my Class 12 and was not unduly worried about my performance since I did not have any aim in life.

But I was fascinated to see that Kumar, despite his hectic Table Tennis schedule, managed to score high score in the exams. He was my hero. I used to watch all his matches, hang around him to listen to his words. 

I was like a lap dog, hanging my tongue out, wagging my tail and always around Kumar.

If he had noticed my presence, he did not show it. 

Srinivasan, on the other hand was a Tamil Brahmin, of my cast. He was the exact opposite of Kumar (possibly due to this, they were very good friends). He was flamboyant, extroverted and loved telling risque jokes and laughing at them..

But he was brilliant.

While I did not hang around him like I did with Kumar, but his brilliance and that he was a Tam Bram had an implicit effect on me.

I he can do it, why can't I do better?, I used to ask myself.

During one of the tournaments, I think it was in Trichur Engineering College, I asked Kumar how he managed to score very high despite his hectic schedule.

"The trick is focus and hard work", he made a motherhood statement

"But there is also some smartness involved", he told me

"Like?"

"The responsibility of preparing the questions for class 12 exams is assigned to one or two professors every year. Since it is a very tedious job, what they do is to scan the question papers of the last 5 to 6 years and copy the questions and then change the numbers and prepare the paper for the current year. So if you rigorously answer the question papers of the last 10 years, with a reasonable certainty you will score about 90%. Only 10% is for new questions", he told me.

I wanted to become like V Kumar. I wanted to become like Srinivasan. I wanted to do exceedingly well in my exams. I wanted to prove to them that I was good. I wanted to impress V Kumar, my hero.

I had a goal, to impress Kumar by doing better than him. I was no longer the aimless teenager.

I was like a target seeking missile. I came home, and started studying. I got the question papers of the previous 10 years and methodically completed each of them.

By the time of my exams, I was well prepared. Of course, not prepared enough for 100%, but I scored about 95% which was sufficient for me to get into engineering in a good college in Kerala...

Both Kumar and Srinivasan did exceedingly well. Kumar became an electronics engineer and Srinivasan topped Kerala University in his graduation, topped Kerala University in his Post Graduation and did his MBA from IIM Kolkata..

I have lost touch with them since, but I believe that I was a spark waiting to be lit and Kumar came and lit that spark. I needed a guide and mentor at a difficult time in my life and Kumar, unknown to himself, became my mentor...

They were my heroes and I am proud that I was able to live up to them...

Dare to dream.....

The other day I was at my son's school to attend a function organized to felicitate the best performing students from the school in the just concluded class X and XII examinations.

(Read my related post here)

Pretty inspirational, the entire event. Children were the heroes, of course. Lanky, gawky, self-conscious teenagers, getting on to the stage to receive awards for some spectacular achievements.

There were many rank holders, who scored high marks in the entrance examinations for the graduate programs in Engineering and Medicine. There were many children who were very focused and appeared only for one of the entrance examinations (either Engg. or Medicine) and did exceedingly well and there were others who attempted both and came out with flying colours in both.

As you can see, the atmosphere was electric. There were thunderous applause as the name of each student was announced along with their achievements. There were happy parents, grandparents, siblings galore. One could not help feel the happiness felt by the audience.

I was happy, of course. The enthusiasm rubs off on you.

However, I couldn't help think that for many of these students, this might be the last 'HUGE' goal in their lives. In India, for many students, the two years, starting with the Class X exam, culminating in the Entrance exams two years later is the toughest phase in their academic career. The pressure is enormous. There is pressure from parents, of course. In addition there is pressure from the teachers, peers, coaching institutes that preps the kids for this examinations....

Every child has a clear goal, and there is an ecosystem that supports her to keep the focus on the goal and also, continuously guides them on the path towards goal achievement.

Yesterday's function was the culmination of this two year rigorous process. These kids had clear goals that gave them focus, and a supportive ecosystem that helped them to work towards achieving their goals.

As I mentioned earlier, for many of these kids, this may be the only 'Huge' goal that they will ever have in their lives. Even after fifty years, they will tell their grand children the story of how they 'got the top rank in their entrance examinations'.

Isn't this is the story of many of us? Each of us have some achievements from the past that we are still proud of.

This is not how it is supposed to happen. As the saying goes, if you are still talking about what you did yesterday, you have not done much today. You are supposed to continually add accomplishments to your life.

However, for many of us life is a routine of getting up in the morning, going to office, slogging, coming home, eating dinner and going to sleep. All for a promotion, a bit of a recognition and some income. In this rat race that we are in, we do not even get time to reflect on ourselves. We do not get time for ourselves.

How do we overcome it? How do we get to have a goal?

First step is to have a dream. Goals are derived from dreams. Without dreams, there can be no worthwhile goals. Many of us adults have forgotten the art of dreaming. We are scared of dreaming, let alone dream big. We find it difficult to fill in the statement 'I want to......' with an action verb. At the most we will fill it with 'I want XXX dollars'. Our dreams, if at all any, are in monetary terms.

Which means what?

One, most of us do not have any dreams....

Two, in case of those who have dreams, the dreams are very small and limited in scale. We conflate dreams and achievement. When we dream about something, there is a small voice in the back of our mind constantly reminding us of our limitations and constraints. Hence we limit the size of our dreams.

And three, as mentioned above, some of us dream in monetary terms. Money should not be the dream. It should be the outcome.

We either conflate dreams with our 'current' limitations - our dreams are limited by our perceived limitations to achieving the same, or we conflate dreams with monetary outcomes.

This is not how children dream. When the child says 'I want to become an airline pilot' there is no voice in her head that tells her that she can't achieve it. There is no limitations in her mind. That is her dream. Period.

Children do not limit their dreams. They do not dream in money terms. They dream big. They dream of achievement. They dream of accomplishment.

Remember, this moment, as we are reading this line, is the first moment of the rest of our lives. It is like, at every passing moment, we are being born again.

What we dream is what we do. Since you are being born in this moment, there is no need to conflate your dreams (that live in your future) with limitations (a thing of the past).

A marathon runner, runs nine tenths of his race at a lower speed and picks up speed for the last tenth. When it comes to the last one tenth (future), he does not constrain himself with what happened in the previous nine tenths (past).

Same is the case of a blind man, whose blindness is cured by new medical science after twenty years of being blind. Post surgery, after regaining consciousness, he does not limit his behavior to his blind days. He does not walk around with a stick and a guide dog as if he is still blind. He goes about, experiencing new stuff and soaking in all that the universe has to offer.

In both cases, it is like being born again.

Let me reiterate this. This moment is the first moment of the rest of our life. What we do from now on will determine our future. Do not constrain it by the negative messages from the past, limiting messages from others, and negative messages from oneself.

Look to the future. Imagine you are the marathon runner and pick up speed. Do not let the road bumps in the past affect your speed in the future. Imagine you are the blind man who has regained his vision after years of blindness. Throw away your crutches, leave your limiting thoughts behind, look at the future, soak it in. Dream big, think big, act big.

Whatever be your age, whatever be your position, wherever you may be, Dare to dream, it is where it all begins. It is where the future is.

My story of 'Alternate Goal Setting'

As I looked out of the window on that lazy Sunday afternoon, I kept thinking about the problem at hand.

How do I achieve my goal?

You see, as a part of New Year resolution, I had set a goal for reducing my weight. And that morning, I checked my weight and found that.... forget it.

Of course, it stood to reason. I had not completed any of the tasks that I had planned to achieve my goals. I hadn’t got up at 6.00 AM and did 30 minutes of treadmill. Evening after evening I had come home and had decided to ‘Relax’, thereby avoiding my objective of doing a round of cycling in the evening.

And to top it all, I had not controlled quantity or quality of my intake.

Something had gone wrong somewhere. Was my goal very ambitious? Reducing 5 Kg of weight by 30 April (4 months) was definitely not ambitious. Some will say it was not even ambitious enough.  It was definitely not tough getting up at 6.00 AM in the morning. I regularly get up at that time. Once a while I also do (and like doing) 30 minutes on the treadmill. And I enjoy cycling.

So I had chosen an achievable goal and a practical set of steps to meet that goal. Conventional wisdom would have told me that achieving my goal was a cakewalk.

Still here I was, 5 months down the line, not having achieved my goal (and nowhere near to achieving it) and feeling frustrated.

What should I do?

An article that I read that morning had caught my attention. The article talked about ‘Alternate Goal’ approach to goal achievement. The gist of the article was that to achieve your primary goal, identify and focus on an alternate goal and strive to achieve that alternate goal. The article also mentioned that you should word your goal in positive terms.

I thought of creating an alternate goal with a positive message. After spending some time I came out with this alternate goal.

“Burn 10000 measurable calories on treadmill in 30 days”. It sounded positive (?). I was no longer focusing on my weight. The focus had shifted to Measurable Calories as seen on the treadmill.

I did a quick calculation. 10000 calories in 30 days means burning about 335 Calories per day. Of course I will do other activities to burn calories. But for the purpose of achieving this goal, I will consider only the calories that I burned on the treadmill.

I started off on 12^th June with this new goal.  I got up at about 6 and went to the gym. I was all excited. No pressure to reduce food intake, to lift weight, to cut down on fatty food… I just have to burn about 335 Calories per day for 30 days.

I felt like a free man.

I found that if I set the elevation on the treadmill to 7 and the speed to about 6.2 KMPH, I can burn about 350 Calories in 35 minutes.

For the first few days I managed to clock about 350 calories per day. This is when I committed my first mistake of ‘Goal Shifting’. I moved my daily goal target to 350 Calories (anyway, I was achieving it, wasn’t I?) from 335 that was originally planned.

Now started the second mistake. I started changing goals. From my original plan of focusing on Calories, I started focusing on other parameters like the distance I walked per day, the time that I spent on the treadmill per day etc.

This did not help matters. For example, after setting my target to 4 KM / day, I found that I was waking up in the morning with trepidation.  Every morning was like “god, I have to walk 4 KM today on that stupid treadmill…”.  I started losing focus on my alternate goal of 350 Calories / Day.

I quickly reverted to focusing on my Calorie goal.

Then one day, I did 400 Calories. Now my goal shifted from 350 Calories per day to 400 Calories per day.

Mind you, it is not easy to burn 400 calories per day by walking for about 40 minutes. After about 25 minutes, your body starts complaining like crazy.

First 100 Calories is easy. In your initial enthusiasm, you will cover it. But at 100 Calories, you are getting tired (well not tired, but slightly breathless), and you realize that you have covered only 1/4^th of your target. Believe me, the next 200 Calories is the most difficult part of the process. Once you reach 300, it becomes easy since you are counting down. It is all in your mind.

Then came my ultimate challenge.

On the 27^th of June, I found that I had to travel to Mexico on the 6th of July. Now I had two options. One, was to continue doing 350 calories per day as originally planned. Or, two, I could have achieved my original target of 10000 Calories by the next 7 days.

I did my math. I found that, I had already clocked 6100 Calories. That left me with having to burn 3900 Calories in about 7 days. This meant burning about 570 Calories per day for the next 7 days.

It was impossible to do 500 Calories in one shot. So I took the approach of ‘Leading Indicators’ and decided to stretch myself for about 2 days, after which I will come back to my original schedule.

For the next two days (29^th and 30^th) I did 800 Calories per day.

Today is the 1^st of July. Starting from today, if I do 400 Calories per day, I will achieve my target of burning 10000 Calories.

That is not difficult.

The one thing that I did well was to have a clear focus on Calories as my target. I never wavered from that (except for a few days when I shifted the goal. But I soon returned to my original goal).

In addition, I have also walked about 86 KM in the last 20 days; I have walked about 1000 minutes. By 5^th I would have walked 100 KM and 1200 minutes.

That is like walking to Mysore at 6.2 KMPH with an incline of about 30 degrees.

Wow!!!

Wow!!! Again….

Putting it like that, it sounds incredible….

And for tracking my daily progress, I had learned MS access.

A reasonable return on investment, I would say.

What went right for me? Let us analyze.

One, I had a clear goal expressed in specific target numbers and with a clear end date: My goal was to burn 10000 Calories in 30 days.

Two, my goal was easily measurable. There is nothing more clearly measurable than calorie numbers displayed on the treadmill.

Three, perseverance or ‘Stick-to-itiveness’. There were mornings in which I did not feel like getting up from the bed. Even god takes rest on the 7^th day, I told myself as a justification. But I forced myself to get up and go to the gym. I am not sure if I would have done this on a daily basis. As a 30 day project, it was ok.

Four, I was focused on Calories as a goal and stopped as soon as I reached my daily target. Initially, I would do more than target since I had the energy. This was like deciding to extend the football match after the 90 minutes because the players still had energy. Extending the goal can work negatively also. For example, what if you feel tired after doing 200 Calories (believe me, you will). Will you stop before you achieve the daily target?

However, in real life it is not easy to have such clear cut targets. For example, what will be the target in a project management? Is it time? Scope ? Customer Satisfaction?

Even with my single target, I saw my goals change from Calories to distance to time. So when you have more goals to focus, the confusion can be more intense.

The way out? First identify your goals, and then focus on it like a laser beam. Take corrective steps much in advance. Be prepared for some stretch targets on the way.

What was my weight before I started and what is it now? Any benefits?

Well, that is a little secret that I will keep with myself. OK?