Maximise Potential

I love the game of cricket. I was an avid cricket follower at least till the time Rahul Dravid retired. The five-day test match is the true test of patience. Believe it or not even after 5 days you can have a game with no result which is perplexing to some. To me the 5 days that a cricketer goes through is the same all of us go through during our work. We all get usually five days in a week to perform at our best. The only difference is while cricketers may not play test matches throughout the year or even a life we all will get easily 40 years of playing test matches week after week. With the advent of Twenty Twenty the viewership for test matches are dwindling but the drama of a test match is something that can never be replaced. Imran Khan once said to succeed in 20-20 you need a lot of talent, a little technique and not much temperament. However, for test matches you need all the other T’s in abundance. The epitome of a test match player for me is Rahul Dravid. He had an abu

This year in the first four months I have read more than any other year and it is inspiring. The following are the books I dived deep into recently. Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark  – The premise of the book is simple AI is here to stay. The book offers a primer on AGI and different ways AI will rule the world. This is very important knowledge if we want to help our kid’s future as well. New Power by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms – Well-written book overall the new power structure is explained in detail. The old power structure was based on centralization and hierarchy. The new power structure is based on community, crowds, decentralization and self-organized teams. Examples are plenty here and the point is there are more avenues for us to stand out in this new media frenzied world. Darkest hour by Anthony McCarten – I thoroughly enjoyed this book which read more like a novel only thing this is real. Churchill’s bull dog tenacity and courage is very much evident. His 3 major speeches d

In the last 4 months I have got into a lot of Tom Peters books. Even in the bygone eras Tom was surely ahead of his time. He does make his books exciting to read. His latest offering is “The Excellence Dividend.” If you have not read anything from Tom Peters this would be a great place to start. He started the Brand you philosophy well before the social media revolution. He spoke about this in 1999 and released a book with the same title. He advises the following 12 things to keep yourself at the top of your game in an age of turbulence and uncertainty. Here they are with my take on each Mastery – Be absolutely specialized and great in something. With the amount of information at our disposal we have an enormous responsibility to use this information to our advantage. Most of the information in the form of blogs, podcasts, books are free. My formula is simple connect with the experts in your field, read their books, listen to their podcasts, read their blogs, document what you le

Podcasts are great ways to learn and relax at the same time. Here are my favorite podcasts and yes, I listen to them at 2X speed. You can subscribe to them in iTunes. How I Built this by Guy Raz – This is one of the best podcasts on entrepreneurship. It is so well done and I loved the interview with Michael Dell. It is inspirational and short enough not to lose interest. Ted Radio Hour by Guy Raz -  I love this one really the best information from more than 5 Ted talks condensed into 50 min episodes. It is very informational and actionable. The Tim Ferris Show - This is the holy grail of all podcasts. Of course, they are longer in length and some of the ones I do skip. Overall it is a great viewpoint and has some great advice across various domains. I liked the one with Naval Ravikant. Masters of Scale by Reid Hoffman – This is one of the best podcasts on business. It has so much good information. I am happy with the amount of information on this podcast. Bregman Leadership

The CEO next door by Elena L. Botelho and Kim R. Powell is a wonderful book for anyone in a leadership position. The basic premise is that whatever assumptions we have about where CEO’s come from are mistaken. Some of them have been very educated and not all of them have an IVY league education. It is also interesting that not all of them have too much talent. Here are the four best practices mentioned that make great CEO’s with my take on each. Decisiveness – Being decisive is one of the key traits of strong leaders. Even if you make a wrong decision it is better than being indecisive. For example, Henry Ford was known to decide quickly but he was very slow in changing a decision once it is made. Decisiveness is a trait that can be developed. One great book on making better decisions is Decisive by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. The recommendation from the authors is to make decisions faster, make fewer decisions and get better every time. Engage for impact: This is basically about