French Kiss

The beauty of Paris...Meg Ryan's impish smile....or more of a sucker for romantic comedy than I thought,but I sat through the film. As predictable and cliched as it can get...yet can't say it didn't have it's charm.

             

Kate (Meg Ryan) overcomes her fear of flying and hops on a plane to Paris to confront her fiance who has confessed to falling in love with a french goddess. On her way she meets Luc, (Kevin Kline) a thief, who has hidden agenda being with her as he's used her bag to hide a necklace. And in the process he's helping her get her fiance back, and then they fall cutely and charmingly in love, Yes, it's as predictable as that.

Meg Ryan I guess just carries with her the feel of 'Sleepless in Seattle' and 'When Harry met Sally', and that's enough to make you sit through. Anyways who's expecting suspense and deep thinking in Rom Coms. It's meant for mush and mush is what you get. And in this one, naive teenage mush at that.

And Paris and Cannes, I wish I could have watched in the theatre...they add as much as Meg and Kevin to the movie.

Autobiography Of A Yogi, Leads

Anyone who knows me, knows that 'The Autobiography of a Yogi' means a lot to me. A book that's been a huge influence...one that's answered a lot of my very basic questions.

                                         

My story with it started way way back.  I think in 1992, a friend gifted it to me, and I tried reading but didn't get through more than forty pages. That happened not once but thrice, each time I picked it up, I'd drop it at different stages. In fact I once read it all just to prove to him, or maybe myself, that I could, (lan, you even remember?) but honestly....it went pretty much over my head.

I finally cracked it (yes, I feel I cracked it :) about three years back, and have since read it multiple times.

That was context..back in the present....last week,  I was searching for a place to pick up a sandwich......I had been given directions, but I lost my way...like totally, and when I looked for coordinates, what should I find? That I'm on Paramahamsa Yogananda Road, (author of AY) a road which until then I didn't even know existed.

At that point it felt like the 9 ¾ platform out of Harry Potter.

And imagine my surprise when a couple days later I bump into this old friend, and we get talking about random stuff.......and she turns out to be one of the founding members of Ananda Sangha in Bangalore, the institute of Paramahamsa Yogananda. My antennae started to flutter.

I didn't even know what I wanted from it, I wasn't looking to do any more courses, nor yoga......but it felt like it was happening for a reason.

Well I called, and a quick chat with Anjali, who runs the place, and she's like.."aah, you've manifested what you wanted, we have just the thing for you in two days"   

I went..it was real close home and a two hour event, so didn't take too much thinking. It was a small group, varied and eclectic in background, but pretty niche in interest, almost like initiated and drawn by that one book.

In fact, just to be in a roomful of people who shared similar experiences with the book...... people who spoke of their experiences reading, difficulties finishing, people who've read multiple times, people to who it's a bible, people who talk of quantum mechanics and string theory and AY in the same breath. It in itself was quite an intriguing and fascinating experience. 

Even not knowing what they offered, I realized it had come as answer to a question I had in mind.

Ask and You Shall Receive 

Tools of Titans

A definitely worth-a-read article by Peter Diamandis, on Tim Ferriss’ new book 'Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons and World-Class Performers'       

                                                  

Peter Diamandis, himself is one of the hundred titans interviewed by Tim Ferriss for the book. 

The book has already shot to the top of the Best Sellers list (#4 on Amazon this morning… and climbing). 

Here he writes specifically the tools and tips from five people highlighted in Tim’s book: Tony Robbins, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Reid Hoffman and Seth Godin.

Those five titans offer the following five nuggets:

• Morning priming
• Not waiting to pursue your dreams
• Conviction without stubbornness
• Stimulating the subconscious mind
• Starting extremely small

Morning Priming (Tony Robbins)

Tony Robbins introduced to me to morning priming years ago, and it has become a staple of my morning routine ever since. Upon waking, Tony immediately goes into his priming routine, which is intended to produce rapid change in his psychology and physiology. Tony says, “To me, if you want a primetime life, you’ve got to prime daily.” Priming with Tony’s method only takes around 10 minutes, and here are the three steps:

1.Expressing Gratitude (3 minutes): Tony describes this step as, “Feeling totally grateful for three things. I make sure that one of them is very, very simple: the wind on my face, the reflection of the clouds that I just saw. But don’t just think gratitude. I let the gratitude fill my soul, because when you’re grateful, we all know there’s no anger. It’s impossible to be angry and grateful simultaneously. When you’re grateful, there is no fear. You can’t be fearful and grateful simultaneously.”

2.Spiritual Exercise (3 minutes): Tony describes this step as, “Total focus on feeling the presence of God, if you will, however you want to language that for yourself. But this inner presence coming in, and feeling it heal everything in my body, in my mind, my emotions, my relationships, my finances. I see it as solving anything that needs to be solved. I experience the strengthening of my gratitude, of my conviction, of my passion…“

3.Three to Thrive (3 minutes): Tony describes this final step as, “Focusing on three things that I’m going to make happen, my ‘three to thrive.’ … See it as though it’s already been done, feel the emotions, etc.”

(My two cents: while all of these are familiar, remember that it's not just about thinking it, you need to feel it, feel it in every cell of your being, immerse yourself in it, it's not just at the conscious level, this needs to enter the subconscious stream. Thinking it takes ten seconds, he's talking three minutes...remember that)

There is No Need to Wait (Peter Thiel)

Peter Thiel’s contrarian ideas have become gospel in Silicon Valley. He has been an advocate of dropping out of school in favor of entrepreneurship, and there have been tens of thousands of applications for his Thiel Fellowship since he launched it in 2011.

Here is Peter Thiel’s answer to the question, “What do you wish you had known about business 20 years ago?”

“If you go back 20 or 25 years, I wish I would have known that there was no need to wait. I went to college. I went to law school. I worked in law and banking, though not for terribly long. But not until I started PayPal did I fully realize that you don’t have to wait to start something. So if you’re planning to do something with your life, if you have a 10-year plan of how to get there, you should ask: Why can’t you do this in 6 months? Sometimes, you have to actually go through the complex 10-year trajectory. But it’s at least worth asking whether that’s the story you’re telling yourself, or whether that’s the reality.”

Strong Views, Loosely Held (Marc Andreessen)

This phrase was on Marc Andreessen’s Twitter bio for years. Marc’s explanation of this phrase in Tim Ferriss’ book is worth noting and internalizing for every entrepreneur:

“Most people go through life and never develop strong views on things, or specifically go along and buy into the consensus. One of the things I think want to look for as both a founder and as an investor is things that are out of consensus, something very much opposed to the conventional wisdom… Then, if you’re going to start a company around that, if you’re going to invest in that, you better have strong conviction because you’re making a very big bet of time or money or both. But what happens when the world changes? What happens when something else happens? That’s where “loosely held” comes in. People everywhere hate changing their minds, but you need to be able to adapt in light of new information.”

(My two cents: fit this also into everyday decision making 'if I make up my mind on Monday.... a factor changes on Tuesday....be willing to change your decision on Wednesday'. The consensus out there will not allow this easily, they will say 'but it was you who said......'. I've seen this happen even at personal and corporate levels. Something to watch for)

Give the Mind an Overnight Task (Reid Hoffman)

Reid Hoffman jots down problems in a notebook that he wants to his mind to work on overnight. This helps him ruminate over different ideas in his subconscious to start his next day primed with solutions. It was Thomas Edison who said, “Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.” Here is Reid speaking on his tactic:

“What are the kinds of key things that might be constraints on a solution, or might be the attributes of a solution, and what are tools or assets I might have? … I actually think most of our thinking, of course is subconscious. Part of what I’m trying to do is allow the fact that we have this kind of relaxation, rejuvenation period in sleeping, to essentially possibly bubble up the thoughts and solutions to it.”

(My two cents: Trust that the solution need not just come from your own subconscious space, if you can let it seep through enough, it can even dip into the collective consciousness, and there you have the world at your finger tips...not metaphorically but pretty literally)

To Create Something Great, Start Extremely Small (Seth Godin)

Seth Godin has authored 18 best-selling books on the way ideas spread, marketing and strategic communication. His ideas on “starting small to go big” have impacted me across all my organizations and companies.

In the word of United States Army general Creighton Abrams, “When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time.” Here is Seth Godin on starting small:

“My suggestion is, whenever possible, ask yourself: What’s the smallest possible footprint I can get away with? What is the smallest possible project that is worth my time? What is the smallest group of people who I could make a difference for, or to? Because smallest is achievable. Smallest feels risky. Because if you pick smallest and you fail, now you have really screwed up… We want to pick big. Infinity is our friend. Infinity is safe. Infinity gives us a place to hide. So, I want to encourage people instead to look for the small. To be on one medium in a place where people can find you. To have one sort of interaction with one tribe, with one group where you don’t have a lot of lifeboats.”

(My two cents: This one is brilliant, it's about taking full ownership and responsibility. Show yourself you can do it, show it in the here and now....the rest will follow)

As always, some of the most important learnings by the most brilliant people, are all about mindset.

Thanks for sending this Kiran, and once you read the book, send me more snippets.....the size of the book was crazy scary :)

Lost In Translation

A movie I've watched four times over the last ten years. Guess it's one of those that just grows on you. It's a fascinating film, maybe for all that's real....all that's not said...all that's felt...just there...just beyond. 

          

Bob (Bill Murray) is an American actor, in Tokyo to shoot an advertisement. Charlotte (Scarlette Johansson) is in the same hotel in Tokyo, with her husband, a photographer, who is out for a couple of days on a photography assignment. It's like two strangers who find something beautiful in an unusual and unlikely reprieve.

She is in her early twenties, and he is in his late fifties, and the whole dynamic is at one time a lot of things... fun, comic, intelligent, sad, romantic.....above all an undeniable connect.

The sequence of Bob shooting the whisky campaign ad with the Japanese team is simply hilarious. Yet there's a sad....a sad in how he is contemptuous of not just the advertisement or the shooting, but of himself too.... only too aware that he is using this as an escape from a marriage that is starting to sour. 

Charlotte on the other hand is this sweet, intelligent and thoughtful woman, who seems to be going through a parallel crisis of her own, more like a quarter life crisis, wondering at what she wants to be, what life means, about her marriage......and wondering if it will get better over the years. 

The relationship starts through a little eye contact, and then they start hanging out together......karaoke bars, drug parties, mostly the hotel bar......and they are soon sharing their innermost feelings, about their marriages, their fears, their happiness (un), all that deep stuff. You can feel the togetherness...but it's beyond a label.

The three days done, and they don't seem to even know how to say goodbye, because they don't know what they have, what they're saying goodbye to. Yet in the end, Bob runs after her and whispers something in her ear which brings out so much tenderness and joy, something we are not allowed to hear....and can only guess. In fact they become so real, that you'd almost think you were intruding if you heard. 

Just the length of my post would give you an idea of how real they became to me :)

Savithri - Narratives of the Heart

Sunday I got lucky enough to attend this surreally beautiful dance performance by Janani Murali.

It was titled 'Savithri - Narratives of the Heart', in Dance, Theatre and Poetry. It was an individual performance through bharatanatyam, with an ongoing beautifully scripted narration of the story, also weaving in Tagore and Aurobindo's perspectives on Savithri.

Savithri is a story from the Mahabharatha. Story goes that when Yudhishthira asks Markandeya, 'is there a woman more righteous than Draupadi....who surpasses her in beauty, grace, power and intellect, Markandeya talks of the princess Savithri. And when he asks, if she will then rule the lands, Markandeya says, 'no, Savithri is born to chart her own destiny'

Savithri falls in love with Satyavan, and though she knows that he is destined to die in a year, she still wants to marry him. And when an year later Yama (the god of death) comes to take Satyavan, Savithri talks him into giving her a boon. 

Yama says, 'ask for anything you want, except for the life of Satyavan'. And the story goes that Savithri then asks that she have a hundred children by Satyavan, and thus yet gets the life of Satyavan.

This is a story that was one of my childhood favorites from the Amar Chitra Kathas, I still remember the cover page.......and strangely enough, it's because I happened to mention that it's a favorite in a blog post last week, that I got an invite to this dance program :)

Here are a few pictures from the event.

Janani is a professional dancer with a strong lineage of dance. She has several performances to her credit, with even having danced at the Hampi Cultural Festival a couple of months back.

And playing Savithri, I'd say she was beauty, grace and intellect personified. Wonderful performance Janani, and hoping to see more !!

How Starbucks’s Culture Brings Its Strategy to Life

An Interesting read from the Harvard Business Review

                  

In most organizations, culture and strategy tend to be discussed in separate conversations. Executives know that culture is important and that a negative culture can hurt company performance, but they often don’t know what to do about it. Or they attempt to improve the situation by launching a culture initiative to “make the workplace more positive.” What most executive teams typically fail to do is to connect the company’s culture with how the company makes its strategy work.

Take Starbucks: The cafe chain positions itself not just as a seller of coffee but as an experience provider, creating a “third place” for conviviality beyond home and the workplace. Walk into a Starbucks anywhere in the world and you will find a consistently comfortable and welcoming ambiance. But you don’t get that simply by telling your staff to be warm and friendly.

Starbucks’ culture is powerful because it is tightly linked to the company’s distinctive capabilities. The feel of Starbucks stores isn’t created merely by the layout and the décor — it exists because the people behind the counter understand how their work fits into a common purpose, and recognize how to accomplish great things together without needing to follow a script.

Over many years, Starbucks has built a capability to foster a relationship-driven, employees-first approach, which encourages staff to form close bonds with each other.  At the height of the global financial crisis, when other companies were cutting HR costs wherever they could, Starbucks invested in staff training, including coffee tastings and courses that ultimately qualified for credit at higher education institutions. Former company president Howard Behar believed that employees who feel cared for will care about their customers. One former Starbucks worker noted that “nobody at Starbucks ever ordered anyone to do anything. It was always: ‘Would you do me a favor?’ Or something similar.”

While most organizations somewhat support the notions of diversity and inclusivity, Starbucks not only understands the importance of having staff of diverse backgrounds in order to create a welcoming environment for customers of diverse backgrounds; it has built the capability to deliver on that aspiration into its HR processes. Together, these capabilities enable Starbucks to deliver on its strategic goal of being that “third place” that customers value.

Companies whose culture and strategy are not aligned in this way often struggle to understand how they can make the linkage. Every company has its own distinctive culture — the reservoir of behaviors, traits, values and mind-sets that people in an enterprise share. But cultures are complicated, with hundreds of disparate elements. Often, these elements are not good or bad in and of themselves, but they have aspects with both positive and negative implications.

When most companies try to improve their culture, they focus on the negative aspects, and try to fix them. This sounds reasonable, but what we’ve learned is that the opposite approach is much more successful. You should identify a few positive attributes within your culture that are connected directly to your identity and the specific capabilities that are driving success in your business, double down on them and find ways to accelerate and extend them throughout the organization. Empower the critical few managers and employees who personify the best behaviors and can help you bring them to the forefront. Work on spreading the critical few behaviors that enable your strategy and counterbalance some of the negative aspects of your culture. Articulate—from the top down—the critical few attributes of your enterprise that people genuinely care about and that can help move your strategy forward. Great behaviors and attributes break down all the barriers to building your distinctive capabilities, and as they expand across the organization, they will squeeze out the negative aspects in your culture.

This relatively subtle approach has far more power than an unfocused “culture initiative,” because it lets people bring their own emotional energy to an enterprise where they feel they have a stake—and thus leverages the company’s culture to bring its strategic identity to life.

Careless Whispers

On Christmas, Diksha played me this song when she told me that George Michael had died. Guess it evoked such mixed feelings...the beauty of the song, the memories it brought up and the sadness of his death..it kind of numbed me for a bit.

            

Last night, I read a write up on him, and I sat till late listening to his numbers. Careless Whispers is just an all time favorite, and it's one that, on one long long ago night, had made me do something nuts...I'd gotten off the car and danced in the middle of the road (maybe some vodka added too :)

Rest in peace George Michael...... you were then, and you are now, yet a nice part of life.