My method of Expression

Every artist has a tool for expressing his art. A painter has the brush, a guitarist has his guitar. Similarly all great executives have their tools for performance. Some perform by writing, some by speaking, some by presenting etc.

What is my method of expression? I am decent in writing (though verbose), decent in spoken English (again verbose) and also in presenting. How to achieve greatness in one of them. I have an answer: clarity of thought. All my problems stem from a lack of it.

Steve Jobs RIP

You lived life on your own terms and showed the world how to live before you die. Plato said: Practice Dying. You pulled it off in a way that only you could do.

Hope people learn it from you: death is the destination we all share.Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Your loss feels personal.

Romance - 'Mausam' and Tiger Pataudi

Being a piscean, I naturally have an inclination towards all things romantic. In & out of romance quite some times, I always pine for it. And there are triggers which make me feel romance and go nostalgic: like the movies (Mausam, which released recently) and the love-affair of 'Tiger Pataudi and Sharmila Tagore'.

Romance for me is nostalgia, drama, melancholy evenings, wintry mornings, misty nights, mountains, waiting for your lover, doing something dramatic for her, holding hands, feeling butterflies in your stomach....

When i look back on my life, I want it to have romance. In heavy doses. And want to die a romantic.

Steve Jobs, Narayan Murthy and Legacy

Two giants of men retired/resigned from their positions of contributions this month.

Steve Jobs is probably the best combination of an artist, a showman and a product visionary in the history of business. He shaped industries, culture and media many times over through his products and the company he founded.

Narayan Murthy is the iconic entrepreneur who exemplified wealth-creation and institution-building to a country where profit and business were dirty words. He set highest standards of business ethics, corporate governance and competence and started the information technology revolution in India.

What will be my legacy? Should one even think about legacy?

Or is life all about finding those few things in your personality which repeated again and with intent, 'change the world'

Corruption, Anna Hazare etc.

My take on the whole thing: Totally inconsequential though. I am observing and not partisan:

I think the whole issue of corruption originates from three problems: misaligned incentives, outdated processes and having wrong people in wrong jobs. The only way to solve it is by getting into the election process, win elections with a majority, form a government and change the system from inside.

But most leaders loose the focus on the way, because power corrupts. It is a temptation, the biggest of all. And we are all human. Anna Hazare is also falling in the trap of media, power, even after being a Gandhian. Everyone loves their '15 minutes of fame'.

Its great that he is concerned and protesting. But long term change will be slow, boring and will come as the winds, not as a storm. Does Anna and his team have the stomach for that or as Van Goethe said:

"Reason becomes Nonsense, boons afflictions'

On Drinking - I

Have been thinking of giving up drinking. Have given up on binge drinking for a long time now.

I think it is really bad if drinking becomes a habit. In my case the consequences are milder: going to home late (which becomes an issue, if you are living with parents), overeating (interferes with my weight-loss) and i do not feel really good the next morning.

I typically drink once a fortnight. And always with friends. I like couple of other things about drinking: it gives a feeling of excitement, and that one had a nice social interaction.

To give up on bad habit, one should try to replace it with a good habit. Also the good habit should satisfy the basic needs of "excitement and social interaction". Lets see where we go from here.....

Habits

In business world, we make plans and set goals. After all you 'set goals to get goals'. But in business as in life, things never happen according to plan. Missed targets lead to low morale and disappointment. We are told to learn from failures and move forward. But question is what to learn?

In one word: Habits.

Some behaviors and practices work, like laws of physics and others do not. Focus on the practices and behaviors that work and make them habits. Try learning good practices from others and make them habits. Habits lead to predictable results.

As Aristotle said: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Finding My Calling

I am not great at most of the things that I do during my work, just good enough. This sort of work i call good work. This has been filling a large part of my work lately. That's part of the CEO's job. Build a company.

I am really great at one thing: visualizing where the next technology breakthrough will happen in energy and environment sectors and coming up with a plan to exploit that. The thing called VISION!! This is great work.

I want to be able to do Good Work for 50-70% of the time and great work 20-30% of the time. So I want to build EnNatura into a Company which can let me be the resident 'visionary entrepreneur'. That's what EnNatura will always need and that's what I can contribute most effectively.