There’s a lot hidden in this seemingly simple saying. To win, you will have to figure out the game. But remember- it’s a stupid game. The rules are not predefined. Then, where to start? Start by taking a detour. If you play the game like everyone else is playing, you can’t expect different results. Need more hints? Observe your behaviour, list down the things you do in a week. Then compare it with the activity of your peers, colleagues, family, friends, relatives, extended circles and beyond. ...

As clichéd as it may sound, ideas are dime a dozen. Although rarer than opinions, they are aplenty. Yes, plenty of ideas.Inside people’s heads. Some really good ideas. But still safely locked inside people’s heads. Some are even paranoid that others will steal their golden ideas. But unless someone executes on those ideas and turn them into reality, the idea itself isn’t intrinsically valuable. Doers > Ideas If you fail while executing an idea, you learn. If you succeed while executing an idea, you win. ...

There are 7.8 billion people out there in our world. There are limited skills. There are limited jobs. So only a limited number of people will be ’the best’ in the world for a particular skill. Does that mean, everyone else, will have to settle for the 2nd best or B-team, B-companies, B-jobs, B-pay, B-lives? The answer is NO. And we already know it because we see almost innumerable successful people around us, every day. Then what are these people excelling at? If they are not ’the best’ in this world at a particular skill, how are they achieving? ...

Our shared belief is that success in life is a subjective concept. And the definition varies from person to person. But can we break the concept down to its most basic constituents? Here’s my attempt: In my world-view, A truly successful person has freedom. This freedom manifests itself in three different ways: The freedom to positively impact others. (after taking care of oneself) The freedom to pursue dreams. And financial freedom. From Bill Gates to my mother, I could fit in every successful individual in this definition. ...

Our world view (and most opinions) are based on the Company we keep. In short, the media we consume (books, tv, internet, social media) and the people around us (friends, family, mentors, colleagues, neighbours). And more often than we realize, our world-view is mostly a simple mashup of the opinions, principles, world-views of our Company without us actually analysing them, filtering them, connecting them to our existing understanding to form independent views. Because it’s easier, we simply accept the way others think and adopt them as our own. ...

I was in my early teens when I read my first self-help book. It was the classic ‘You Can Win’ by Shiv Khera. I don’t really remember how I got hold of the book (probably from the school library or maybe someone gifted it on my birthday) but one particular story left such a deep impression on my mind that I can still quote it. Here it goes: Scenario 1: Your friend calls you up in the morning and praises you to no end. “You’re the most generous, most talented, most humble person in my life. Thank you so much.” You feel elated, the call makes you happy. You go to your office smiling with your chin up, pretty proud of yourself. ...

Entrepreneurs are creators. They create value, they spot business opportunities, they break out of linear work. To begin thinking like an entrepreneur, there’s one simple approach: Don’t think of ideas, think of problems. Real problems faced by real people. Don’t think: If I create this, many people will buy it. Think: If I can solve this problem for them, people will pay me. And before you know it, you will start spotting problems to solve everywhere you look. Trust me. ...

First things first, one can’t be more productive just by using a few apps. The way we use it matters more than the actual products themselves. Having said that, some products are better designed to nudge us in the right direction. Again, what suits me might not suit your style of working. The motive of releasing a list is to help each other discover products that we might actually need but aren’t using already. ...

One fundamental tenet of life is that you cannot extract value without creating it first. E.g. nobody’s going to pay you if you don’t offer something of value in return. It applies in every sphere of life. If your presence, your advice, your thoughts, your blogs, your tweets, your Instagram stories, your Facebook posts, your emails, your products, your services, your work, your job doesn’t create any value for someone, then you can’t expect to extract value in return. ...

Someone wiser than I once said that the person you will become in five years depends on two things viz. a. the books you read b. the people you spend time with We can actually summarize it by saying: it depends on one thing: the Company you keep. Company (Capitalized to distinguish from the usual word ‘company’) can be books you read, people around you, movies you watch, blogs you read, social media (or specifically the kind of accounts on social media) you consume and so on. ...