10 lessons from work, startups & life

in 2 weeks, i finish 14 years of working. seems like yesterday when I was boarding a plane to hyderabad to start my working life. looking back, the quote, ‘the days are long but the decades are short’ plays on my mind again and again. i have been lucky to work at the places i did, with the people i did, the opportunities that i got. over the years, i have had many learnings and have occasionally blogged about them. this blog covers few of my own recent learnings and few that i noted down from the books i read/podcasts i listened to.

• decouple how good or bad a decision is with the outcomes — when i first heard it on a podcast, it seemed weird. how else are you supposed to measure the quality of your decisions. in team meetings when we discuss ideas, we often hear, ‘oh but we tried it in the past and it didn't work’. and then we quickly move to the next idea. but there are so many variables that might have changed. we must not let past failures deter us from taking the same road again. timing (and of-course luck) influence outcomes a lot more than we think.
• the grass is never greener on the other side — as a founder, there are days i miss the non-craziness of working a job in an organisation. when i am doing the latter, i miss being a founder. true for not just work, entrepreneurship but almost everything in life. i read somewhere that the grass is only greener on the side where you water it and i remind this to myself everyday.
• listening is the most under-rated superpower.
• don’t over glamorize mentorship — i have almost never understood how most people think of mentors. a mentor will never have all the answers or visibility to the variables that might influence your decision. real mentorship comes by observing the folks you look up to — how did they act in a certain situation, how did they communicate something, why did they do ‘a’ and not ‘b’. the responsibility to learn is ours and not someone else’s to teach.
• you can never really convince anyone about anything — if i remember correctly, i picked this point from a podcast where srikant velamakanni (fractal) was the speaker, and he spoke about how he spends time with vc’s who already believe in what they are building. and then the ball is in his court to prove they are on the right track, they are the best team etc. but convincing someone of the vision is a waste of time. looking back at our fundraise conversations, i 100% agree. work with people who believe in what you are doing and do not have to be convinced about it. true for a lot of other things in life as well.
• downtime or recharge — we can chill on the most peaceful island for a month and still come back not recharged. or escaping to the hills for 3 days doesn't guarantee downtime. this is how i think of it — any activity where you are 100% truly (and your mind is not wandering) there, is downtime or recharge. it could be a conversation with a person, a game of football, listening to music. to truly recharge or enjoy downtime, we have to learn how to control our mind.
• decouple feedback from where it is coming from and how it’s packaged — so often we get lost in who it’s coming from, how was it communicated. forget all that. focus on the points that will help you move forward, ignore the ones you don’t agree with and keep growing.
• never ‘i’ and always ‘we’ — in work and life.
• anything good takes a long long time — i think the cliche ‘it takes 10 years of hard work for anything to be an overnight success’ fits well. be patient with ideas, people, results but impatient with execution, course-corrections.
• always always strive for more with less — no one cares about the input or how hard we worked or how much we prepped. the world only cares about output, did the needle move. patting your back for input is a waste of time and instead focus on getting more done with less. move away from checkboxes.