Give and Take by Adam Grant

 A podcast episode I had done for the 10x Growth Strategies podcast with Ajay Goel, VP Engineering at Altran. Book is a must-read for anyone wanting to do well professionally. Conversation was filled with wisdom from Ajay's experiences and insights. Listen on, feedback is more than welcome.

The psychology of money - timeless wisdom

I read this book, "The Psychology of Money" by Morgan Housel few weeks ago. Quite an enlightening read-cum-refresher on the basics. Since then I passed the copy to my friend, she read it in just two sittings and we kept coming to a number of messages from the book on our subsequent weekend walk. Loads of wisdom, all delivered in a non-preachy, easy flowing, light narrative. Reads like a series of blog posts. Well worth a read.

Am sharing some of the excerpts I noted while reading. Turns out to be 25 of them. Reading the book itself might make better sense though -

#1 - Few people make financial decisions purely based on spreadsheets. They make them at the dinner table or in a company meeting. Your personal history, your view of the world, ego, pride, marketing and odd incentives influence your decision. Manage your money in such a way that helps you sleep at night

#2 - Excerpt from a letter from the author to his son, " Some people are born into families that encourage education, others are against it. Some are born into flourishing economies encouraging of entrepreneurship, others are born into war and destitution. I want you to be successful and I want you to earn it. But realise that not all success is due to hard-work and not all poverty is due to laziness. Keep this in mind while judging people, including yourself".

#3 - When dealing with a financial failure, arrange your financial life in such a way that a bad investment here or a missed financial goal there won't wipe you out and you can keep playing long enough for the odds to fall in your favor.

#4 - Good investing isn't necessarily about earning the highest returns. Highest returns tend to be one off hits and can't be repeated. It's about earning pretty good returns that you can stick with for the longest period of time. If you want to do better as an investor, the single most important thing to do is to increase your time horizon.

#5 - Room for error or Margin of Safety is the most underappreciated force in finance

#6 - An investing genius is the one who can do the average thing when all those around him/her are going crazy

#7 - Warren Buffet @ Berkshire Hathway shareholder meeting - "I've owned 400-500 stocks in my life and made most money on 10 of them". Charlie Munger - "If you remove just a few of Berkshire's top investments, its long term track record is pretty average"

#8 - The ability to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as long as you want is priceless. It's the highest dividend money pays. More than your salary, more than the size of your house, more than the prestige of your job, control over doing what you want, when you want to, with the people you want to is the broadest lifestyle variable that makes people happy

#9 - Independence, at any income level, is driven by your savings rate. Beyond a certain level of income, your savings rate is determined by your lifestyle expenses not escalating

#10 - From the book, "30 lessons for living", based on interviews with 1000 elderly Americans on most important life lessons they've learned from decades of life experience -

• Not a single one of them said that to be happy you should try to work as hard as you can to make money to buy the things you want
• Not a single one of them said, its important to be at least as wealthy as the people around you and if you have more than they do, then its real success
• Not a single one of them said, you should choose your work based on your desired future earning power
• What they did value were quality of friendships, being part of something bigger than themselves and spending quality unstructured time with their children

#11 - Excerpt from the letter the author wrote to his son after he was born - " You might think you want an expensive car, a fancy watch and a huge house. But am telling you, you don't. What you want is respect and admiration from people and you think having expensive stuff will bring it. It almost never does - especially from the people you want to respect and admire you. Humility, kindness and empathy will bring you more respect than horsepower will"

#12 - The world is filled with people who look modest but are actually wealthy and people who look rich who live at the razor's edge of insolvency.

#13 - Whether an investment strategy will work, how long it will work, whether markets will cooperate are all uncertain. Personal savings are frugality are in your control and are 100% certain to be effective into the future as well.

#14 - Learning to be happy with less, creates a gap between what you have and what you want - this is similar to the gap you get from growing your paycheck, but easier and more in your control

#15 - People with enduring personal finance success - not necessarily those with high incomes - tend to not give a damn what others think about them

#16 - You don't need a specific reason to save. Every bit of savings is like taking a point in the future that would have been owned by someone else ad giving it back to yourself

#17 - Harry Markowitz - "I visualized my grief if the stock market went up and I wasn't in it - or if it went down and I was completely in it. My intention was to minimise my future regret. So I split my contribution 50:50 between bonds and equities"

#18 - Things that never happened in the past happen all the time - true in economy and in markets. History of money is useful to understand people's relationship to greed and fear. Specific trends, trades, sectors, causal relationships about markets and what people should with their money is an example of evolution in progress.

#19 - Can you survive a 30% decline in the value of your assets? On a spreadsheet may be yes, what about mentally? Assume returns from your investments will be 1/3rd less than the historic average. Save more for your goals. If in reality, returns are further below, your margin of safety is not a 100% guarantee but will at least let you sleep at night. If returns resemble the past then you'd be pleasantly surprised

#20 - Most important part of every plan is planning on the plan not going according to the plan. Save for your specific goals, but also save for just the sake of it

#21 - Aiming at every point of your work life to have moderate annual savings, moderate free time, no more than a moderate commute and at least moderate time with your family increases the odds of being able to stick with a plan and avoid regret, than if any of those things fall to extreme sides of the spectrum

#22 - Thinking of market volatility as a fee rather than a fine will help you stick around long enough for investing gains to work in your favor. You should like risk because it pays off over time

#23 - Understand your own time horizon and don't be persuaded by the actions and behaviors of people playing a different game - you may be a long term investor and the other person could be a day trader.

#24 - Nassim Taleb - " True success is exiting some rat race to modulate one's activities for peace of mind". Good decisions aren't always rational. At some point you've to choose between being happy or being "right".

#25 - There is little correlation between investment efforts and investment results

PS : Replicated from my own article on LinkedIn

How will you measure your life by Clayton Christensen

My thoughts and take-aways from the book, "How will you measure your life" by Professor Clayton. In conversation with Preethy for the 10x Growth Strategies podcast.

Interview feature on Women Who Code - Delhi Chapter's newsletter

 Was happy to be featured on the Women Who Code community's Delhi chapter newsletter. The story covered how my career panned out, what lessons I have picked up and hence what can benefit junior women in their paths. 

Check out the feature here -

My career retrospective and some crystal gazing into the future - For Software People Stories podcast

I had this free-flowing impromptu conversation with Chitra Gurjar from PM Power Consulting for their Software People Stories podcast. They feature people from the software industry and unearth their unique perspectives and experiences via 30-minute conversations. This was completely impromptu and I enjoyed every bit of the chat with Chitra. 

Listen to the podcast episode here

The Unpublished David Ogilvy - A joyful and fulfilling read..

Read this book recently. Found it short, sweet, engaging, enlightening and witty all through. Here is a take at enthusing you to give it a try..

Who is David Ogilvy: Am sure you've heard of him. He happens to have built the tenth biggest ad agency in the world and is popularly known as the father of advertising.

What is the book about: It's a collection of some of his timeless and noteworthy communications, made in both public and private, throughout his career in the form of short and crisp memos, letters, speeches, notes, interviews et al.

Why does it deserve more than just a read:
To know of his way of expressing and the wit and wisdom that comes along with it. His style had been frank, simple, to the point, curt, short, blunt, candid and admirable. You'd laugh out loud while reading some of those.
It's a light and engaging read. You'd finish it in 'bout couple of hours. So, that makes it a high RoI ( return on investment) read :-).
There are several nuggets of wisdom on, creativity, hard work, business acumen, leadership, management and being humane, just to name a few. If you have a taste for creative writing, you're going to like the book.

Here are just a few snippets from the book, that struck a chord with me.. Am sure every reader would find his/her own nuggets of wisdom, joy and more in the book.

On Writing :

The better you write, the higher you go in Ogilvy & Mather. People who think well, write well.
Woolly minded people write woolly memos, woolly letters and woolly speeches.
Good writing is not a natural gift. You have to learn to write well. Here are 10 hints:

1. Read the Roman-Raphaelson book on writing. Read it three times.
2. Write the way you talk. Naturally.
3. Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.
4. Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.
5. Never write more than two pages on any subject.
6. Check your quotations.
7. Never send a letter or a memo on the day you write it. Read it aloud the next morning — and then edit it.
8. If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it.
9. Before you send your letter or your memo, make sure it is crystal clear what you want the recipient to do.
10. If you want ACTION, don’t write. Go and tell the guy what you want.

From an address to his heads of departments on leadership -

1. Don’t overstaff your departments. People enjoy life most when they have the most work to do.
2. Set exorbitant standards, and give your people hell when they don’t live up to them. There is nothing so demoralizing as a boss who tolerates second-rate work.
3. When your people turn in an exceptional performance, make sure they know you admire them for it.
4. Don’t let your people fall into a rut. Keep leading them along new paths, blazing new trails. Give them a sense of adventurous pioneering.
5. Do your best to educate your people, so that they can be promoted as rapidly as possible.
6. Delegate. Throw your people in over their heads. That is the only way to find out how good they are.
7. Seek advice from your subordinates, and listen more than you talk.
8. Above all, make sure that you are getting the most out of all your people. Men and women are happiest when they know that they are giving everything they’ve got.

Qualifications he looks for in leaders -

1. High standards of personal ethics.
2. Big people, without pettiness.
3. Guts under pressure, resilience in defeat.
4. Brilliant brains — not safe plodders.
5. A capacity for hard work and midnight oil.
6. Charisma — charm and persuasiveness.
7. A streak of unorthodoxy — creative innovators.
8. The courage to make tough decisions.
9. Inspiring enthusiasts — with trust and gusto.
10. A sense of humor.

A short and blunt follow-up note he sent to Department Heads -

A few weeks ago, I asked you to send me the names of anybody on your staff who might qualify to become a Creative Director.
Twenty of you sent me a total of 49 names.
One of you sent me six names—his entire creative staff, I suspect; a charitable fellow.
Eleven of you told me that you have nobody who could qualify to become a Creative Director. You have problems. Something wrong with your hiring methods?
Ten of you have not answered. Bastards.

And that was just a few of the many notes I liked and enjoyed reading in the book. More than just worth the read :-).

Happy reading..

Subroto Bagchi's "The Professional" - One terrific read.

"The Professional" is a collection of traits that define a professional in the author's view. What makes the book an interesting read, apart from the admirable traits identified, is that, every trait is recounted with a real life experience that the author has had. As you read through, you realise that most if not all of those identified strike a chord with you and hence make the book a compelling and engaging read.

Here are some of the traits I enjoyed reading of..

1. Being grounded: Always remain aware of where you have come from and where you're today. Being grounded is a key requirement for carrying success on your shoulders without being burdened by it. The self-aware people know their strengths and are clearly aware how much of success they've had is purely owing to their own abilities and what is purely circumstantial. Assuming all the success you've had is owing to your own inherent strengths is the beginning of the end.
2. Being Comfortable: The self-aware professional knows there always is bound to be some gaps in his knowledge and he may never be able to bridge this gap and most importantly remains comfortable with this fact. Don't try to add value where you can't, rather remain calm and emotionally secure, the team will get back to you when/where they need your counsel.
3. Not suffering false comparisons: It's common to fall into the trap of measuring our success in material terms or by comparing ourselves with where our classmates and former colleagues might be today. Everyone's life and journey is unique.
4. Having a reasonable view of the future: Building a view of the future and knowing where you're headed, requires acknowledgement of the ground reality, a statement of intent in the overall direction and sometimes a clear destination or purpose. The sense of destination gives people "something to look forward to" and keeps them going.
5. Looking beyond money: A professional who sees his work primarily as a means of earning money runs out of meaning very soon. After you've achieved basic comforts, the quest for material success actually erodes self worth. The greatest satisfaction, and the more enduring one for a professional, is the admiration of people with whom we do business. The ones who last the longest in the race are those who have given something back to their professions. These are professionals who are driven by a sense of legacy. There is no sustenance bigger that the power to build an intellectual and emotional inheritance.
6. Reining in Reactions: In extremely high-pressure situations, often the best emotion to express is control. A true professional has a calibrated thermostat that prompts the degree of reaction and control required in any given situation.
7. Welcoming Feedback: Most feedback feels uncomfortable, since its packaged as and / or perceived to be personal criticism. We all have the urge to seek feedback from people who are more likely to say nice, reassuring things about us than make critical observations. This in itself is an insecure act and indicates a lack of maturity, of self-confidence to remain open to ideas and thoughts. The ability to seek and act on feedback requires constant effort to master. Without developing this ability one cannot become a true professional.
8. Being Proactive: Being proactive can simply mean, you’re the first to extend your hand when you meet another person,  first to call the customer to look for feedback and so on. In the world of business and professional dealings, people do not like to be taken by surprise. Anything that might cause grief if discovered must be brought to light by you, voluntarily, and ahead of time and put in front of all stakeholders who could be affected by it. It is uncomfortable while you do it, but it builds lasting relationships.
9. Taking Charge: Faced with a potentially dangerous situation, people freeze. They’re afraid to push their way into a crowd because they feel powerless. Power is not something material that you can seize. It is always generated from within. Whether you’re powerful or powerless, you must feel these qualities before you can become them. Developing the power within, to have the confidence to take charge in the most difficult and potentially dangerous of situations, is the hallmark of a true professional.
10. Courtesy and Humility: It’s important to have humility and an appreciation for the potential in people below us – to recognize and nurture that special someone who right now is not quite there but may go further than you have. In Eastern culture, a certain respect for senior people comes rather naturally. A professional does not take this for granted.

And that just is the initial ten that struck a chord with me. There is much more to be learnt from this book of wisdom. Happy reading.