Nuggets On
awareness
Insights around what it takes to build a better understanding of self. This includes perspectives around how we can deepen our picture of ourselves through a combination of inner work, mindfulness practices and by gathering meaningful feedback from the world around us.
Rejecting 3 jobs and painting in Goa
KV Sridhar (Pops) talks about how came to Mumbai to pursue commercial opportunities and cast his net beyond Hyderabad – where he grew up. He also talks about the fact that very quickly he got himself three offers (on the creative and commercial side) but decided to go to Goa to learn and reboot. He talks about how he led the life of a vagabond for a few months and how he landed the next role at Ulka.
The reflection habit - decoding signal from the noise
Vinay talks about Narasimha Rao’s habit of reflection and journaling which helped him deal with the ecosystem he was in. Vinay talks about how Rao used the habit of journaling to develop a nuanced understanding of the context he was in which helped him deal with situations of grey effectively. He also talks about how he managed to gather intelligence around what was happening around him despite his lonely nature.
Inner journey
Dr. Guha speaks about Gandhiji’s inner journey on multiple fronts – diet, medicine, celibacy and inter-faith harmony. He speaks about how he had a scientific approach in each of these and sometimes crafted experiments to test out a certain belief and based on the results, modified it as he moved forward. He also speaks about Gandhiji’s tolerance and open-ness to others’ views as he was shaping his world-view through his journey.
More from Dr. Ramachandra Guha
Going on an inner journey
Paddy speaks about how he went on an internal journey over a period of time that gave him a deeper understanding of himself. He speaks about how he tried a range of things including mindfulness techniques, meditation, breath work and Yoga. He also speaks about how he attended several 2-3 day sessions including the Landmark Forum that gave him an opportunity to explore himself.
Self-awareness: Meta-skill of 21st century
Tasha provides some context to why self-awareness is arguably the meta-skill of the 21st century. She discusses why it is possibly the foundational skill that helps us across various domains of life. She makes the distinction between internal and external self-awareness and goes onto say that they are not as closely correlated as one would assume.
Self-awareness Unicorns
Tasha speaks about the notion of Self-awareness Unicorns, the 50 people they shortlisted from 1000s of people to study them. She speaks about how she arrived at this shortlist and who is in it. She goes on to speak about some of their practices around how they cultivated internal and external self-awareness.
Self-delusion Vs Self-awareness
Tasha speaks about the distinction between being self-aware and being self-deluded. She mentions that her research suggests that 95% of the people believe they are self-aware only about 10-15% of people actually are. She speaks about some of the factors that might be contributing to this phenomenon.
Limitations of introspection
Tasha speaks about introspecting our way to self-awareness could be a red herring. She speaks about her research where she found that people that introspected often were more anxious, stressed and less satisfied. She makes the distinction between rumination and introspection and speaks about how one could conduct the enquiry when one goes on a journey of introspection.
Feedback as a prism vs a mirror
Tasha speaks about the limited correlation between internal and external self-awareness and speaks about the criticality of us seeing ourselves through a prism (with all the color) than through a mirror (which often can be limited in granularity). She also speaks about the need for people to be comfortable with varying views and urges us to embrace the diversity of views and grow through it.
Catch 22 of Self-awareness
Tasha speaks about the Catch-22 (paradox) of Self-Awareness. The really self-aware people often actually think that (rightly so) that they know only a little about themselves. The un-self-aware ones often think that they know themselves really well. Tasha goes on to speak about one of the unicorns that she had studied who uses the metaphor of space to describe the quest for self-awareness.
The second transition - What do we want to become?
Jennifer speaks about the second transition that couples often go through in their journey. The primary question that each member of the couple is grappling with is often around “what do we want to become”. She speaks about how couples can go beyond the “zero sum” discussions around the topic (I win, you lose or vice versa) to developing more of a positive sum mindset.
More from Jennifer Petriglieri
Morning Larks and Night Owls - a hard wiring
Matt speaks about why the “morning person” and the “night person” are not behavioural choices but often hard-wired into us. He says that there might be a wiggle room of around 30-45 mins to move the clock against our type but fundamentally it might be hard to change the wiring. He also traces this variation in sleep preferences to evolutionary phenomena on why this phenomenon might have benefited a tribe as a whole.
How much sleep do we REALLY need?
Matt speaks about how much sleep human beings need and he quotes some epidemiological studies that establish the range but also some experiments that study the causality between more or less sleep and outcomes. He alludes to “day light savings time” as a global experiment where we have an opportunity to study 1.6 Billion people.
Tiny habits to big change
BJ speaks about how we can sow the seed for a new habit but how we can ramp up and ramp down what we do as long as we are moderate in our expectations. He speaks about the trap that a lot of high achievers get into where they keep increasing the bar for themselves often upto a point where they often end up becoming slaves to the habit as the habit starts losing relevance in the evolving context in their lives. BJ speaks about how we can bake the habit, yet regain the flexibility to ramp up or down the habit depending on how our context plays out.
Clementine Mirror - the role of spouses
RG speaks about the criticality of seeking and absorbing the feedback from the people around you. He speaks about the role of a spouse who observes us in high resolution and says that they (or close friends or a trusted colleague or a board member) could act as a concave psychological mirror. He speaks about the story of Clementine Churchill ( wife of Winston Churchill ) whose “feedback letter” to her husband is kept in a museum in London.
Keeping track of judgment run-rate
Andrew speaks about how leaders can keep track of the run rate of decisions they make. He speaks about how some sort of a reflection process (daily, weekly, yearly) could help you take stock of the key choices you have made and how you fared in them.
More from Sir Andrew Likierman
Discovering our distinctiveness
Whitney speaks about how we all need to tune into our “super-power” and discover our strengths and use that as a starting point to discover our next S curve. She speaks about the fact that we are often quite blind to what our strengths are and have the tendency to shrug off complements when we get them. She suggests some ideas on how we can discover our strengths.
In Summary - Playing to Potential
Venkat speaks about the notion of playing to potential and why he feels him and a lot of us significantly underplay to our potential. He discusses the criticality of reflection as we go through our journey and the importance of keeping our saw sharpened. He also speaks about the notion of going after efficiency optimization that often comes in the way of understanding the big picture.
Potential pathways post ChrysCapital
Ashish speaks about the different pathways he considered at the point of leaving ChrysCapital. He speaks about his interest in academia and a desire to become a Professor in a University or a Teacher in a school. He also speaks about a potential option of running an NGO or the Indian operations of an established Foundation. He speaks about how he eventually zeroed in on undertaking educational system reform through Central Square Foundation and how the Ashoka University project came about.
Getting comfortable with contradictions
Vinay speaks about the many layers of Vajpayee and how he had several contradictions within. He goes on to speak about great leaders and how we have to study them in a non-linear fashion for us to make sense of them.
More from Vinay Sitapati - Jugalbandhi
Optimizing versus Satisficing mindset
Ashley discusses how our approach towards getting the “best deal” in a situation can actually accentuate time poverty. She says that we end up finessing on getting the best deal but miss out on savouring the experience (called life!). To borrow from John Lennon, she says something to the effect of “Life is what happens when you are busy trying to get the best deal”
Limitations of the rational mind
Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi speaks about how he took the call to walk out his home into the unknown when he was 10. He speaks about the limitations of the rational mind and how we all tend to take actions and then often subsequently justify our decision using logic. He also speaks about the criticality of parents getting out of the way while bringing up children.
Pursuing self-awareness
Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi makes the link between pursuing self-awareness and building non-transactional relationships. He also speaks about the need for all of us to have virtuous friends (we may not go to the movies with them but they might provide perspectives that might open up new vistas).
Founder development and role of coaching
Hari and Sanjeev share their perspectives around how founders can think about improving their self-awareness. They also speak about the effectiveness of Coaching in gathering nuanced feedback and helping founders and the leadership teams scale up.
Engaging our senses
Jennifer refers to the legendary “I have a dream” speech from Martin Luther King and speak about the criticality of engaging our various senses in the way we see a situation. She urges us to imagine a future that we can describe with our various senses.
More from Dr. Jennifer Goldman Wetzler
Role of ideal and shadow values in conflict
Jen speaks about how we all need to be cognizant of the values of the person we are dealing with. She goes on to categorize the values on the other side as ideal values and shadow values. Ideal values are those that are visible and those that the person is willing to acknowledge. Shadow values often are those that are hidden below the surface and the person may not publicly acknowledge those.
More from Dr. Jennifer Goldman Wetzler
Crowd-sourcing your highlights reel
Dan speaks about the notion of a “highlights reel” like in sports. He suggests that we reach out to people that we have interacted with across domains (not restricted to work) and get feedback on their memory of a time when we were exceptional. He suggests that we reflect on that and use that as a compass as we navigate our journey forward.
Eulogy delay
Dan speaks about why people find it extremely uncomfortable and awkward to talk about people strengths when they are around while when somebody passes away, we are generous with the eulogy. He speaks about why there should be a barrier in us having a “eulogy like” feedback conversation with a person when he/she is alive.
Highlights - Big bang vs Drip feed
Dan speaks about how the Highlights reel should ideally be consumed. He suggests a big-bang approach where we collect and accumulate a critical mass of content in the highlights before absorbing them. He suggests that we create the space for us to receive it and reflect on it. If we end up doing it as a drip feed, there is a risk of those drips getting drowned in the daily noise in our life.
Engaging different parts of our brain
Dan speaks about engaging different parts of our brain in expressing ourself. He speaks about how he uses LEGO Serious Play to have participants in his course express themselves in the context of their journeys and the future they are trying to create for themselves.
When strengths become derailers
Dan speaks about situations where we might get into trouble by overusing our strengths. He speaks about how we should watch out for those situations and ensure that our strengths don’t become derailers. He speaks about the combination of awareness and intelligence required to navigate these situations.
Misplaced pursuit of Mastery
Tom speaks about how sometimes we get caught up in a race towards mastery on a topic where we are amateurs. But in our mind, there is often a misplaced sense of professionalism that can sometimes have negative consequences without us realizing. I guess these are individual choices that we make but being aware of this phenomenon and having a clear Why behind some of these pursuits is often helpful.
Role of feedback loops
Tom speaks about the limitations of learning a skill on an online platform like YouTube where there are several videos to learn various skills. He talks about the role of feedback in the way we can grow our capabilities in a certain area.
Managing work and life
Sukhinder speaks about how she has built her self-awareness along the way. She goes on to say that she spends time figuring out “who she is” because what she wants often evolves along the way. She also speaks about the criticality of negotiating and having conversations with people around us to solve for the future that we want to go after.
Inside out or Outside In
Sukhinder speaks about the scene from the movie where Nemo’s father catches the East Australian Current to get to Sydney quickly to rescue his son. She speaks about how we can look for some of the tailwinds that can turbocharge our career and how we can marry that with our understanding of ourselves as we think about our career.
Building the Spiritual Quotient
Rajiv speaks about IQ, EQ and SQ and expands on the notion of SQ (Spiritual Quotient). He goes on to talk about the criticality of building self-awareness, having a sense of purpose and taking greater self-responsibility.
Self-acceptance before Self Improvement
Rajiv speaks about why we need to be non-judgmental when it comes to reflection and journaling. He speaks about why self-acceptance is a prerequisite to self-improvement.
Being, not just doing
Rajiv speaks about what it takes to move from a paradigm of doing things to that of being somebody. He says that very often we end up making the being contingent on an outcome or a series of outcomes and says that this approach could be a mirage and a moving goal post.
Life Design vs Product Design
Ayse reflects on the distinction between Life Design and Product Design. She speaks about the fact that in the case of Life Design, there is no “3rd party consumer” which makes it a pure process. We connect the dots with what Stew Friedman says about getting other people into our world.
Being intentional about life
Ravi speaks about how it is very easy to drift through life and it is critical for us to be deliberate about the various choices we make. He urges to pay attention to what we are paying attention to.
Different forms of Capital
Ravi speaks about the different forms of Capital that we possess and how we can deploy that in the context of a situation. He specifically refers to the conversations at Social Venture Partners, a philanthropic organization I am a part of.
Specialization vs Generalization
Ravi speaks about how he thinks about Specialization and Generalization. He uses the metaphor of Birds and Frogs to talk about the ability to adapt to new environments. He urges us to be a Swiss Army Knife rather than super specialty special purpose knife that could lose context if the environment changes.
Goldilocks balance in handling regret
Dan makes the point that a lot of us are not quite taught to cope effectively with negative emotion. He says that we need to be careful with how we handle regret. On one hand, we cannot ignore it. On the other hand, we cannot wallow in it. Getting that balance right can sometimes be hard.
Triggers and Dopamine Hits
Alisa speaks about how she gets every Founder to reflect on 4 things – Strengths, Development Areas, Triggers and Dopamine Hits. She goes on to expand on the notion of Triggers and Dopamine Hits and the implication of this on Leadership.
Policing your passion
Alisa speaks speaks about how with certain Founders, their passion can lead to them turning into a “bully” when they lead teams. Their internal drive and energy can spill over into the team and that can have negative consequences for the organization
Imposter syndrome as a founder
Alisa speaks about how lonely it is to be a Founder and to manage multiple expectations across a range of stakeholders and when you couple that with the fact that they are often operating in areas where they don’t necessarily have deep expertise, it can be an unnerving experience.
Connecting with our future self
We normally think of empathy when we think of the way we connect with others. Ayelet speaks about how we could build a deeper connect with our future selves and how that can act as an inspiration for us to make meaningful choices in the present. She speaks about the discount rate we apply on the future and how that can lead to us either over-indexing on the future or ignoring it depending on what we do.
Mining the silent graveyard
Ayelet speaks about how there is much more information in failures and in us mining the graveyards of failure than trying to overanalyze the factors behind success. Her assertion is that there is greater heterogeneity in failure that leads to richer information that could be helpful than the relative homogeneity of successes. She also goes on to speak about how we think about sharing positive and negative feedback with people.
