Nuggets On
regret
Regret is a word that we often use but do not quite understand that well. Jeff Bezos speaks about his regret-minimisation framework for making high stakes decisions. Several people speak about “No regrets” as a way of life. Dan Pink recently wrote a book - The Power of Regret - How Looking Backward Moves us Forward. This playlist has nuggets from our conversation with Dan and some of the other speakers who touch upon this topic.
Reflections on Politics as a career
All of us have had situations where we step way out of our comfort zone. Nandan talks about his experience from contesting the elections in Bangalore and why he moved on from Politics after that experience.
Tough work-life trade-offs
Zia talks about how, in her generation, the notion of work-life balance, didn’t really exist for ambitious women who wanted to make a mark in the corporate world. She candidly talks about the real trade-offs involved in her case and how that is changing.
Dealing with shocks
Meher talks about how she and her mother (Anu Aga) dealt with the sudden loss of her father and her brother within a span of a few months. She talks about how they got the strength to deal with the loss and the soul-searching she went through to come to terms with it. She talks about the criticality of gratitude and cherishing the relationships that matter when people are still alive and the importance of not having the guilt that you didn’t give it what you could.
Key choices that stand out
Rajat speaks about some of the choices he is proud to have made in his journey. He also reflects on choices that he wonders if he could have made differently, especially while transitioning into the next phase of his life after McKinsey.
Learnable elements from Jeff Bezos's leadership
Bill speaks about some of the elements of Jeff Bezos’s leadership that make him distinctive. While some of those elements are in-born and hard to replicate, he teases out some of the elements that we could learn and imbibe as we go through our journeys.
How will you measure your life
Ravi speaks about how we could think about measuring our life. He speaks about how he has gone about discovering what makes him distinctive and chosen the various initiatives that he has participated in.
Four Core Regrets
Dan speaks about the Four core regrets that often lie below the surface of the regrets which we often experience – Foundation regrets (I wish I had done the work to lay the foundation when I was younger), Boldness regrets (If only I had taken the chance), Moral regrets (I wish I had done the right thing), Connection regrets (If only I had reached out). He also speaks about how the regrets we have reveals something about the needs we might have.
Regrets and Choice
Dan speaks about the work of Barry Schwartz around regret and teases out the distinction between regret and FOMO (Fear of missing out). He also speaks about how we call can undertake “time travel” to ensure that the “me of 10 years from now” would minimize regret.
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.
Inward Outward Forward
Dan discusses three phases that we might want to go through when we deal with regret. The first step is going inward with self-compassion while processing the regret. The second step is about sharing it with a few people around us. The third step is about processing the lesson from that episode and moving forward with greater conviction.
Regrets and Transitions
Dan speaks about the role of regret especially around transitions. He refers to the Japanese art form of Kintsugi which is about embracing the negatives and bringing beauty because of them and not in spite of them. He also refers to the work of Herminia Ibarra who speaks about acting your way into a new way of thinking.
Rifts and Drifts
Dan speaks about two types of Connection regrets – rifts (an event happens and people separate) and drifts (where people move away from each other slowly). He speaks about having a bias for action when it comes to these kinds of regrets as over the long term people regret omissions much more than commissions.
