Stress is in the mind

http://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend.html

This is very interesting. She says the effects of stress depend on how you think about it. I completely agree. I believe our mind has a way of controlling and influencing our body. A lot of these responses are unconscious but it is possible to reprogram it to our benefit. Stress is a beautiful example.


I am sure we have all had scenarios where a little bit of stress has increased our performance dramatically and also helped us feel better. At the same time stress has also crippled our ability. The difference is in our attitude and how we think about the stress - which is very  much in our control even if its seems difficult to tame at times.

Taking stands

To continue on the previous point on black and white, consider this announcement:
http://open.bufferapp.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-buffer-including-our-transparent-formula-and-all-individual-salaries/

Buffer has decided to be completely transparent about their salaries. This is pretty extreme. We do not know what the repercussions will be or whether it will pay off in the long run.

But what is inspiring is that they took a stand and took it all the way! It shows their commitment to transparency, and it will attract more people who value transparency and further strengthen their culture.

It also means that they cannot backtrack anymore. They are committed. Either it succeeds very well or it fails.
But it creates that unadulteracted focus that I feel is a necessity for greatness.

Black, White and Grey

The world is almost always grey, is it not? Events are relative, opinions are relative, and Einstein says even the most basic "facts" are relative. So, is there any use of having strong absolute opinions?

I think the purpose is to trick our brain. Absolutes lead to conviction. And conviction, I feel has led to greatness. A lot of people who dramatically changed the world were completely convinced of their ideals and approach and this gave them the push to change the world. If they had doubts, they suppressed them. Or convinced themselves that the doubts were unwarranted.

To break boundaries, you need focus. Grey leads to discussion, compromises and balance. Perhaps not greatness. We need some black and white to push boundaries.

Making open offices work

Seems like "studies" show that open offices don't really work.

From my experience playing around with our open office structure, they promote spontaneous interaction and help generate ideas which can be quite important in a small company.

However, precautions need to be taken to maintain balance and avoid disruptions, especially to people in the maker's schedule.

Strategies that worked for us:

1. Passing the cost of disruption to the disruptor. Post-it notes passed on with a "Need 5 mins for X" do this nicely. The "disruptee" can then attend to X when convenient.
2. Split offices, one for each kind of schedule (we are beta testing this). Interaction needs to happen in other ways though. You don't want to completely separate your team.

If it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong!

A beautiful description of the scientific method:

He doesn't say, "if it agrees with experiment, it is right!". He says, "If it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong!"

We make this mistake many times - finding some pattern in the world that matches our hypothesis and then accepting it as "proven". To gain true understanding, we ought to look for patterns that go against our hypothesis.

120 words, thrice a week.

I want to become better at evaluating and consolidating the information I consume. And big goals require effective processes to support them 

Hence I have started a series of blog posts. The rules are:

1. Post length is limited to 120 words (to make me think and consolidate),
2. Every post expresses 1 idea / view point.
3. 3 times a week to create a habit.

Let's see how this goes!

Wisdom from Elon - Part II - SCurve and Prediction

Around minute 34, he mentions the popular "S" Curve of technology life cycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_life_cycle#The_four_phases_of_the_technology_life-cycle).

What I thought was an interesting angle was how that affects estimates. By default, we extrapolate trends linearly. And that has an effect on our predictions when the rate of change is changing. We underestimate new technology and over estimate mature technology. Something to be mindful of!

Wisdom from Elon Musk - Part I - Conviction

I saw this very nice interview between Elon Musk (Tesla) and Sal Khan (Khan Academy)

The first thing that struck me about Elon Musk is his conviction.

He wanted to be at the forefront of humanity's technological progress, so he identified areas where the biggest progress would take place. This part is not hard.

And then he just went all out. That conviction, in my opinion made all the difference. Fear of failure usually holds us back - but I feel that, given the force of his conviction, even if things hadn't worked out so well, he wouldn't have fallen too far.

Do or do not. There is no try.

I changed my new design to the first of blogger's (new?) templates. Definitely feels simpler and easier on the head. I am trying to be more aesthetically conscious these days you see..

I also dropped my "pseudo" (I used to be a pseudo geek, now I am a geek. Yay!).  Because Yoda told me to.

I like the ostrich though, so that stays. It's kinda goofy and reminds me not to take myself too seriously.

A happy new year to all! Here's to simplicity, decisiveness and curiosity!