Aditya Kothadiya’s Blog

I came across this interesting quote from Yvon Chouinard, Founder of Patagonia -

There is no difference between a pessimist who says, “Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,” and an optimist who says, “Don’t do anything. It’s going to turn out fine anyway.” Either way, nothing happens.

This is a great piece of advice for all us who think we are optimists, and believe that things will improve with time. This advice asks us, are we really being optimistic or are we giving excuses for our inaction?

There might be some cases where we see some people get overwhelming success without taking efforts. But that’s not usual. Typically things will not improve by themselves.

If we want to see the improvement or growth, then we need to act upon it and fight for it. Just being optimistic and sitting idle is not going to help us. We never want to get trapped into such kind of optimism which results in nothing. Let’s wake up and start acting on it.

This is just a quick rant about one thing that I observed at my workplace. It’s about taking vacation or rather about not taking vacation and exploiting the flexibilities that are provided to you at your workplace.

We usually plan long distance trips on Thanksgiving holidays because it’s a long weekend period. Sometimes we don’t find 4 days enough for our vacation, so we need extra day for travel or relaxation. Typically, when we know that we need extra day, we take official leave for that extra day.
But what I observed recently at my workplace was little disappointing.

I observed that there was a set of people who were on vacation for that extra day, but still showed up in the office for few hours to attend some important meetings or line up everything in place before they go on vacation. This was really appreciable of them. It shows dedication, sincerity, loyalty and ownership attributes of those individuals.

On the other hand, there was a set of people who were not on the vacation on that extra day, but had plans to use that day for their extended-long vacation, so they left the office early before noon, without really informing anyone officially. This was terrible behavior. It’s ethically very wrong.

Just because most of the employers have flexible work culture and just because your boss doesn’t question you for every hour, you shouldn’t exploit such situations. If you are sure that you are going to use that extra one day for traveling, then better tell your boss about it upfront and apply for official leave.

The worst situation is when you lie that you are coming back from vacation on so and so date, but you already have plans to come one day late and then on the returning date, you call up your boss and lie again that you will be late or may not show up in the office because your flight is delayed or canceled. Again, this kind of behavior is highly unethical.

Probably, your boss is not going to worry a lot about you not working for a day. Probably you taking off for an extra day will not impact the deadlines much. But this is not about what affects or what doesn’t. It’s about being ethically wrong and exploiting given benefits.

I have a request for you before you decide to do something like this the next time – put yourself in the shoes of your boss, and think about the day when your subordinate is cheating with you using one of these tricks. Think how will you feel on that day. And accordingly decide if you want to exploit this situation or not.

I stumbled upon a great article on “Warren Buffet’s money-making secrets – and how they could work for you”. It’s a very insightful article for all of us especially in this kind of struggling economy.

Here are some of the tips that I liked the most -

When you first make money, you may be tempted to spend it. Don’t. Instead, reinvest the profits.

The average is just that – what everybody else is doing. To be above average, you need to measure yourself by what he calls the Inner Scorecard, judging yourself by your own standards and not the world’s.

Always nail down the specifics of a deal in advance – even with your friends and relatives.

Exercising vigilance over every expense can make your profits – and your paycheck – go much further.

With tenacity and ingenuity, you can win against a more established competitor.

Know when to walk away from a loss, and don’t let anxiety fool you into trying again.

Asking yourself “and then what?” can help you see all of the possible consequences when you’re struggling to make a decision – and can guide you to the smartest choice.

And the most important one -

You’ll measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you. That’s the ultimate test of how you’ve lived your life.

Here is the original article – “Warren Buffett’s 10 Ways To Get Rich”. Read on – it’s very insightful.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Made To Stick

I just finished reading “Made to Stick” book by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. The book talks about why some ideas survive and others die. In short, it’s a great book which will transform how we communicate our ideas. It talks about the vital principles of winning ideas and tells us how we can apply these rules to making our own messages stick.

Here is what I learned from the book:

The six principles can be summarized as: SUCCESs for Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional and Story.

Principle #1 Simple:

We need to find the essential core of our idea. To strip an idea to its core, we need to be a master of exclusion and prioritize the important things relentlessly. It’s about determining the single most important thing about our idea. Once we find the core, we need to share the core – with our employees as well as customers. When we communicate the core, it also needs to be compact. Simplicity comes when message is core and compact.

Principle #2 Unexpected:

How do we get our audience to pay attention to our ideas, and how do we maintain their interest when we need time to get our ideas across? We need to violate people’s expectations. We need to surprise people and break the pattern of their guessing machines. But surprises don’t last long. For our ideas to endure, we must generate interest, curiosity and mystery. We can engage people’s curiosity systematically over long period of time by opening gaps in their knowledge and then filling those gaps.

Principle #3 Concrete:

We need to help people understand our ideas clearly and remember it. We must explain them our ideas in terms of human actions, objects or some sensory information. Often abstract statements make it harder to remember the idea. It makes harder to coordinate our activities with others. That’s why mission statements, strategies, visions are often ambiguous to the point of being meaningless. Instead, if we talk in terms of individuals, or objects, then things become more concrete and easy to remember. And that’s why concrete and clear ideas become sticky.

Principle #4 Credibility:

How do we make people believe our ideas? There are different approaches to bring the credibility to our ideas. Some authority can talk about our idea, so that many people will trust it. But in most day-to-day situations, we don’t like such authority. So some ideas need to have their own internal credentials. We need ways to help people test our ideas for themselves – a “try before buy” philosophy. We also need to provide them convincing details and some easily accessible statistics. Sometimes too much of statistics are also not much help. So another way to bring statistics to life is to contextualize them in terms that are more human.

Principle # 5 Emotions:

How do we get people to care about ideas? We make them feel something. Instead of giving statistical information about some group, if we talk about individual, the chances are more that people will remove their analytical hats and will think emotionally about idea we are trying to communicate. Another approach to make people care about ideas is to use piggybacking strategy. We can associate our ideas with the existing emotional ideas that appeal to many people.

Principle #6 Story:

How do we get people to act on our ideas? We tell them stories. Hearing stories acts as a mental simulator, preparing us to respond more quickly and effectively. The stories are told and retold when they contain wisdom. They are the most effective teaching tools. But we need to make sure our stories are strongly associated with entertainment, and not instructions. Another importance of telling stories is to provide inspiration. Inspiration drives action.

So these are the six principles that are explained in the book to great details. The book also talks about many examples illustrating how people have used these principles, making it easier for us to visualize, understand and learn how we can act upon these principles. The principles are short and simple, but what makes this book interesting is these examples.

My $0.02s: I won’t say it’s a must buy book for your short term goals. But you should read it once when time permits to develop your long-term thinking about how you generate and communicate the ideas and make them sticky.

Tom Preston-Werner, co-founder of GitHub.com mentions great advice about how to find your next co-founder. It’s a must read article.

Some of my favorite quotes are -

Don’t worry about revealing your game-changing secrets; stealth mode is bullshit. Talk to everyone.

A good co-founder should be someone with whom you feel privileged to work. And they should feel privileged to work with you. The two of you should be on very solid ground before you begin your startup adventure, because once you do, the impact of every argument is going to feel like it’s been multiplied by a thousand.

When it’s just you and your thoughts it becomes too easy to pick the first thing that pops into your head. We’re programmed to think all of our ideas are good, but reality tells a different story. Truly good decisions are forged from the furnace of argument, not plucked like daisies from the pasture of a peaceful mind. A good co-founder tells you when your ideas are half-baked and ensures that your good ideas actually get implemented.

Read the complete post here: How to Meet Your Next Co-founder

Note: To read more articles from this series, please visit Startup and Entrepreneurship Resources.