Mukesh Gupta's Blog, page 36

The Difficulty of Being in the Present Moment and Strategies to Overcome it

Premise:

Earlier today, I came across a blog post on The School of Life blog about the difficulty of being in the present. You can read the entire post here. It so happens that I’ve been having a conversation with my wife and son recently about the same topic (which is a slightly better way of saying that both of them don’t think I am being present in the moment when I am with them).

I do accept this as a fact as I am mostly in the midst of either looking at my past or looking forward to my...

Seizing the day with principles of Improv Comedy | Anil Abraham | TEDxSJMC

One of the things that I talk about in my book Thrive, is about the mindset of “Yes And”. This comes from the world of improvisation comedy. This mindset indicates that the best way forward in any situation in life, as in an improvisational comedy session, is to first agree and accept what has already happened and then build on it.

“Yes” part of the mindset is about acceptance of what has preceded or what has already happened.

“And” part of the mindset is about building on top of what has...

The Act of Leading Vs Being a Leader

Premise:

I was talking to one of my friends about leadership and what it means to be a leader and is there a distinction between being a leader and the act of leading. What follows is my understanding of the difference. Would be a great to riff at this.

Apart from the fact that one is a verb and the other is a noun, there are a few other important things that we need to understand.

The Act of Leading:

The act of leading implies two things

It is an act (with a beginning, middle and an end) ...

How To Choose The Best Idea Amongst All to Execute

Premise:

I am sure that we all get into a situation where we are required to come up with a set of ideas that will solve a specific problem that we have run into. The question then is how one decides which ideas deserve to be picked from the bunch of ideas that we came up with. We need some sort of a framework that will allow us to decide the value of each of the idea so that we can pick one that is most valuable.

EPIC framework:

One such framework was suggested by Todd Henry in his latest...

You Can’t Innovate when

You don’t know what problem you are solving, and for whom

You want the innovation project to go strictly according to plan

You don’t have a team which is diverse and engaged

You don’t use an innovation framework (any framework would do)

The team is not given the tools, training, time and a teacher

You’re afraid to make a mistake

You’re responsible to innovate but never have the authority (budgets or access) needed to innovate

There is no significant insight that is driving the project

The team is afraid of calling out if and when “the emp...

The True Face of Fear and Reality

Premise:

As creative professionals, we all face our demons and struggles with all kinds of fears. What we would all benefit from is to realise that most of the times, our anticipation of fear is a lot worse than it really is.

I came across this short video about an angler fish and it immediately appealed to me and my understanding of fear and wanted to share this with all of you. 

I will let you watch this 3.5 min video first. 

Not sure if this was the intent of the team that put together this video, but I think i...

ABC – Always be challenging

Seth Godin recently wrote a blog post “The Big Fish Theory” that made me think.

In the post he argues that in markets, the most dominant player has the distinct advantage that most consumers choose them by default as they want to be safe and it is not worth the time and effort to look at all the options available and make a choice. It’s easier and safer to choose the market leader. So, the decision in that case is not to go and be a big fish in a large market but to define the market such th...

The fast track to a life well lived is feeling grateful

For the Ancient Greeks, virtue wasn’t a goal in and of itself, but rather a route to a life well lived. By being honest and generous, embodying diligence and fortitude, showing restraint and kindness, a person would flourish – coming to live a life filled with meaning and finding an enduring, as opposed to ephemeral, happiness. Today, that view hasn’t much changed. While we hear plenty of stories of celebrities, politicians and even our neighbours finding fleeting pleasure through self-gratif...

Book Review – Indistractable by Nir Eyal

Overview:

I got a digital preview copy of this book via NetGalley. This book is all about how to handle distractions that are hurled at us from all directions.

What is the book about:

In his previous book – Hooked, Nir shared the framework that could be used to build habit forming products and in this book he shares strategies for consumers to avoid getting sucked into the habit forming products that were built using the framework he shared in his previous work

Book Review – The Disruption Mindset by Charlene Li

Overview:

I got a digital preview copy of this book via NetGalley. The book is about is basically about what do organizations (typically incumbent organizations) do to be successful at the business of disruption, the assumption being that it is unusual for the incumbents to disrupt themselves or their industries.

You can find more information about Charlene here and buy the book here.

What is the book about:

Charlene gleams some key insights from some case studies of incumbent organizations,...