Mukesh Gupta's Blog, page 44

Is it Worth It?

I just saw this video where the world’s best coach (arguably) shares his advice on trying to add too much value to a conversation or a relationship is not always a good thing. 

Firstly, take the 4 minutes and watch the video:

There are three things that I liked in the video: 

Quality of an Idea Vs Execution of the idea

There are two things to consider in a situation when someone comes to you with an idea – the quality of the idea and the commitment to execution of the idea. Most times, we en...

Constant Pursuit of Equilibrium

All things naturally move towards and want to exist in an equilibrium of sorts. So are we as humans. We seek out and continue to move towards a higher level of productivity until we reach an equilibrium when our capability matches the expectation from us.

Once we reach this point, we need to make a choice.

Do we settle at this level or do we want to take this to the next level of equilibrium? 

And then we need to make this choice again and again…. 

The challenge is that most of the time, we...

How the mind makes new ideas: Bending, breaking, blending

In this short video David Eagleman shares how all new ideas originate by bending, breaking or blending existing ideas. 

Watch the video here. 

Simple, yet profound. Once we know this, there is an amazing array of things that we can create. 

Also reminds me of a post that I had written long back – 3 Ways to Systematically Come Up with Breakthrough Ideas. That post talked about a similar 3 pronged approach to coming up with creative ideas. 

You can follow David on twitter here. 

PS: You can bu...

Life Lessons Learnt from the Movie – Mission Impossible – Fallout

Ethan Hunt is at his best again. Jumping off of cliffs, riding his bikes, shooting the bad guys and saving the world. Yesterday, I went and watched the latest edition: Mission Impossible – Fallout and thoroughly loved it. 

Today over coffee, I was talking to one of my friend about the movie and while thinking about it, I realised a few things, nothing world shattering but still interesting for me. So, I thought, I will share it here on my blog. 

What does this movie franchise or for that matt...

How to Rewrite the Rules with Sam Conniff Allende

Really enjoyed this short video where Sam shares how and what we can learn from the way pirates work in order for us to be able to rewrite the rules of the game.

Watch the video here.

Here is the list of characteristics that we can draw from pirates that Sam refers to and I quote

They challenge the establishment

They are creative, innovative and disruptive

They are fiercely independent

They are led by principles and are honest about profits

They are usually highly talented but unde...

A Whole New Approach to Teaching and Learning – Whole Brain Teaching

Amazed at this technique of teaching children. This is children being children, having fun and learning at the same time. I have become a fan. I will also explore if this can be used for adult learning and try this out at the first available opportunity and report.

What I particularly like about this approach is and I quote:

The primary goal in WBT is to reward students for improvement, not ability. We praise excellent effort more than excellent work.  We nourish growth rather than innate ta...

A Checklist Every Leader Should Be Thinking About

I follow the  “The Great Game of Business” team and the work that they do to help enable businesses become open book and transparent to all their employees. If you are an entrepreneur, it is worthwhile to check their work and explore if it is a good fit for you and what you are trying to achieve.

Yesterday, they posted a blog post (I have used the same title) which I found to be very useful to me and am sure will be useful to all leaders. You can read the full blog post here.

The Checklist:

T...

Intentions (Announcements) Vs Actions

The Announcements

We have recently had a lot of announcements around businesses deciding not to use plastic straws as they wreck havoc on the environment specially on marine lives.

Disney Is The Latest Major Company To Eliminate Plastic Straws Starbucks to ban plastics straws in all stores by 2020 Hyatt Announces Global Efforts to Reduce Single-Use Plastics American Airlines Lays Down the Straw Marriott International to Remove Plastic Straws Worldwide by July 2019

And many more. All of this...

ABCDEFG of Successful Digital Transformation

I came across this very interesting post by John Hagel, where he brings up a very interesting topic, one that I feel strongly about – Digital Transformation.

It appears that you can not go through a corporate presentation or a CxO presentation without hearing the word “Digital Transformation”. Not a day goes by when I don’t read about some initiative run by a business under the banner of “Digital Transformation”. As with any other loosely thrown around words, this term has also lost a lot of...

Learning How Our Brain Learns, Unlearns and Learns Again

I stumbled upon this amazing video which I think clearly articulates how our brain works, with respect to learning new skills. Before I share what I learnt from the video, I will strongly recommend that you watch the video first.

What I learnt from watching the video: Our brains are lazy in a way. Brains are engaged when we try to learn something and once we do, ie, we create a neural pathway, it starts using that pathway for that task as a default without giving it any other thought, until...