dean jackson

Irrational Confidence

Affirmative action, confidence, Human Brain

On July 18 2008, I was travelling from Bangalore to Delhi. I had boarded a flight in the evening at about 7 PM. I remember boarding the aircraft and sitting on my aisle seat while a young boy came on the window seat. The center seat was vacant. Subsequent to that the stewardess came with tetrapack juice and I took it. That’s the last I remember. After which I remember the hospital ICU and 4 days had passed.

I had 12 seizures within a matter of about 30 minutes with a average length of each seizure about 40 seconds long. As per doctors I was dead for about 4 odd minutes before they could revive me. As per doctors it was a miracle that I survived and that my brain was about 40% dead because of the lack of Oxygen during those 30 minutes.

Whenever I tell this story everyone gets emotional and there are whole lot of side stories related to how my family coped with the situation and how my office colleagues were so supportive during those times.

Today I was hearing Hal Elrod’s story – yes he’s the author of the Miracle Morning series – on the I Love Marketing podcast. And he spoke about how he was dead for about 6 minutes before they were able to revive him. That discussion brought my story back to me.

Now during that phase, I am sure my family and my friends and colleagues went through a lot of turmoil. For the next 6 months there was a lot of medical visits and admission in the hospitals , MRIs etc. which I had to go through. But through all of it I was clear that I am going to be fine inspite of the doctors and my wife being scared like hell.

I found the same emotion in Hal and the story immediately resonated with me. One of the things which came out in the discussion on the podcast, was a term which Dean Jackson mentioned “Irrational Confidence”. While I always have had the belief that even if you give me a 5% chance that things will turn out well, I will take that chance and run. But this term actually explained my beliefs so well. What most people think is irrational, I have the confidence that things will work out eventually and I believe God does everything for my good…..so there must be a learning and once I get the learning, I will be on my way.

Another incident – In 2015 a complete disk came out of my spine after an accident…..I was bedridden for more than 6 months…but I was not in the mode of why did this happen to me…..again I took that time to learn a lot of things especially on the investment side. I was determined to walk again and live life. So again “Irrational Confidence….”

So why these 2 stories. Life throws curve balls all the time sometimes it’s Covid, sometimes its accidents but instead of getting depressed or the typical “why me” .

Life is meant to be lived instead of sulking get up take affirmative action and move forward. Its not going to be easy. But once you come out of that phase, you will look back and be proud of yourself.

Till next time…

Carpe Diem

Evolution – the gradual development

Evolution, Financial Independence

Yesterday I was listening to the I Love Marketing podcast episode#387 (ilovemarketing.com) . If you are in any way connected to marketing, this is by far one of the best podcasts. Joe Polish and Dean Jackson give a ton of information absolutely free. Incidentally Dean Jackson also runs another podcast called More Cheese Less Whiskers and Joe has another one with Dan Sullivan called the 10X talk. All three highly recommended.

During the Q&A in this podcast while giving an answer, Joe spoke about how people first master a big pain and then when they are able to master one, they evolve and master another one and so on. So what starts as a specific issue to be mastered by an individual then becomes sharable with an audience. Then as the person becomes successful with one set of pain points he starts working on the other areas and improves there and then shares that. As per them most of the genuine personal development people actually have evolved this way.

Come to think of it, if you have been reading my blog, it has all been about the challenges I faced initially with my finances. As the years passed and I became more and more enthralled with the idea of compounding, I started sharing my life lessons on this blog. I have been a big proponent of starting small and letting the magic of compounding play its role. How even being able to carve out small amounts could help you get out of the financial mess towards financial freedom. I have shared the 100s of books I have read on the subject and even given out key ideas for everyone to work with

As I evolved from that level I started focusing on my abilities to read more and retain more, improve my health and other things.

Coincidentally I wrote in my blog a couple of weeks back, before I had heard this podcast, that my blog is going to now be talking about multiple things instead of just financial freedom/independence.

So I think I am on the right track in my own evolution and in sharing my journey with you folks.

Let me know your views.

Till next time….

Leverage the WHO

Leverage

My initial posts have all been centered in some way on the magic of compounding with respect to our financial lives. There is another concept which has always made me wonder and that is Leverage. Aristotle once said – Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which it can be placed and I shall move the world.

I have been listening to Dan Sullivan on multiple podcasts, one with Joe Polish (100X) and another with Dan Jackson (Joy of Procrastination) over the last 2 weeks, since I came back from my vacation in Canada (more about that in a later post).

Dan has not been one of the people whom I have known or written about earlier. But now after reading his books and listening to his podcasts, I find some of the things that he talks about very simulating ideas which are worth implementing.

During one of the episodes, Dan spoke about how when he analysed his successes over 30 years, the key turning points were not where he acquired new knowledge/talent/skill but where he met someone “WHO” helped change the direction of his life.

That got me thinking about my own 30 years. I have always believed that because I utilised my so called “down years” to prepare myself for the “when my opportunity comes”, I have been able to grow to where I am today in my job.

However after listening to the podcast I started co-relating the inflexion points which I had, to see if there was a “WHO” that helped me leverage on my knowledge. Dan’s premise is that if you have to grow yourself exponentially, then rather than working on the “HOW”(which is growing my own abilities in various areas) you should always first find a “WHO” that has these capabilities available.

So there were some positive things that came up which have helped me reach where I am today. For example my technical abilities aligned with my ability to present solutions , was recognised by one leader within the company, who then got me moved into a different division. In this division, for the first time my manager -gave me the free hand to build out a relationship with IBM which helped me blossom. Seeing my capabilities I was transferred to manager who actually took this capability of mine to propel me in a different orbit. Then during that time a couple of relationships in IBM helped me grow the business so dramatically. Now in all these situations my managers and colleagues in IBM also grew dramatically while I was growing.

After analysing these time frames however also got me a little pensive. You get connected to people when you meet them. As you meet more people the possibility of being able to connect with someone who can become the “WHO” also increases. So as I grew in my job positions, with my internal interactions taking up more time, I actually reduced my external meetings and therefore the reason for not getting the next set of “WHOs”

However Dan also brought out another aspect about using the “WHO” (he’s actually written a book Who not How) to launch any new idea faster. His suggestion is that you should actually first break down any new idea you want to launch into small pieces and then deliberately find the “WHO” to partner with and get all the work done by them. One should only focus on the “Unique Ability” one has, because then one is the happiest which results in things getting executed faster.

While I think this is a perfect idea, having been brought up with the idea of always improving personal capability first, this seems hard to implement….Do you think you would ascribe to this idea

Carpe Diem!!!