joe polish

Serendipity

Serendipity

Everyone has heard the cliché “all that glitters is not gold” but we still end up taking a lot of decisions based on the way something is shown.

Today however I have to tell you how accidentally decided to hear a podcast episode and it turned out to be such a revelation. Pure serendipity.

I have mentioned multiple times to you about the podcast ilovemarketing by Joe Polish and Dean Jackson. If you have any thing to do with marketing, you should listen to this podcast.

Anyway….to today’s story….I was actually intending to hear the episode where Joe Polish talks about his sabbatical. While going through the episodes list I accidentally pressed the episode with Chris Voss.

If you haven’t heard of Chris Voss, he was the chief hostage negotiator of FBI and has written the amazing book Never Split the Difference.

Coming back,  when I heard the first few words at the start of the podcast talking about the difference between assertive and aggressive and collaboration and cooperation I got captivated.

I love people who can give the nuances between words and know how to use the right word…. true wordsmiths

But as I heard the podcast further it had so much wisdom, that I was enthralled. I had no intention of listening to this episode when I had started Google podcast. but I got so much value listening to it.

Sometimes you are looking for something and you accidentally come across something so amazing. I would strongly recommend , that if you’re in any way involved in doing negotiations or love how human interaction can be improved,  you should watch this episode on YouTube.

Till next time….

Carpe Diem!!!

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

Bye-Bye 2020

Affirmative action, History, Human Brain

Most people have been cursing the year gone by. All the pandemic related issues and the geo-political issues in some countries and all the horrible stuff. When I look back however I see a lot of things which were positive about the situation.

  1. Did anyone watch the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. I watched it. What a celestial experience. I would never have been able to watch it if it happened during normal years since it could only be observed around sunset. It happened after about 400 years and next nearest situation will happen after 60 odd years.
  2. Due to the work from home I got a chance to regularly go for a walk and made a habit of minimum 6000 steps. I am still far away from 10000 steps but I am religiously hitting more than 6000 steps everyday. In my normal routine where I was spending more than 3 hours travelling, it would never happen
  3. Which brings me to another point – for years I have been reading books and everyone talks about why time is so critical, but because it was forced on me I actually involved myself in reading more, learning more exercising more, being more involved with the family.
  4. If I look outside my house there are so many businesses which have suddenly grown so dramatically. I am not talking about just the Amazon’s of the world. Today I can even get ready “coconut chutney” in dry form delivered to my home where I just have to add water when my wife makes dosas or idlis for lunch or dinner.
  5. I operate in the business to business world selling IT services. earlier most prospects would not even consider talking, they wanted you to visit them. Today the same people are readily and actually only wanting to talk to you in a conference call saving everyone so much time.
  6. My wife invested the time in learning so many things like “crochet” and made woolen items, she learnt how to “jam” in singing sessions

It is always easy to criticize and crib about the situation in your life. It does not mean that people do not have problems. But if you only think negative then you will only get depressed. On the other hand you could look at the positives and find solutions to the challenges you have.

Hopefully with the vaccines now being made available in most countries, hopefully over the next year or so a major set of the global population will get vaccinated and the herd immunity will also take place and we will get to move around again.

But life will throw some other challenges again… you will again need to figure out some other solutions….As Joe Polish says Winners find Ways…..

Till next time…..

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….