Observe and Learn instead of Watching and Studying

Have you ever felt that you are zipping past through life in such a hurry that you don’t even get the time to enjoy the journey? Have you ever rushed to your destination amid traffic and the person you went to meet asks you “Did you notice the amazing new park they build along the way?” And you have no idea about the road, the different buildings you passed by or the different people around you while you were on the way.

This is how most of us are in life. Too busy in reaching the destination that we miss the journey altogether. We would not remember even the smallest things about the journey, forget about enjoying the ride!! But why so? Obviously our eyes were open and on the road the whole way? So we watched everything that was along the way, but we can’t remember a thing. Maybe our mind was so occupied in other things that we missed the beauty of that moment. We were just watching and not observing.

Another way of being is to live fully in the moment and observing. So the next time you are driving through traffic, observe the trees on the road beside you, observe the cloud pattern above you and listen to the birds chirping and making a pattern overhead. Observe people around you, and you might see a young couple walking hand in hand, or a kid playing with his mom in the car next to you, or the conductor issuing tickets to passengers in the bus ahead of you.

Where are you living your life?

Where are you living your life?

We normally don’t do this because it seems like a futile exercise. What will we gain from it? There doesn’t seem to be anything ‘productive‘ about it. But sometimes sitting peacefully and observing is all we need to clear our mind of all the unnecessary thoughts of our daily life. It is more like getting out of our own body and watching people pass through their life as we do mostly. We will observe our rationalizations, our reasons, and a reflection of ourself in the people around us. We will realize how small issues and thoughts control us over the period of a day. How small problems turn into big frustrations and how we become driven by them instead of letting them go? Just by observing and doing nothing, we can see our problems in a totally different perspective.

The same goes for reading and studying. We are packed with so much information these days as there are news, articles and videos coming along our way every second. Many of us are studying very hard to clear that exam or to get that dream job. We might even be doing an extra evening or distance learning course with our work. The purpose of education is learning, but often it gets limited to reading and studying and we miss the most important part – learning. I believe that the biggest teacher is life, and that there is no need to go to college or attend lectures or read books if you really want to learn. In the world around us, there are many examples of such people. Every second of our life, every person we meet can teach us something. But only if we are open to learn from all such opportunities.

It can make a lot of difference in our days if we observe instead of watching, and learn instead of studying or reading. For example, we take the same steps of stairs every day to reach our doorstep, and we watch it daily. Maybe we have seen it hundreds of times. But how many of us can tell how many stairs are there till the door? If we really stay open to the inputs received by our senses (and not just our vision), we can let in a lot more than we do now. But we walk around with dark glasses on our eyes and headphones in our ears and miss everything this beautiful world has to offer. And then we go out seeking the same beauty or knowledge in books.

In the next few days and weeks, observe and be aware of your senses and I bet you will be surprised to see the difference it makes to the quality of your life.

Four Reasons why we should Treat our Customers as Friends

One of the best definitions of business that I have read or heard is “Business is a process by which an organization creates, delivers and captures value.” Short and simple. Create, Deliver and Capture. The three main roles of any business, and all of them revolve around the customer. In a way, we all say that we are doing business for money, or to be our own boss, or it is a way of life, but the fact is that a business cannot succeed or survive if it doesn’t have the customer at its focus all the time. Here are my four reasons why we (employees or founders) should treat our customers as friends :-

1. Customers are our biggest teachers
In my previous stint at entrepreneurship, ignoring the customer was the biggest mistake we did. Of course we didn’t realize that we were ignoring the customer till after two years we started SaleRaja, we always thought that we knew what the customer want. Even when we started interacting with customers, we were trying to sell them a product which we built according to their needs (which we guessed) rather than really taking the time to listen to them and understanding their real needs.

2. Most important relationship
If there is one relationship in business which should be friendly, it should be your relationship with your customer, even ahead of your investors and shareholders, but maybe at par with your employees. To thrive in any business, you need to know the pulse of what is happening in the lives of your business. You have to care for them at a level bigger than just your company and your product or service. Treating customers is not just about selling, but about forming long term and mutually benefiting friendships.

Customer service is not a department, it's an attitude!

Customer service is not a department, it's an attitude!

3. Connect them on an emotional level
We need to understand our customers, the businesses they run and the challenges they face on a much deeper level than what is generally the norm. We should be willing to stand by our customers in tough times, and support them in whatever way is possible (by even suffering some temporary losses). We should be interested in meeting and talking to them even when we have nothing to talk on the business front. We should always keep and deliver on our promises. We should respect their opinions and ask them for advice. Nobody can give a more subjective view of our company than our customers. Once a customer told me – “I am ready to pay you ten times what you are asking, but you have to give what I actually need.” Only if I was listening 😉

4. You will be rewarded
Being a good friend demands hard work and commitment but if we can do that, nobody can reward us better than our customers. Our customers will love us and never forget how we made them feel. If we stick by them in their tough times, they will do the same. And that is what makes business life so rewarding apart from the usual cold and transactional meetings which are the norm. An example of such a business is Apple. Every Apple customer buys its products not only because of their superior design and quality, but also because of the relationship Apple has forged with its customers over the years.

However, this doesn’t mean that the customer is always right and we do have to be professional in our dealings. But I will leave that for another post.

Let go of the need to be right

If I have to pick up one thing I learned in the last few years which has made the most impact on me, I would not hesitate to say it has been the way I see and judge things to be right and wrong. We all have a strong sense of righteousness about certain matters in our life. It could be related to how we live our lives, or how we run our business or something else. It could be in matters as big as relationships and business, and as small as being a vegetarian or speaking the truth. Letting go of my perception of what I thought was right (and wrong) in this world has been the best thing I have done (and have to do every single day).

There is no right or wrong
When a child is born, there is no right or wrong for her. But as she grows up in this world, based on her parents, surroundings, culture, religion and numerous other factors she begins to develop a sense of right and wrong. Everything she does has to conform to these norms and she starts to despise everyone who doesn’t conform to those standards. This is very evident when people of different religions clash with each other, or people from different cultures find it difficult to stay and work together. Only if they realized that they are doing exactly the same as the other side, the only thing difference is their view of what is right and what is not? And that if they had been born and brought up in the opposite side, they would have turned out exactly as the person on the other side.

Your beliefs are not you
As a child grows up, he begins to associate himself with thoughts such as his gender, his possessions, nationality, race, religion, and later on, education and profession. We also associate ourselves with roles such as son, a brother, a parent, a friend and so on. There are many other such things which give identity to each one of us as we grow up. But the biggest problem arises when we start identifying ourselves with these labels. We are not our gender, nationality, religion or the different roles we play. We relate all these to ourselves by using words like ‘I, me, mine‘, but what is very important to realize here is that all these are just labels and not the real us. A child doesn’t have any such labels, and see how happy we are as children. But as we grow, we start associating ourselves with these labels and they become a part of us. What if one were to loose his nationality, religion, job, education? How would one react? People would go crazy because the things they have worked so hard to identify themselves with during their life has suddenly disappeared. Because they mistake these labels to be themselves rather than just what they are – ‘labels’.

Choose being kind over being right, and you'll be right every time. - Richard Carlson

Choose being kind over being right, and you'll be right every time. - Richard Carlson

Is being righteous wrong?
As I am advocating the need to let go of certain ideas about what is right and wrong, having such beliefs is not ‘wrong‘ in itself. What is important is to see them for what actually are, just our beliefs and not mistake them with ourselves? It is our ego (which is very very unconscious in nature) that makes us identify ourselves with things and beliefs. Once we see these beliefs as just beliefs, we can free ourselves from this trap. When this reality hits upon us, we may even laugh in disbelief. Because due to this illusion of mixing our beliefs with ourselves, men have fought wars, killed each other and continue to do so.

Nobody ever achieved anything by being right
So the next time you feel the urge to prove someone wrong and want to take pride in being ‘right‘, just realize that your ego is owning you in such moments. Once you are present to this, the ego loses its hold over you and you will feel free and light. It is the same reason that sometimes the poorest of people seem really happy (because they don’t have anything left to identify themselves with). It is also the same reason some people reach great heights after hitting bottom, when they are taken away of their so-called possessions and realize the futility of all of them in the first place.

So the next time you are caught in a clash of opinions, remember that these are only opinions and the unconscious ego at play. People don’t defend their opinions, they defend their identities. Sometimes, it means to take a step backwards, saying sorry even when you are not at fault, because you can see the bigger things at play (the fight of egos). Seeing people separate from their egos and built-up identities can free us from this trap of proving ourselves right and we can move on to more productive things in life.

Back to Entrepreneurship – Circa 2012, and what is CricketRadius?

If I have not told you yet or you have not heard yet, let me tell you. Recently, I quit Yahoo and am now working on another entrepreneurial venture of mine (after SaleRaja). Like most things in my life, this happened suddenly and without notice. When I joined Yahoo!, I was very clear that I would jump back into entrepreneurship again, but always thought it was 3 to 5 years away. More than that, I had a certain set of skill-gaps which I wanted to plug in before jumping back again.

Today, as it has already been over a month since I left Yahoo!, I can say with surety that those skill-gaps have not been plugged 🙂 And though I have done and learned a lot in the two years I spent at Yahoo, the gaps I wanted to plug still have a lot of holes left in them. But as I wrote in one of my previous posts (read point 9), maybe it was only a question of WHEN and not IF, that this would happen. And I am thankful to Yahoo to pushing me where I am today.

It started with the idea of a job change a few months ago and perfectly coincided with a separate cricket blog I started in November (cricketradius.com). When the response I got in the next couple of months to mine (and others) articles on CricketRadius surprised me, I actually looked at starting this as a business, even when I had a good and exciting job offer in hand. And so here I am, a little scared, a lot unsure about the future, but certainly confident that this is the right thing to do and I will figure out the maze that awaits me in the year ahead.

CricketRadius - Because Fans Deserve Better

CricketRadius - Because Fans Deserve Better

Coming back to cricket, it has always had a very central place in my heart right from my childhood. From watching every ball of Test Matches to cutting pictures from newspapers and creating collages to the many thousands of cricket records and statistics in my head, I always knew cricket is going to take up a lot of my time, no matter what I do and where I work. And when I started writing regularly in 2010, I couldn’t stop myself from writing on a lot of topics related to the gentleman’s game. Eventually it led me to where I am today. Another benefit of my writing and proof that if you have faith in life, the dots will somehow connect in the future.

I am working on developing the first version of the CricketRadius product I have in mind, and it would go live in April first week. The central idea around CricketRadius is that fans like me are at the center of everything that happens in cricket. There would be no meaning to any cricket without fans, and as much as cricketers are sports persons, they are also entertainers performing in front of an audience. This fan base is the glue holding the cricket world together, as they generate the eye-balls, the emotions and the revenue which eventually runs cricket and pays for the salaries of everyone involved with the game.

The aim of CricketRadius is hence to provide a platform on web, mobile and other mediums where fans can express themselves and share their emotions about the game they so much love and adore. Because as fans, we deserve a lot more than just being able to read articles by journalists or hear the commentary by former players or watch the match passively on television or at the stadium. As a fan, I want the ability to express my love for my team and my favorite players in an easy and convenient way. I want to let the world know how big a cricket fan I am, and what this game means to me.

The exact details of how this will shape up as I build the product is still very unclear and evolve in the year ahead, but what I am very sure is the ‘WHY’ of doing this as a business. And the WHY is that ‘BECAUSE FANS DESERVE BETTER‘.. Much better than the options currently in the market to express their love for the game. And more than anybody else, I am the most eager person to start using the CricketRadius website once it is live.

If you are a fan, behold, as the COUNTDOWN begins…

Five ways that worked for me to give up anger and hatred?

Like I said in my previous two articles on anger and forgiveness, you cannot enjoy life fully if you are carrying a grudge against someone. Forgiveness is about cleansing ourselves of the poison anger is. Forgiveness is moving on. Also, I pointed out what forgiveness is not. It is not absolving someone of a crime, and it not something good you do for the other person but for yourself. While it is all easy to say from a third person point of view, it can be immensely difficult to let go of the anger when actually faced with a situation ourselves.

Below I am listing five ways which have worked for me to give up my anger and hatred towards a specific person or situation –

1. Taking a time out
The most important factor here is time. Nobody expects a father to forgive the killer of his son immediately. His anger is rightfully justified. However, after a few months, he can. After an incident which has left us angry, the most important thing that has worked for me is to take a time out. Keep a distance from the person or situation you are angry at for a few days by doing something else or going somewhere else. This time away will help us see things in perspective and prevent us from doing something which we might regret later.

2. Genuine effort to understand the other person? What would I do if in their shoes?
After a cool off period and when you are at peace with yourself and not burning with rage, we all can make a genuine effort to understand the other person. What would you have done had you been in their shoes? Do you understand the other side fully? Under what circumstances they did what they did? If we can wisely try to see the other person’s point of view, we can understand their predicament better and maybe even empathize with the person on the other side.

grudge 3. Focus on the kind of person I want to be
Even if I am burning with anger, another thing which has worked for me is asking the question “What is the kind of person I want to be?“. Even if I have been wronged, do I want to be the person to spend my time and energy in staying angry and punishing the wrong-doer. Or do I want to be the person to love those who have harmed me and wishing for their wellness? After all, every religion asks us to love our enemies. As Buddha said, “Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.”

4. Taking a walk and doing something I love alone
You can not look from the other side’s perspective and try to understand their situation if you are not at peace with yourself. If you want to develop compassion, the first thing you need is being at peace. I try to take a long walk alone, or just sit with my eyes closed for some time. Spending some time in silence and just with my thoughts makes it easier for me to let go and forgive not only the other side, but myself too. Because my anger is doing more harm to me than the other person, the sooner I stop being a prisoner of the past the better it would be.

5. Communicate
If there is anything unspoken between me and the other party, I let it out. If the opposing party is not accessible or I might not be able to express it fully in front of him/her, I write my thoughts in an email / letter. Whether I send the letter is again, my choice, but I think it is very important to write down and express my thoughts. I express why I was angry, and that I give up my anger. I express about how difficult it has been for me, and how I have tried to see from the other person’s point of view. Once I write this letter, I go over it two or three times and strike off the lines which I think are not necessary. Doing this a couple of times makes me feel at peace with myself.

In the end, it is very important to realize that it is nobody else who makes us angry. It is our thoughts and feelings which do so, and which are always in our control. In the same way nobody can else can stop you from being angry, only you can do that.