Duality of the mind : A Leader's bread and butter

We make a lot of decisions in our day to day life. And every decision comes with its own set of choices. And our mind succumbs to the duality present in these choices .

Should I vouch for liberalism or be a conservative ?

Should I work hard now (as i can enjoy the fruits in future) or should I enjoy the present ( as this moment will never come again) ? 

Should I have oriental food  today or  try the Italian cuisine ?

the list goes on..

Duality never leaves the mind . It is one of the prime forces which rarely any of us can control.

People think it will cease in future , but it never does.  The earlier one knows this the better.

So we know this ! Then what is the use of it?

That is what I am coming to ...

It is a fact that there are  always such conflicts taking place in the minds of people . Once you will talk to the people around you ,especially youngsters, you will come to know that they are a totally confused lot. Whatever actions they do , they do not have an explanation for it . They think that these conflicts will cease, but they never do . 

These people are in a desperate need of a single agenda ,they need someone to align their thoughts .

even  just for a short span. They need somebody to constantly tell them the reason for their actions. There is an opportunity to drive the people around you to think what you want them to think, to become a leader of this confused lot by showing them the way. Yes you need a lot of charisma and the talent to do it . But the underlying thought is that leading the crowd is not that hard as people think . Only thing is that you have to remain decisive. Realize that there always be confusion in your mind also , but it is better to stick to one thought.  You have to create a persona of unanimity among st the people . You remove their confusion and people listen to you. 

So try to lead a  small group for any initiative or try to decide for your friends which restaurant to go to and you will see how easy it is .It is not about controlling others mind ,its about controlling yours ... 

Creating from the already created

How do we think new thoughts  ?

General perception is that the creative thought is supposed to be unprecedented one. But is it really so ? My personal experiences on creativity differ  completely. Lately I did an experiment . I listed all the creative things I have thought  till now. Even listed this article which i am writing .  Then for each of these creative thoughts. I started figuring how did I come up with the thought ,what was my mindset and what i was reading at that time . A startling fact came out that. my creative thoughts were the interconnections of the things which i experienced or read about during that time . All of them were in the context of the the things I was doing at that time.So creativity is not about thinking unprecedented thoughts. It is more about making the connections between several different knowledge chunks which one learns .It is just linking of the knowledge chunks .

Of Music and Musings

How do you feel when you listen to a song which you used listen in your college or high school days ?

I bet our first reaction is of nostalgia and how our life was great back in college. We think that we lived our best lives in college,had great friendships and did many great things back then. 

Well this may be a just a bias in which we succumb to.   

Creativity: The way of Life

"If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” 
so says Sir Ken Robinson , British author, speaker, and international advisor on education in the arts to government, non-profits, education, and arts bodies.


Presenting in TED Talks ,Sir Ken Robinson talks about creativity and how our educational and societal system hinders it . It is amusing as well as inspiring , as Sir Ken charms the audience with his wit .


Just spare few minutes to watch this video. You will surely feel your passions calling you after you watch it .

Math Technique #1 : How to calculate the square of a 2 digit number in few seconds

This technique will help you to calculate square of any two digit number in a quick way :

You might have to work with numbers some time and Squaring is the integral part of it . In professional life these tricks help in faster number crunching. Or if you are preparing for some entrance exams who require that you calculate fast : (In India, We have an MBA entrance exam called CAT,which requires such fast calculations and is one of the toughest exams in world because of immense competition).Or simply, If you want to impress your friends with some fast calculations , this technique would fit the bill.

This is how the technique  works 

(Only requirement is that you should know the squares of 1 to 25 at your fingertips)

First we classify the number X according to following condition

Group.1.:  25<= X<=50

Group.2. : 51<=X<=75

Group.3. : 76<=X<=100

For Group 1:

To find the square of X we do the following 

1. Find the distance of X from 50 :  distance Y = 50 -X
2. Subtract the distance from 25 : result =25-Y
3. Append two 0s to the result
4. Add the square of the distance Y to the result (Here Y will be between 1 and 25 and you get the square of your number X !!

Looks complicated?

Well it wont when you see an example and do some practice .You will be able to calculate the squares in few seconds . 

Example :(Group1)

Say you have to find the square of 41.

so X=41

1. Find the distance of X from 50 :  distance Y = 50 -41 =9 
2. Subtract the distance from 25 : result = 25-Y = 25-9 = 16
3. Append two 0s to the result : result = 1600
4. Add the square of the distance Y to the result : result = 1600 + 9^2 = 1600+81= 1681

so you get the square of 41 as 1681 . Just 4 steps to follow 

An all pervasive Matthew Effect

• Around 5 % of people control 95% of wealth in the world .

• A small group of celebrities have their presence all the time in television.  

• In a certain college batch,  20 % of people  know around 80% of the people but the rest 80% people know only 20 %.

• Some boys have most or all  of the girls hanging around them , while most of the boys are lone wolves.

You may have come across such things , if not take a deeper look and you will be surprised.

This is Pareto's 80/20 rule , the law of vital few , which states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.This principle is nicely described in a  highly interesting work by Richard Koch: "The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less" .The prime reason for this 80/20 disparity lies  in what we called Matthew effect. coined on the lines of this biblical  the Gospel of Matthew:

"For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; 
but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away."

Ever Heard that thing "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" . That is  what Matthew effect is all about .The rich will leverage their wealth to get more wealth .They' ll invest the wealth in different areas and thus increase their chances of gaining more wealth. A highly social person will have a lot of connections , and he will use those connections to increase his social visibility.So a small advantage in past makes a big difference in future . Well there is always hard work,passion and intelligence involved, but they are necessities and not the sufficient parameters.

  

Now an  interesting thing would be to  implement the Matthew Effect  for our advantage.

Take this example :'There is this boy who has  a girlfriend and they are happy with each other.Other Girls think of him as a confident person, who knows how to behave with girls .So they get attracted to him . This in turn increases the confidence of the boy and he becomes more likable and the cycle continues'. The underlying principle that works here can be summed up in one word : 'Momentum'  i.e. "keeping up the pace" .What ever one wants to achieve, he has to act on it first .Start small , keep up the pace and ultimately Matthew effect will catch up and help you  get whatever you want. So you think you have a great idea and want to start you own company . Start it . It may fail  , but do not resign on it. Improve the idea and keep up the pace. Make more and more contacts , ultimately you will have that edge on others . This is just a law of nature .I have started this blog with the same conviction . 

 I hope that Matthew effect will catch up for me too :).