In a world depending on fossil energies, the Solar Impulse project is a paradox, almost a provocation: it aims to have an airplane take off and fly autonomously, day and night, propelled uniquely by solar energy, right round the world without fuel or pollution. An unachievable goal without pushing back the current technological limits in all fields.
- The Challenge of SOLARIMPULSE
Its pretty unusual for many otherwise very successful Indians to write books, about anything. Be it sharing what they have mastered or what they have thought about, leave alone preaching something. I was thrilled to see Kishore Biyani unveiling ‘It Happened in India’ a couple of years ago. And I recently came to know about Nandan Nilekani touring in USA promoting his own book, ‘Imagining India’. It is another of those aha moment to cherish.
I was surprised the book cover appears different for the version that will be sold in India vs. the one that will be sold in US.
The website of the book, ImaginingIndia displays the cover page (left) with seemingly thoughtful Nilekani on the cover. Where as the one I saw on Amazon has cover page (right) displaying a busy train station.
Did Nilekani think, it would be embarrassing for foreigners if he had put his own face on the cover? Just like Infosys thought it would be embarrassing to foreign nationals to sing our National Anthem (and decided to play an instrumental version instead a couple of years ago).
Watch this video on TED appears to be a good summary of the book delivered by Nandan Nilekani himself.
When I watched this video on TED, I was far from impressed, by the content or the presentation itself. I was rather infuriated by Infosys leadership as a whole. I lived in Bangalore for about 5 years, working right next to Infosys campus. And have many friends have been working for Infosys. We as a group together never understood, why Indian media is so crazy about Infosys and Infosys alone. While I respect Infosys as a business and what they could achieve and for being a role model in some aspects, I hate it for its hypocrisy and lack of social responsibility (not charity). I feel the contribution of Infosys to Indian economy and entrepreneurial ecosystem as a whole has been highly overrated.
A few comments I left on the TED video page.
Nandan Nilekani just demonstrated once again that Talk is cheaper than deeds. Infosys leverages all incentives Indian government provided to build a great business, but consistently refused to build and contribute to the very infrastructure he mentioned in the talk. The only infrastructure it ever built was its own campuses.
While taking advantage of the very demographics and social fabric to create today’s Infosys, it want to move away from its social obligation and dreaming about labor reforms that will allow it to hire and fire at will.
Unfortunately media around the world gets carried away with the dazzling stories of Infosys, it never got a chance to feel the real nerve of India and true entrepreneurs that created and empowered the democratic India. Hope, the world will see India beyond this fog someday.
Mean time, many Indians and rest of the world alike take pride in hypocrisy and ‘honor’ that never belong so much to Infosys.
By all standards, its a pretty heavy book, 528 pages and digressing. So definitely takes a while to read it and understand what he has to say.
If Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death in United States and 400,000 people die from it each year, why not ban it completely? It doesn’t make any sense.
How come US Government (and governments across the world) sell licenses to kill 400,000 of its own country men and women each year?
You know, the legislation I’m signing today represents change that’s been decades in the making. Since at least the middle of the last century, we’ve known about the harmful and often deadly effects of tobacco products. More than 400,000 Americans now die of tobacco-related illnesses each year, making it the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. More than 8 million Americans suffer from at least one serious illness caused by smoking. And these health problems cost us all more than $100 billion a year.
– President Barack Obama (At the signing of Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, 22nd June 2009) ( Link )
Whose interest it is to continue to allow Tobacco industry to kill 400,000 Americans every year and harm 8 million more.
As promised yesterday, I am presenting the interview with Rajesh Setty on ‘Upbeat’, his recent book that inspires and helps to cultivate the right attitude to thrive in tough times like this recession. One of the interesting aspects of this book is the fact that the book was originally written during the dot-com-bust with lessons learnt in building a business during that time and hence I consider it as a ‘proven’ strategy for thriving in tough times, any time.
As I mentioned yesterday I was first introduced to Rajesh Setty and Life Beyond Code through a Manifesto, 25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself published on ChangeThis about 4 years back and I have been a regular reader of Life Beyond Code blog since then. I am always inspired by the passion he brings into every thing he does. Be it a blog, tweets, e-books or his squidoo lenses.
Many of you know Rajesh as the man behind ‘(Life) Beyond Code’, but Rajesh is also involved in a few companies in some combination as a founder, operating executive, board member and/or an investor. Apart from that, he has written a few books and is working on a number of them. His first book was published at the age of thirteen. While he is not building companies or writing, he enjoys speaking at conferences and company events.
You can read his latest thoughts on his blog Life Beyond Code or on Twitter at UpbeatNow. If you are really curious to know the events that shaped his thinking, you can read his story so far here.
Thank you Rajesh for the opportunity and sharing your thoughts on a few questions I have about this new book. Now, here is the full interview.
Upbeat : Cultivating the right attitude to thrive in tough times
1. We never run out of constraints and difficulties in life, irrespective of a good economy or a bad one. How different is a recession for that warrants a shift in one’s attitude.
Rajesh: Murali, first of all thank you for the opportunity to discuss the concepts surrounding the book.
Recession is a situation created by events and circumstances typically outside of your (or any one person’s) control. The impact of a recession is far reaching. The constraints that a recession produces are a bit different from the general constraints and tough times that one person experiences as part of life.
The way a person notices recession is that he or she will notice that "what was working before will stop working." The tools and techniques that worked during good times are "suddenly" incapable of producing results they were producing.
The immediate response is to "work hard" and "do whatever it takes" to make this work. Unfortunately, doing more of something that does not work will not help.
This is where a fundamental shift in attitude has to happen. You have to "invent" and "try" new things that will produce results. This means that you have to be willing to do things that nobody is doing. Remember, if you follow the crowd, it generally won’t work as if it did work, it is working for the crowd too and recession would have been over.
To succeed in recession, you need an attitude of "reinvention" AND an attitude of "doing whatever it takes." People typically focus on the second part and forget the first part.
2. Is there any specific circumstance or a friend that prompted or rather inspired you to bring out this book in the midst of recession?
Rajesh: Honestly, I did not write this book during this recession. I wrote it when I was building my company during the previous recession. It was tough for those of us who were involved in the business and this book is a collection of some of those lessons that I learned along the way. However, by the time I finished writing the book, the recession was over so there was no point in publishing the book. However, as it always happens we were faced with another recession soon enough. So I went back and updated the materials and added some new content and polished it a bit and the book was ready.
To answer your question specifically, the book was based on what I learned as I was going through building a startup during recessionary times.
3. Many say, ‘Experience is the best teacher’. How ‘Upbeat’ can help those of us who are already going through some of these ‘tough life’ experiences?
Rajesh: I think that statement can be extended a little bit. I would say, "Experience is a great teacher if you know how to learn from it." Think about it – most people go through tough times throughout their life but only a handful of them will notice and observe the lessons that these experiences bring forth.
Brilliance comes from seeing the same things that everyone else is seeing but "interpreting" them more powerfully than majority of others.
Now, how does Upbeat help in this?
Thanks for asking the question. Upbeat is a tiny little book that has a few simple messages. I won’t cover all of them here but here are some of them:
Taking one or more messages like the ones and integrating it into your life (meaning you should do this unconsciously rather than making an effort) will make a lasting difference.
4. There are 100s of books out there that explicitly address these ‘tough times’ leaving aside books that inspire readers at any time. How is ‘Upbeat’ different from the rest (or complement them).
Rajesh: I don’t try to compete with anyone else but simply want to get my message out. I read one or two books a week so I enjoy what many wonderful people have to say.
My goal with this book was (and is) simple – share some of insights and lessons learned in a short format that someone will actually read them and try to implement one or two things that will make a quick difference. If they see the results, my hope is that they will come back and read once again and probably implement a couple of other things.
5. You always share your thoughts and experiences very generously and succinctly on the blog, through e-books or through published books( I haven’t got an opportunity to attend any of your Speaking events). What motivates you to wake up every day and keep on sharing.
Rajesh: That’s a great question. If there is one keyword in my life – it is "leverage." I am constantly looking for higher leverage in my life and constantly looking for ways for other people to have higher leverage.
As I keep learning new ways of increasing my leverage, I want to share it with people who want to listen and increase their own leverage. If I can do something that will increase the capacity of a few more people in the world to make this world a better place, that would give me the greatest satisfaction.
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Thank you Rajesh once again. You can read his latest thoughts on his blog Life Beyond Code or on Twitter at UpbeatNow. If you are really curious to know the events that shaped his thinking, you can read his story so far here.
I will share my own review of the book in a couple days. Stay in touch.
“ There are about 6.7 Billion people in this world that we know of. Whether you believe in ‘Creation’ or ‘Evolution’, this human race started with a tiny number. It is quite amazing to see how fast it multiplies. What is more amazing is that every single individual in that 6 billion crowd is born ‘unique’. Quite literally, you are born to be one in a billion, whether you believe it or not. “
This was the Introduction to my latest and last speech in Toast Masters club. I presented this speech, ‘One in a Billion’ as part of International Speech contest in my club.
My main argument in that speech was that barring physical traits, many of us appear to prefer being ‘common’ and ‘acceptable’ rather than ‘distinguished’ and ‘exceptional’.
When it comes to Software Development, the problem of becoming a commodity is much more pronounced now. Even though, an exceptional software developer is 10 times more productive and effective than an average one, the benchmark has started ignoring this qualitative aspect in preference for the hourly rate at bargain price at the cheapest corner of the earth.
Having said that, it is now much easier to introduce a book that is written to help IT consultants and Professionals distinguish themselves in the crowd. Its titled “Beyond Code” written by Rajesh Setty about 4 years ago and is lot more important now than 4 years ago.
25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself
In fact I was first introduced to Rajesh Setty, through this e-Book “25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself”, probably this can be considered as a summary and an extension at the same time online (to the book) on his blog. There are now about 202 ways to distinguish yourself.
I was so impressed by his ideas and outlook, I bought the book and subscribed to his blog. I have been regularly reading his blog and various e-books he published since then. While I did not agree everything with Rajesh, I was quite impressed by the passion and the way he grew professionally in the last 4 years. Rajesh since then released many e-Books and shared ideas on his blog, lenses on squidoo and now sharing on Twitter.
Upbeat
When Rajesh released his new book ‘Upbeat’ recently and planning to do a Virtual Blog Tour to promote the book, I signed up to participate in the tour. As part of the tour, I will be publishing an interview with Rajesh tomorrow.
I am very excited about this. This will be my first interview of any kind and I am going to publish tomorrow on this blog. I will later follow up with my first Book review of ‘Upbeat’.
Stay in touch. Stay subscribed.
