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What’s your worth?
Today we live in a world where dignity has quite wrongfully been linked to material wealth. No matter how learned a man or woman may be, or how kind or truthful or trustworthy, if they are not wealthy, they are treated with disdain. Net worth has only one meaning. And I can’t think of a…
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Jack Welch, Built to last
Jack Welch passed away at the age of 84, on March 1, 2020. I decided to title my podcast ‘Built to Last’, after Collins & Porras’s book by that title which I consider to be one of the best corporate (or other) leadership books that I have ever read. Jack Welch was ‘built to last’.…
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Stand, if you’re alive
Have you ever seen an eagle take a duck in flight? Or a leopard bring down a wildebeest running with his herd? Or Rafael Nadal return a serve? They all have one thing in common and that is FOCUS. You may be impressed by the fact that these three are focusing on their target. But…
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Change the language
The one who controls the language, controls the debate. Today Indian Muslims are in a peculiar situation where they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. and interestingly it is all a product of language. ‘Secularism’, which was the refuge, not only of Muslims but all those who believe in our Constitution…
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Nation and Forest Fires
The whole logic of fighting forest fires is about preventing them from starting. And if they do start, then trying to prevent them from growing. If this is not done, then once a fire grows beyond a certain size, nothing can put it out until everything that can burn has been burnt. The fire will…
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Master or Victim
People sometimes look at the misery that surrounds us and ask, ‘Why doesn’t God do something about all the sick and dying and starving people?’ The answer is, ‘God did something already. He created you and gave you the means to feed at least one hungry person, pay for the education of one child, pay…
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It’s not my fault
On April 13, 1919, the 9th Gurkhas, 54th Sikhs & 59th Sind Rifles, on the orders of Col. Dyer, fired on an unarmed, peaceful crowd gathered to celebrate Besakhi at the Jalianwala Bagh in Amritsar. As a result, 1000 people died and perhaps three times that number were injured. Even though, the crowd was overwhelmingly…
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For he was a man
I started my corporate career in Guyana with the Guyana Mining Enterprise in Kwakwani, on the Rio Berbice. Kwakwani was a small mining town, hanging on the bank of the Berbice River trying not to get pushed into its deep and dark waters by an aggressively advancing forest. Living in the middle of the Amazonian…
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Confusion about kindness
What is kindness? Is it accepting substandard work or is it insisting that only the best quality is acceptable? There is often a lot of confusion about this and people think that they are being kind when they say nothing to their group members, family or friends who routinely over promise and under deliver. ……
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Become a rock in the foundation
I want to begin by saying that today I am truly proud that my nation, India, is still a democracy and that we the people of India are people with courage and the willingness to stand up for each other. Frankly, going by our recent history and the rapid polarization of our society and proliferation…