We live in a very competitive world. Every day, we are surrounded by so many commitments that are competing for our time and attention all the time. Given the limited resources we have at our disposal(time, energy, focus), we often make trade-offs in allocating them to the ever competing demands. Although it doesn’t seem much, some trade-offs that we subconsciously make tend to have a severe effect on our lives much after they are made. If our life is a sum of our professional, personal and spiritual aspects, where should we spend our time on? How do we make the judicious use of our resources so that we live a life of contentment? Personally, I was a victim of such unfair resource allocation to my life aspects early in my career which I realized only after having deep conversations with my friends and relatives.
I read a lot of books on how we can live a life of contentment and they all gave some really good advice. All the books I read so far approached this subject from a personal perspective - things you would have to start practising by following principles established by our scriptures and epics. However, this book - How You Will Measure Your Life - takes a very different approach. This book is written by Clayton Christensen(author of The Innovators Dilemma), a professor at Harvard Business School. When a business professor talks about life lessons, the influence of business is evident in his writings. In this particular book, he makes business the reference point to drive home the life lessons. What does it contain? Read on.
Clayton divides the book into three parts - career, personal life and integrity. For most of us, these three pillars cover pretty much all aspects of life. The end goal of all these topics is to live a life of contentment and joy. The USP of this book is to blend the well proven theories in the business work in our lives.
In the career part, Clayton advises on how to make the best out of our jobs - starting from making the right choice to selecting one to all the way to thriving in one that we chose.He talks about deliberate strategy versus emergent strategy and also the unexpected opportunities that life throws at us. He also talks about not just formulating a strategy but also ways to implement it to see the fruits it bears.
On personal side, Clayton shares valuable lessons for various aspects of our daily lives such as relationships with our friends and spouse, kids - spending time with them and nurturing them. He shares theories to shape the thinking of kids and prepare them for the challenges that life presents them. He also talks about the most important thing at work and our family - culture. He talks in detail on how culture is shaped at work place and how it can be cultivated at home by providing detailed steps on building it.
As the book comes to end, he talks about integrity - specifically how to stay out of jail. This may seem a bit overboard but it’s an extreme to capture the verious aspects of our life that deal with integrity. He talks about marginal thinking theory and explains the pitfalls that come along with it in our daily lives. At the end, he presents us with a framework on how do we want to measure of our life. He wants us to think for ourselves on what we want to become in our lives and how do we strive to fulfil that dream.
Overall, this book is a great combination of business and life that offers a very practical advice and some strong theories to support that advice. Happy reading!
Let’s start with a quick recap of some of the most famous news and events in history - first man landing on moon, attack on the World Trade Center, weird saucer like UFOs, etc. What is common to all of these topics? Yes, they are quite popular but they are all also full of very interesting conspiracy theories. Let’s look at one of the most recent events in the world - Covid-19 pandemic. On one hand when the entire world was fighting this pandemic with never before heard-of restrictions and regulations, the same pandemic was the epicenter for some of the most weird and irrational theories floating around(vaccines with magnets!). There were believers and then there were misbelievers. This phenomenon - of taking a distorted view of the world events which is far from facts - is the topic of the book ‘Misbelief’ by Dan Ariely. Why and how did I got to read this book? Well, I have been a fan of Dan Ariely for a very long time now, and I have read all his books starting from ‘Predictably Irrational’ to ‘Misbelief’. In fact, it’s Dan’s books that piqued my interest in the subject of Behavioral Economics. So when I got a newsletter mentioning his newest book, I knew I had to read it. So what does it contain? Read on.
I had a very little understanding of what a ‘misbelief’ is or who ‘misbelievers’ are until I read this book. As I read the book, it dawned on me that these are not some new terms; instead we are all misbelievers to some extent and we all hold some misbeliefs in our lives - it’s just that we don’t realize them. In fact, the concept of misinformation and misbelief is so prevalent in our world that we become part of the chain of misbelief more often than not without even actively spreading them. Don’t belive me? Take a moment and recollect the information you learnt or came across for one of the earlier mentioned topics. I’m pretty sure you believed in some information that was far from truth. Dan Ariely explores this phenomenon from a behavioral point of view, taking a very methodical approach to understand this peculiar aspect of human behavior.
After the foundations of what constitutes a misbelief is established, Dan presents to us the process of misbelief - a funnel through which people enter at one end where they are completely unaware of the irrational beliefs and over a period of time, they emerge out of the funnel completely bought into the odd theories and becoming a true misbeliever. So, the next question is - what are the factors that could be attributed as the cause of this transformation? To answer this, Dan presents us the four factors:
The Emotional Elements
The Cognitive Elements
The Personality Elements
The Social Elements
The rest of the book explores each of the above elements in detail, all the while presenting extremely riveting personal stories of real misbelievers. Although the context and motivation for this book is set in the Covid-19 pandemic time, Dan explores the concept of misbelief in general and as something that pervades a lot more topics than just the Covid-19 pandemic. Over the course of the next few chapters, we are presented with some very interesting concepts in human psychology such as heuristics, razors(Occam’s razor, Hitchen’s razor, Hanlon’s razor), confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, conjunction fallacy, social proof, Dunning Kruger effect, congintive dissonance, etc. If these terms sound scary, I assure you that these are presented in very simple terms that an engineer with no background in psychology can understand easily. Once you understand these concepts, you can’t stop yourself from seeing these principles in action in your daily life.
Although Dan talks about the elements playing a vital role in the concept of misbelief, he also presents us with helpful tips all along the way on how to prevent ourselves from falling into the misbelief funnel. Rightfully titled ‘Hopefully Helpful’, these little nuggets of wisdom will surely help you to strengthen the understanding of the human behaior in greater detail. As a closing remark, I can only say this - there are a few books that not just educate you, but they actually make you think about the daily life and this helps in expanding your thoughts into never before dimensions.
We wanted to keep the next day a bit light and also my friend had to go to his office for some work. So after a quick breakfast, I met my former colleague for coffee. It was great to see him, and he was the last one on my checklist of friends to meet in the US. It’s always great to meet your friend after a long time and have a good chat. Next, I headed off to the Google office where my friend was working and had a relaxing massage in one of the famous massage chairs at Google. We also had a great lunch at the Google cafeteria and I got to experience the famed gourmet Google food. After lunch, I spent the rest of the day at my friends home just lazing around and watching a movie in Netflix. I got to experience the connected home tech with Google Home at his apartment, and it was magical. That evening, I headed out to meet my cousin for dinner and after a fulfilling south Indian dinner, I headed to my cousin’s home for the rest of my stay in the US. Wishing your friends good bye is always painful and it was no different for me when I had to bid farewell to my friend.
The next day, we refreshed and headed out to a neighborhood mall and shopped some more. After a delicious lunch prepared by my cousins’ wife, we started our way back to home – India. The drive to airport was again special – we drove through places that hosted our office and the hotel. Looking at them, I was reminded of my time in the US – what a beautiful 2 week journey it was! Finally, we reached the airport and finished all the formalities. As I sat the boarding gate waiting for my flight boarding, I saw something dearest to me – the Indian flag on my plane. I was never more happy seeing my country flag. As the plane took off, I bid farewell to US – the land that gave me so many memories over the past 2 weeks and I signed off until the next time.
What did I take away from this trip? A lot of memories, some captured here some captured in my heart. This trip was special to me on more than one front – professionally and personally. Looking back, I realized that life has a perfect timing for everything for us. After a tumultuous 6 months, life rewarded me with beautiful 2 weeks of relaxation and rejuvenation – both for my body and my soul. A friend of mine always used to say – believe in the timing of God and manifestation. This US trip of mine made me realize those words and I am thankful to the God for bestowing me this memorable trip.
The plan for the weekend for simple – meet my friend and drive around. We shifted my luggage to his apartment and started off for a long drive. We planned to visit Big Sur and the 17 mile drive – my dream for a very long time. Although my friend had visited them quite a few times, he was generous enough to do the trip once more with me, and it was special. We started driving at around 8:30 AM and stopped at ‘The Butter House’ for a quick charge – both for his car and for us, a delicious brunch. The restaurant had a wait time of around 45 minutes, but the food was totally worth the wait. All along the way, we had great conversation on pretty much every topic under the sun – economy, technology, jobs, life, relationships and what not.
The next phase of the journey to Big Sur was an extremely amazing drive – to put it in simple words. In fact, no amount of words can describe the feeling I experienced while driving along the road. Ocean on one side, beautiful winding roads ahead of you with occasional tall trees covering the sky and the creeks along side, it was a drive that has to be experienced in person. And as our luck would have it, the weather on that day was very pleasant with mild showers and cool breeze, making the drive even more relaxed and enjoyable. How can you make such drive even better? Play your favorite songs and sing along with your buddy! We stopped at a few points to catch the glimpse of the ocean next to us and the scenery was simply breath taking. Watching the ocean beneath us, I could see the pristine waves washing the sands and hitting the rocks. The pale cyan color near the shores and the dark blue waters in the distance provided a perfect amalgamation of blue shades. I was speechless at the sight of this beautiful nature and couldn’t thank enough to the God for providing me this opportunity to experience this beauty.
On the way back, it was my chance to drive along this beautiful route. I drove along the winding roads with ease and the whole journey of around 30 miles passed away in a breeze. All the while, my friend was enjoying the views, sitting in the passenger seat – which he hadn’t done ever since he got his car. I was glad I could help him experience that joy. The drive itself reminded me of the video games – just rotate your steering wheel to navigate the twists and turns along the way. After a long drive, we stopped at Starbucks for a quick coffee break and my friend surprised me with a gift – a special Starbucks ‘Been There’ series mug! This drive was just getting better! After this, we headed to the big destination – the 17 mile drive.
Now, the 17 mile drive is basically a drive along the coast of a region called Monterey that is occupied by some of the wealthiest people in the USA. This area was full of golf courses, tennis courts and beautiful mansions just a few steps away from the coast. Along the 17 miles of the drive through that region, we visited a lot of scenic places such as the Spanish Bay, Bird Rock, the lone Cypress tree, ghost trees, etc. Once again, we got onto the beach and played with the water which was freezing cold. The gentle waves touching my feet in that pristine weather was the perfect relaxation I needed. In that moment, as I stood there with my feet in the sand and gaze in the sky – I became one with the nature. I once again thanked the God for bringing me to this place – 13,000 Kms away from my home – and providing me such amazing experiences. Once we completed all the sight seeing points in the 17 mile drive, we headed over to our next destination – Carmel by the sea.
Carmel is a small town located close to the 17 mile drive that is adorned with beautiful European architecture. Here, you would find small buildings housing some cozy shops for art and memorabilia. Walking along the streets, I was reminded of my time in Germany and Italy. There were lanes, and then there were inner lanes through the buildings connecting the main lanes. After spending an hour or so on the streets, we headed over for dinner at a cozy little Italian restaurant called ‘La Napoli’. What better way to end your day with some warm Italian food and great music! We had the perfect vegetable soup for the cool and drizzling weather, followed by a very special pasta – the Cascadelli with basil pesto sauce adorned with nuts! Followed by an amazing vegetable pizza and to close it off, a perfect Tiramisu! What a perfect way to end the evening! After a sumptuous dinner, we headed back to the city. Along the way, we stopped at the Tesla super chargers for a quick charge. We reached home by 9:30 PM and called it a day.
The next week was quite busy with work. On one of the evenings, we went to a park in San Mateo county that was right next to the sea. This park was basically a jogging/walking track with some sit-outs to enjoy the cool ocean breeze and watch the sunset/sunrise. Being close to San Francisco, we could see a number of planes arriving in San Francisco airport. After a relaxed walk along the track and watching the sunset, we headed back to our hotel stopping at a super market on the way. One evening, I met my old colleagues for dinner and it felt so nice to meet them after a long time. We had great conversation over some great Italian food and ended the evening with nice memories. On an another evening, I met my cousin who was living in San Jose. We went to Palo Alto to try out the famous ramen – we had to stand in queue for 30 minutes to get inside the restaurant. After the dinner, we had a walk around the Palo Alto downtown and had ice cream at a quirky ice cream parlor. I got to try some interesting ice cream flavors and ended the evening with sweet taste in my mouth and mind.
Before we could realize, it was time for us to return the rental car. But before that, I made a surprise purchase – Apple Airpods – at Best Buy. I had always wanted to buy some very good quality earphones that had active noise cancellation, single ear playback, etc. Having an iPhone, the natural choice was the Airpods Pro. Using my office credits, I made the big purchase. I must admit – the Airpods were magic! The way they paired with my iPhone, settings, controls and the build quality – everything about it screamed Apple. It’s the visceral feel of the Apple products that captures the users into its ecosystem and I was no exception. I am slowly but steadily becoming an ardent Apple fan. That evening, I finished the last of my work duties for my visit to the USA and then got ready for the weekend to have some fun.
Next morning was my time to check-out from the hotel and vacate my room. It would be injustice to call it just a room; it was my home for the last 2 weeks. Though it’s just a place for you to stay temporarily, you tend to develop a kind of attachment with the place and it starts growing on you slowly. I was no different – the room I stayed in had all the amenities for a perfect business stay, complete with facilities such as a mini kitchen with all the utensils needed to cook a wholesome meal, a large TV, work desk, plush bed and sofa, decent bathroom and an ironing stand. Whether it was a long day at work or a tiring drive, my room was always ready to welcome me home and relax. And the way I used to snug into the bed with the sheets on me – that gave me the warm and cozy sleep I needed. It may sound weird to get attached to a hotel room so much, but this is me. So with a heavy heart, I bid farewell to the room and proceeded with my plans.