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10 takeaways from Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to Live a Long and Happy Life
– Thread –
Ask yourself these 4 questions.
– What do I love?
– What am I good at?
– What does the world need from me?
– What can I get paid for?
– Be passionate about everything you do.
– Be relaxed and enjoy all that you do.
– Celebrate all the time, even the little joys of life.
– Slowing down is a conscious choice and not always an easy one.
‘ There is nothing wrong in enjoying life’s pleasures’.
– Eat only until you are 80% full.
Ways to get started:
– Eat slowly.
– Focus on food.
– Use small vessels.
– Friends affect your health even more than family.
– The key is to have 3 or 4 good friends that care for you the same way you care for them.
– Thinking about what you can do help the people closest to you be happier.
– One of the secrets of long life is smiling and having a good time.
– Cheerful attitude is very relaxing.
– The truth is it takes 46 muscles to frown and only 17 to smile.
– People who smile seem more trustworthy and are rated higher in generosity.
– Anybody who wants to grow old needs an ikigai or reason for living.
– Gardening gives you something to get up for every day.
– Being in nature, living near nature or even viewing nature produces a cascade of positive emotions.
– Gratitude increases happiness levels and physical health.
– It lowers stress levels and improves optimism.
– To stay healthy, you don’t need to go to gym for an hour daily or run marathons.
– All you need is to add movement to your day.
– Practice anything like yoga, tai chi. This is an excellent way to seek harmony between your body and mind.
– Flow is the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems matter.
– The experience of doing a task itself becomes highly enjoyable.
– The way is to identify tasks that align with your abilities but are still challenging.
– Live intentional, purposeful life.
– Feel that you are needed, you matter and you contribute.
– Don’t think of retirement as an ultimate destination.
– Focus to build a fantastic life while you still have time.
– Never retire. Keep learning.
It will change your
– habits,
– daily routine,
– mindset, and
– make you strong and disciplined 👇
Follow (@UpSkillYourLife) for more threads on Skills, Habits, Psychology and Technology.
Follow: @UpSkillYourLife
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Build by Tony Fadell: Book Summary and Key Ideas from the book
Tony Fadell led the teams that created the iPod, iPhone and Nest Learning Thermostat. The book takes a deep dive into not just successes, but also failure stories making it a more realistic read than many books of the same genre.
Key Ideas from the book, Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making
Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell is full of personal stories, practical advice and fascinating insights into some of the most impactful products and people of the 20th century. Here are key ideas curated for you.
Becoming a Manager: 6 things you should know
- You do not have to be a manager to be successful. Many people assume that the only path to more money and stature is managing a team.
- Remember that once you become a manager, you’ll stop doing the thing that made you successful in the first place. You’ll no longer be doing the things you do really well—instead you’ll be digging into how others do them, helping them improve.
- Becoming a manager is a discipline. Management is a learned skill, not a talent. You’re not born with it.
- Being exacting and expecting great work is not micromanagement. Your job is to make sure the team produces high-quality work.
- Honesty is more important than style. You can be successful with any style as long as you never shy away from respectfully telling the team the uncomfortable, hard truth that needs to be said.
- Don’t worry that your team will outshine you. In fact, it’s your goal.
On Data vs Intuition
Nothing in the world is ever 100 percent sure. Even scientific research with entirely data-based outcomes is actually filled with caveats—we didn’t do this kind of sampling, there was this variant, we need to follow up with this test.
“It’s not data or intuition; it’s data and intuition.”
Ivy Ross, vice president of hardware design at Google
You need both. You use both.
Subscribe to Ashish Sinha’s Sunday Newsletter
Assholes
The 4 types of assholes in any org.
- Political assholes
The people who master the art of corporate politics, but then do nothing but take credit for everyone else’s work. incredibly risk averse. - Controlling assholes.
Micromanagers who systematically strangle the creativity and joy out of their team. They never give people credit for their work, never praise it, and often steal it. - Asshole assholes
They suck at work and everything else. These are the mean, jealous, insecure jerks who you’d avoid at a party, but who inevitably sit immediately next to you at the office - Mission-driven “assholes”:
The people who are crazy passionate—and a little crazy. Much like true assholes, they are neither easygoing nor easy to work with. Unlike true assholes, they care. They give a damn.
They listen.
Steve Jobs was a mission-driven “asshole,” a passionate hurricane.
On Building Products
When a company gives that kind of care and attention to every part of the journey, people notice. Our product was good, but ultimately it was the whole journey that defined our brand. That’s what made Nest special. It’s what makes Apple special. It’s what allows businesses to reach beyond their product and create a connection—not with users and consumers, but with human beings. It’s how you create something that people will love.
Tony Fadell
Storytelling. Like Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs used a technique call the virus of doubt. It’s a way to get into people’s heads, remind them about a daily frustration, get them annoyed about it all over again.
If you can infect them with the virus of doubt—“Maybe my experience isn’t as good as I thought, maybe it could be better”—then you prime them for your solution. You get them angry about how it works now so they can get excited about a new way of doing things.
Your product’s story is its design, its features, images and videos, quotes from customers, tips from reviewers, conversations with support agents. It’s the sum of what people see and feel about this thing that you’ve created.
And the story doesn’t just exist to sell your product. It’s there to help you define it, understand it, and understand your customers.
And it all starts with “why.” Why does this thing need to exist? Why does it matter? Why will people need it? Why will they love it?
Use analogies. Analogies (example: 1,000 songs in your pocket) can be such a useful tool in storytelling. They create a shorthand for complicated concepts—a bridge directly to a common experience.
How to spot a great idea?
There are three elements to every great idea:
1. It solves for “why.” Long before you figure out what a product will do, you need to understand why people will want it. The “why” drives the “what.”
2. It solves a problem that a lot of people have in their daily lives.
3. It follows you around. Even after you research and learn about it and try it out and realize how hard it’ll be to get it right, you can’t stop thinking about it.
You can only have one customer.
The bulk of your focus and the whole of your branding should be for consumers or business—not both.
Understanding your customer—their demographics and psychographics, their wants and needs and pain points—is the foundation of your company.
For the vast majority of businesses, losing sight of the main customer you’re building for is the beginning of the end.
..if you cater to both, your marketing still has to be B2C. You can never convince a regular person to use a B2B product that’s obviously not meant for them, but you can convince a company to use your product if you appeal to the human beings inside that company.
There are two kinds of work/life balance:
1. True work/life balance: A magical, quasi-mythical state where you have time for everything: work, family, hobbies, seeing friends, exercising, vacationing. Work is just one part of your life that doesn’t intrude on any other part. This kind of balance is impossible when you’re starting a company, leading a team that’s trying to create innovative products or services on a competitive timeline, or just experiencing crunch time at work.
2. Personal balance when you’re working: Knowing you’re going to be working or thinking about work most of the time and creating space to give your brain and body a break.
On Handling Crisis: The Playbook
- Keep your focus on how to fix the problem, not who to blame. That will come later and is far too distracting early on.
- As a leader, you’ll have to get into the weeds. Don’t be worried about micromanagement—as the crisis unfolds your job is to tell people what to do and how to do it.
- Get advice. From mentors, investors, your board, or anyone else you know who’s gone through something similar. Don’t try to solve your problems alone.
- Your job once people get over the initial shock will be constant communication.
On Hiring great team members
Tony Fadell: In an interview I’m always most interested in three basic things: who they are, what they’ve done, and why they did it. I usually start with the most important questions: “What are you curious about? What do you want to learn?”
Another good interview technique is to simulate work—instead of asking them how they work, just work with them. Pick a problem and try to solve it together.
A Method to Marketing
- Marketing cannot just be figured out at the very end
- Use marketing to prototype your product narrative
- The product is the brand.
- Nothing exists in a vacuum.
- The best marketing is just telling the truth (Steve Jobs)
The ultimate job of marketing is to find the very best way to tell the true story of your product.
Becoming CEO
There are generally three kinds of CEOs:
- Babysitter CEOs are stewards of the company and are focused on keeping it safe and predictable. Most public company CEOs are babysitters.
- Parent CEOs push the company to grow and evolve. They take big risks for larger rewards. Innovative founders—like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos—are always parent CEOs
- Incompetent CEOs are usually either simply inexperienced or founders who are ill-suited to lead a company after it reaches a certain size.
10 must read books that will change your life
20 books you should read and reread
Follow @AlexAndBooks_
How to write a book in 30 days
A “book” is typically 30k-60k words. 60k / 12 chapters = 5,000 words per chapter. That’s a long-form blog post – Nicolas Cole
Follow @Nicolascole77
Here are 20 amazing books under 150 pages
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5 life lessons that books can teach you
Failure doesn’t lead to success. Reflection does – Ankur Warikoo
5 books I loved reading this year: Bill Gates
Bill Gates mentioned that as he was growing older he began reading more non-fiction books. But his interest still remained in the literature about the consequences of innovation, although it was more necessary to understand our real world as well. Lately, he again got attracted to the kinds of books that he enjoyed as a child.
This year, he read a lot of fantastic books, but he mentions about 5 books that remained his favorite books for the year.
- A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence, by Jeff Hawkins.
Artificial intelligence is one of the few topics that has caught the minds of science fiction writers. If you’re curious about what it could take to construct a true AI, this book presents an intriguing perspective.
2. The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race, by Walter Isaacson
The CRISPR gene-editing technique is one of the most fascinating and potentially significant scientific developments of the last decade. There is a lot from Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues in this detailed and approachable book.
3. Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Bill Gates mentioned that this book got him thinking about what life would be like if extremely intelligent robots existed—and whether we’d see them as machines or as something more.
4. Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell
If you like Shakespeare, you’ll like this poignant tale about how his personal life may have influenced one of his most renowned plays.
5. Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir
He has also written the famous book “The Martians”. In this book, Weir has written a wild tale about a high school science teacher who wakes up in a different star system with no memory of how he got there.
Books that changed my life: Justin Kan
I spent my whole life running from negative emotions – I was very conflict avoidant. It takes real courage to say how you feel in the moment, and inspiring others to reciprocate. Being able to wholly feel your emotions and accept them is a superpower.
Follow @justinkan
20 Books you should read again..and again
Crowdsourced by Brian Feroldi.
Follow @BrianFeroldi
Top Business Books of 2020: A Recommended List for Founders and Business Leaders
The year 2020 witnessed the launch of some of the most inspiring yet practical books on startups and scaling up. In no particular order, here is a list of books we would really recommend you to read during your winter break.
And of course, go ahead and share the list with your friends and colleagues.
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Nir Iyal on Indistractable: The opposite of traction is distraction [Interview]
Hooked author, Nir Iyal’s next book Indistractable has been released and we had an opportunity to read the pre-launch copy (review soon).
In his new book, Nir Eyal describes how to manage the discomfort that drives distraction, and explains why solving the problem is not as simple as swearing off your devices.
With a four-step, research-backed model, indistractable lays bare the secret to getting the best out of technology, without letting it get the best of you.
Empowering and optimistic, this is the book that will allow you to control your time and attention – and live the life you really want.
But then, we had quite a few questions for Nir Iyal, especially when Hooked was all about creating sticky products and Indistractable is all about letting go of those sticky products.
So here is an interview with Nir Iyal on his take on distraction vs. traction and why people need to be a little more thoughtful about what they are consuming.
From hooked to Indistractable: This is a complete role reversal. What prompted you to write this?
Nir Iyal: It’s not really a role reversal. I think I have a very unique position that I know the inside of how these products are built and who better to tell you the achilles heel of how to fight distraction than someone who understands how these products are built to hook us. We can put distractions in their place while still getting the best of technology without letting it get the best of us. And so there’s really no dichotomy here. We should use habit forming technologies for good and help people build healthy habits while still being careful of not letting these technologies become distractions.
Majority of people are struggling to have the financial freedom and sometimes, books like these make one feel that it is only written for those who have achieved financial freedom and are in a position to ‘choose’ their distractions! What are your thoughts?
Nir Iyal: No, I don’t think so at all. So, we need to first understand the difference between distraction and traction. Traction is anything that you plan to do with intent. Something that you that moves you towards what you want in life.
The opposite of traction is distraction. So, it’s anything that pulls you away from what you want to do in life. And this doesn’t require any money or particular financial resources if you find yourself distracted at work or at home, or with your kids and your personal life. It doesn’t matter where you come from. It has nothing to do with money whatsoever and I can’t see how it does.
To be able to learn the skill of the century – to be able to control your attention and choose your life. In many ways, those who are less financially secure need this more because this is how we get ahead. This is how we enjoy our lives and when we’re with our family as well as do our best work at work by being truly focused on whatever it is we’re working on. So, if what you want to do with your time is to do your best work, I’m going to help you do that. If what you want to do with your time is to be with your family in your off time, on weekends and evenings then I’m going to help you do that as well. Whatever is consistent with your values.
I am guessing that you meditate a lot. Could you share your perspective / process here?
Nir Iyal: No,
I don’t meditate at all. And I tried it for about a year, didn’t
really do much for me and I’m not saying that people shouldn’t
meditate. If it works for you, great, keep doing it. But, I don’t talk
about meditation in the book at all other than to say I won’t be
talking about it. Because, I think it is a little bit overdone.
There are so many books about it already. Again, not that it doesn’t work. It can be extremely effective for people who actually do it but what I find is a lot of people don’t have the ability to fight distraction long enough to actually meditate. So, if what you want to do is to meditate, I’m going to help you with this book and make sure you do that.
To the creators out there – would you still recommend reading ‘Hooked’- and create sticky products ? 🙂
Nir Iyal: Absolutely. We can create all kinds of habit forming products to help people improve their lives. Product like Kahoot which has used the hook model to build habit forming products for children in school.
Products like Fitbot which helps people build healthy exercise habits in the gym. That’s a great habit. All kinds of habits that we can use to help people exercise more, eat right, be more productive at work. We can still use these techniques for good and anyone who is in business looking to improve their customer engagement and retention should still read Hooked.
Your perspective on price pacts / identity pacts still require one to have a habit (i.e not press the snooze button) – where does one start with, if one isn’t so motivated (which is the case with 99% of the world)? How have you achieved this?
So, you’ll remember that the price pact and identity pacts come last in the book. So, this is what we do after we’ve learnt to master the internal triggers and after we’ve learnt to make time for traction – after we’ve learnt to hack back external triggers. That’s where we start with the first 3 steps. Never ever jump into the fourth step or it will backfire!
Go ahead and grab your copy of Indistractable, if you haven’t.
Book Review: Crushing It! (By Gary Vaynerchuk)
Gary Vaynerchuk is the founder / CEO of Vaynermedia, a digital media agency which crossed $100mn in revenue in 2016. Gary, if you follow his Youtube channel is quite an inspiring guy with lots of actionable advice to entrepreneurs (especially the youth). Just for your information, his personal wealth has been estimated at $160mn – he has been an investor in Facebook, Tumblr, Buddy Media and runs a fund as well.
Gary Vaynerchuk’s latest book,Crushing It!: How Great Entrepreneurs Build their Business and Influence and How You Can, Too was released few days back and Gary has offered a lot of useful tips on how to improve/build on one’s personal brand.
Given that Gary’s business is into social media, he has a lot of practical (read: hard hitting) tips on how to use these tools for maximum benefit. Read the book, if you (and your business) are into social media and you are trying to find ways to improve your (personal) brand.
At times, Gary does come across as an overtly aggressive guy trying to sell social media, but let me tell you this – the book is for people who are hustling and not for the ones who think social media is an utter waste of time.
For Rs. 225 (~$4), this is definitely a worth read if you are into online business and figuring out what’s next for your business. Highly recommended, if you are the introvert types and have stayed away from building a personal brand – this book sort of gives you a kick in the butt!
Skin in the Game Review: For those who need to improve their bullshit detectors
There are two types of people in this world:
– One who thinks (Nassim Nicholas) Taleb is an asshole and hate him.
– And then there are others who think Taleb is an asshole and love him
Either ways, you can’t ignore Nassim Nicholas Taleb – he brings extremely rare insights and perspectives on many of our long held beliefs about risk and reward, politics and religion and in general, the type of people who are often seen as thought leaders – but without any skin in the game (the ones I have always been questioning on NextBigWhat).
Here are some quotes from the book which hits hard.
‘Skin in the game means that you do not pay attention to what people say, only to what they do, and how much of their neck they are putting on the line’
Those who don’t take risks should never be involved in making decisions.
Avoid taking advice from someone who gives advice for a living, unless there is a penalty for their advice.
frequently one is “right” about outcomes, but how much one makes when one is right. Being wrong, when it is not costly, doesn’t count—in a way that’s similar to trial-and-error mechanisms of research.
Someone with a high public presence who is controversial and takes risks for his opinion is less likely to be a bull***t vendor.
The core idea of Skin in the game is very simple : If you don’t have skin in the game, you shouldn’t be playing the game (applies to every ‘expert’ and guru in the VC/startup industry – do read my earlier notes on babaism in the startup industry).
While you might found the book to be a bit aggressive (and sometimes obnoxious) in the tone (that’s Taleb), stick to the core message and you will come out questioning everything.
Highly recommended, if like me, you are the one who can’t take fake smiles and gyaan.
10 of my favourite books for 2017
These are some of my favorites for 2017, I have my reading notes added as well along with some of the books in list:
1. Total Freedom by J Krishnamurti
One of the tweet’s from Naval was the reason i picked this book. Krishnamurti talks about various aspect of life, it is a heavy book and one has to read it few times to understand it. book notes
2. Wit and Wisdom from Poor Richard’s Almanack: Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin was one of the founding fathers of USA. This small 50 page book can easily be kept in your mobile/kindle app. In this book Benjamin Franklin provides his opinion on various subject from eating, marriage, friendship, law, religion. book notes
3. Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio
Ray Dalio is self made Billionaire, philanthropist and founder of Bridgewater Associates. In this book he spells his success secrets which he calls Principles. He in his life and at Bridgewater Associates in business follow it as check list. It has a 350 page book and will take sometime to read and understand, i will be reading it once more. book notes
4. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius by Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius was Roman emperor and also a stoic aka believer of stoicism, a school of Philosophy that flourished throughout the Roman and Greek world until the 3rd century AD. The book is collection of his thoughts on various aspects of life. book notes
5. 10% Human: How Your Body’s Microbes Hold the Key to Health and Happiness by Alanna Collen
The book gives a great insight on guts and how our modern lifestyle, eating habits are adversely effecting it. The book covers the other aspects like excessive use of antibiotics and its side affect on humans. book notes
6. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert Pirsig
Just the spoiler, the book is not entirely about motorcycle maintenance instead an account of author’s motorcycle trip from Minnesota to California with his young son Chris, a philosophical meditation on the concept of Quality, and the story of a man pursued by the ghost of his former self. The book is written by Robert Pirsig , who passed away recently at age of 88. book notes
7. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir by Haruki Murakami
This book “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” is collection of his daily entry of Haruki Murakami . He tries to connect his regular running habit and its learning to his way of life. It is a great read, so much of energy and motivation, I have ordered a hard copy for myself after reading on my kindle. book notes
8. Damn Right!: Behind the Scenes with Berkshire Hathaway Billionaire Charlie Munger by Janet Lowe
One of the books which gives you personal insight of Charlie Munger, his life, family, beginning, sayings, success and failures. The book has everything you wanted to know about Charlie. The author has done great job in covering all part in the book. book notes
9. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Harari
If you wanted to know about us aka homo sapiens, 1000+ long years journey of evolution, this is the book you should read. I think author must have spent 3-5 years in doing complete research before thinking about writing this book. book notes
10. The Complete Adventures of Feluda (Volume 1) by Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray is a well respected name in Bangla Cinema and Literature. The book is a detective fiction with Feluda being the detective. The book totally got me hooked, it was like visiting British India and the joy of seeing parts of India though eyes of the Indian James Bond. Will be reading Volume 2 next year.
On that note, wishing you all Happy New Year. 🙂
[By Atul Jha.]
Books I Recommend: Santosh Panda.
Santosh Panda is the cofounder and CEO of Explara, the event solutions startup. Santosh has been an entrepreneur for many years and has seen the ups and downs. 
Which is precisely why we hear out from him on books he recommends to fellow entrepreneurs and business leaders.
1. Karmayogi by E. Sreedharan Biography
There is no greatness in achieving the pinnacle in your career if you haven’t applied rectitude and quality with integrity when you had the opportunity.
Every entrepreneur should read this book. Especially the funded business/startup entrepreneurs.
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2. Limitless By Nick Vujicic 
Nick Vujicic knows there is no greater hope than trusting in God’s plan for your life. Born without arms or legs, Nick has experienced both the peak of hope and the depth of despair. But he has overcome his circumstances and physical limitations by clinging to his faith and understanding the limitless love and power God has for every person
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3. High Output Management by Andy Groove
How did Andy run Intel? A practical manual that every CEO should read.
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4. Anything you want by Derek Sivers
How one could build a profitable startup just with the right customer focus.
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Do check out Books Founders and Business leaders recommend.
