Great podcasts to end the year

Breaker.audio (@breaker) recently published Top 100 Hot Podcasts of 2019. It has some great podcasts. I've listed a few here - mostly on leadership and self-development. 

Some of these are pretty long (>60mins), but it is very difficult to put them off once you start listening to them. Its a great way to learn new things when we are commuting.

• Deep work: We haven't admitted the true cost of interruptions. In this conversation with computer scientist Cal Newport talks about shutting down distractions and focus on meaningful work.

• Interview with Jim Collins: This is one of the rare interviews with reclusive author of Built to Last and Good to Great. He talks about leadership, how he manages his time (the 50:30:20 concept, 20 mile march, etc.,

• How to get rich - by @naval: Naval talks about concepts like - Seek Wealth, Not Money or Status, Make Abundance for the World, Make Luck Your Destiny, Pick Partners With Intelligence, Energy and Integrity, Read What You Love Until You Love to Read, Judgment Is the Decisive Skill, Eventually You Will Get What You Deserve, There Are No Get Rich Quick Schemes

• Act like a owner -by @naval: If you think and act like an owner, it’s only a matter of time until you become an owner.

• The surprising habits of original thinkers - Adam Grant: "The greatest originals are the ones who fail the most, because they're the ones who try the most," Grant says. "You need a lot of bad ideas in order to get a few good ones."

• What You Do Is Who You Are - Ben Horowitz: "One of the key insights from Bushido is that a culture is not a set of beliefs, it's a set of actions.". Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz) is a cofounder and general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He is the author of The New York Times bestseller, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, and t, What You Do Is Who You Are.

• Lessons from a Trillion-Dollar Coach - Eric Schmidt. Eric talks about a wide range of things, including about the book Trillion-Dollar Coach, which is a book about Bill Campbell, who helped to build some of Silicon Valley’s greatest companies—including Google, Apple, and Intuit—and to create over a trillion dollars in market value. A former college football player and coach, Bill mentored visionaries such as Steve Jobs, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt, and coached dozens of leaders on both coasts.

• Keeping the Flywheel in Motion - Jim Collins: The Flywheel effect is a concept developed in the book Good to Great. No matter how dramatic the end result, good-to-great transformations never happen in one fell swoop. In building a great company or social sector enterprise, there is no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no miracle moment. Rather, the process resembles relentlessly pushing a giant, heavy flywheel, turn upon turn, building momentum until a point of breakthrough, and beyond.

Learning by Observing

We all learn in different ways (BTW, do you know how you learn?), and mine is by reading and observation (specifically observing leaders that I admire). One of the things I practice is to observe how leaders run the Q&A part in a townhall/allhands meeting. When someone asks a question in, I try to see how I’d answer the same and then compare with the answer the leader gave and check the difference. In most cases, I’d have given out the same content, but the difference lies in sequencing, choice of words, tailoring to the audience, maintaining composure etc., I’ve learnt quite a lot this way and continue to learn. Do try it out next time, I’m sure you’d learn something. 

Yesterday, I got an opportunity to learn from a senior leader. I know this leader ever since I joined National Instruments. He taught me our standard leadership course during my first year and his class inspired me to become a facilitator myself. In yesterday's class I noticed the following:

• He was not rushing to answer. He took time to phrase it correctly (couple of times he did tell that he is thinking on how to put it concisely). It was a very tricky meeting in that one or two incorrectly phrased sentences or wrong choice of words had a potential to create unwanted confusion.
• He was repeating the questions or rephrasing it (particularly when people meandered with their questions) before answering. This (repeating the question) is a great technique in that it helps in multiple ways:
• It helps others also to understand the question correctly. Specifically important in conference calls involving many sites
• It makes sure that we have correctly understood the question and gives us a choice to correct ourselves if we have misunderstood the question and started on a lengthy sermon for a question that was not asked
• It allows us time to frame the answer (common mistake many of us make is to start framing the answer before we completely hear the question)
• In few cases it also helps the questioner to get clarity and actually get what they exactly wanted to. We saw examples of these through the Q&A

• He kept an eye on the time, but we didn't get an impression that he was rushing 
• His answers were very precise. He didn’t disclose anything he was not supposed to. Didn't make any commitments he could not have made. He was open in admitting he cannot give the answer or do not have the answer. He also said why he’d not disclose the answer
• He was humble to acknowledge things he was not aware of 
• He did a great job in representing the corporate, was very respectful about the sites and local issues
• Frequently he was drawing the senior folks of the site to bring in local examples.

• Above all, the preparation was important too:
• He came to the stage about 30mins before the scheduled talk, made sure his laptop, mic etc., were all working. This allowed him to be in a relaxed frame of mind when the meeting actually started
• He had a printout of the slides and had made some notes in it and was frequently checking the notes to make sure he didn’t miss anything. 
• He had a print out of the questions that came in email and that helped him to answer them all without having to rely on the memory
• He also had a print out of the FAQ, he glanced at it again and made sure everything was covered.
• Knowing this leader I’m sure he’d have rehearsed it multiple times

Do not discard these as they seem like little things. These seemingly small little things are the ones that would add up. Afterall, excellence is doing ordinary things in an extraordinary way. 

Love to hear other things you might have observed.

What RamP's Reading: Dec'19

These books are recommendations I came from knowledgable folks. Many are released in 2019.

The Infinite Game: In this revelatory new book, Simon Sinek offers a framework for leading with an infinite mindset. On one hand, none of us can resist the fleeting thrills of a promotion earned or a tournament won, yet these rewards fade quickly. In pursuit of a Just Cause, we will commit to a vision of a future world so appealing that we will build it week after week, month after month, year after year. Although we do not know the exact form this world will take, working toward it gives our work and our life meaning. Leaders who embrace an infinite mindset build stronger, more innovative, more inspiring organizations. Ultimately, they are the ones who lead us into the future.

Not Caring What Other People Think is a Superpower: Not caring what people think is a superpower that will allow you to get what you want out of life. Most people worry about what others will think, so they suffocate their actions. As a result, they never live up to their potential. Within this book are insights about life and living to the fullest in 7 categories. You Will Learn: -The real reason the ability to work hard is so highly valued. -How to identify where to invest your emotional energy for the greatest return -Why you can't afford to have low standards for anything you do or the company you keep. -The greatest source of motivation that's untapped by most. -Vital paradigm and mindset shifts that will allow you to get more out of life. -The difference between strategy and tactics and how to develop a mindset for both. -How to select the best people to have a relationship with and get the most out of it.

The Upside of Stress: The Upside of Stress is the first book to bring together cutting-edge discoveries on the correlation between resilience—the human capacity for stress-related growth—and mind-set, the power of beliefs to shape reality. As she did in The Willpower Instinct, McGonigal combines science, stories, and exercises into an engaging and practical book that is both entertaining and life-changing, showing you:

• how to cultivate a mind-set to embrace stress
• how stress can provide focus and energy
• how stress can help people connect and strengthen close relationships
• why your brain is built to learn from stress, and how to increase its ability to learn from challenging experiences