Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Nagesh Belludi

Don’t Suppress Your Emotions

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The Buddha taught that emotions are part of being human. Redemption comes solely from knowledge, the root of which lies in the awareness of the reasons for suffering.

Buddhism discourages you from ignoring unpleasant emotions so that you don’t have to experience them.

Acknowledging the way things are—and that they can’t change—may be the most challenging step toward happiness. It’s worth trying because you really can be happy, even when your life looks nothing like you thought it would.

Don’t try to quash your emotions; let yourself feel them. Yes, even the unpleasant ones. This attitude enables you to process them and challenge the dread that you won’t handle them.

Idea for Impact: Acceptance helps you work with the life you have. You can feel contentment in life without berating yourself for not feeling what you think you’re supposed to feel.

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How Jeff Bezos is Like Sam Walton

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Walmart founder Sam Walton’s brilliant autobiography, Made in America (my summary,) was published a few weeks before his death in 1992. The penultimate page reads,

Could a Wal-Mart-type story still occur in this day and age? My answer is of course it could happen again. Somewhere out there right now there’s someone—probably hundreds of thousands of someones—with good enough ideas to go all the way. It will be done again—over and over, providing that someone wants it badly enough to do what it takes to get there. It’s all a matter of attitude and the capacity to constantly study and question the management of the business.

Jeff Bezos started Amazon just two years later. After eight years on Wall Street, Bezos dreamt up Amazon during a drive from New York to Seattle in 1994. His wife (now ex-wife) MacKenzie drove, and Jeff “tapped out a business plan on his computer along the way.”

'Sam Walton: Made In America' by Sam Walton (ISBN 0553562835) Amazon began as a loss-making book e-tailer at the dawn of the commercial Internet and as the dot-com poster child in the late ’90s. It has since evolved into one of the world’s most valuable companies. Amazon has come a long way from its genesis as the curse of bricks-and-mortar booksellers and has diversified broadly into just about every adjacent business it could get its hands on.

Bezos’s and Amazon’s dominant leadership values echo those of Sam Walton and Wal-Mart: frugality, a bias for action, long-term focus, motivating staff to think like owners, and customer obsession.

The Everything Store (2013,) Brad Stone’s excellent chronicle of the rise of Amazon notes, “In his autobiography, Walmart’s founder expounds on the principles of discount retailing and discusses his core values of frugality and a bias for action—a willingness to try a lot of things and make many mistakes. Bezos included both in Amazon’s corporate values.” On an earnings call, Bezos famously declared, “there are two kinds of retailers: there are those folks who work to figure how to charge more, and there are companies that work to figure how to charge less, and we are going to be in the second, full-stop.”

All along, Bezos has made big bet-decisions that hurt it in the short term but created value in the long term. Amazon’s market capitalization has rocketed up from $4.55 billion in 2001 to $1.08 trillion before the Coronavirus/COVID-19 infected the stock markets. Amazon’s secret, in Bezos’s words, is,

We are genuinely customer-centric, we are genuinely long-term oriented and we genuinely like to invent. Most companies are not those things. They are focused on the competitor, rather than the customer. They want to work on things that will pay dividends in two or three years, and if they don’t work in two or three years they will move on to something else. And they prefer to be close-followers rather than inventors, because it’s safer. So if you want to capture the truth about Amazon, that is why we are different.

Amazon has not been consistently profitable over the years, and that is a deliberate upshot of how Bezos approaches business. Amazon cycles through periods of substantial investments that beget future revenue growth (with low profits) and periods of increasing profits as its investments ebb.

'The Everything Store' by Brad Stone (ISBN 0316219266) Bezos has maneuvered Wall Street into believing that he is just getting started—his “Day 1” philosophy has become something of a legend. “A big piece of the story we tell ourselves about who we are is that we are willing to invent … and very importantly, we are willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time,” Bezos asserted at Amazon’s 2011 annual shareholders meeting.

Not all of Bezos’s bets have succeeded. However, investors have come to acknowledge that his long-term initiatives will produce rich results several years down the road. Little wonder, then, that Amazon’s stock has defied short-termism by continually progressing upward even during quarters of little or no earnings.

Postscript: Bezos has been, until recently, the world’s wealthiest person since about 2018. Walton was the richest man from 1985 until his death in 1992. His inheritors, the Walton family, are collectively more affluent than Bezos!

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Inspirational Quotations #917

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Most people can’t think, most of the remainder won’t think, the small fraction who do think mostly can’t do it very well. The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion—in the long run, these are the only people who count.
—Robert A. Heinlein (American Science Fiction Writer)

I think it is fair to say that it is under a great deal of stress, and if I am asking for significant changes, it is because the world is going through significant changes.
—Mohamed ElBaradei (Egyptian Diplomat)

Let us follow our destiny, ebb and flow. Whatever may happen, we master fortune by accepting it.
—Virgil (Roman Poet)

To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

I finally realized that being grateful to my body was key to giving more love to myself.
—Oprah Winfrey (American TV Personality)

You can enjoy encouragement coming from outside, but you cannot need for it to come from outside.
—Vladimir K. Zworykin (American Physicist)

The law isn’t justice. It’s a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be.
—Raymond Chandler (American Novelist)

To know when to be generous and when to be firm—this is wisdom.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that is the way to bet.
—Damon Runyon (American Writer, Journalist)

Nothing is so hard to understand as that there are human beings in this world besides one’s self and one’s own set.
—William Dean Howells (American Writer, Critic)

The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.
—Steven Weinberg (American Physicist)

Of course, the illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true. Life is amorphous, literature is formal.
—Francoise Sagan (French Novelist)

When we lack the will to see things as they really are, there is nothing so mystifying as the obvious.
—Irving Kristol (American Political Writer)

There are no failures—just experiences and your reactions to them.
—Tom Krause (Finnish Opera Singer)

Every advantage in the past is judged in the light of the final issue.
—Demosthenes (Greek Statesman, Orator)

Decision-Making Isn’t Black and White

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Most decisions aren’t “good” or “bad;” most fall somewhere in the middle.

Coming to terms with this reality is a big part of allowing yourself to trust your decisions, especially when dealing with uncertainty. Besides, more thinking can’t always be better thinking.

Let go of decisions you made in the past that you weren’t entirely satisfied with. Don’t let them haunt you in the present. Don’t let them second-guess yourself after a decision has been made.

Idea for Impact: When decisions don’t work out as expected, give yourself a break. Not all bad outcomes result from bad decisions. There are positive and negative implications to everything. And that’s OK.

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Tokenism Isn’t Inclusion

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This BBC article notes that diversity in many companies can be tokenistic—mere window dressing in fact. Sadly, even after decades of diversity initiatives, inclusion continues to be about numerical requirements and box-checking.

Within a few weeks at her job at a New York salon, hairstylist Cheyenne began to feel like a prop. When wealthy, diverse clients would enter, staff would go out of their way to introduce her and include her in conversations. “I realized the only other black women in the salon were always placed in areas where you could see them from the front. It was almost like they were being showcased. I don’t think the salon owners were trying to be diverse. I think they were trying to seem diverse.” Cheyenne was left feeling like a token: a member of a previously excluded group often hired or promoted as a symbolic gesture toward inclusivity.

Idea for Impact: Stop paying lip service to inclusion. Let’s broaden our understanding of diversity beyond identity-based differences. Let’s thoughtfully and purposefully draw on the unique and varied expertise and experiences that, when integrated, can expand our collective creative potential.

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Hitch Your Wagon to a Rising Star

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If it becomes apparent that someone above you on your department’s org chart is a superstar, let them know that you want to join their team or continue to work with them as they move up. Especially if you sense you’d connect with them intellectually as well as emotionally.

Companies identify their A-players, pour training into them, give them growth opportunities, and build their experience using “stretch assignments.” Partner with such a superstar. Even if they get hired away by a competitor, you’ll stand a chance of moving with them.

Contrarily, if you wind up working with someone whose career is about to implode, try to get a transfer away from that person as quickly as possible.

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The Mental Junkyard Hour

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If you can muster up the energy, use an hour or two at the end of your day to crank out all those “functional tasks” that don’t require a totally clear head.

Wrap up anything that you shouldn’t carry forward to the next day. Crack down on all those administrative and life-maintenance tasks—like catching up with email, tidying up your home, and reprioritizing to-do lists. If you’re a student, you can summarize class notes, re-do practice problems, and get the school bag ready.

Making the most of the “mental junkyard hour” lets you spend the time when your head is clearer to focus on those tougher, “conceptual” tasks that need deep focused work.

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  5. Make Time to Do it

Reinvent Everyday

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General Electric supremo Jack Welch’s advice to Indian-American investor and businessman Vivek Paul:

Every time I land in New York after an international business trip, I imagine that I’ve just been appointed chairman and that this is my first day in the role, and the guy before me was a real dud. Every time I think, “What would I do that was different than the guy before? What big changes would I make?”

When you can think about expectations from a more detached point of view, rather than an immersed point of view, you aren’t overly invested in an entrenched pattern of thinking.

A period of rest, entertainment, or exposure to an alternative environment can dissipate fixation and help you gain a fresh perspective. It makes you think big. Subconsciously, you can push yourself harder and go after bigger, loftier, harder goals.

Idea for Impact: Don’t limit yourself by past expectations.

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The Right Way to End a Meeting

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Many meetings fail to produce tangible results because they lack closure.

An effective coordinator synthesizes everything she’s heard from the participants, incorporates the best of what’s been discussed, and distills all the inputs into a course of action.

A good closure sounds like this: “Let me see if I can go over the main points. Our objective is to achieve [Goal] by [Due Date.] In light of what [Emily] and [Ryan] have said and the concerns that [Mark] has raised, it seems that we agree about [PointX] and [PointY]. We must watch out for [Risk] and incorporate [Possibility] into our contingency plan. Therefore, the consensus seems to that, we proceed with [Decision]. … Have I missed anything? … Is everyone OK with this decision? … Here’s what we’ll do before the next meeting … .”

Without a concrete plan for moving forward, even the best outcomes of a meeting can languish as the initial enthusiasm and commitment fade away.

The foremost goal of a meeting organizer is to steer participants towards a decision and nail down the specific commitments, deadlines, and follow-up timetables.

There’s another key benefit of encouraging everyone’s involvement and piloting a meeting to closure. When each participant feels that their opinion has been fully considered, they are more likely to feel ownership of the group’s decision, even if it’s not the entire outcome they hoped for.

If a meeting can’t come to a decision, it’s reasonable to hold off decision-making. Still, distilling the key points, assigning ‘homework,’ and defining what’s expected of everybody before the next meeting constitutes an effective closure.

Idea for Impact: Closure is, more often than not, the missing link between meetings and impact. Steering a consensus at the end of the meeting gives a sense of closure that participants will find most valuable.

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Inspirational Quotations #916

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The perfect normal person is rare in our civilization.
—Karen Horney (German Psychoanalyst)

Envy depreciates the genius of the great Homer.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (Roman Poet)

It’s discouraging to make a mistake, but it’s humiliating when you find out you’re so unimportant that nobody noticed it.
—Chuck Daly (American Basketball Coach)

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
—William Arthur Ward (American Author)

The slum is the measure of civilization.
—Jacob Riis (Danish-born American Social Reformer)

You have to laugh and cry over and over again with someone before you feel comfortable.
—Joan Rivers (American Entertainer)

I am for anything in this world that keeps the problem of finding a substitute for war in people’s minds.
—Ida Tarbell (American Investigative Journalist)

People have to learn sometimes not only how much the heart, but how much the head, can bear.
—Maria Mitchell (American Astronomer)

Students must have initiative; they should not be mere imitators. They must learn to think and act for themselves—and be free.
—Cesar Chavez (American Labor Leader)

But loneliness is as delusive a belief in the pertinence of the world as is love: in choosing to feel lonely, as in choosing to love, one carves a space next to oneself to be filled by others—a friend, a lover, a toy poodle, a violinist on the radio.
—Yiyun Li (Chinese-American Writer)

Familiarity is a magician that is cruel to beauty but kind to ugliness.
—Ouida (Maria Louise Rame) (English Novelist)

The crux of the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even when it serves a just purpose. Does it not have material and spiritual evil as its consequences which far exceed whatever good might result? When will our moralists give us an answer to this question?
—John Hersey (American Novelist, Journalist)

Here is a mental treatment guaranteed to cure every ill that flesh is heir to: sit for half an hour every night and mentally forgive everyone against whom you have any ill will or antipathy.
—Charles Fillmore (American New Thought Mystic)

No great art has ever been made without the artist having known danger.
—Rainer Maria Rilke (Austrian Poet)

The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.
—Roger Bannister (British Athlete, Neurologist)