Nagesh Belludi

Addiction to Pleasure is a Symptom of Fear

January 27, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The Problem is Not That There is Pleasure …

The historical Buddha offered a profound analysis of the suffering that is an element of human existence.

The first of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths teaches that life encompasses “unsatisfactoriness”—or suffering. In other words, life, by its nature, is difficult, flawed, and less-than-perfect.

The second of the Four Noble Truths teaches that the origin of suffering is attachment—or craving and desire. Indeed, the desire to avoid pain and seek pleasure itself leads to suffering.

The key to understanding the Buddha’s diagnosis of human suffering is the concept of clinging to pleasure, and with that, creating a world of suffering. Whenever we seek pleasure, not only do we become dependent on the eagerness to find it, but also we create an existence of suffering, because pleasure is impermanent and fleeting.

… The Problem is That There is Clinging to Pleasure.

The third and the fourth of the Four Noble Truths teach that the way to become enlightened is to purge ourselves of our attachment to pleasure or to any source of satisfaction that could trigger distress in seeking to make it permanent.

Discussing the reality that clinging to pleasure always brings pain, the meditation teacher and author Christina Feldman writes in The Buddhist Path to Simplicity,

The other great obstacle to mindful attention is our addiction to pleasure; an addiction that holds within it our fear of being overwhelmed or paralyzed by the unpleasant, challenging thoughts, encounters, feelings and sensations that are part of the fabric of our lives. By filtering our senses and minds with food, sound, information, and entertainment, we also numb ourselves. Increasingly, we find it difficult to embrace the unpleasant events or challenges that life brings to us. We forget the simple truth that freedom relies upon embracing the whole of our life and world. Busy with pursuing, avoiding, and modifying we attempt to convince ourselves that we are safe from the unpredictability of a life that offers no guarantees. We try to build sandcastles before an oncoming tide.

Our life will continue to bring us the sweet, delightful, even glorious moments, but it will also bring the sour. We cannot command the world or our mind to deliver to us only the pleasant and shield us from the unpleasant. Bare attention teaches us to find balance and steadiness; it protects us from fear and offers a reliable refuge in a changing and fragile world. Mindfulness is always available and we are invited to help ourselves to the peace and freedom it offers.

The stillness and calmness born of bare attention are not ends in themselves but a door to liberating wisdom. They are the foundation upon which understanding is built. Wisdom is an understanding of the nature of life and ourselves, deeply seeing what is true on a cellular level. Listening to the story of the present moment invites us to understand the story of all moments.

Lessons on Adversity from Charlie Munger: Be a Survivor, Not a Victim

January 24, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi 5 Comments

Munger: One of the Most Respected Business Thinkers in History

Berkshire Hathaway’s Vice-Chairman Charlie Munger (b. 1924) is a distinguished beacon of rationality, wisdom, and multi-disciplinary thinking. As Warren Buffett’s indispensable right-hand man, Munger has been a prominent behind-the-scenes intellectual who has created billions of shareholder wealth.

The story of Charlie Munger’s life is an archetypal American Dream: a hardworking, principled young man overcomes life’s trials and tribulations, and builds a billion-dollar fortune through industry, diligence, candor, and an obsession with self-improvement. Munger is also a prominent philanthropist. He preferred to donate his money now rather than give it as a bequest with the intention of appreciating the results of his giving. After donating $110 million to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Munger said, “I’m soon going to be departed from all of my money, why not give more of it away while I get the fun of giving it?”

“Horrible Blows, Unfair Blows” on the Road to Success

Munger’s sharp mind, irreverent, outspoken outlook, and commonsense-thinking are legendary. For fans who flock to Omaha to witness him and Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting, the 92-year old Munger remains a cult figure.

At age 17, Munger attended the University of Michigan but dropped out to enlist in the military during World War II. After the war, he entered Harvard Law School without an undergraduate degree and graduated in 1948 with a J.D. magna cum laude. He started practicing law in Los Angeles, but gave up his practice at the urging of Warren Buffett to concentrate on managing investments and developing real estate. He never took a course in business, economics, or finance but became a billionaire. He ascribes most of his “worldly wisdom” to his zeal for self-improvement (identical to his idol Benjamin Franklin) and plenteous reading. He once said, “In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time—none, zero. … My children laugh at me. They think I’m a book with a couple of legs sticking out.”

Even if Munger remains an inspiration for a life well lived, his life has not been entirely perfect. Consider some of the struggles he coped with on his pathway to success.

At age 29, in 1954, Munger got divorced from his wife after eight years of marriage. Munger lost everything to his wife including his home in South Pasadena. According to Janet Lowe’s insightful biography Damn Right, Munger moved into “dreadful bachelor digs” at Pasadena’s University Club and drove an “awful” yellow Pontiac with a shoddy repaint job. That car made him “look as if he had not two pennies to say hello to each other.” When daughter Molly Munger probed, “Daddy, this car is just awful, a mess. Why do you drive it?” The impoverished Munger replied, “To discourage gold diggers.”
The financial pressure came at a testing time. A short time after the divorce, Munger’s 9-year old son Teddy was diagnosed with leukemia. At that time, cancer survival rates were insignificant and Munger had to pay for everything out-of-pocket because there was no health insurance. According to his friend Rick Guerin, Munger would visit the hospital when his son “was in bed and slowly dying, hold him for a while, then go out walking the streets of Pasadena crying.” Teddy died a year later in 1955.
Many years later, Munger had a horrific cataract surgery in his left eye that rendered him blind with pain so severe that he eventually had that eye removed. Recently, when doctors notified Munger that he had developed a condition that was causing his remaining eye to fill up with blood, he stood the risk of losing his vision in his other eye too. Being the obsessive reader that he is, the prospect of losing eyesight entirely made Munger comment, “Losing the ability to see would seem to be a prison sentence.” Undeterred, Munger was ready to brace himself for what life had to offer. He told a friend, “It’s time for me to learn braille” and started taking lessons. As luck would have it, the worrisome eye condition has since receded.

Charlie Munger on Confronting Adversity and Building Resilience

Adversity, hardship, and misfortune can cause people to conceive themselves as a victim of circumstances. Munger once remarked, “Whenever you think that some situation or some person is ruining your life, it’s actually you who are ruining your life. It’s such a simple idea. Feeling like a victim is a perfectly disastrous way to go through life. If you just take the attitude that however bad it is in anyway, it’s always your fault and you just fix it as best you can … I think that really works.”
People who choose to react as victims surrender themselves to feelings of being betrayed or taken advantage of. The resulting anger, repulsion, fear, guilt, and inadequacy are futile. Munger once said, “Generally speaking, envy, resentment, revenge, and self-pity are disastrous modes of thought; self-pity gets pretty close to paranoia, and paranoia is one of the very hardest things to reverse; you do not want to drift into self-pity.”
Feeling victimized and the ensuing negative thinking patterns are hard to break, but the recovery process encompasses disremembering and forgiving the past, regulating the flawed perspective of the routine ups and downs of life, and taking control and gaining power. In his 2007 commencement speech at University of Southern California’s Law School, Munger said, “Life will have terrible blows in it … horrible blows, unfair blows. And some people recover and others don’t. And there I think the attitude of Epictetus is the best. He said that every missed chance in life was an opportunity to behave well, every missed chance in life was an opportunity to learn something, and that your duty was not to be submerged in self-pity, but to utilize the terrible blow in constructive fashion. That is a very good idea.”
In a 2011 interview, CNN journalist Poppy Harlow asked if Munger felt betrayed by David Sokol, Buffett’s then heir-apparent who violated company standards during Berkshire Hathaway’s purchase of Lubrizol and was let go. Munger conceded that Sokol’s conduct left him sad, but not let down. “It’s not my nature … when you get little surprises as a result of human nature … to spend much time feeling betrayed. I always want to put my head down and adjust. I don’t allow myself to spend much time ever with any feelings of betrayal. If some flickering idea like that came to me, I’d get rid of it quickly. I don’t like any feeling of being victimized. I think that’s a counterproductive way to think as a human being. I am not a victim. I am a survivor.”

Playing a Victim is by No Means Beneficial or Adaptive

Even in the face of some of the worst misfortunes that could strike you, suffering the resentments and attempting to endure pain are far superior choices than getting absorbed in feeling victimized and powerless.

Holocaust survivor Viktor E. Frankl described how his fellow captives in Nazi concentration camps survived by enduring their sufferings and refusing to give in to feeling victimized. Even when stripped of all their rights and possessions, they exercised their enduring freedom to choose their attitudes and harnessed this freedom to sustain their spirits.

In his inspiring Man’s Search for Meaning (which is one of Munger’s many recommended books,) Frankl wrote, “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. … Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Idea for Impact: Come what may, you’re not a victim. It is up to you to determine your response.

Don’t operate life on the assumption that the world ought to be fair, just, and objective. You are neither entitled nor unentitled to good treatment.
Recognize that you cannot control, influence, or affect in any way the inequities, injustices, discriminations, and biases that populate the world. You have power over only your life and the choice of your attitudes.
Never feel sorry for yourself or engage in self-pity. Don’t dwell on a “poor-me stance” and consider yourself unfortunate. Don’t become loath to taking responsibility for your actions and the consequences. Stop playing the victim by recognizing and challenging those negative voices in your head. As the Roman Emperor and Stoic Philosopher Marcus Aurelius wrote in Meditations, “Put from you the belief that ‘I have been wronged’, and with it will go the feeling. Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
When life knocks you over, allow yourself a modest amount of grieving. Then, gather yourself back together, get up, dust yourself down, renegotiate your hopes and dreams, align yourself with reality, put yourself back in the saddle, and get on with life. The ability to rebound quickly from failures and disappointments is one of the key differentiators between successful and unsuccessful people.
What’s important in life is not what happens to you but how you react to what happens.

Inspirational Quotations by Francis Bacon (#668)

January 22, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Today marks the birthday of Francis Bacon (1561–1626,) the great English natural philosopher, statesman, and pioneer of modern scientific thought. Bacon’s abundant writing spanned scientific methodology, religion, moral philosophy, and judicial administration.

Bacon started his political career at age 23 when he became a Member of Parliament. He opposed Queen Elizabeth I’s tax program, fell out of her favor, and encountered difficulty advancing his career. After James I acceded the throne in 1603, Bacon’s career flourished; he ultimately rose to become the Lord Chancellor, one of Britain’s highest political offices. However, his political career ended in disgrace in 1621 when the British Parliament incriminated him for accepting bribes and banished him from holding public office. James I revoked Bacon’s sentence and allowed him to write in retirement.

Bacon’s real interests lay in science. He challenged the Aristotelian notion that scientific truth could be reached by means of authoritative argument (wherein knowledgeable people discuss a subject long enough to eventually ascertain the truth.) In his early text, Cogitata et Visa (1607,) Bacon first proposed the idea of inductive reasoning. And in his best-known work, Novum Organum (1620,) Bacon not only advocated observable evidence and rational investigation, but also promoted the dismissal of hypotheses founded on incomplete and insufficient proof. His philosophy, now known as the scientific method, has since been the basis of all experimental science.

Ironically, Bacon’s scientific method ultimately took his life. When journeying in the snow-filled countryside one day, Bacon hit upon the idea of using snow to preserve meat. To test his hypothesis, Bacon purchased a fowl and stuffed it with snow. Later that day, he developed a cold that advanced into pneumonia and killed him.

Inspirational Quotations by Francis Bacon

Truth will sooner come out from error than from confusion.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Knowledge, that tendeth but to satisfaction, is but as a courtesan, which is for pleasure, and not for fruit or generation.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Money makes a good servant, but a bad master.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Be angry, but sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger. Anger must be limited and confined, both in race and in time.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Riches are a good handmaid, but the worst mistress.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Nothing is terrible except fear itself.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Men in great place are thrice servants; servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business; so that they have no freedom, neither in their persons, in their actions, nor in their times.—It is a strange desire to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man’s self.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Knowledge itself is power.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Seek first the virtues of the mind; and other things either will come, or will not be wanted.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

By far the greatest hindrance and aberration of the human understanding proceeds from the dullness, incompetency, and deceptions of the senses.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Opportunity makes a thief.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

It is not possible to run a course aright when the goal itself has not been rightly placed.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

A wise man will make more opportunities, than he finds.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Bertrand Russell’s Ten Commandments of Honest Thought and Discourse

January 20, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

The celebrated British mathematician, logician, and political activist Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) is one of the most widely read philosophers of the 20th century.

As a lifelong patron of lost causes, Russell published an essay titled “The best answer to fanaticism: Liberalism” in the 16-December-1951 issue of The New York Times. In this essay, he supported liberalism—the political philosophy founded on the importance of human individuality and equality, and a restraint of the stern grip of law and authority.

A tireless champion of morality and reason that he was, Russell wrote in this essay,

“the essence of the liberal outlook is a belief that men should be free to question anything if they can support their questioning by solid arguments. … The opposite view, which is maintained by those who cannot be called liberals, is that the truth is already known, and that to question it is necessarily subversive.”

Bertrand Russell’s Decalogue of Critical Thinking

Beyond political philosophy and classical liberalism, this essay is famous for Russell’s vision for honest thought and discourse. Here is that thought-provoking list in full form—worth reading and practicing.

Perhaps the essence of the Liberal outlook could be summed up in a new decalogue, not intended to replace the old one but only to supplement it. The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:

Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.

Do not think it worthwhile to produce belief by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.

Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.

When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.

Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.

Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.

Be scrupulously truthful, even when truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.

Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

Six Powerful Reasons to Eat Slowly and Mindfully

January 17, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Mindfulness is paying attention to whatever is happening in the present moment, with an attitude of forthcoming curiosity and open-minded acceptance. This enhanced awareness not only facilitates insight, but also reveals reality with a heightened sense of clarity.

Mindful eating is one of the oldest practices in mindfulness. Here are a handful of the most important benefits of mindful eating:

You’ll Eat Less. For many people, eating fast entails eating more. Eating slower increases fullness and reduces caloric intake. Additionally, the more you slow down, the fewer calories you’ll consume. Here’s why: it takes twenty minutes for satiety signs to get from your stomach to your brain. Therefore, when you eat slower, you will have consumed less by the time your brain receives your stomach’s internal cues for fullness. At that time, your brain instinctively directs you to discontinue eating.
You’ll Snack Less and Avoid Bingeing Later. Even if you eat slower, you’ll be just as fulfilled with less food as you would with more food. When you feel fulfilled, you are less likely to compensate for eating less by snacking later or eating more at the next meal.
You’ll Enjoy More. When you eat slower and pay close attention, your senses get more time to expand your consciousness of the flavor, aroma, and texture of food. This consecutively offers more overall satisfaction thereby letting you end eating sooner.
You Can Still Enjoy Those Guilty Pleasure Foods. Even when you’re consuming tempting snacks, high-calorie foods, and sugary desserts, eating slower will help de-condition the notion that certain foods are good and certain other foods are bad for you. Overall, if you can stick to a healthy diet, consuming less-healthy foods in moderation is neither good nor bad. When you indulge your food cravings mindfully and savor every bite of pleasure out of them, you can dispose of any remorse about engaging in your guilty pleasures. In any case, what’s the point of eating an enchanting macaron if you’re going to inhale it mindlessly while rushing from one thing to the next? As I’ve written previously, one secret of dieting success is to not deprive yourself of your guilty pleasures. Cut back, do not cut out.
You’ll Digest Better. When you eat slower, you’ll chew your food better. This brings about better digestion. Digestion actually starts in the mouth, so chewing slowly helps break your food down into simpler nutrients that can be used by the cells. Research has shown that the longer you take to chew specific foods (almonds for example,) the more you intensify the bioavailability of certain nutrients so your body absorbs more of them.
You’ll Feel Better. Food can influence your mood. When you spend twenty minutes eating slowly and mindfully—and enjoying a meal—you’ll feel better and perform better.

Mindfulness Helps You Savor Food and Eat Guilt Free

Dedicating time to eat slowly, mindfully, and intentionally—and enjoying the pleasure of food—can make an enormous difference in your diet and health, especially when the rhythm of life is becoming ever faster. Here’s how to introduce mindfulness to your mealtimes:

Set aside time to eat. Establish a calm eating environment.
Don’t multitask, watch TV, talk on the telephone, or check Facebook and Twitter. Refocus on your food after a distraction or an interruption.
Make a conscious effort to take small bites, chew slowly, and pay attention to flavors and textures. If necessary, set a minimum number of chews for every bite.
Finish chewing and swallowing each bite before you put more food on your fork.
Take sips of water or your favorite beverage after every few bites.

Idea for Impact: Cultivate a healthy relationship with food. Practice mindful eating. Develop awareness, curiosity, and a bit of tenderness about your relationship with food.

Inspirational Quotations by Martin Luther King, Jr. (#667)

January 15, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Today marks the birthday of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–68,) American leader of the civil rights movement. He was also known for his dedication to ending segregation peacefully and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

In 1955, when King was only 26 and serving as a priest in Montgomery, Alabama, a seamstress named Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus. King took up her cause and led a year-long Montgomery bus boycott during which his house was bombed and he was assaulted and arrested. In 1957, the Supreme Court ruled that the segregation of buses and public facilities was unconstitutional.

The Montgomery bus boycott put King at the vanguard of the civil rights movement. In 1963, he joined other civil rights leaders at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where he gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to an audience of 200,000.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. And the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ended voter discrimination in many Southern states.

In 1967, King delivered a speech called “Beyond Vietnam / A Time to Break Silence” denouncing America’s involvement in the Vietnam War and the recruitment of poor and minority soldiers. The next year, King was assassinated at age 39 while standing on the balcony of a Memphis motel. He was preparing to lead a protest rally in solidarity with sanitation workers who were on strike. His death sparked riots in sixty cities.

Since 1986, the third Monday of January is observed annually as a US-federal holiday in his honor.

Inspirational Quotations by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

We are reaching out for the daybreak of freedom and justice and equality.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Every genuine expression of love grows out of a consistent and total surrender to God.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

There is scarcely anything more tragic in human life than a child who is not wanted. That which should be a blessing becomes a curse for parent and child.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

One of the sure signs of maturity is the ability to rise to the point of self criticism.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

It is love that will save our world and our civilization, love even for enemies.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

The real problem is that through our scientific genius we’ve made of the world a neighborhood, but through our moral and spiritual genius we’ve failed to make of it a brotherhood.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

It is not enough to know that two and two makes four, but we’ve got to know somehow that it’s right to be honest and just with our brothers. It’s not enough to know all about our philosophical and mathematical disciplines, but we’ve got to know the simple disciplines of being honest and loving and just with all humanity. If we don’t learn it, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own powers.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

I am not interested in power for power’s sake, but I’m interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Love is the supreme unifying principle of life.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

There is little hope for us until we become tough-minded enough to break loose from the shackles of prejudice, half-truths, and downright ignorance.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

An individual has not begun to live until he can rise above the narrow horizons of his particular individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. And this is one of the big problems of life, that so many people never quite get to the point of rising above self. And so they end up the tragic victims of self-centeredness. They end up the victims of distorted and disrupted personality.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

The thing that we need in the world today is a group of men and women who will stand up for right and to be opposed to wrong, wherever it is. A group of people who have come to see that some things are wrong, whether they’re never caught up with. And some things are right, whether nobody sees you doing them or not.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Nonviolent resistance is not aimed against oppressors, but against oppression.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it’s nonviolence or nonexistence.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

The best way to solve any problem is to remove the cause.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

The time is always right to do what’s right.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

When people are self-centered, they are self-centered because they are seeking attention, they want to be admired and this is the way they set out to do it. But in the process, because of their self-centeredness, they are not admired; they are mawkish and people don’t want to be bothered with them. And so the very thing they seek, they never get. And they end up frustrated and unhappy and disillusioned.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

No nation can rise to its full moral maturity so long as it subjects a segment of its citizenry on the basis of race or color.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for “the least of these”.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

We must massively assert our dignity and worth. We must stand up amidst a system that still oppresses us and develop an unassailable and majestic sense of values.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Keep moving. Let nothing slow you up. Move on with dignity and honor and respectability.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Find your sense of importance in something outside of the self. And you are then able to live because you have given your life to something outside and something that is meaningful, objectified. You rise above this self-absorption to something outside. This is the way to go through life with a balance, with the proper perspective because you’ve given yourself to something greater than self. Sometimes it’s friends, sometimes it’s family, sometimes it’s a great cause, it’s a great loyalty, but give yourself to that something and life becomes meaningful.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Life has its beginning and its maturity comes into being when an individual rises above self to something greater.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they cannot communicate; they cannot communicate because they are separated.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

The basic thing about a man is not his specific but his fundamentum.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” And Vanity comes along and asks the question, “Is it popular?” But Conscience asks the question “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come together with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “We ain’t goin’ study war no more.” This is the challenge facing modern man.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Discover the element of good in your enemy. And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention there and you will take a new attitude.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Some things are right and some things are wrong, no matter if everybody is doing the contrary. Some things in this universe are absolute. The God of the universe has made it so. And so long as we adopt this relative attitude toward right and wrong, we’re revolting against the very laws of God himself.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover these precious values: that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

When people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

In every age and every generation, men have envisioned a promised land.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make men better. Love is the only way.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Learn from the Great Minds of the Past

January 13, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Biographies let you to learn about the trials and tribulations in the lives of eminent people, the opportunities and the crises they faced, and the choices they made.

By providing a glimpse into their minds, biographies stimulate self-discovery by allowing you to find new ideas, methods, and mental models on your own through the stories of others.

Reading about the life experiences of someone from a different spatial, temporal, and thematic circumstance than your own can also help you see the world in new ways. This new perspective then allows you to appreciate their actions and accomplishments within the context, conventions, and limitations of their settings.

Idea for Impact: If you wish to succeed in your life, there is no better source of inspiration than in the lives of those who have changed our lives and our world for the better.

Charlie Munger on Reading Biographies and “Making Friends with the Eminent Dead”

Charlie Munger (b. 1924,) Berkshire Hathaway’s Vice-Chairman and a distinguished beacon of rationality, wisdom, and multi-disciplinary thinking, is a voracious reader and occupies himself with books on history, science, biography, and psychology.

From Poor Charlie’s Almanack, a compilation of Munger’s ideas and “latticework of mental models”,

In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time–none, zero. You’d be amazed at how much Warren reads–and at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I’m a book with a couple of legs sticking out.

I am a biography nut myself. And I think when you’re trying to teach the great concepts that work, it helps to tie them into the lives and personalities of the people who developed them. I think you learn economics better if you make Adam Smith your friend. That sounds funny, making friends among the eminent dead, but if you go through life making friends with the eminent dead who had the right ideas, I think it will work better in life and work better in education. It’s way better than just being given the basic concepts.

Seneca on Learning from the Great Minds of the Past

From the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca’s 2,000-year-old discourse On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long if You Know (trans. C.D.N. Costa,)

…if it is our wish, by greatness of mind, to pass beyond the narrow limits of human weakness, there is a great stretch of time through which we may roam. We may argue with Socrates, we may doubt with Carneades, find peace with Epicurus, overcome human nature with the Stoics, exceed it with the Cynics. … We may fairly say that they alone are engaged in the true duties of life who shall wish to have Zeno, Pythagoras, Democritus, and all the other high priests of liberal studies, and Aristotle and Theophrastus, as their most intimate friends every day. No one of these will be ‘not at home,’ no one of these will fail to have his visitor leave more happy and more devoted to himself than when he came, no one of these will allow anyone to leave him with empty hands; all mortals can meet with them by night or by day.

…No one of these will force you to die, but all will teach you how to die; no one of these will wear out your years, but each will add his own years to yours; conversations with no one of these will bring you peril, the friendship of none will endanger your life, the courting of none will tax your purse. From them you will take whatever you wish; it will be no fault of theirs if you do not draw the utmost that you can desire. What happiness, what a fair old age awaits him who has offered himself as a client to these! He will have friends from whom he may seek counsel on matters great and small, whom he may consult every day about himself, from whom he may hear truth without insult, praise without flattery, and after whose likeness he may fashion himself.

Seneca on Gaining Wisdom from the Distinguished

On a related note, here is a passage from Seneca’s Moral Letters to Lucilius (Latin orig. Epistulae morales ad Lucilium):

For this reason, give over hoping that you can skim, by means of epitomes, the wisdom of distinguished men. Look into their wisdom as a whole; study it as a whole. They are working out a plan and weaving together, line upon line, a masterpiece, from which nothing can be taken away without injury to the whole. Examine the separate parts, if you like, provided you examine them as parts of the man himself. She is not a beautiful woman whose ankle or arm is praised, but she whose general appearance makes you forget to admire her single attributes.

Book Summary of Nicholas Carlson’s ‘Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!’

January 10, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Over the holidays, I finished reading journalist Nicholas Carlson’s Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo! This interesting book offers an account of Yahoo’s steady slide towards irrelevance and Marissa Mayer’s early tenure as CEO.

“Complex Monstrosity Built Without a Plan”

Carlson devotes the first third of the book to explaining Yahoo’s beleaguered history and how years of mismanagement and strategy negligence got Yahoo into the mess that Mayer inherited as CEO in 2012.

The second third is about Mayer and her brilliant career as employee number twenty at Google. In 2010, her career allegedly stalled because Mayer got sidelined after conflicts with other luminaries within Google. Relying broadly on anonymous sources, Carlson portrays Mayer’s intense nature and her personality contradictions: in public settings, Mayer is brainy, glamorous, confident, articulate, and approachable. However, in one-on-one settings, Mayer is a self-promoting, dismissive, calculating, tardy, inquisitorial individual who avoids eye contact. “There was nothing especially abhorrent or uncommon about Mayer’s behavior as an executive,” Carlson writes. “She was headstrong, confident, dismissive, self-promoting and clueless about how she sometimes hurt other people’s feelings. So were many of the most successful executives in the technology industry.”

The last third is devoted to Mayer’s initial efforts to turn Yahoo around. Within the first year at the helm as CEO, Mayer motivated Yahoo’s beleaguered workforce, launched the redesign of some of Yahoo’s major sites, and made acquisitions to make Yahoo relevant in the mobile, media, and social realms. Carlson also describes Mayer’s bad hiring decisions, habitual tardiness, tendency to micromanage, tone-deaf style of communication, and dogged devotion to establishing the universally-despised practice of tracking goals and stack-ranking employees.

Yahoo: The Fabled Legacy Internet Company on the Slide to Irrelevance

Anybody who follows the internet content industry understands that the principal question regarding the then-37-year-old Mayer’s recruitment as CEO was never whether she could save Yahoo. Rather, the question was whether Yahoo can be saved at all.

Yahoo has been a mess for a long time. For early consumers of the internet, Yahoo’s portal was the internet—from the mid-1990s until the early 2000s, Yahoo was the number-one gateway for early users of the internet who wanted to search, email, or consume news and other information. Then, Yahoo floundered as the likes of Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Twitter, and Microsoft redefined the consumer internet and content consumption. Yahoo’s successive managements struggled to identify Yahoo’s raison d’etre and failed to set it apart from the up-and-coming websites. Yahoo’s management also fumbled on opportunities to harness the popularity of Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Sports, and Yahoo Finance to get advertising revenues growing again.

Mayer’s Arrival Was Too Late for Yahoo

Mayer came to Yahoo with extraordinary credentials, drive, technical savvy, celebrity, and charisma. Her tenure was centered on answering the single question, “What is Yahoo? What should become of Yahoo?”

The odds of Mayer succeeding to revive Yahoo as an independent internet content company were very bleak right from the beginning, because Mayer took on an increasingly irrelevant business with very little actual or potential operating value—either as an internet content company or as a media company. Carlson appropriately concludes,

Ultimately, Yahoo suffers from the fact that the reason it ever succeeded in the first place was because it solved a global problem that lasted for only a moment. The early Internet was hard to use, and Yahoo made it easier. Yahoo was the Internet. Then the Internet was flooded with capital and infinite solutions for infinite problems, and the need for Yahoo faded. The company hasn’t found its purpose since—the thing it can do that no one else can.

Since the publication of the book in December 2014, Mayer has dedicated her leadership to selling Yahoo’s core internet businesses and its patent portfolio. Yahoo is expected to then convert itself into a shell company for its investments in Alibaba (15.5% economic interest) and Yahoo Japan (35.5%.)

Recommendation: As a fast read, Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo! is great. Beyond Nicholas Carlson’s gossipy narrative and his pejorative depiction of Mayer’s management style, readers of this page-turner will be interested in Yahoo leadership’s strategic and tactical missteps. Particularly fascinating are how Yahoo missed opportunities to buy Google and Facebook when they were mere startups, the rebuffing of an acquisition bid from Microsoft, a lack of strategic focus, the leadership skirmishes with activist investors, the revolving door at the CEO’s office, and an Asian-asset drama.

Inspirational Quotations #666

January 8, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

If you expect nothing, you’re apt to be surprised. You’ll get it.
—Malcolm Forbes (American Publisher)

Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle and pure and good, without the world being better for it, without somebody being helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness.
—Phillips Brooks (American Episcopal Clergyman)

The dignity of man is vindicated as much by the thinker and poet as by the statesman and soldier.
—James Bryant Conant (American Chemist)

Often it is just lack of imagination that keeps a man from suffering very much.
—Marcel Proust (French Novelist)

The great difference between those who succeed and those who fail does not consist in the amount of work done by each but in the amount of intelligent work. Many of those who fail most ignominiously do enough to achieve grand success but they labor haphazardly at whatever they are assigned, building up with one hand to tear down with the other. They do not grasp circumstances and change them into opportunities. They have no faculty for turning honest defeats into telling victories. With ability enough and ample time, the major ingredients of success, they are forever throwing back and forth an empty shuttle and the real web of their life is never woven.
—Og Mandino

You don’t become enormously successful without encountering and overcoming a number of extremely challenging problems.
—Mark Victor Hansen (American Public Speaker)

Competition Can Push You to Achieve Greater Results

January 6, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

“A Great Rival is Like a Mirror”

The competition between American tennis stars Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi became the dominant rivalry in tennis during the ’90s. With their remarkably different styles and temperaments, the two produced a great number of remarkable games. Between 1989 and 2002, Sampras won 20 of their 34 head-to-head matches, of which Sampras won four of the five Grand Slam finals they played. Sampras also held the world No. 1 spot for a record 286 weeks whereas Agassi held it for 101 weeks.

Asked how his rivalries helped and hurt him in the October 2015 issue of Harvard Business Review, Agassi (who is married to tennis legend Steffi Graf) recollected:

A great rival is like a mirror. You have to look at yourself, acknowledge where you fall short, make adjustments, and nurture the areas where you overachieve. There were times my rivals brought out the best in me; there were times they brought out the worst. They probably helped me win things I never would have otherwise; they also cost me titles. I don’t know how you quantify what it would have been like without a rival like Pete Sampras. I would have won more. But I think I would have been worse without him.

Idea for Impact: The risk of being outdone by a closely matched rival can push you further

A certain amount of competition can be helpful when it motivates you and doesn’t result in stress or hurt your personal relationships.

Push yourself past the familiarity and safety of your comfort zone by pursuing some healthy competition. Leaving your comfort zone helps you grow, transform, and feel stronger from the experience.

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Nagesh Belludi

The Problem is Not That There is Pleasure …

… The Problem is That There is Clinging to Pleasure.

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Charlie Munger on Confronting Adversity and Building Resilience

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Idea for Impact: Come what may, you’re not a victim. It is up to you to determine your response.

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Inspirational Quotations by Francis Bacon

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Inspirational Quotations by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Charlie Munger on Reading Biographies and “Making Friends with the Eminent Dead”

Seneca on Learning from the Great Minds of the Past

Seneca on Gaining Wisdom from the Distinguished

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“Complex Monstrosity Built Without a Plan”

Yahoo: The Fabled Legacy Internet Company on the Slide to Irrelevance

Mayer’s Arrival Was Too Late for Yahoo

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“A Great Rival is Like a Mirror”

Idea for Impact: The risk of being outdone by a closely matched rival can push you further

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