Tag: Life

The case for being a generalist

My case for the generalist life: many small bets, range as the product, and why I brought the table.

So here is a confession.
I work on too many things.
Lol. As if you didnt know.

Right now, in one folder on my Mac, thanks to Claude Max, there are forty-odd apps I have started. A posture app that nags me when I slouch. A tracker that pulls my Whoop data every night. A film-script writer. A room-rental thing. A quiz game ranking celebrities. A property manager built in an evening. A film script. My book 2.

And thanks to Claude, I can now shape my world to indeed be a museum of passion projects.

Some of these shipped.
Most did not.
All of them got a name, a logo, a weekend, and a burst of love before the next thing walked in.

And I didnt stop at that. My #parkedIdeas list is longer than ever and on each passing day, am cooking more passion projects. And I dont see myself stopping.

The world has a word for a man like me.
Scatterbrain.

The world also has a kinder word.
Generalist.

And here is my argument in favour of being one.

The plate

Picture yourself at a buffet. Not a fancy one. A regular spread at a regular hotel. You would probably do three laps before you touch a plate. Then you would build a plate of nine things that you’d probably not imagine together. A plate could have Granola next to egg-fried rice, next to some dry fruits, next to some yogurt. You want a taste of all of it.

And then there are people who order one dish. A paratha. A dosa. They eat it slow. They relish, savour it. They send it back if it is wrong and get a replacement. They know what they came for. And they will do whatever it takes to get it.

I love such people.
I admire them.
But I am not that.

Oh, the buffet reminds me of Warren. Buffett. The guy who talks about saying no more than saying yes. The epitome of focus. Famously will not touch things he does not understand. In an alternate universe I would like to be him: capital allocator, taking long-term bets, inspiration to many.

But today, at 43, I think I like how I am – a generalist, a scatterbrain, a Jack of all trades. And I am about to double down on that.

The identity

If I look back at my notes and public posts, on Blogger and elsewhere, I am not surprised to see that I have been wanting to be a Generalist, a Multipotentialite, a Polymath, a Jack of all trades for a long long time.

In 2007 I saved an essay by Einstein, The World As I See It. And I saved a note alongside that the guy may be known for physics but he was as good with the violin, political discourse, and of course writing letters.

And funnily, no one calls Einstein unfocused.
They call him curious.

Brings me to identity conversation. Deep down, all of us are identities. We think, behave, act, operate and make decisions that are in coherence with our identities.

You are a doctor. That is your identity. And each thing you do stems from there. From the car your choose to people you hangout with to the kind of work you think you can do.

You are an actor. That’s your identity.

Walk into a room and ask for introductions. Most people would say, “Hi, I am Gaurav and I run marketing for Unilever” or a variant there of. Work supersedes anything else. And then all your actions are evaluated and judged by the others per that. And the worst part, your performance stems from that.

Do this as an experiment. When you meet someone next, ask them who they are. And notice if their intro includes the work they do and if you can “see” their lives as a direct outcome of that work.

Now, in my case, I’ve been aware of this identity induced myopia. And thus I have a hard time explaining what I do. Some years ago, one of my Twitter bios was: “I am 37, a marketer, a writer, a productivity-porn seeker, an aspiring multipotentialite, a Mumbai-dweller, a Delhi-product who wants to live to 120 and climb Everest.”

When I read it now, I realise there is no coherent identity thread in it. There is not one job title in it. But there’s a list of things that I am interested in. And if I were to extrapolate those into identity, I have a stack of identities that dont fit in together. And my mentors have begged me to cut to one or two.

I’ve had a hard time cutting these and I was often shy about my inability to do that. But at 43, I think I am ready to embrace that. And the fact that I will probably add more to it.

The fear. And the lust.

Also, I have this fear that if I choose one, I will miss the others.

Pick films, and I lose startups.
Pick startups, and I lose the book.
Pick books, and I miss conversations around brands.

The thing is, the buffet was never only greed. Part of it was a man who could not bear to send any plate back to the kitchen. The lust for others made me not want to commit to one.

Meru made me realise this. It was after a while that I committed to doing one thing. And I could see that while I was set for a great economic windfall and impact with work and a great team to get things done, I would miss many other things that keep me alive. And I just couldnt bear that.

The case against me.

The smartest people (friends, mentors etc) in my life have told me to pick one. Or two.
Never few.
And focus.
And they have used kind words. Here are some of those…

A friend once read my forty-year goal list.
He wrote back, and I am quoting him: “almost everything on this list is achievable. But things linger. Maybe drop everything and try doing just one thing for a considerable period, and you will get it. He was not wrong. He was describing the cost of my plate, and describing it with love.”

Pradeep recently told me that my entire setup is superfast and supergood with taking things from 0 to 0.1.

A mentor told me a harder thing.
You get to be exceptional at two, maybe three things in one life. For people like you, he said, the pain is not the work. The pain is the quitting. Killing the other thousand things you already know you are good at, so the two can grow.

And there are more.

These voices do not contradict each other.
They harmonise.
Pick. Focus. Quit the rest.
This is the best advice in the world for most people, and it is given to me by people who want me to win.

I have heard it for two decades. And I have not taken it. The one time I took it, I had to quit in like 18 months. I think this is a not a man failing to decide. This is a way of life and a decision. And with advantage of some hindsight (I can look back on how I made decisions) and maybe some age-imposed wisdom, here is the reasoning under it.

The small bets thinking

Lets start with the math of small bets.

A specialist makes one big bet. He puts the whole bankroll on one dish. If he is right, he eats like a king. If he is wrong, the meal is gone. The upside is real and the ruin is also real. Buffett is a great example of concentration and doubling-tripling-xxxing on his conviction with follow on investments. To a point that he starts to own a controlling stake.

I on the other hand like taking make small bets. And rather than listening to what the world tells me, I will double down on making many small bets.

Lets get back to the buffett thing. Assuming I pick up 19 things on my plate. By the law of numbers, a couple of those will be cold, one will be excellent and most will be just fine. And one, I do not know which one, will be the best thing I will talk about all year.

So, I dont really need everything on the plate to land. I need one. Or two. That is the entire trick, and to me, it is the opposite of scattered. It is a hedge with the lid left off the upside.

In fact, most VCs operate like that. Allocate capital. They have a theme. Take bets. And hope some of them would be 100X.

Most portfolio managers do that – pick a portfolio (they often tend to specialise into sectoral things) and then hope that not all go to ruin.

But we don’t see this wide, concentrated bets in post-industrialization worldly disciplines like medicine, engineering, teaching and all that. I wonder why. Maybe cos the time and generation they grew in, the world had started to reward one person dong one thing really well?

Plus, the thing is, each time I marry a lesson from one discipline to another, am often able to spot patterns and trends and lessons and wins that I would otherwise miss. I could create a screenwriting software because I knew of the frustration of writers with Final Draft and then Claude enabled me to build a prototype very fast! The podcast I started with Akshay, Founder Thesis, put me in rooms with founders I had no other way to reach. The Goa post (Ultimate Guide to Living in and Remote Working from Goa) I wrote on a whim brought me people, ideas, and work. I still get comments on the that post.

One dish, in each case, paid for the whole walk to the counter. When I was filling my plate, I didnt know which one would that be. That is the point. You cannot know. So you take the buffet.

What do you bring to the table?

For years I answered the what do you bring to the table question wrong.

I tried to fake depth depending on who I was meeting. If I was meeting a marketer, I would say, I have 20 years of brand experience. If I was meeting an investor, I would say I’ve worked with many founders. If I met a prospective date, I would say am an author. I would hope like hell that I sound like a specialist. I am probably good at those narratives cos more often than not, I would get the gig.

But deep down inside, I knew it was not me. I was merely living one version of the story that I didnt want to. Often reminded of the quote from Fight Club – “you buy things you dont need to impress people who dont care.”

But now, I will do things differently.

I will acknowledge that I love the idea of taking many bets, doing many things at the same time.

I will probably make writing my first port of call because, well, easy to explain. And then I would offer to people that I am a brand manager, marketer, strategy-er, sparring partner, podcaster, filmmaker, event manager, problem solver and all other things.

And I will talk about my super fast, 0 to 0.1 journey ability that allows me to run project pilots fast. I would then talk about Ready Fire Aim. I would then talk about Action. I would talk about Movement. And the whole schabang.

Thing is, the specialist sells depth in one room. They goes all the way down a particular Rabbit Hole. The generalist on the other hands knows how to connect those holes to make fabulous system of tunnels that you could use to navigate the neterworld. For me, the range is the product and the offering.

They often say that we ought to be T-shaped or I-shaped or comb-shaped. I say you need to be shapeless. You need to be like Red. You need to be the person who knows a person who can get things done. You must the person people call when the problem does not fit a department. This problem-solver life would only happen when you’re known as someone who’s able to spot lessons from one and apply to another.

I want to talk about a few archetypes here.

There is this guy, Julian Shapiro.
He goes deep into things that excite him, becomes a kind of master, and then condenses what he learned into guides better than the textbooks written by people who only did that one thing. That, I think, is the generalist move done right. Not shallow everywhere. Deep in bursts, wide across them, and then the wiring shared out loud. My friend Srijan (do read this by him) would be in the same boat.

I once sat in a session about a man I will not name here.
A lone genius who ran a team of other geniuses. He could write, direct, run a camera, sketch, design, paint, and doodle. When I met him, I wrote in my notes that night: if he is not a polymath, I do not know who is. I came home inspired and a little jealous. Not of any one skill. Of the permission he had given himself to hold all of them at once and call it a career instead of a confusion. That permission is the thing I am writing this to hand myself. And to others like me. The skills are learnable. The permission is the hard part.

Oh, depth is not the enemy here. The generalist who never goes deep on anything is just a tourist, and a tourist sells nothing. The right move I think, is depth in seasons.

Go all the way down on one plate until you can teach it, then surface, then go down on the next.

Over a life you stack five or six of those deep dives, and the wiring between them becomes a thing no single-room specialist can buy, hire, or fake.

But, to be honest, I do not know if I can be deep in anything. I do not think I have it in me to go deep even in seasons. Or even for a road. I will merely scratch the surface at best. And that too may not give me joy.

So even the life of Julian and the unknown person is not for me.

So, then what?

Many bets. One at a time

The reconciliation between my people (who ask me to focus) and me (who refuses to) is one word long. Sequence.

I will do multiple things but for particular amount of time, I will do one thing. Say, for the month of July, I will only work on my book. For the month of August, I will only work on a podcast. In September, I will not do anything. And so on and so forth.

In a month, I do three things for 80% of my time. And then all the potpourri in the balance 20%.

This is a simplistic explanation. Three things in a month. 80% of time. What I choose to do may not even end for a month. Or it may end in a few days. Maybe I will do a thing for 5 days. Or 3 chunks of a thing in 6 months.

The idea is be to take things to a point where I can transfer the project to someone else, you know, Build, Operate and Transfer. I will then find EIRs or someone who would actually run those. I dont know how but at least on paper, this sounds doable. I even did a version of this with TRS, P3 et al. But then, I failed to keep control and inspire my partners to think beyond.

I will thus hard focus on that thing for a certain amount of time. And then I will find someone to take it ahead. And unlike last time, keep control. And then. move on to the next thing.

I dont know the shape it would take. But I like the sound of it.

The devil is of course is details but I know that atleast my biggest driver, FOMO, would be at bay. I would get to see my projects and shauks on the shelf while I work on one bet at a time. It will probably give me the range. And for each thing that I ship, the validation that someone is taking care of it. Assuming I can find these people. And then, ofc, maybe AI could!

To be honest, I tried a version of this in the month of June. I told myself that my identity for the month of June is that of a writer and I will finish Book2. I almost did it. I need another mont to get it out of my system. May be in August. Cos July is the event manager month. Lol. For the month of July, I am an employee to my own Claude and a large thing is event management.

Oh, this is also what I want C4E to be. Not an agency that does one thing for clients. But a small team that builds many things. The way Tiny and Late Checkout and Bending Spoons do. A studio. A service setup. A product company. A portfolio of small bets under one roof, run by people who do many things and are done apologizing for it.

Back to the buffet. And onto the future.

So we are back at the buffet, you and me, have plates in hand.

Here is the reframe. I am not avoiding the main course by loading up small plates. For a man like me, the buffet is the main course. The variety is not the appetizer before the real meal. It is the meal. The range is not a delay on the way to focus. It is the thing itself.

You have been told to pick. You have been told your curiosity is a leak. You have been handed marshmallows and told to admire concentration. And maybe they are right. But then, you are human and you are allowed to want the other thing. You are allowed to want the buffet.

The bets are small. Deliberately. By design.

Let’s see how it goes.

Mild Success vs Wild Success

What do you want to be? A mildly successful person? Or a wildly successful one that has made a dent?

This is a rehash of an old SoG Letter that I wrote way back in Jan 2019. Original here.

This post is inspired by two things. 

A. This tweet. Link.

The tweet is a quote by NN Taleb and it says, “Mild success can be explainable by skills and labor. Wild success is attributable to variance.”

Side Note. NN Taleb is one of the most influential thinkers of contemporary times. His concepts on Black Swan, Antifragile and Skin in the Game have shaped my thinking and my approach to work. Oh, and I have the rare distinction of being blocked by him! 

B. A conversation with AS that made me think hard about the kind of things I want to do in life. He asked me what was my grand plan for life. And while I have thought often and thought hard about this, I was for the first time that I could put it in words. Thank You, AS for asking that question.

So, while thinking of the answer, I knew that I wanted to be a Wildly Successful person (and not just a mildly successful one).

And what is this Wildly Successful person?

Lemme start by defining the two. 

Mild success is a few millions, some cars, luxurious life, respect from your peers, considerable impact within your community and so on and so forth.

Example?
CEOs like Indira Nooyi. These people rest on the laurels of an organisation where they “work” and paddle carbonated water. 

Wild success is billions, irreverence for cars or luxury, actions that impact the whole of humanity and like Steve said, the ability to push the human race forward!

Example?
CEOs like Steve Jobs. These people actually created products that have enabled almost all creative people to do more. 

Thing is, Indira Nooyi could do so well because she was and is smarter than your average business executive and she worked really hard and stayed on the course. Most of my classmates from MDI would chart the same path to being mildly successful. They are smart, work hard and are on their way to the top of their corporate ladders. By itself, it’s not a wrong thing, to be honest. Who doesn’t like 2 cars, 2 houses, 2 kids, 2 house helps, 2 club memberships et al?

But then, this life is not for me.

I’d rather be Steve. Steve Jobs could get wildly successful because of what he worked on, how he worked, the kind of things he did, the decisions he made and all that gave him that shot at sending the ball out of orbit (and not just the park). And while he did all that, he had his quirks, he lived life on her terms, and he chase things that he believed were right. And along the way, inspired others.

Of course, he got lucky. Numerous times. Luck had to play a part in his wild success but the path he was on was not going to ever make him just mildly successful. It was either going to be wild. Or it was going to take him to ruin. Something Elon stands for. Even Warren for that matter.

So that!

Wait. Is there a lesson? Is there a point to this post?

So, the lesson thus ladies and gents is twofold. 

A. Understand what kind of success you chase. Wild. Mild.
I know I do. You? 

B. Once you know what you are chasing (mild or wild), if you are chasing, look at what others in the same league (mild or wild) did and then tread the same path.

It is that simple! Rest is a function of effort, consistency, time, luck and variance. Over and out!

Lemme know what you think. 

PS: When I thought about I'd like to become wildly successful and when I thought about the kind of people I think I want to become (I will not get into details but some people that I want to be like are Chris Sacca, Tim Ferriss, Naval Ravikant, Jason Calacanis, Chamath Palihapitiya and others), I realised that there is a clear pattern. These people have a LOT in common. Here's a small list... 

- Great deal-making ability
- Envious network. Especially, a large set of loose connections that are willing to look past the biases that close friends may have
- Ability to communicate well
- The knack of spotting trends
- A very big bias towards action
- High-agency

I am sure there are more things that I can't spot right now. Just that to be able to create this variance that takes from your mild to wild, you ought to at least have what these guys have. Get the drift?

180521 – Morning Pages

Longish rant on relationships, life and Hero’s worship. Inspired by the conduct of Bill Gates and other Heroes that I look upto to.

7:40. Yet again, a night when I did not sleep till about 3. And yet again I am groggy and yet again everything hurts. I need to fix this erratic schedule. I don’t even know what’s causing it. Coffee could be one. But I think there’s something deeper at play here. I will investigate and find out this week for sure.

Anyhow. Let’s get to work. Quite a few things to be done. Before I do that, here’s the track of the day is this. Listen here…

It was incredible yesterday. The kind of weather I have never seen in Mumbai. Truth be told, I was a tad bit scared when the winds were howling and the thundering on the windows and despite myself shutting into a closed room I could see things flying around. Heart goes out of the ones that don’t have shelter. I may not tell this to anyone else but since I sort of bare myself on the blog, I have to admit that I walked some 6000 steps in the rain. It felt longer, to be honest, but it was indeed all of 6K steps. This walking in the rain is my biggest guilty pleasure. To a point that I can drop everything I am on and just walk. At those times I don’t even care about my phone getting wet or clothes getting drenched. The muck and mud and fallen leaves and other things that I typically hate, all become a part of me. The water being showered on you may keep changing its speed but when you are out walking, it pierces your skin and literally cleanses the soul. Oh, I love baarish! And walks. Sigh!

As I write this, it’s 8:20 and it’s still windy and breezy and cold and nice outside. If I can finish this post by 9ish, I will probably go for a short walk.

So that.

The other thing that’s clouding my head is the entire Bill Gates and Melinda Gates controversy. Thing is, Bill Gates has been a role model, an inspiring figure since I can remember. He was the original person I wanted to be before Steve Jobs became the thing and then Paul Graham took Steve’s place.

Bill Gates has it all, done it all. I mean he is among the richest people in the world with all the wealth that you can imagine. His best friends include people like Warren Buffett (who himself seemed to have an open marriage). His work with philanthropy is what legends are made up of. He literally gave all his wealth away to fix some of the biggest problems in the world. His thoughts, his writing, his work have been a beacon of hope in the world we live in. At the times we live in.

Damn!

A few months ago, it was Jeff. This time, it’s Bill. I mean why’s it that these people can’t seem to keep their emotions at bay? With all the attention and access they have, why would they chase temporary pleasure to jeopardize all that they’ve stood for their lives? At the level you are at and the impact you are delivering, you do not have to conform to society. No one will ask you a question. Look at film stars and professional athletes and others of the ilk. They are at least open about their chase.

I am actually beginning to think if monogamy is a mere societal construct that’s been around to tame both men and women into becoming milder versions of themselves? I mean if despite all their wealth and power and position and all that the most powerful men and women can’t continue to stay with one partner, there must be some flaw. No?

Thing is, when ordinary people philander, you tend to ignore. You blame their actions on unhappy unions, alcohol, a lapse in judgment et al. But when the hero’s fall, you start questioning the very foundation of your belief system. Hero’s are supposed to know it. They have to have better control and mastery over their emotions. They are heroes for a reason! Plus, you’ve literally built your entire life chasing these heroes and hopes of walking in their shoes someday. It just sucks when they do things that are un-hero-like! Damn!

I felt like I was sucker-punched when I heard about Jeff. Of course, he managed the crisis far better than how Bill is managing. No, I am not justifying their actions. I am on the fence about the institution of marriage (leaning away from it, to be honest). I know I will probably not get married ever. Lol, never say never.

But then if it’s affecting me so much that these people were seeing others out of their marriages, may be, at the subconscious level, I like the idea of stable, 1v1, relationships? If I reflect on my life, I think the first real romantic relationship happened when I was at MDI. Since then I’ve had many more. I have been more “out” of relationships, than “in”.

Wait.

What’s the point of this?

I am digressing.

The larger point is that I must stop with this all adulation about heroes. I must cease the hero worship. I need to accept that people are fallible. People change. It’s ok to cut them some slack. You were born alone, you will die alone. Even the ones closest to you can only make the suffering easy, when you suffer. Why else do you need someone around?

It’s not an easy answer.

I think a large part of why I probably can’t sleep is because I miss having that special someone around? I mean I do have a few great friends that I can confide in, even if they don’t understand me (or may be am unable to make myself understand). Maybe I crave another human’s touch. You know, like a real hug and not one of those virtual things. I have to admit that I did sleep better when I could hug someone and drift into the dreamland. Except for the sore neck the morning after.

Ok. I don’t know where I am going with this. It’s 9:17 and I need to get on with the day. More some other day.

Here’s streaks…

  • Morning Pages / Meditations – 156
  • #aPicADay – 0
  • 10K steps a day – 0. Did about 6K in rain!
  • OMAD – 0
  • #noCoffee – 0
  • #noCoke – 68
  • 10 mins of meditation – 0. Broke a 3-day streak.
  • #book2 – 0
  • Killer Boogie – 0
  • Surya Namaskar – 0

Day 2 – Humans vs Robots

A tiny home-improvement decision that I think I will take as I move to a new house in the next week. Part of my 30 days of writing every day for 30 minutes project.

This is the second day of this new project where I try and write every day for 30 minutes. As I start writing this, it is 9:09 PM (ended at 9:56 PM) and I do have this one thing that I want to talk about. Let’s see how long I take to write it.

So, in less than a week, I move to a new house. Like all the other houses that I have lived at, this one is also not mine and that means I am reluctant to acquire things that make the house a home. I mean I don’t put no pictures, no photos, no posters, nothing that resembles a place that is lived well. Even the furniture, I don’t acquire it. I don’t like the idea of material possessions (while I do have a bagful of memories – photos, postcards, tickets, hand-written trinkets and all that), I try and not attach myself to things.

There are multiple reasons for that. Lemme make a list.

A. In the past, when I did have things that I could attach myself to, every time I’d move the house, those would break and I’d get sad about em. So, to avoid disappointment, I decided against acquiring things.

B. Thing is, I like finer things (you know, expensive, made with love, limited edition, by artisans) and I have this big child ego (I either want the whole world, or nothing) and I have never had a lot of disposable money to be able to buy all the nice things. So, I trained myself to overlook these material things and not pine for those. I would of course continue to spend money to get some of these for friends. These gifts are voluntary – I can choose to get those or I could not get any at all. However, if I get addicted to better things, I would start pining for those and I know I can’t afford em. So, detach.

C. Continuing with the thread of detachment, I am trying to have minimal attachments to material things. This means I am embracing minimalism, Buddhism, Stoicism, Mary-Knodoism, Hagge-ism, and every other such -ism that tells us to be simple with our lives.

Of course, do get emotional when I have to change the house. I do not like to be around when I move. I rely on my friends and handymen to do so. Like they say, truth, is weirder than fiction 🙂

D. I saved the best for the last. I love space. And the kind of houses that we have in Mumbai, we have anything but space. Even with minimal furniture and furnishing, you sort of keep bumping into the walls all the time. So, I try and avoid stuffing the house with things!

***

So yeah, I have lived my life in a certain manner (like a robot) and I think it serves me well.

So, why this post?

Well, as I said, I am going to move to a new house in the next week. And as I get ready to make the move, I am thinking that I will change it! Thinking. Not doing it. And I will list those reasons as well here.

Let’s go.

1. I want to look at life on the other side. The side where you get emotional about things. I am after all an experience junky. To a point that I want to pack a thousand lives into this tiny one that we have. And I’d love to see things from. the perspective of the vain ones.

2. I want to assert my personality. When I had a business that was well and alive (prior to the COVID shock), I could project myself via my work. Now, I cant. So, I need to find something that allows me to. Even if it’s a simple wall in one of the rooms where I post things that are important to me.

3. I have always been a public-place person. I cant spend time at home. I feed off the energy of others and that means I love places like cafes and offices and worksites where I can see others working. Thanks to this WFH thingy, I know that I may not be able to get back to an office anytime soon (even though I have been going to a Starbucks every day for a week now). So, I need to convert the new place to resemble a bright, cheery place. That means I will have to get home those yellow lights, ambient speakers, the aroma of the coffee, and more! music systems and all that. And that means I will have to set up a few things that make my house, well, home, and start living like a human!

Robot. Human. Get the drift?

That’s it for the day.

With this, its over and out. See you guys tomorrow!

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