How To Combat Competition and Still Grow

Here is the complete transcript of the podcast

On the podcast today, I want to highlight a conversation I had with a bunch of incredibly talented cofounders of a company. Welcome, or welcome back to Success with Srini. Happy Sunday morning to you. Now I want to share the story with you because I think this has some value, this conversation has value. And regardless of who you are, and what you do, I think this will add to whatever you have got going in your life today. So long story short, small company, two or three founders, they’re still looking for, I think they’re onboarding a couple of co-founders. And I advised them whenever they have something for me, they have a question for me. And yesterday on the Zoom call, somehow, the call went to the competition. And one of the co-founders said, we are worried about the competition, that the marketplace is now seen. And I interrupted him. I said I don’t think the competition in the marketplace has anything to do with you. I think you are independent of the competition, I think you need to start thinking about yourself. And I think the single biggest competition is going to be from within this company. They were perplexed when I said that. And I said that even though all of you, the co-founders are incredible, you guys are amazing. But I think that the single biggest competition is going to be from the inside. And I said, I have seen I’ve been a part of many companies, myself as an employee, and now with my own company, and also involved with many other operations.

You see, there is always a disgruntled employee. And every time a disgruntled employee perceives a threat or perceives an injustice, they’re going to do whatever they have to do to pull down the whole company. And I’ve seen that happen multiple times. So I’m saying this from experience. And I’m not saying that you have an employee who’s going to pull the company down. But every time there is some lack of performance. In any company, you can see that that lack of performance can be tied to one individual, who has either given up lost motivation or created some other affiliation that is outside of the necessary affiliation. So they have started to bank their values and their beliefs and their loyalty somewhere else. I’ve seen that happen. And usually the performance of a company, any company can be tied to an exemplary performance of one employee or lack of back of one employee.

So the conversation went in different directions. And this model, I started to explain a bit more to them, I said, you know, the best way to really understand how a company can collapse is to study cybersecurity. And in cybersecurity, if you have taken a class on cybersecurity, they teach you all the different ways a company can be hijacked or a company’s data can be taken over. And there are four specific characters that identify, one is somebody who is upon somebody who is influenced or has no influence, has no idea gets influenced by innocence. And does something like downloading a PDF file or some zip file and malware or whatever, and then compromise just the whole company’s data. And then there is a goof. A goof is somebody who thinks that you know, I’m about, the policies, the standards, and all that and I can do anything that I want to do in the process compromises the security of the company. Then there is a character called collaborators who collaborate and participate in compromising the company’s data. And then there is also another character who could be called a wolf. Somebody who has an intent to destroy the company does everything has no outside collaborators has no inside collaborators, but just makes up the mind that I want to take this down. And this, this lone wolf could be the disgruntled employee who perceives or has perceived injustice being done to him or her and that’s all that’s how it goes.

Now, because this is a small company, and I made my case and I said because the small company only co-founders are working now. I don’t see this happening with you. But then understand the biggest threat is that one of you, one of you, or all of you may lose the opportunity. Because you make an irreversible mistake. And you lose the momentum in your thought process, there is a break in the intellectual flow that is happening within all of you. And in the process, you lose the train of thought. And as an entrepreneur, it’s going to happen to you all the time. And we have challenged entrepreneurs. And when I say we, I mean myself, we are constantly challenged by so many other things that are happening around us. It’s hard, it’s difficult to manage so many moving things. And because that possibility is there doesn’t matter how many co-founders you are, and how many people you have got going. But regardless, this could happen, and I see that as the biggest threat. I also highlighted this, and I have highlighted this multiple times on this podcast, which is the seed of our own construction, and the virus of our own destruction is within us. And as the founders, as the co-founders, or L as leader of a company or a startup or whatever it is, whatever you have got going in your life, you need to be constantly focusing on the construction aspect of this equation, not on the virus aspect of this equation.

So I think that a lack of proper thinking, lack of strategy, or a drop in your thought flow or thought process can create competition internally. And now you’re fighting to own yourself. And that I see as the biggest setback or competition, I don’t see any competition from anybody else from outside. Now, the reason I’m sharing this is that I wanted you to take this analogy for a second of this conversation or whatever I shared with them. And look into your own life and see who you perceive as your competition. And if you are then there may not be competition, you yourself are competing with yourself. There is no other individual who is seeking your title, your revenues or your clients, or any of that it’s you against you. And it is you who has to double up it is you who has to self explore it is you who has to inculcate new values, new beliefs, new understandings, new observations, and new data points so that you can grow and so that you can grow everybody else around you. And if you drop that thought process, and if you say, Oh, I’ve done enough, and I need to relax now, or I need to think about something else.

Now, at that moment, you have effectively lost the game. So now you have allowed other people to now succeed. They could be people outside of the company and other companies, other entities, and it’s very difficult to catch up. That was my conversation. I hope this helps. I hope this inspires you to really look into yourself and start questioning yourself. It’s a Sunday. I’m going to stop here. And I’ll be back here again tomorrow with another thought-provoking, Hopefully, conversation may be a question from you. Stay tuned. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Bye now.

How Can I Become A Better Problem Solver

Here is the complete transcript of the podcast

Welcome back to Success with Srini. Happy Saturday morning to you on the podcast. Today I’m answering a question again, from a listener of my radio show Srini. Recently, I got promoted, and now I have become a director. After a long time, I got this promotion. Earlier, I was an individual contributor for a long time. And I went from being an individual contributor to a director. Now I have multiple teams reporting to me. The reason why I’m reaching out to you is a while ago, I heard you talk about problem-solving on a radio show. I struggle with solving problems, specifically when it comes to other people. With so many people reporting, I am uncomfortable. And I think this is going to be a challenge for me. This keeps me awake at the night. I wanted to touch base with you and see what can I do to overcome this fear?

Okay, before I answer this question, I want to say that I did respond to this question already, to this gentleman. I’m recording this podcast because I want this question to be available to every subscriber of this podcast. So I want to make it perpetual. Now, this specific radio show where I talked about problem-solving, was from 2017. That was the only time I did a show on problem-solving. I don’t recollect ever doing any other shows, certainly not a podcast. So this gentleman was listening to me at that point in time, I don’t think they even know that I have a podcast now. So coming back to the question, problem-solving the problems that are well defined, that easy to solve problems that are ill-defined that are difficult to solve. Very simple formula. So a part of our existence even though we encounter problems, we need to, define the problem clearly in our minds. So sometimes we are presented with a problem. Sometimes we find a problem, or a problem finds us on its own. Sometimes we create a problem. So at any point in time, either you’re celebrating a moment where you solved a problem, or you are a little bit pensive and sad that you created a problem or you found yourself in a problem, all of us. So ideally, what we want is we want a structural ending to our problems.

Now, a structural ending of a problem happens only when we define it. Because ill-defined problems, never have a structural learning, well-defined problems do have a structural ending. So I want to differentiate these two ill-defined problems, let’s take let’s look at an example. Let’s say you are at work and you want to go home, and suddenly your car breaks down. That is a problem right there. That’s an inconvenience. But it is a well-defined problem. Because you know that you can now take a taxi or Uber. And you can get home, you know, where you’re going, you know how much time it takes, all you have to do is change one variable, which is your car. So in a way, it’s a well-defined problem. Now, an ill-defined problem is, let’s look into an example. For this. Let’s say you want a partner, a life partner, or a business partner from a state that has an example. Now, even though you know what the ending is going to be, somehow you don’t know the criteria, what kind of a partner you need, and becomes convoluted. And unless you really don’t define, you know, what kind of a life partner you need at least some image in your mind, it’s difficult for you to pursue. Now, every time something becomes difficult, like for example, an ill-defined problem it could end up with multiple solutions. So an ill-defined problem has many solutions, which one is going to work for you. You see. So, you know oftentimes in life, we make unwarranted assumptions Okay, in everyday problems. So, my message to you is, if you have a problem, what can define it? All the question now becomes how do I define a problem?

Many many years ago back in 1980, somewhere in the early 80s. Heins, Steinberg, Bransford, and Stein. These four authors came up with a book titled, The Ideal Problem Solver. One of the early books on problem-solving, and ever since many people have written, and there is a lot of literature available on problem-solving, but they came up with a simple formula. They said, first of all, recognize the problem, and spend a lot of time recognizing the problem. So this gentleman sending me this, this email in itself. So there is some leadership in this gentleman. So he got promoted from being an individual contributor to a director. So I think I think he’s hard on himself. And I said that in the immediate email, I responded back by saying, You’re hard on yourself, the reason why you got promoted is that your managers, your management sees something that you are not able to see about yourself. So they know that you, you can lead people, they know that you’re a problem solver, that this is your impression of yourself, and it may not carry any merit, because you got promoted, and you got promoted after a long time, that means they know you, they have seen you, they have evaluated you. And this is a reward, not a punishment, that was my response to him. So you recognize the problem. The second thing you have to do is you got to define and represent the problem mentally. And then you need to spend time developing a solution strategy for this problem. And then you got to organize your knowledge, whatever knowledge you have, and all of our knowledge is scattered, it’s all over the place. We got to organize the knowledge base about the problem, then we start allocating resources, mental, physical, emotional, financial, whatever it takes to solve the problem. And then once we have allocated that means now these resources are in play that working towards solving the problem, that means that once that happens, we start to monitor the progress. And see whether we are able to get to the goal. And then keep on evaluating the solution. And accordingly, keep on making changes. Now all this is defined in this book, as the ideal problem solver. Now, I think this book is available online.

Last time, many years ago, I saw it was now there are different models, and I’m just sharing one of the models with you. But every problem, there are a couple of things you need. One is you need operators when dealing with a problem. So what are some of the operators that you can play with? And then you need to identify the constraints as you’re trying to solve a problem. So if one solution doesn’t work, you need to change the solution. And see, okay, in the last solution, I had two operators and five constraints now can I reduce those constraints and increase the operators, whatever, right. So you kind of keep on shifting and changing till you get to the solution that works the best. So this was the show, these were some of the notes that I was sharing. But to close it out. I also want to mention that it’s important for you to understand the initial state of the problem and the end goal. So what is the initial state? And what is the end goal, and everything happens in between? So these two things have to be understood. If these two things are missed, or not understood, well, then again, this whole thing becomes an ill-defined problem. And now you have many solutions. In this book, the ideal problem solver. Heins, Steinberg, Bransford. And Stein, they talk about, they make an interesting point, says academic knowledge or academic success doesn’t mean that you can take that and you start applying to real-life scenarios. So people who can solve economic problems cannot solve real-life problems. It’s complete before it was the assumption. But now we know that’s not the case. So you know, you can’t have a bookish approach. And you can’t say that you were a great problem solver, in college, in school, and whatever. Now you can solve any problem because you have had success before none. As we grow. And as we start seeing life more and more, the problem tends to become more and more complex. And some of the problems that are invisible today become more visible as we age and grow.

So there isn’t a formula that says I could solve the problem 10 years ago, I can solve it now. And that is why I said that problem solved. is an increasingly complex skill that we need to pursue. And there is no ending to it. We keep on, you know, developing ourselves. And the more we live, the more we’ll encounter, and the more we have to accumulate. Hopefully, this is helpful. Hopefully, I did justice to the question. Hopefully, you got some value out of this. If it is, let me know. You’re watching this on YouTube. You’re listening to this on a podcasting app. There should be a place for you to write a comment and rate and all that and that’s all for now. I didn’t want this to become longer and more complex for a Saturday. But enjoy your weekend and I will catch up with you tomorrow, right here. Thank you.

The Two Sides Of Envy: Why You Should be Grateful For

Here is the complete transcript of the podcast

If you have ever gone through this feeling within which you felt that, ah, he or she has it, I want it, you see that feeling, then today’s podcast episode is for you. Welcome or welcome back to Success with Srini. This feeling of this emotion is called envy. And I have done multiple podcasts here talking about this specific feeling this specific emotion. And in the self-improvement world, we teach people not to be envious, and not to be jealous, it’s seen as negative. So if you are a successful, driven individual success-minded individual, or success-pursuing individual, then you shouldn’t be envious. You shouldn’t be jealous, you need to have a higher sense of compassion, more understanding, deep exploration, and all that, and these words enviousness, and jealousy, don’t have space. But I want to take a different approach to them the podcast, I’m going to share with you and show you proof and give you some data and draw some analogy here that it’s okay to be envious. Okay to be envious, well, I want to start out by sharing with you a backstory.

This is me back in the year 2000 2001. If I would see somebody who is jealous of what I had, I wouldn’t talk to them. Or I see that somebody’s envious of me, I wouldn’t talk to them. It’s a direct clash with my values. And I have known people of some of my close friends who are extremely successful, they have more money in terms of accounts, more assets, in terms of numbers, all that. And they still are envious of me. And for some reason, they think that they lack something that I have, which I keep telling them I do not have more in every sphere of life, I do not I keep driving that point, but somehow they don’t get it. And back in the day, I used to, I used to avoid them. But since 2009, and 10. And here we are the year 2022, July 15th Morning, I’m recording this. These days, for the last, you know, 10-12 years, I have been more accommodating, having great conversations and having an even deeper bond with these friends of mine. And I’ll tell you why this happened and why this should happen in your life. And how this shift happened in me. So I used to avoid them back in the day. And I wanted to avoid them because they’re not thinking good of me. And they’re a negative influence on me.

So I should stay away from them. Now, later on, I shifted my position on this. And I think now that it’s okay, I should go spend more time with them. And I interact with them even knowing that they’re very envious of me. And I don’t know why they are as I said, so there is no specific date I have, but they are and they keep telling other friends to support me that he has something that we do not have. And the reason why I spend time with these people, by the way, is I love these friends, and I have absolutely nothing to hold no grudges against them. The reason why I spend time with them and talk to them is that through them, I come to know who else they are envious of. You see that. So I know now that if my friend is envious of me that I drive a Ferrari, I don’t. But I’m giving an example. Chances are my friend is also envious of some other people, some of our common friends, or some other people who have better and bigger things than Ferrari. So when I talk to this friend, he keeps talking about other people and other things that they have that he wants to achieve. And he wants to get that gives me a meter that gives me that I still need to do more and achieve more.

At that point. I’m not envious of my friend. I’m looking at other people who are much more successful and have more things that I want to accumulate. I’ll give you one thing that I’m very envious of. This is my dark secret. Every time I see somebody who has a better representation of some concepts that I represent. Every time I see somebody who has more knowledge more depth, more references, more experience more know-how my mind goes like this. I’m like, Okay, I need to do something about this. Okay, I’m not jealous. See the difference between envious nests and jealousy is envious nurses. I also want what you have. But jealousy is that now that I do not have what you do not what you have, I don’t want you to have. So I will come and destroy what you have. Okay? So I am envious that somebody has a better representation, more knowledge, and more specifically with the knowledge front sent for that the only way I can bridge the gap is that I come and do prepare myself better. I read more, I apply myself more, I need to, you know, increase my positioning my understanding, so that I can if not exceed somebody but at least match up. That is my thinking. It’s actually a positive thing. So, the point here is, if you’re envious of something of somebody, that they have something, it’s okay. And this shift happened to me in 2010. When I came across a book, this book, How to Win Fiends and Influence People by Nicholas D. Satan. Nicholas D. Satan wrote this book 666 ways to guarantee success in the workplace. Incredible book, in this book, on page 110. I do not know what edition it is now. Talks about principle number one, it says look around and see what you are missing. And he explains this concept and this concept I’ve read, and it stayed in my mind. And I’ve ever since applied it in every situation. And I’m wealthier because of this concept. He says something like this, I’m gonna read this okay, at first sight. And we would seem to be easy to recognize and utilize. It’s what you feel when you see someone having a good time. And you want some tools?

Well, true. But you might be missing something for butter to keep your eyes open. And Scout about specifically for things to covert, you will then find there is a lot more than you thought. And some of it is much better than you ever dreamed of. So here is the knowledge of this. A guy riding a bicycle notices his friend driving a little Japanese car. He wants one to edit, he should have stopped and wondered what his friend was envying and had a look at what else was on the road. Then he would target his envy on the owner of the chauffeur-driven limousine. The message is this, raise your sights and aim for the top. Even when you have got the limo, don’t stop looking. The next guy has got an exclusive jet, and so on. Okay, so you get the idea now. I am curious to meet people who are envious and jealous of me so that I get to hear about everybody else from them. From them. I get to hear about everybody else. Then I raise my meter I raise my bar and go after bigger things. And envious is good, not jealousy. Okay. That’s all for now. Hopefully, this today’s podcast episode is helpful. It gives you a different frame to look at life and gives you a different way to look at people. Hopefully, that’s all for now. Have a wonderful Friday and I will catch up with you as early as tomorrow. Thank you