Found this interesting article today on what motivates kids.

Carol Dweck, a Stanford psychologist, researches on the role of making mistakes in learning. In her classic research, she gave groups of school children puzzle tests that were relatively simple for them. All of the kids did well. Two groups, selected at random (the total population was over 1000) were alternatively praised for their intelligence (“You must be very smart”) or their effort (“You must have worked really hard.”)

To cut to the chase, in follow-up tests, the group that was initially praised for their intelligence avoided subsequent challenges, gave up on tough puzzles more easily, and sought out opportunities to see that they had done better than others.

The group that was praised for their effort, on the other hand, sought out tougher challenges, worked harder on those tougher puzzles, and sought out opportunities to understand why others had done better than they had. In other words, they were driven to learn.

To be clear, the only difference between the groups was the initial praise. Throughout the remainder of the experiment, each group sought to self-validate the single compliment they had been given – one group by selecting tasks that allowed them to look smart, the other group by selecting tasks that allowed them to work hard.

At the end, they were all given a final set of puzzles. Guess which group had learned more about how to tackle them? In short, the kids who were praised for their efforts got better results because they worked hard to learn how to learn.

Now, this is with little kids. But what we all learn as kids are the things which drive us throughout our lives. Each of us seeks to renew the conditions that got us the most acceptance and praise.

To read more about Carol Dweck’s studies on children’s psychology and their motivating factors, wiki her or read this article. http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/february7/dweck-020707.html

-Raghu

Shopping is a chore. Hmmm….actually the experience depends on the company you have. If you are just going out to have some fun and shop a little, it is a breeze. But it becomes a chore when buying something that is utmost essential coz of an impending need.

Another critical variable that affects your experience is your personality type.  For “rationals”  (INTJs) like me, shopping is a chore most of the time. I can differentiate good from bad, give me a black shirt and a white shirt, I can easily pick up which one I’d like. But talking about subtle differences between two shirts, it feels  like asking to pick the better eye from both your eyes. I’d rather not shop, than select one of the two.

Its just the personality type I believe. Selecting something for myself is a big chore and ask me to buy a shirt for someone, I’d rather work on an equation to correlate Indian GDP to the cost of a pani puri in Hyderabad than shop for someone else.

Shopping for someone is a just a tall tower built on assumptions.

You need to assume that you know the person well.

Then you need to recount all your experiences with the person when he/she blurted out what kinda colors they like.

Again assume that their tastes have not changed over time.

Assume that their personality (physical) has not changed.

Assume that they like ………………………..whatever…leave it, its confusing me again..

One assumption goes wrong and you are headed off in the tangential direction.

Went on a little shopping marathon with my sister, yesterday in Dallas. Had a good time, gotto spend some undivided attention time with her, which is getting more n more infrequent over the years. I think gals have this wonderful in-built  sense of dressing, color combos, subtle differences, they don’t even have to think about it. I try to break this art into science as much as possible. I have a color combination chart, designed my some fashion honcho on my phone to guide me through these troubled waters.

She asked me about a saree that my little sister wore for her reception a year ago. (Why don’t you ask me what  was Manmohan Singh’s  turban color on his 1^st day in office. Better luck.!!!!) Then she tried reminding me that it was a little pink. So what about it…. All sarees are the same pink right..!!!!

She was so pissed off, coz apparently it had three different shades of pink and she had gone great lengths just to get the combination right.  She ended up admiring my super fine observation skills in clothing, esp gal’s and complemented that I was the worst person to ever discuss women’s dressing with….     THANK U.

Probably the wires in the brain which connect dressing sense, color combinations and different shades got unplugged when my biology teacher in HPS used to pull my hair before slapping me for dozing off in  5^th class.  That’s where it all went wrong.

Colognes is an even crookier business. Earlier, went to a cologne store, same shit…different store. Most of the top brands, smell more or less the same. I tried sniffing as much coffee seeds as I could, before I smelt a different cologne, still they all smell the same.  I just smelt plain cardboard on few of the  samples he gave me. Wanted to ask him, if he really sprayed the cologne, but resisted and passed off a random neutral comment to hide my handicap. Just stuck with my same old trusted brands……Armani’s Aqua Di Gio, andThierry Mugler’s Angel Men.

I hope all men are the same with the basic difference that I mention my handicap later, the rest forget to mention it forever……….

Everyone talks the same lingo,

everyone cooks the same recipes, everyone watches the same movies,

everyone adores the same stars, everyone cries for the same daily soaps,

everyone laughs at the same jokes…….and an endless list of similitudes.

She saw my point but her contention was that it is a part of our culture that has been passed on through generations. Her parents did the same for her and she wants to do the same for her kids… Congraaats …!!!! And Thanks..!!!!

Origins: In ancient history, roles were defined and people were classified according to their function, occupation and economic place in society. Brahmins’ were to be the spiritual and temporal guides, teachers and exponents of law; Kshatriya were the warriors, princes and kings – in short, the nobility; Vaishya, took on the tasks of agriculture and merchantry; and Shudra included individuals who performed service communities — manual and agricultural laborers, artisans, masons, etc. It made a lot of sense then, as an artisan’s son was trained to be an artisan like himself and so on. So the caste system remained pretty stable.

Couple of centuries later, everyone wanted to be enlightened through education. This did not happen overnight. Couple of generations went by where they had dreams of being highly educated but could not afford it. Then they dreamed of at least providing good education to their kin and many were quite successful. And a generation later when education seeped in through every hierarchy of society, no kin was even remotely associated to the same profession on which his caste was based on… This is the present generation where every other kin is a software engineer, electrical engineer, electronic engineer or an MBA. None of which existed a 100 years ago. Congraaatss.. !!! no escape..!!! join the bandwagon or even better, sleep through it and wake up after your marriage.

Shackling your kids with the same or not, is your wisdom. Looks more like this story…

A little girl was watching her mother prepare a fish for dinner. Her mother cut the head and tail off the fish and then placed it into an over sized baking pan. The little girl asked her mother why she cut the head and tail off the fish. Her mother thought for a while and then said, “I’ve always done it that way -that’s how grandma did it.”

Not satisfied with the answer, the little girl went to visit her grandma to find out why she cut the head and tail off the fish before baking it. Grandma thought for a while and replied, “I don’t know. My mother always did it that way.” So the little girl and the grandma went to visit great grandma to find ask if she knew the answer.

Great grandma thought for a while and said, “Because my baking pan was too small to fit in the whole fish”.

Explains everything…!!

Coffee..... The most important discovery after the wheel

Flashback….

“He is such a gud person, he never touches tea or coffee.” Heard that over a 598,000 times in the last 25 years.

This is called third person brain wash (This word is copyrighted by me, using it without permission would result in a physical dispute). Third person brain wash is when you don’t directly ask a person to do something but praise a third person who does something and the person you are talking to tries to replicate it. (Basically all of us, including your’s truly always wanted to b a gud boy)

So as expected, my brain was also rinsed and washed that coffee was a bad habit, ranked high up there with smoking and dope.

Never touched it, and secretly prided myself from time to time that I neither touched coffee nor tea. Beamed with a certain hidden pride when anyone offered coffee at their home and dad just said, “ Nah nah nah  he doesn’t drink coffee or tea at all…”  I would imagine them saying to themselves, “ Wow..what a nice boy, wish we had one like this”

Did they think the same, probably no. But I was the hero on the  70 mm screen movie running in my brain.  Welcome to my world..!!!

Engineering…

Engineering night outs before the exam, was sprawled on the floor with books strewn around, in front of the TV, trying to make it till 5:00 am in the morning at any cost. Drank cold coffee all night, with ample TV breaks in between to keep me awake. Would call up friends at 2 in the night, just to make sure they were awake for moral support.

My aim, mission and ambition was to be awake at 5 in the morning at all costs so that dad would see me first thing in the morning, when he would step out for his badminton.  Hoping it would make him think twice and empathize with my “highly visible” relentless hard work when he sees my low scores.

3 Years pass by……..

Enter the world of work life in US…!!

A typical scenario at 8 in the morning on a monday( office starts at 7). I am feeling drowsy by the minute. I am not too many minutes away from falling off the chair in sleep. I drowsily amble over to the black coffee pot across the room and pour myself a peg of coffee. Amble back and sit down, drearily placing the cup on the table. Lean back on the chair, take a deep breath and slowly lift the cup to inhale the strong aroma.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh…!!!!!!    what a feeling…!!

Just the aroma itself kicks my butt. The lazy neurons in my brain start shuffling around like the chefs in a busy kitchen at lunch time. I put my lips to the cup and as the first drop of coffee touches the tongue, I close my eyes just to absorb the complete bliss and feeling the droplet make its way across my throat.

With every sip, I can feel my ears perking up like wolverine. As the second sip wades across, I feel more like Michael Jackson in the “Thriller” song. I can feel the transformation and the never before energy. By the end of the sip, I am all charged up and feel on top of the world more like my childhood god “He-Man”. Just jacked up with adrenaline rush…… ready to run a 100 m sprint..

Woww…!!  What a kick…!!!!!  Just black coffee, no sugar, no cream, just coffee in its purest form, plain black coffee.

It makes a lot more sense to add another important god to hindu mythology, along the lines of  Ganesha – the knowledge giver, namely “Coffee god – the adrenaline giver or the sleep repeller”

Tidbit: My boss drinks his 8^th cup of coffee for the day at 7 am in the morning. Good inspiration…!!!

It’s been 10 weeks since I started Muay Thai – the art of eight limbs (Thai KickBoxing). Started out as a junk time pass. But the whole training soon turned out to be very close to my beliefs. The training place is a garage which was leased out by a boxer. Anyone passionate about Kickboxing of boxing is free to come in and train. The training is almost free with just a nominal charge to cover the rent. Patrick, the trainer is an international level ex-fighter. He trains Muay Thai because it’s his passion and does not expect anything from you.  You are not obligated to go every day. But if you wanna learn, you’ll be there.

Everything in Muay Thai is logical and simple. That is very important to me. Tried learning Karate earlier, but its so much orthodox and theoretical, that it takes almost 4 months just getting your body movements and motions right. Gave up after 2 weeks, because it did not make sense. In Muay Thai, my first class itself involved getting my kicks right and logical stuff to defend myself. I peppered him with questions about every move, defense for every move and he had a logical explanation ready. Hahahaa..as usual, a logical reason always satisfies me.

So the interest is rising by the day. Long way ahead. Was holding pads for a senior guy last week. Each kick was like a bomb delivered crashing into the rib cage. Thanks to the extra cushion pads that I was holding, I was alive at the end of the session. Need to reach his level, according to Patrick, could take me another 6 months or so.

About the Muay Thai scene in Thailand, Muay Thai is their road to money or career. You join a training camp, which is far away from the city and then you live and breathe Muay Thai. Get up at 4:30 in the morning, train for 10 hours with breaks in between. Six days a week with one off day. In 3 months , you’ll develop your body into a lean mean kicking machine. These training camps charge very very nominally and then you factor in the currency conversion.

Patrick said that a 3 month intensive camp would be enough to condition you and ingrain all the movements into your muscle memory. Been trying to figure out ways of how I could squeeze this 3 month time in the next one and a half year before my MBA. I wanna do this even before I apply for my MBA, so that I could brag about it a little in my application.

Its not that I am very aggressive and wanna pickup a fight everytime, but for the silent confidence it gives me in myself, both mentally and physically.  Young years are crucial, wanna do it soon.

Like the line in the song I was listening this morning,

“ But right now, I wanna be all I can be….!!!!”

I have made many dumb mistakes over the years and have several times lied about it.  And know some people who hated me for a long time coz of that.

Then I had instances where I just did not care what they thought and just confessed about what I did wrong,  got whatever I deserved and a week from that everyone forgot about it..

Thanks to all those mistakes,  I understand the advantage of sticking to the truth whole lot better.

Got a whole lot of theories about this, but pretty tired now. Will discuss it later…

A thought provoking anecdote:

One day Solomon decided to humble Benaiah Ben Yehoyada, his most trusted minister. He said to him, “Benaiah, there is a certain ring that I want you to bring to me. I wish to wear it for Sukkot which gives you six months to find it.” “If it exists anywhere on earth, your majesty,” replied Benaiah, “I will find it and bring it to you, but what makes the ring so special?” “It has magic powers,” answered the king. “If a happy man looks at it, he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy.”

Solomon knew that no such ring existed in the world, but he wished to give his minister a little taste of humility.

Spring passed and then summer, and still Benaiah had no idea where he could find the ring. On the night before Sukkot, he decided to take a walk in one of the poorest quarters of Jerusalem .

He passed by a merchant who had begun to set out the day’s wares on a shabby carpet. “Have you by any chance heard of a magic ring that makes the happy wearer forget his joy and the broken-hearted wearer forget his sorrows?” asked Benaiah. He watched the grandfather take a plain gold ring from his carpet and engrave something on it. When Benaiah read the words on the ring, his face broke out in a wide smile.

That night the entire city welcomed in the holiday of Sukkot with great festivity. “Well, my friend,” said Solomon, “have you found what I sent you after?” All the ministers laughed and Solomon himself smiled. To everyone’s surprise, Benaiah held up a small gold ring and declared, “Here it is, your majesty!”

As soon as Solomon read the inscription, the smile vanished from his face. The jeweler had written three Hebrew letters on the gold band: gimel, zayin, yud, which began the words “Gam zeh ya’avor” — “This too shall pass.”

At that moment Solomon realized that all his wisdom and fabulous wealth and tremendous power were but fleeting things, for one day he would be nothing but dust.

Now as you have read this story, just sit silently and evaluate your own life. This too will pass. Think of the moments of joy and victory in your life. Think of the moment of Sorrow and defeat. Are they permanent? They all come and pass away. Life just passes away.

There were friends in past. Thought they were your friends for life. They all have gone.

There are friends today. They too will go.
There will be new friends tomorrow. They too will go.

There were enemies in past. I thought that I would hate them always. They have gone.
There may be enemies in present. They too will go.
There will be new enemies tomorrow and……they too will go.

There is nothing permanent in this world. Every thing changes except the law of change. Think over it from your own perspective. You have seen all the changes. You have survived all setbacks, all defeats and all sorrows. All have passed away. If there are problems in the present, they too will pass away. Because nothing remains forever.

You are just a witness of change. Experience it, understand it.

Everyday for 10-15 minutes sit in silence. Just think over the sentence, “This too will pass.” Pondering over your own life will make you realize the true meaning of this sentence.