Lessons from The Story of a Wise Man and the Boys who Loved To Drum

I would like to tell you a short story. There was once an old wise man who after retiring from his work decided to buy a house in his old village and moved there to live his life in a peaceful setting. All was well until it wasn’t. Once the school started, there were a few boys who used to walk past his home on their way to school. They would drum on the metal garbage bins that were near the window of the wise man’s bedroom. He would find this noise to be too disturbing and wanted the boys […]

#MeToo: Where There is One, There Ought to Be More..

I was reading a book by Max Bazerman “The Power of noticing”. He has a chapter in the book titled “Missing the obvious on a Slippery Slope”. This chapter is based on the results of a study done with Francesca Gino. The Frog, the Boiling Pot of Water & “#MeToo” This is very similar to the story of the frog in a pot of boiling water. If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will jump out immediately. If we put the same frog in a pot of cold water and slowly increase the temperature, the […]

Ancient Wisdom for Modern Life – Qualities of a Good Leader

Of late, I have been reading some of the old Indian texts written by sages and wise men. One such work is a section within the larger epic poem “Mahabharata” called Vidur Puran. This section is a conversation between a distressed king and one of his wise ministers. The king knows that the action he is willing to take is probably not the right action but wants to hear that it is ok from the wise minister. In this wide ranging conversation, the king asks a lot of questions around life and how to lead a life of virtue and […]