Kumar's Blog

Malcolm Gladwell is famous for his '10,000 hours' theory in his book, Outliers.

In order to be successful at your workplace, at sports, at writing, or at anything else, you're often told that you need to put in 10,000 hours, paying your dues. Its not an exact number, of course, but unless you put in a significant amount of effort at getting good, you will not get good. There are no shortcuts. There is no get-rich get-famous overnight formula.

Of late, I see too many people taking this advice at face value. The effort needed to get in and get through a good college is seen as the 10,000 hours that need to be put in to get a high-paying job. As an intern, the effort needed to complete all the tasks assigned, along with coming first to office and leaving last, is seen as the 10,000 hours that need to be put in to convert the internship into a job offer.

When you take the advice at face value, you are not following the advice at all. We all put in our 10,000 hours in something or another. But are we all masters at those things?

10,000 hours is not a checklist item that needs to be ticked off. If you treat it that way, you had better gear up for disappointment as the end product you had in mind while ticking it off will fail to materialize. By treating it as a checklist item, you will keep facing newer 10,000 hours that need to be checked off to reach the next step of the ladder.

10,000 hours is not a checklist item that needs to be ticked off. It is a way of life that you need to embrace. I'm very fond of Morpheus's line in Matrix, 'If you ask, you're not ready to know.' I see this being applicable everywhere in life. The adaptation for this would be 'If you're counting the 10,000 hours you're putting in, you're not counting beyond zero.'

10,000 hours is not a chore. Unless you enjoy those hours that you're putting in, you're not making any progress.

Do you want to lead a life where you're perpetually ticking things off a checklist?

FOMO, short for Fear Of Missing Out, has been prevalent ever since people started living in societies. FOMO is the primary reason why people are affected by peer pressure. If you do not fear missing out on what your peer circle is doing and what they might get out of it, the question of peer pressure doesn't arise at all.

A lot of people pick courses or streams while going to University that the majority picks because they do not want to miss out on opportunities by picking something else. It is common to think that if the majority is picking something, then it ought to be the best choice available.

With social media allowing every single person with an account to broadcast her daily activities to the rest of the world (or to the rest of her peer circle), the fear of missing out on things only amplifies.

If you look at the total number of status updates, tweets, photo uploads or blog posts every minute, it is easy to conclude that people like sharing most of their activities with their peer circle. When you look at everything that is shared knowing about FOMO and the effect it can have on a person's behaviour, you will undoubtedly want your brand to be talked about in these media. You will want your brand to be a part of these daily broadcasts.

When there are enough people talking about your brand, FOMO will ensure that most of those who are not active users of your brand will at least give it a try.

Your social media strategy must be to engage people and get them to talk about your brand. The only way you can get people to remark about your brand is by being remarkable. Stop wasting your time flooding your followers with pretty pictures of your brand. You have plenty of other channels to do that. Do something different on social media. Utilize fully what is on offer.

Be it at work, or at home, you always have some responsibilities on you. It is only natural to do just about enough to either meet or slightly exceed the expectations of someone who is also concerned about these responsibilities. This someone could be your boss, your spouse, your parents, or even yourself. The effort you put into fulfilling the responsibilities will, for most part of the time, be determined by the expectations of this person (or people).

If this person is pushing you to your limits, not by force or intimidation, but by raising the right questions that make you feel you can probably do better to answer them, and is motivating you to do better, your work and your actions will only improve with time.

If this person fails to constantly keep you on your toes and maintain your drive, by setting the bar of expectations too low, you will fall into a pit of lethargy and will have to find another person to bring out the best in you.

This is true of brands as well. If a successful brand is not kept on its toes, by constantly changing and constantly improving, a competing brand is bound to overshadow it in time.

It is important to choose that person who can bring out the best in you (doesn't matter if you're a person or a product). It can be someone in the morning and someone else at night. It can be you all day everyday. And it is just as important to switch from one person to another when things aren't going as good. The hardest part is to tell when things aren't going as good.