Book Review - Lean In - Sheryl Sandberg

I don't know why I passively resisted reading this book but I did. I had heard the TED talk first and for some reason felt the book would be a  list of To-Dos which would never be achievable in the real world. Sounds uncharitable to have jumped to that conclusion. The TED talk is good and the points she mentions are true and yet I put off reading the book ! I am glad I finally read it.

So - what stands out for me in the book ?

1 -- The fact that she admits to having doubts, fear, worry and is not effortlessly confident all the time. It is the kind of vulnerability that I find myself astonished she would admit ! 

That a person like her has self-doubts and is unsure makes me feel - it is okay not to have all the answers. This is what drew me in and what made me continue reading. The book was not formulaic and the candid tone was refreshing.

2 -- The “Tiara Syndrome” !! 

In her own words -  it is where women “expect that if they keep doing their jobs well, someone will notice them and place a tiara on their head.”  Performance in school [ where the Tiara Syndrome is perpetuated I feel ] especially for girls is not always indicative of how well they will do in their careers. Especially the road to the executive office.

3 -- An internal report at Hewlett-Packard revealed that women only apply for open jobs if they think they meet 100 percent of the criteria listed. Men apply if they think they meet 60 percent of the requirements. 

I have seen this and am not surprised by the report but it bears re-iterating.

4 -- The way women leave before they actually leave. 

So many decisions based on "What-if" situations that are years away - be it marriage or children or elder care. The years before having a family are the time to work hard. I think her idea that  professional women measure the cost of child care against their future salary rather than their current salary - would ensure the years leading to family responsibility are not frittered away.

All in all a very good book that I would definitely recommend reading. 

Other snippets that I found informative and worth mentioning are listed below.

• A 2011 McKinsey report noted that men are promoted based on potential, while women are promoted based on past accomplishments.

• Fear is at the root of so many of the barriers that women face. Fear of not being liked. Fear of making the wrong choice. Fear of drawing negative attention. Fear of overreaching. Fear of being judged. Fear of failure. And the holy trinity of fear: the fear of being a bad mother/wife/daughter.

• Women, feel fraudulent when they are praised for their accomplishments. Instead of feeling worthy of recognition, they feel undeserving and guilty, as if a mistake has been made. Despite being high achievers, even experts in their fields, women can’t seem to shake the sense that it is only a matter of time until they are found out for who they really are—impostors with limited skills or abilities.

• We consistently underestimate ourselves.

• When a woman fails, she is more likely to believe it is due to an inherent lack of ability.

• Career progression often depends upon taking risks and advocating for oneself—traits that girls are discouraged from exhibiting.

• Success and likeability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women.

• He said that when you want to change things, you can’t please everyone. If you do please everyone, you aren’t making enough progress. Mark was right.

• I realized that searching for a mentor has become the professional equivalent of waiting for Prince Charming !!! LOL ..

• I don’t know any woman who feels comfortable with all her decisions.

• Like me, most of the women I know do a great job worrying that we don’t measure up.

• Every job will demand some sacrifice. The key is to avoid unnecessary sacrifice.

• A task "Done is better than perfect".

• The right question is not “Can I do it all?” but “Can I do what’s most important for me and my family?”

And lastly ...

If society truly valued the work of caring for children, companies and institutions would find ways to reduce these steep penalties and help parents combine career and family responsibilities.

Key Learnings from - How Children Succeed - Paul Tough

I have made a ppt of the key notes ( if that is what you prefer to read ) from this book which can be found at this link -
How children succeed - Key Learnings.

I personally feel that much of the wisdom distilled in this book is common sense. However .... to quote
 "If common sense were all that common - we would all have it !!! "    :)

And so ... here goes ....

First of all - I expected the book to be a sort of manual on - How to 'make' children succeed ! The author in his wisdom - shared only details of how children succeed but not any specific tools ! :) My bad ! :)

Anywayz ..... I finished as fast as I could - I was so eager to read it since I had heard of it - in June 2013. I tend to be a slow reader where non-fiction is concerned. I write up the notes ( okay now I highlight ! ;) ) , re-read sections and in general seem to make a study of the book rather than reading. [ And yet - not all points remain in mind ;) ]

Most of the things that I felt were note-worthy in this book are based on two premises

• Good parenting has an effect that is not just emotional but also physiological. It literally alters brain patterns – especially in early childhood.

• Character matters. It is not just the IQ but EQ. 

Let me first focus on parental behaviour and nurturing.

• "The effect of good parenting is not just emotional or psychological, the neuroscientists say; it is biochemical". 

Long ago I had learnt that there were no perfect parenting models. I cannot recall where exactly I read this but what impressed me most about that message was that it asked parents not to worry that they were not perfect. That many parenting-mistakes-or-lapses could all be overcome with demonstrative love towards the children. It was a measure of reassurance.

This book reiterates the same albeit with more drastic evidence. It says that hardships create changes in the physiology of the child.

"Adversity during childhood can cause changes in the prefrontal cortex which is the center of self-regulatory activities. This kind of damage can last a lifetime - making it difficult for children to concentrate and to handle emotional disappointments."

And yet .... Even this kind of impairment can be alleviated with high quality mothering. Warm nurturing can act as a buffer against the biochemical damages stress can inflict on a child. Amazing I thought !!!

So .... although you may like showing flash cards, don't forget to be more attentive towards your children. Listen to them, respond to their emotional needs, comfort them, hug them, talk to them.

Paying full attention when the child is speaking or during a game of Jenga can make profound difference for a child's future prospects. It makes them more self-reliant and creates a "secure base" from which they can explore the world.

• "Under-parenting is harmful but so is over-parenting."

While under-pareting clearly creates stress which is not conducive to success in general - over-parenting is not good either.

Over-parenting is where where "Academic achievements are elevated above emotional needs".

In over-parenting - The child depends on external affirmation for success to such an extent that when unexpected challenges come in life - He / She does not have any internal resources to overcome them and hence can crumble at the first hurdle.



Now on to - Character development

What is character ? A succicnt definition by the author - "Character is created by encountering and overcoming failure"

After the age of 8 – IQ is not easy to manipulate. However character strengths – like grit, self-control, conscientiousness are better indicators of children who will prosper in life.

Mentioned below are some of the traits that are part of a character that can work towards success -

• Ability to manage failure

Rich children tend to be insulated from suffering while poor kids face nothing but challenges. Instead every child should have child-sized adversity which they can overcome without help.

• Ability to do mental contrasting.

This trait reminds me of the Scout Motto - "Hope for the best but be prepared for the worst" To some extent this is what mental contrasting is about.

It means concentrating on a positive result while being aware of all the obstacles on the way. This helps - first of all to formulate alternate strategies and then to choose wisely amongst the choices.

• Optimism

An optimist does not remain down for long. After a setback an optimist will pick himself/herself up with a short term explanation for the bad event. They do not end up under a cloud of "Why me ? " or "I am always unlucky".

• Self-control and Flexibility

"Self control is ability to inhibit an instinctive or habitual response and substitute for a better less obvious one."

I am presuming that most parents by now would have heard of the famous Marshmallow test by Walter Mischel. It emphasized delayed gratification.

Delayed gratification which is mainly about self- control and flexibility hinges on -

1. An ability to think outside the box. [ Some of the children imagined the bar of chocolate to be something else. ] 
2. Ability to handle unfamiliar situations.

• Grit

It is the ability to persist. Stressed out children find it difficult to sustain efforts towards a particular goal since they tend to be overwhelmed with negative feelings.


Point by point some of the best ways to equip a child to be successful is -

1. Ensure he / she is protected from chronic stress especially in childhood.
2. Have a secure relationship with the child - ideally both parents.
3. Discipline - there has to be someone to say 'No' - so the child can know limits.
4. Allow the child to fall down and get up without help. The idea is for the child to learn to “manage failure”.
5. Do not over over-criticize.
6. Minimal after-school adult supervision is detrimental.
7. Do not burden the child with excessive achievement pressure.

To conclude

 "There are no short-cuts to success in raising children " ! 

Good luck !

I took CS50(x)

So ..... I took up CS50x .. a Harvard course free on edx.org. I have finished all Problem Sets and all Quizzes. Additionally did a small project towards the course completion. Today I am waiting for April 15th 2013 ...... the day after which I should get an honor certificate from Harvard ! :)

Now - I have worked in the IT field so why would I take up an introductory course in computer science ? Well - how about 'Just like that' ? Yes and then - I was intrigued and honestly wanted a certificate from an Ivy league institution. That I would get one for free was like icing on the cake.

David Malan - the course instructor

We all have dreams - some fulfilled and some not. If I had had my own way - I would be teaching in Harvard / Stanford / MIT / LSE / Princeton / IIM / Cambridge - after I had completed my doctorate and an MBA of course. :) Strangely enough the IITs were never in my dreams. At least this was one of my dreams ! :)

I am not sure how much value the honor certificate has and to me it does not matter now.  I had fun doing the course and while I did not expect it when I signed up - I felt like I was in a live class at Harvard. Definitely a bonus !

I have learnt C eons ago and it was like going back to college ! Sorting algorithms - bubble sort ( God thought I had left that behind me! ), malloc, pointers ! :) I struggled .... especially in the memory management zone.

Pointer logic / Sorting algorithms were demonstrated with students

My curiosity first led me to MITs 6.00x ( especially after the 6.002x ) - but I  dropped it midway.  These were the only 2 courses that I tried and I preferred the Harvard course.

For my project while I first had another in mind - I ended up doing something that was much simpler. I struggled;
not because of the project requirements itself but because suddenly everything seemed to fall apart. My laptop's hard drive started emitting a strange whining sound - which I thought was a sign of an imminent hard drive crash and it became very very very slow !!!

I had to use another laptop - install everything again. I decided to do a mini Android app and this environment is not part of the CS50 appliance. The ADT ( Android Development Tool ) is tedious. There must a lighter version somewhere but I did not have too much time to explore so I went with the one provided by google.

And then the second laptop did not have audio !! LOL .. so while I did the video editing there with my app - I recorded the audio on my mobile and integrated it with the video and cross-checked on my first laptop !

And now of course - since all submissions are over - the whining hard drive sound has stopped on my comp !! Really !!!!! :)

Tommy and Rob - two teaching fellows for CS50

Anyway here's the link to my project submission - http://youtu.be/sGWY8kxvqfc. It has to be within 2 minutes.

All in all - I had fun ...... Now looking to see if I can deploy this small app in the real world. The php page is after all written inside the CS50 appliance which will not be available to the outside world.

Lessons learnt from changing my blogger template .. :)

I changed my blogger template and it proved to be an exercise in frustration. I keep coming across these wonderful websites and it tempted me to change mine. :) Plus I went an extra step and thought "Hey ...let me make my own blogger template too !" Talk about delusions of grandeur !! :)

The previous look of my blog and the current look.

I have no idea how folks actually make a blogger template a day - but I went from trying to make a flamboyant vector transparency blog template to customizing a template in which I would settle for getting the search button icon aligned with my textbox !! You would think that this would be a no-brainer ! But no the textbox and search button icon don't align themselves horizontally without some tweaks ! :) Ofcourse I was always slow at front-end coding but .... :)

So here are my lessons ....

1. First if you can get away with not changing your blogger template - do so !!! :) Ha ha ha but yeah this hardly makes sense if you want your blog to look unique
2. Don't start to create a blogger template from scratch - it is easier(???) to customize an existing one. Unless ofcourse you enjoy CSS and those pixel alignments ! :))
3. There are hundreds of readily available navigation codes on the net - can use them. ( I have not used any - have kept it simple )
4. If possible search for a template that you can use without requiring any tweaks other than just adding your widgets
5. The holy grail of blogger template change - backup your existing template !!!
6. Just as an additional step - backup your blog posts too
7. Note any specific HTML scripts that you have put in your blog template that is not part of the widgets
• SEO type meta tags
• Google Analytics code etc
8. Contemplate using a test blog if you want to first check how your website will look before making any permanent changes [Create a test blog]. You can use this test blog to even try out new widgets/script that you plan to add.
9. Can use this link to keep your widgets safe. I found it did the trick
10. Upload the new template
11. Reposition the widgets
12. Add the HTML/javascripts that were not part of the widgets
13. Add any other new widgets / scripts that you want
14. Keep your fingers crossed ..... and check how your blog looks after the changes! :)

Enjoy ! :)

Learnings from "Don't sweat the small stuff" by Richard Carlson

Learning's from "Don't sweat the small stuff" .... I was not very keen to read this book .. I thought it was one of those books that gives a one-solution-fits-all-problems kind of book ... but .. it was lying on my bookshelf and I thought it would most likely be an easy read too .. and surely a book that was popular would have some things that I could learn from ? :) So here goes ...

1. Many people live as if life were a dress rehearsal for some later date ! The idea is to be what you want to be NOW ....

2. Imagine everyone in life is here to teach you something .. you are to consider they are more enlightened than you ... so you will be receptive to learning from everyone and not prejudiced to learn only from a select few.

3. Create "patience practice periods" - you can start with as little as 5 minutes and you are on your way to being a more patient person.

4. Realize "Life is not fair" - reminds me of the famous start line "Life is difficult" from the book "The Road less travelled " by Scott Peck. ( Now that book is a must read in my opinion ! :) )

5. Allow yourself to be bored. Feelings of boredom will be replaced with feelings of peace. You'll learn to relax. We seem to be frightened at the thought of not having something to do even for a minute !

6. Lower your tolerance to stress - people seem to be proud of having the ability to cope with more stress ! The author feels that when one lowers one's tolerance to stress , one tries to find different methods to achieve more with less wear and tear on self and without losing what is important in terms of relationships , health , spiritual growth.

7. When you die - your inbox will not be empty ! So don't be hell-bent on completing everything before live life to the fullest at the moment !

8. Set aside quiet time every day. Schedule time for inner work.

9. LISTEN !! We often treat communication as if it were a race.

10. Choose your battles wisely.

11. Expect disapproval from others, then you will not go on defensive when you hear criticism.

12. Proving yourself in a dangerous trap. If you argue for your limitations they will always remain yours.

13. Resist the urge to criticize b'cos it says nothing about that person ; it merely says something about your need to be critical.

14. When someone criticizes you - merely agreeing with them can diffuse the situation and open your eyes to their inputs - so you can improve yourself.

15. Think of what you have instead of what you want.

16. There is no better time to be happy than now.

Learnings from "The Seven Spiritual Laws of Succes"' by Deepak Chopra

I felt that while the book is not as inspiring as it could be given the title - nevertheless - profound wisdom can come in simple terms. This is what I gleaned from the book. I would not consider it a must read book though.

1. The author differentiates between self-referral and object-referral. Object referral is being defined by and influenced by external things like situations, people, things , seeking of approval from others. In object referral our thinking is in anticipation of a response and is fear based. Self-reference refers to our internal reference which is our spirit and not the objects of our experience.

2. Power based on object referral is a fable ; being ego based it lasts as long as the object of reference is there - be it a title of corporation, money , status etc.

3. Most of our energy goes into upholding our importance.

4. If you observe people around you - 99% spend their time defending themselves.


5. Chasing symbols ( cars, bank notes, clothes etc) is like settling for the map instead of the territory. It creates anxiety , makes you feel hollow and empty inside.


6. The search for security is an attachment to the known.