Aswath Krishnan

The world always has a lot more skeptics than innovators. *** Skeptics question any change. While blindly accepting the status quo and all its flaws.  They are limited by their own fears, lack of vision, beliefs, and capabilities. They choose the easy path of nay-saying and changing nothing.  Innovators question the status quo.  They see a better way. They are eager to invent and try new things. They are bold, creative, capable, and action-oriented. They are choosing the hard path of solving problems and creating change. *** Every innovator is met with skeptics who try to douse their spirit. If you are trying to be an innovator, surround yourself with other innovators who energize you and help you figure out a way.  Notes:  1. Yes, there are thoughtful skeptics and clueless or evil innovators. 

A friend of mine was baffled that he wasn't getting promoted. He was getting his work done and coming up with good ideas. But people who were less capable seemed to be progressing faster.  "It's just stupid politics and unfairness", he grumbled. When the world doesn't seem to operate according to our expectations, guess where the problem is? Yeah, you got it...the expectations. When your model of the situation, and therefore your expectations, doesn't capture some key variables or dimensions, the course of events will baffle and frustrate you. In my friend's case, his model of the world derived from school where studying hard and doing well on your tests gets you good grades. But in the corporate world, it isn't that one-dimensional or clear-cut. Collaboration, enthusiasm, likability, influence, working on the right things, producing and demonstrating results, etc. matter in both promotions and impact. When things don't go as expected, instead of b...

 The secret to innovation... ...is to tackle a very specific problem. Obsessively, deeply, and excellently.  Given the vastness of human knowledge already, there probably isn't much low-hanging fruit of discovery in most areas (the circle isn't uniform as depicted, so it may be lower in some areas than others). So innovation needs depth.  Specific innovations and deep understandings of specific problems can possibly evolve into broad truths or innovations. But you are less likely to go deep and innovate if you are starting off broad.  Notes 1. There's a valid counterargument that broad knowledge across domains can help spark innovation through a general understanding of the world and by translating ideas from one domain to another. I have a center in the middle to represent a broad understanding. It's possible that 2 or 3 areas of focus might be better than 1, but I doubt 10 areas of focus (is that even focus?) is better than 1.  2. This was inspired by listenin...

I just finished the 23-mile, 5000-foot Enchantments hike in a single day.  Not going to lie - it kicked my ass, especially the relentless climb up Aasgard Pass .  But boy oh boy, it was beautiful to walk by pristine Alpine lakes. Even more significant and long-lasting was the exhilaration of being able to do something so difficult after being non-athletic and flatfooted most of my life. And that made me think... 🕊 The ability to do and enjoy hard things sets you free.   When I was deciding whether to do the hike, one of my friends jokingly said, "Worst case is you will be miserable!" The default human nature is to pursue the path of least resistance and immediate gratification to the local maxima. When you pursue comfort and stability, life has a way of slapping you back into harsh reality. Because stability is an illusion. Life is entropic and always changing.  On the other hand, if you aren't deterred by hard things - things that are high risk and hard to figure ...