Clay Christensen and John Wooden - my 2 favorite thought leaders

Clay Christensen's death last week made me think about my other favorite person John Wooden.

I haven't met with these folks and I dont even know anything other than what I have watched on youtube and the few pages I read from Innovator's dilemma.

I haven't read John Wooden books yet.

Clay Christensen talks about Job to be done - We need to understand every business and the job it helps to get 'done'.

The big idea being disruption. The disruption that extends product or service to non customers .
John Wooden talks about success pyramid. I dont recall much of his videos that I gathered . . Will update once I have a refresher.

Clay Christensen made me think about how humble he looked ,how confident he spoke and how funny he delivered his speeches.

He has a way to explain complex stuff and made me feel part of Harvard even though I am not.

https://youtu.be/tvos4nORf_Y

Clayton Christensen - "Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people."

Listen to his talk and you will know why he worked with intel , pentagon and many in Silicon Valley use ‘disruptive’ term thanks to clay Christensen

Blog Post 114 - 2 Original ideas - Frameworks

When you go to a doctor's office the question you should expect is "Who are you?"

If you hear "How are you?" - it may means you are a sick person!!! - literally .. so many visits make you friends with the doctor!!!

Stay away from Doctor's if you want to be healthy. An apple a day keeps the doctor away?! What will a Dell or Lenova do - keep the hospital away? - ha ha

Seriously, avoid going to doctor's unless necessary . Doctors ,Dentist and Lawyers practice.. note the word practice. Priests pray - so go to temples,mosques, churches - any place of workship of mediation - physical or mental wellness.

Now to the 3 frameworks

1. Past Present and Future
2 Busy work and Creative work

Any situation you face has 3 parts of it
1. Past - We want to ensure we understand what happened in the past objectively and clearly
2. Present - What can we do now
3.Future - What should we expect out of this for future? Repeat ? Prevent?

Here is an example
Child broke a glass jar - make it adult broke a glass jar
1. Past - What made this happen? Jar came close to the human, human went close to jar, their interaction was not expected or was it expected but ended up bad (Needed to handle the jar but didnt expect it to be Hot !)
2.Present - So what do you do now? Clean up? Shout? Shout and clean? Vaccum? Add flour to glass pieces to mix and sweep? Google or youtube on how to clean glass pieces? Run away and come back? Ask everyone to leave the site ?
3. Future  - Should you ask the person who broke it to be careful? Was it the jar's fault? How do you know?

This framework helps me sort through thousands of things in life and work.

Practice and tell me what you think

The next idea is that of Busy work vs Creative work

Think about every work that you work on.. Is this busy work - checking off boxes..things that have to be done? Will this work matter in 10 years?

How about creativity?

Blog Post 113 - My Gift to a friend's daughter - 4 ideas

Here are the 4 Ideas that I consider part of my worldly wisdom collection

1.Always give - Not take                                                                                                                             Give opportunity to people
                          Give  money
                          Give time
                          Give Ideas/Suggestions

2.Do - not Talk about ideas . Commit and do .

3.Live and die alone - Do what you should!!!

4.Always remember the proverb - ‘this too shall pass’

Principle 1 - Always Give not take. Adam Grant wrote a book recently Give and Take

Are you a giver or taker ?

We always like to take - Is that true?Given an opportunity always look for what you can give. It makes you feel good . It makes you feel you have 'More'.

Most people need a gratitude log and practice writing 3 things they are thankful for in the book - after dinner or before you go to 'bed' .

Most people need a gratitude log and practice writing 3 things they are thankful for in the book - after dinner or before you go to 'bed' .

You can always give a small gift - atleast your time and your human labor - help a friend move,offer to take care of their kid...do something with your body and mind (if you dont have money to give )

Kids - you can also give opportunities - give adults an opportunity to teach you,Adults - give opportunities to teach you - yes I mean it!!

2. Do - not Talk about ideas . Commit and do .

Ideas are easy to create difficult to execute. It is very easy to commit and do 1 thing at a time. It also start with commitment. First commit. Then do. Don't talk!!!

Everyone generates ideas as fast as they can breathe- How many breaths do you take per day?

(From http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/LK/20100112/News/605199447/SH/)

In average, a person at rest takes about 16 breaths per minute. This means we breathe about 960 breaths an hour, 23,040 breaths a day, 8,409,600 a year. Unless we get a lot of exercise. The person who lives to 80 will take about 672,768,000 breaths in a lifetime

3. Live and die alone - Do what you should!!!

You can alone. You came to do certain thing.Wake up and question why you exist!! Yes and I mean it. Family is good . Society is great but you are not Family or Society. You are you.. Be you.


Story from Valmiki answers the deeper meaning (From https://kids.baps.org/storytime/valmikirishi.htm)..Understand Valmiki is not a bad guy..He wrote one of the greatest epics - Ramayana - by understanding you are not part of family - you are important to your family but you are you.

During Treta Yug, a time thousands of years ago, a man named Ratnakar lived in the forests along the banks of the holy river Ganga. Ratnakar was a cruel hunter and a fearless thief. Everyone was afraid of Ratnakar! When he walked in the forest, even the birds would fly to their nests, and the animals would look for a place to hide. 
One day, Ratnakar was hiding by the side of a forest pathway, waiting for a victim. Along came the great sage Naradji, who was walking peacefully, admiring the beauty of the forest and singing kirtans in praise of God. 
Ratnakar jumped out in front of him and demanded, "Hand over all you have or else!"
With love flowing from his eyes, Naradji said smilingly, "My dear man, all that I have are these rags I wear. If you want them, you may take them!"  Naradji's fearlessness surprised Ratnakar. As Ratnakar gazed in Naradji's eyes, his cruel mind melted.
Naradji saw this transformation and lovingly explained to Ratnakar how stealing and killing animals was very sinful. He reminded Ratnakar that although his family was eager to share the fruits of his bad actions, they would not share his sins.
   Upon this realisation, Ratnakar fell to Naradji's feet and asked for forgiveness.  Naradji taught him to recite the sacred name of Ram. Ratnakar sat down in the forest and continued chanting with closed eyes. His concentration was so deep that he remained in meditation for years.  In fact, he sat there so long in meditation that an anthill grew all around and above him! 
One day Naradji came that way and carefully cleared away the anthill. With a kind smile, Naradji declared Ratnakar a sage, "As you are now reborn from a 'Val-mika' (ant-hill), from now you'll be known as Valmiki."
With tears of joy in his eyes, the sage Valmiki began his new life. He built an ashram near the river Ganga that provided refuge to Sitaji, wife of Shri Bhagwan  Ram.  It was at this ashram that Valmiki rishi composed the Ramayan!

4. Always remember the proverb - ‘this too shall pass’

Things sometimes are great. Sometimes times are tough. We all need to be 'observers'

Life is not constant - we know that. Good things happen.Bad things happen.

From Wikipedia

Its origin has been traced to the works of Persian Sufi poets, such as Sanai and Attar of Nishapur.^[3] Attar records the fable of a powerful king who asks assembled wise men to create a ring that will make him happy when he is sad. After deliberation the sages hand him a simple ring with the words "This too will pass" etched on it, which has the desired effect to make him happy when he is sad. It also, however, became a curse for whenever he is happy.

Give ,Do,Alone,Transient - that is the core Message I have gathered so far in my life

Keep learning

Siva

Blog Post 112 - Peru - Traveler's guide

Peru 

Inspiration 1 for visiting Peru

As a south indian (ex) Rajni Fan (Due to the last  few movies including Kaala ) .. and as a Shankar Big Budget movie Fan Kilimajaro song made with some awkward sound with Brazilian models in Machu Pichu is the first thing that comes to most people's mind about Peru including Me

Inspiration 2 

My son did a project about Machu  Picchu few years ago as part of Talented and Gifted Program. I learnt lots of useless stuff with him  and didnt even know what the big deal was and where people from Machu Picchu vanished.

His Project  did remind me that I need to learn something important about this place but left many many questions than answers

Inspiration 3 

Books- I don't know anything about Geography Kenneth Davis - Amazon link 

Jared Diamond's Book Guns Germs and Steel -  Amazon link

Yuval Harari's Sapiens Amazon link

These 3 books  keep referring to these civilization's downfall in a very similar way.. sad ..pathetic and totally unexpected (for them not for Spaniards)

Kenneth Davis Book started me off in this journey first..
Here is what I gathered Jared Diamond - Latitude helps .. horizontal lines.. and people and communication in horizontal lines communicate and collaborate.. Latitude Hurts .. Aztecs didn't talk to Mayans..Mayans didn't talk to Incas (my favorite so far..Peru!!).

Blog Post #111 - Ab urbe condita , anno Domini, Gym,Superbowl Numbers and who is Pope Gregory XIII

Ab urbe condita - from the founding of the city (i.e. Rome, traditionally dated to 753 BC): used by some Ancient Roman historians to identify particular Roman years.


It all started in Italy,

What is AD ?

Common Era; Christians use AD for Anno Domini, "year of our Lord"

BC - Before Christ

AD is not After Christ.. and there is lot of confusion in terms of dates as to when  Jesus was born

“That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Philippians 2:10–11 

Birth,Death and resurrection are major events which made us get to this notation of everything before Christ in terms of human civilization and everything after.

While Jesus was born in Nazareth and Major events of his life including resurrection happened  in Asia .. Italy took the lead in establishing Vatican city as a major christian center.

Isn't that interesting?

Every major religion on earth today is from Asia

Think about it..

Christianity , Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism,Jainism which covers 90% of our 7 billion popoulation (if you do the math you should get....try it..)

When you read a line such as 

"Poompuhar - It served as a great port before 2 B.C. Ships from Tamralipati (West Bengal), Palur (Orissa ) used to visit Kaveripoompattinam before they set sail to South Asian Countries, Arabia and Rome" 

in Quora.com (thanks to my Nephew I am a great fan of Quora) we understand humans - Homo sapiens have existed for 200,000 years and lots of stuff has been happening before Jesus of Nazareth  came along.

So even though it feels like 2017 it is 202,017 .. (That is a lot of zeros!)

Last week when I was in Gym (come on.. this year this was the first time I went to Gym in last 2 months and yes it is a new year and new year resolution et all) I saw a guy walk up to weighing machine after 30min - 1 hour of exercise to find out how much weight he lost.

This is the part I love about Gym

While we all work actively to 'put on' some weight .. losing it is not as simple as losing money while shopping in a mall.. It takes a 'looooooooong time' but guess what we all love to see 'Instant Karma' in action.

Run/walk 30min check if you lost 2 pounds...eat 2 chips bags and check again...

We are very simple minded Home Sapiens

It is always nice to see this phenomenon in action which you would miss if you run  outside .

So lesson for everyone go to Gym and make fun of other guys who want to lose weight soon and don't worry about making fun of you (some else will be doing it for me.. i double checked the weight I lost after 30 min )

Now who is pope Gregory  XIII (notice roman  numbers..)

XIII -= ? 13

Rome is in Italy .

Vatican City is inside Rome.

Naples gave us Pizza(yay!!)

Rome gets to give us Numbers.

Vatican gave us Calendar.. What?? Really?

Let's do a fun math exercise

This shortcut I write works for 2017 and not anything  else

Jan -0

Feb - 3

Mar- 3

Apr- 6

May-1

June -4

July- 6

Aug-2

Sep-5

Oct- 0

Nov-3

Dec-5

Let's find what day is Feb  5 2017 - Superbowl LI (=51 ) day

Feb  code(from above) =3

Day = 5

Ignore year

3+5=8

Divide by 7 = 8/7 Remainder =1

1 - Sunday

2-Monday

3- Tuesday

4- Wednesday

5- Thursday

6- Friday

0 or 7 - Saturday

Try Finding what day of week is May 22 (my birthday)

Why is Pope Gregory important?

Pope Gregory wanted all Christians to celebrate Easter on the same day

Why Easter and not Christmas?

Easter is the major catholic holiday which celebrates resurrection of Jesus . Every human is born and dies. No human resurrects from death.  

Calendar reform commission in 157 decided to use Aloysius Lilius's proposal. 

So if you are wondering who created or who is the first author of the new calendar/Gregorian calendar it is Aloysius Lilius

We use Hindu Arab  numerals today with 0 used as a placement value(Whatever that means)

In  the meantime let's learn super bowl numbers (and old fashioned analog clock numbers) also called Roman numbers

I	Denotes 1, II -2 , III - 3 and so on
V	5. IV is 4 and not IIII 9 is .. wait for it..
X	X means 10.  9 is IX
L	50 . XL  - 40 LX - 60 .. you got it Buddy!!
C	C stands for centum, we used it today as Century for 100 . CCCLXIX is 369.
D	D stands for 500. As you can probably guess by this time, CD means 400. So CDXLVIII is 448. (See why we switched systems?)
M	M is 1,000. MMDCCLI.

Good.. Now tell me what is LI

Yes 51.. You got it...Go Cowboys!!!

Try these for home learning/home work

Happy new year

Keep Learning

Siva

Blog Post #110 - Equity and Equality, Maps ,Big Data and God

I have been reading a lot of books lately. I will quote 2 today.

MapHead- http://www.amazon.com/Maphead-Charting-Weird-World-Geography/dp/1439167184

this book has made me think a lot of Maps and Geography.

The usual understanding - Geography = maps + country/capitals is not correct according to this book.

Cartography  is the art of making maps. I didn't know that! ( you did . .I know .I know..)

The olden hand- drawn maps sells for Thousands for $$ while the Google Maps and Waze( I love this app - Google owns them now!) helps us navigate the complex world -made complicated by  us and our greed/need.

There are some weird folks who visit all tallest points in the country which are not man-made and other crazy folks who visit every starbucks and every McDonalds. I am not kidding.

The last time I had a $10 coupon to spend in Kohls - buy $50 and get $10 off on your next visit kind of stuff.. my car was in more than 5 kohls in the next few hours trying to find the 'right' item to buy other than socks.



Who said spending money is easy?

If Geography is not maps then is it country,state name and countries? May be..

When you are in the mall you are using geography imagining you at the star - you are here  and the rest room is in the far right corner.. atleast 15min away..yes you are never close to what you are looking for - atleast in a mall!

Every interesting fiction movie and books worth their salt(salt = salary!) must contain a map. The protagonist(Why not say the word Hero which is more simpler!) pulls the map and is looking for the next place to go...finally landing in a place in the map where he needs to go (remember - she was already taken by bad guys and kept in the jail or in the bad guy's palace refusing to eat..and crying) ...

In the 16th or 17th century people looked at maps and filled it ..named it.. Today our kids color it.. we need to go to Mars fast..

Now lets go to the social theme of Equity and Equality.

The ships that sailed from Spain and all colonist powers were going after 'plundering' the resources of the people they colonized.

Should everyone in the ship take the wealth equally or in proportion to  their  rank?

This is the basic question that is raised even today. Walmart makes millions in profit. The CEO  must get the largest share and the cashier in Walmart the lowest share of profit. This is Equity in proportion to contribution.


When we are kids - all kids must get the same number of candies must once we grow up one kid should get more than the other based on talent.

Candies are substituted by Money and we believe money should be shared based on the contribution in a capitalistic society.

In a communist society according to Karl Marx everyone has to have the same wealth - I don't know any communist nation that exists today.I will leave it at that.. cos most of them are ruled by a single person and that person gets more than everyone else.Is it then equally shared?

This topic was discussed in detail in the book 'I havent written it' yet - just kidding... once I write a book I will include this.

Let's continue with my favorite economist (other than Daniel Kahneman) Dan Ariely. to digress..




Dan Ariely discusses about how we perceive locksmith and their job. Unless you are in America or one of those high end countries (notice I defer from using the work Developed ,Developing and UnderDeveloped) you may not know the locksmith typically can charge upto $200 to open your locked door(and ofcourse when you lost your keys .. otherwise it may be considered theft or breakin!)

Assume for a minute you lost your home keys and wait for a locksmith. A young locksmith comes and struggles for 110 mins(close to 2 hours!) and finally opens the door, Most people will give him his $200 and sometimes a small tip of $5 or $10 as they feel he worked hard to earn this.

Now assume there is another locksmith who comes to your house and opens the door in 5min.
How will you feel to pay him his $200?

Hard work is important. Smart working is more important. You have to be smart to show off to other people that you are working hard.

Understood?

Next time when you hear someone in office complaining how hard they work do understand that they might be playing this part of experienced locksmith who wants to justify his/her $200. (So don't be fooled and if you are one complaining use swearing words to make it sound realistic!)



Now to Vantage points..


Take a piece of paper and draw a coffee cup/mug


I know you are lazy and in your mind you mind have drawn one of these without your artistic ability (which I know will be bad and that is why you didnt draw.. most of us are ashamed of our drawing )







I went to son's school and since I am involved in starting a new chess club I asked 2nd graders to do this experiment except that I asked them to draw a bucket!

What's the point?

The point being- Why didn't you draw  any of the following? Did you draw any of the following?





The Vantage point that we look at for coffee mug is always the side way image - the one we face and not the top or bottoms



Now lets move to the basic measure of life - money and power.

'How will you measure your life' - by Clay Christensen is a must Read book for people who like Analytics and Big Data.


Read this article first - http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/7007.html

which explains the concept of 100 Percent Of The Time Is Easier Than 98 Percent Of The Time

It is important that in life we follow certain values and stand by them all the time. Anytime we find ourselves giving an excuse - that is a bad starting point for a lot of stuff.

Here is the key takeaway .. about Big Data and God

According to Clay (once you read a book you can call the author as though you know him on a first name basis.. try it.. when you refer this blog to someone mention Siva said that Clay said...) God will not aggregate at the individual achievement level but at the individual level .

God is always a He.in most of my books so stay with me..( I dont want to be politically correct cos I am not in Politics!)

God will ask you about not much you made (  an aggregate of data about your wealth), not what was your position (A Board member, President,CEO ,VP ,Director are aggregate data of your achievement in terms of your work sucess ) but he will ask you this

" I put you in such and such situation.  What did you do with the talent I gave you to help another human or make that situation better'

Why did I use Big data - Because everyone wants to talk about Big Data , IoT - Internet of Things.. so why not use the same analogy to bring god's infinite memory in context of Big Data. God doesn't have storage or memory problems as far as I can image... so  You better have a good answer when  you meet him about what you did with your talents cos that might determine where you land - not on your job but in Heaven or Hell.. Hope to see you in heaven.

Keep Helping
Sivakumar Manikanteswaran

Blog Post #109 - Life ,Death and everything in between - Happy birthday to me - 40+ club here I come!

Wow

40

I remember 40 is important for the following reasons - 

Jesus fasted for 40 days (Lent), 
Moses stayed with god for 40 days, 
Women carry new born in womb for 40weeks , 
Noah's Arc story talks about 40 days rain, 
Muhammad praying and fasting in the cave for 40 days
In Hinduism a Mandalam is 40 days including Ayappa Viradam which consists of 40days (which I practiced last year)

and

 40 is the only number whose letters are in alphabetical order.(FORTY!)


So there you go - Order, religion and all things pointing to old age.

Siva (me) officially becomes Uncle Siva (not uncle Sam!)

I thought I will write this post to talk about Life,Death and everything in between(at least till 40 years)

This is an intellectual post and lots of philosophy and spirituality which people with heart conditions,pregnant women  , young kids and all light hearted people should not read.   As usual close this browser go find some other entertaining stuff (and don't forge to wish me happy birthday)

If you are still reading let's start.

4 Times in my life I was in the verge of death and we will start with those 3. Before that - let me thank everyone who  wished me in WhatsApp,Facebook,Outlook,Linked In and in iphone messages. I didnt get any tweets,phone calls and in person visit yet (as of May 22 2015 11:14am!)

4 Times - Once when I was a little boy(5-6 years old), when I was 10-, once when I was 24 years old and once when I was 26 years old.


I will start with the first one 



When I was very young - 6-8 year old we traveled in a hired car  from TVS group . We met with an accident.

 My sisters and everyone was hurt and I do recall the hospital where we went. My mom kept telling me between the time we met the accident and we went to the hospital I was literally thrown out  of the car and was in the riverbanks lying closer to the water. 




I wasn't thrown into the river which might have got me drowned and dead which didn't happen. Neither was I hit by another car or on to a tree. Another bus or car stopped and people in that car/bus helped all of us to get to the hospital.
So I know I was saved once.




I was 10-11 and was walking from my school to my sisters school and it was raining heavily.  There was a man hole open and I fell into in holding an umbrella like this





and I ended up like this man




Luckily the wind was pushing the umbrella up and 10-11 year old is not heavy.
My life was spared and my parents decided to move me out of the school . Did you know I moved to 6 schools in 15 years  - roughly 2 years in each school except in one school Vivekanda where I studied 4 years.

1. In trichy - K
2. In ETPS(Ennore Thermal Power Station) - 1-2
3. In Hold Trinity (where I feel in manhole) - 3-4
4. In Nehru Nursery (when it rained the school was closed - 5-6
5. Vivenkanda Vidyala Tiruvottiyur  - 7-10
6. Santhome Higher Secondary School - 11-12

It was the 1998 and I was 5-6 months old to this country (USA) . I had arrived from India and was looking forward to meeting my cousin in Houston. After waking up early 5 or 6 am when I usually wake up only at 10am on weekends, I make a mistake of driving (which I was new and was driving only for 6-7 days ) . While on my way, I remember taking an exit and the next thing I see is a gas pump. I hit a gas pump




I saw the pump and not anything else. The next thing I realized was the airbags and my glass had flown away from my eyes . (I was still wearing glasses till I changed to contacts to 2004). I was worried about glasses and my passport which was in the glove box. I have been wearing glasses from the time I was in my 7th standard(grade) - 11-12 years old. I had low power (close to 3.25  in both my years) but never removed my glasses. So the feeling of not having glasses was more devastating than the accident. 

A man with Tattoo and Bike ( you guessed it Tattoo man always accompany bikes) yelled at me in all the bad words that came to his mind. I already had an issue understanding American accent now I have a south weekend warrior with Tattoo yelling at the top of his voice filled with profanity  . Now why should he yell at me? Wasn't I the one involved in the accident ? 

Later did I find that he skipped the pump I hit and moved to the next one as there was some issue and as soon as he moved (1-2min later ) I hit the exact pump he moved away from. I would have killed him.

Why did I meet with an accident? Sleep deprivation . I am not used to waking up early and didn't have enough rest.

Lesson to be learnt - sleep well .Never compromise on sleep!

I went and spoke to the gas station owner - a Desi(Indian) Patel ( I assume) who promptly used the emergency switch off and called the cop.

This Tattoo man was my savior - by the  time the Police officer showed up (and don't forget I had a problem understanding American accent which included African American , Southern, Tattooed weekend bike warriors and all other accents that were not Indian/Victorian ).

Let's digress - British left India and all its colonies including Egypt with Victorian accent when Queen Victoria ruled us(Long live the Queen!)

The British went back and retained/created an accent better known as British accent.  British accent is not Victorian Colonial accent.

When I went to London I realized colonial people cannot communicate with British colonial rulers even though they all speak English! Gordon Brown doesn't talk like Sivakumar Manikanteswaran!

Let's back to the accident. Now the Tattoo warrior explained/clarified and helped me communicate to the officer and ensured that officer understand that I wasn't drunk but sleep deprived.  All clear I went and got another rental car and met my cousin later the same day. I was alive one more time not yet dead.

If you have listened to me talk about my NY story when I was 26 years old  then you know it was Sep 11 2001 and I was one of the first few to get out of New York city in the second ship/boat towards Weehawken NJ and we witnessed the second building collapse from Weehawken. We ran towards Pier 11 when first building collapsed!






We were there in the path station in Oneworld Trade center at 8:45am on sep 11 2001 . If you don't know the world trade center was also train station for people commuting to NJ and it was also a subway station connecting NY transit trains. You could also take LIRR trains to go to Long Island. This meant you can take subway( to travel inside NY city),PATH (to go to NJ) or LIRR.

There were 3 huge escalators. When we reached at 8:45 the first 2 were clear and the last one after landing to the highest point saw coffee and lot os fhings thrown everywhere and cops .. lots of them yelling 'Get out of this  building now'.

My friend Vaithy picked up an excel sheet and joked.. not realizing it had come from the world trade center. When we were walking closer to stock exchange in wall street  there was a man talking to someone explaining about earth quake. We didn't understand he has misunderstood the impact of the airplane and the loud noises as earth quake.

We heard a lady use the word FBI asking a taxi to go towards World Trade Center. We went away from World Trade center towards 125 broad street. A Jewish man explained to us in the elevator that there was an airplane inside the World Trade center and we thought it was a good joke. 







Least did we realize he was right. When we went to the 14th floor we saw the cop boats, cop cars, Fire trucks and all flashy stuff near Pier 11. I didn't realize I will be there in the next 30min running for my life towards water and not knowing swimming.

For now ,I went to get coffee with friends and talked to stepped out to see the commotion.  After watching all the vehicles this time from the ground floor we discussed to Desi Patel and we went up to check cnn.com.

We heard an announcement - this is FBI and we have taken control of this building. Please get to the first floor and wait for further instructions. Least did we know we will not go back again to the 14th floor on that day.

We got coffee and bagel for $1 from the Bangladeshi in the mobile stall. We decided to walk to 42nd street(Times Square) or to 34th street (Penn station).

Once we were near a parking garage we heard in the radio in a vehicle parked there talking about more airplanes coming towards NYC(New York City)

We were facing the direction of World Trade Center (which was completely covered with smoke) and we heard a lady scream Oh my god'  .

When we saw the smoke screen comes towards us we started running towards water - Pier 11 . That is what we saw everyone do.. run towards water. The smoke screen was the result of the first world trade center building fall down and collapse which we didn't know at that time. Some people yelled - chemical attacks. It was close to 9:40 and we heard loud airplane sounds which was F16s from Florida which we thought were more rogue airplanes attacking NY.

We didn't want to hear the air. But we didn't have a choice.  We had to breathe.

Once we came close to Pier 11 we saw a man with a cap which said something like New York Emergency something and there was a boat/ship that was leaving on the right and another one getting ready to leave.

The first boat/ship one was leaving to Brooklyn and even in that crisis I didn't want to go to Brooklyn. 

I keep writing boat/ship as these double Decker boats looked like massive ships to me.

We boarded the boat which was destined to Weehawken NJ.
We discussed why one building was missing and we didn't realize at that time that we run few minutes ago from the rubbles of the first one. One of my friend explained how the two world trade center buildings were constructed in such a way that we can only one from some weird angle which was this angle from the boat. We kind of believed him .. and once we reached weehawken nj there were so many police officers, doctors and fire fighters waiting to help. Someone had already shown us something about attacks in a pager in the boat and now the polive,hospital staff and firefighters were waiting for us were disappointed to find not many real survivors from the building who might need help.


We saw the second building collapse which showed clearly the first one had also collapsed earlier. 

I have survived the third time (please don't count marriage as near death experience!) .

Now that I had survived 3 times I wanted to know why I survived all these near death experience.

The World needed me so here I am.  Even though there are 7  billion people there is no one like me (or you!). There is no one special to my kids and my wife than me. There is no one like me who is a good son,great brother, good uncle and not so good cousin!

I have been working on my ideas to write book, working hard to get a good pay check, reading a lot to write a lot.listening to lots of useful TED talks,coursera courses and youtube videos. I need to start itunesU and podcasts again!

As my son always says - Love you Daddy you are the best. For my kids I am the best.

The first 21 years of my life was spent getting educated so that I can earn a paycheck. Now that I am earning paycheck for the last 19 years I guess I need to continue this till I retire  at 75 where these paychecks would have get me social security and a retirement fund .

Energy,Money and Time - I read in a whatsapp message. 
When you are young you have Energy and Time no Money
When you are in your middle age you have Money and Energy no Time 
When you are old you have Money and Time no Energy

Life is a journey ... keep thinking why you are living. 

Most of us consume natural resource and give back journey. 

What have you produced from using the natural resources? As for myself I write blogs and as long as you read them I feel productive!


After reading the book 'Being Mortal' by 'Aatul Gawande'(same guy who wrote checklist manifesto which i wrote about earlier!) .. this one talks a lot about death!

We used to live a life this 






The old man lived and one day he died all of a sudden! Talk to any one older (like me ) and ask them about their great grand father. 

Modern medicine and public health measures stretched people’s life spans, nearly doubling them so that, Gawande writes, "The curve of life becomes a long, slow fade."

What does this mean - we all have to live much much longer due to the medical advances.  In effect all symptoms will be controlled while the disease or the factor that kills will follow to kill!

I will not write a detailed post about this topic till I am 50 (10 years from now).


Keep learning and living
Sivakumar Manikanteswaran