Communication Growing up, our communication choices were few—telephone, letters, telegrams and fax. The options were limited, but each had a purpose. We learnt how to write letters, post cards and getting a letter was exciting. It meant you mattered to someone. As telephone calls became more affordable, it became easier to pick up the phone than put pen to paper. Slowly, personal letters became less frequent, while letterboxes began filling up with brochures, catalogues and junk mail. It was perhaps the first time a personal communication space started becoming commercial. The digital era Then came the 1990s. Email arrived, and suddenly everyone wanted an email address. Hotmail and Yahoo! were badges of the digital generation. Sharing your email ID felt modern and exciting. For a while, every email notification carried anticipation. It could be a friend, a family member or an exciting opportunity. Businesses soon recognized email's potential. Marketing budgets shifted from printed ...

The Front desk The face of a hotel. A restaurant. A spa. Delivering Impressions This is where the action is. If there's one place where the pulse of hospitality can be felt, it's the front desk. It's where first impressions are made, problems are solved, expectations are managed, and relationships begin. No road is straight some of my most valuable lessons in hospitality came from outside the industry. After spending several years in travel, I took an unexpected detour into the BPO world, handling motor insurance claims for Aviva, a leading UK general insurer. Every day, I handled between 40 and 60 customer calls from people who had just been through an accident or were dealing with the stress of an insurance claim. Sitting thousands of miles away in a different time zone, my responsibility was simple: listen, reassure, guide , and help them navigate the claims process to resolution. Our service-level agreement was 14 days. It was an eye opener in managing customer expecta...

The Mirror Maze Ever walked into a mirror maze? It can be a lot of fun. Walking along, Every step reveals a different version of you—taller, shorter, wider, distorted, multiplied. You know they're only reflections, yet for a few moments they seem real enough to make you smile. Life is something like that maze. Whatever we hold in our heart, the world reflects through its mirror. Try it out Walk into a discussion with an intent to find a solution and eventually, if not immediately, you will reach common ground.  The opposite also holds true. Walk in to a meeting with an intent to raise a dispute, when dispute is what you gonna get. (Enough Karens out there in the world) Seek peace and the immediate enviornment around you is peace. Noise from constructions, traffic, people on the road cease to be noises, they become different parts of a symphony that is our immediate world. Seek solitude, and even amidst the loudest crowd, you'll discover moments of stillness. Seek healing and yo...

Time and Markets Has this ever happened to you? You buy a stock on Day 1. By Day 2, it has rallied over 5%—sometimes even hitting the upper circuit. You sell, feeling like you've cracked the code. A day's profit that outperforms almost every other investment avenue. So you try to repeat the success. This time, however, the stock barely moves. After a couple of days, it's down 2–3%. Frustrated, you exit, convinced there's another "hot" stock waiting to be discovered. Carrot and Stick Sometimes we may feel the market is rewarding or punishing us.  But in reality, the market doesnt recognize us. The market doesn't know we exist. We're simply another buy order or sell order. Our investment may mean everything to us, but to the market, it's just another transaction. Illusion of timing Unless you are great at reading technical charts, chances of you making daily gains are loaded against you. If you try to time your entry, you may get it right a couple of...