You might know that I’m a football fan. Not many would know that I’m also a fan of hip-hop. When I first heard this world cup song by an African singer, I kinda liked it. This being the first world cup in Africa and all that, the world cup anthem is by this Somalian rapper with this strange name K’Naan.

I really like his music. I like his music for exactly why I like hip-hop. The music is not about how much the singer ‘wants his lover’, ‘needs his lover’ and ‘wanna be with her forever and ever’. His music is about the real issues facing his society and what it means to grow up and live in Africa. It’s all very authentic, genuine and original.

In one song he says that, when he was a small boy, his close cousin, a buddy that he grows up with, was left in the civil war because his mom did not have enough money to rescue him. And that it was such a tough choice for her that only she and K’Naan could flee the country leaving his cousin was left stranded in the civil war. This song did something to me. I truly truly feel for the people of Africa. The people and the land of Africa were and are being very cunningly exploited.

That’s when I thought we may not even know the real meaning of the word ‘privilege’. Of course we have our own versions of ‘tough life’ most having to do with poverty. To live in a war-ravaged country is something horrendous. It is a dreadful combination of violence, lack of freedom, poverty and above all hopelessness.

I’m very intrigued by the situation in Africa. Why most of the African countries are so poor? Why are there so many wars and violence? Being such a repository of resources, why should this continent be the biggest recipient of global support? Why, even in South Africa where the standards is living are relatively better, one person in every five is infected with AIDS?

I’ve seen this movie ‘Hotel Rwanda’ which is one of my favourite movies. I liked ‘Blood Diamond’ which gave me some more idea. I knew that these may only be the tip of the iceberg.

I want to read the history of Africa. I want to know how it all began. I’m very curious to know the root cause for their current state. I can pretty much guess that the established empires of the west could have exploited and finally left them in the lurch when it all became unmanageable.

I mean it. I’m going to learn more about Africa.

I’ve learnt about this new concept ‘survivorship bias’. It’s very interesting thing to be aware of so I thought I’ll share it here. This could also be very useful in your day-to-day life. It’s a simple but great concept about the human perception and thinking and how they impact statistics and their interpretations. Survivorship bias is well . . our bias towards the survivors. Here is the wikipedia definition:

Survivorship bias is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that “survived” some process and ignoring those that didn’t. This can lead to false conclusions in several different ways. The survivors may literally be people, as in a medical study, or could be companies or research subjects or applicants for a job, or anything that must make it past some selection process to be considered further.

Survivorship bias can lead to overly optimistic beliefs because failures are ignored, such as when companies that no longer exist are excluded from analyses of financial performance. It can also lead to the false belief that the successes in a group have some special property, rather than being just lucky.

Wiki also goes to explain this with a lovely example.

If the three of the five students with the best college grades went to the same high school, that can lead one to believe that the high school must offer an excellent education. This could be true, but the question cannot be answered without looking at the grades of all the other students from that high school, not just the ones who “survived” the top-five selection process.

I thought this is a great concept for us to be aware. The fundamental point here is about how well the sample that we consider represents the overall population. It is a general tendency to ignore the failures and consider only the ‘survivors’ as our sample. Imagine a company opening about 100 funds of which over a period of time they close down about 30 of their worst performing funds. Now the balance 70 funds, which are the ‘survivors’ would certainly have good returns. Now the company can brag how their funds are outperforming the market. What we might miss to see is that these funds are the survivors who would naturally have a higher skewed average.

During World War II the English sent daily bombing raids into Germany. Many planes never returned; those that did were often riddled with bullet holes from anti-air machine guns and German fighters. Wanting to improve the odds of getting a crew home alive, English engineers studied the locations of the bullet holes. Where the planes were hit most, they reasoned, is where they should attach heavy armor plating. Sure enough, a pattern emerged: Bullets clustered on the wings, tail, and rear gunner’s station. Few bullets were found in the main cockpit or fuel tanks. The logical conclusion is that they should add armor plating to the spots that get hit most often by bullets. But that’s wrong. Planes with bullets in the cockpit or fuel tanks didn’t make it home; the bullet holes in returning planes were “found” in places that were by definition relatively benign. The real data is in the planes that were shot down, not the ones that survived.

In this fantastic example, the sample data for the research must have been what happened to the planes that were shot down. That’s what would help them in bringing back more people alive. The research on the returned planes and in particular, the decision to install heavy armour plates in the areas with maximum hit, is a classic display of survivorship bias.

While statistics is about interpreting the data available, what’s also important is to know about the data that is not available and the significance of the unknown data in the projections based on statistical methods. Also, the fact that there are failures which are being removed out of the system, makes any comparison to the past data potentially meaningless.

As you’re aware, in large organisations, on a periodic basis, there would employee feedback surveys. Assume that the survey shows that about 20% are terribly unhappy. Suppose these 20% staff leave the organisation, the newer survey tends to show a better result than last year’s one. The latest survey results are better because it considers the feedback of only the survivors and hence the result could be skewed.

Why does this survivorship bias exist? Can we avoid it? Traditionally, we are biased towards survivors or winners. We read stories, biographies and autobiographies of the winners and survivors to learn how they did it. There’s more to be learnt from the ones who did not survive. Studying the survivors alone could produce a skewed result. The population cannot be complete without taking into account the ones who did not survive.

The other day at lunch, one colleague of mine was saying that there are almost no bad actors in Hollywood (when compared to Indian movies), only for another colleague to quickly point out that ‘probably only those kind of movies don’t get released here’. That’s classic case of survivorship bias and subsequent realisation. Despite our understanding of statistical sampling, we tend to think that the sample of movies that’s released in India is the whole population of Hollywood movies made.

So how does this help us? Why would we have to be aware about this concept? Learning about the survivorship bias makes you less vulnerable to be fooled by this phenomenon. It helps you to ask the right questions. It helps you to put things in perspective. It helps you to read beyond the numbers and also remind you about the significance of the unknown data.

I’m very impressed with this concept. If we are not careful, this bias or a pitfall that we could fall into, very easily in our day to day life. As soon as I read this as a concept, I’m able to see this bias exists almost everywhere and that’s being exploited. Hope it helps you too, if not, at least this is a new thought to debate.

“Anger is temporary madness” said a wiseman. That’s probably the most precise line ever spoken about anger. I hate when people get angry. I hate it when I become angry. In my view, anger is a form of violence. A form of violence that is not punishable under law, unless there is an element of abuse in it. I have seen people getting angry for various things from the most trivial to the most crucial. For some, anger is a shield. It protects them from getting exposed or being challenged. Anger works as a poor substitute for logic and reason.

One gets angry when things don’t go as expected. When things don’t go as expected what you need is a decision to turn things around. Instead, when the immediate response is anger, mind’s not in the right condition for taking decisions. Anger is always an immediate response. Upon waiting it becomes vengeance. When someone upsets or disappoints you, all that you want to do is to immediately let the other person know that, through your angry face or words. That’s not the way to go for collaboration, co-operation or resolution. You only end up creating a very unhealthy climate by transferring negativity.

I’m of the opinion that anger just does not help. It has no positive value or utility. It might look that it helps, in the very short run, but it actually does not. I have heard people say about their subordinates ‘I blasted him and the document was on my desk in an hour’. He was not waiting for you to shout at him so he can prepare and keep it ready on your desk. The reason the work did not happen must have been something else. The moment your anger gets the work done for you, there are three dangerous consequences (i) you might fail to find the real reasons and root causes (ii) you start to think anger ‘works’ (iii) your anger creates a chain reaction.

Even worse is when people take pride about their anger. It’s easy to be angry, very easy to be angry, when one has the authority. Bosses over subordinates, parents over children, teachers over students – that’s all very easy. If you just reverse the roles for these people, you’ll realise that being angry is very easy. When someone’s angry, what that tells me is they have no other ideas, options, thoughts of how to handle the situation. That’s why I call anger as a poor substitute for logic and reason. You resort to anger only when you are unable to think, logic, reason and feel.

In my opinion, people get angry over others for only these reasons (i) their own mistakes, inability and helplessness (ii) having incorrect, unfair expectations on other people (iii) their own upsets and disappointments (iv) when they face the truth. In other words, we have only ourselves to blame for our anger. If I ever said that someone made me angry, that would be an absurd statement because to be or not to be angry is your choice. Anger comes out of very low awareness and maturity.

I do get angry sometimes. Once the moment of madness is over, I feel ashamed that I couldn’t find a better way to deal with it. And I make sure I deal it a more matured manner in future. That’s a promise I make to myself. Probably you guessed it, I was angry when I started writing this blog. Now I feel I’ve calmed down.

. . an Apple Macbook. About 9 months since I wrote here about my crush on Macbook, I’ve finally done it. I must say I love it to bits. It’s this milk white 13.3 inch Macbook. It’s design is so unique that from any distance, as long as you sight this, you’ll know it’s a Macbook. In the constant battle between the Mac users and windows users, there is an one liner from the windows camp about Mac – “it’s not the OS that sucks, it’s the users”. That’s because every single Mac owner is truly a proud owner and he’s going to talk a lot about his Mac.

Mac certainly costs more than the regular windows machines. For the same configurations as my macbook, if it were windows I could have got it at about 60% of the price. But as they say, if you think Mac is expensive then Mac’s not for you. That’s because, it’s not just the cost of the individual components of the configuration that you pay for. It’s the wholesome product and the experience it gives you. There’s a beautiful harmony about macbook and the applications that it has. You get a feeling that someone’s made this notebook just for you. You really tend to think that they had ‘you’ in their mind when they made it.

The first thing that had me fall in love with macbook was its design. It may sound a bit exaggerating but I think it’s a work of art, this design of Macbook. Every little thing has been thought out. Everything that is there is because of a reason – the size of the trackpad, the design of the applications, the space for arm rest, the arrangement of sockets, even the thumb scoop, the look n feel, the logo – as I said there’s a harmony among all these things. There is a beautiful theme that’s so very consistent in all things Mac. Again, all these things may sound like exaggeration or ‘fanboyism’ – if you’ve not used a Mac.

The other thing Mac has managed for me is to revive this blog. Thanks the Macjournal application, posting an article to a blog is so so easy. Expect more posts from now on (how many times I’ve said this). Over the last few weeks and months, I’ve been reading some interesting books which have some great concepts to think about and have views on. Some of them can very ground breaking and thought provoking. Stay tuned.

By now, you must have a fair idea about my reading habits. In my case, the term ‘reading habit’ is an oxymoron. But I do buy books every now and then in the hope that I’d read them. One such book that I bought recently was Stephen Covey’s ‘7 habits of highly effective people’. By the time I bought this book, it had sold about 15 million copies worldwide. That’s how late I picked it up.

Though it’s been a popular title for years, I never cared to see what those 7 habits are. When I went to the store last time, I just picked it up with a ‘lemme look’ mindset. I quickly went to the contents page to see what those 7 habits are. Those were very generic things which didn’t impress me. But I thought 10 million people can’t be so wrong. So I started reading on one of the seven habits. Before I could finish reading that page, I’d decided that I’d buy that book. I generally don’t like these self-help or self-confidence or self-improvement kind of books. This one was very impressive though, so I bought it.

Typically, I didn’t even open the book for many weeks since then. Last week, I felt like reading a book and this book was right there. There was a lot of content before Covey started talking about the habits. But I went straightaway to the first habit – Be Proactive. As he rightly puts it, ‘proactive’ is a recently coined word. I’m not sure how many dictionaries have this entry. His theory around ‘being proactive’ is all about taking the action in response to our social, economic, professional, family environments. It was a great read.

He talks about a thing called ‘circle of concern’. What he wants us to put there is all the concerns, issues and problems that you might have. Then he talks about a ‘circle of influence’. This is a circle inside the ‘circle of concern’. In the ‘circle of influence’, out of all the concerns, issues and problems that we put in the earlier circle, put all those where you can take an action. It would like this – concentric circles where the inner circle would normally be smaller. Now, focusing on what you can do is being proactive. The more you’re proactive, the bigger the inner circle would get. So being proactive is all about being responsible for our own lives. Our responses to our environment are our decisions and choices. Our behaviour is a function of our decisions rather than our conditions.

Seen this one before?

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

Have you seen this movie ‘Shawshank Redemption’? For the ones who have seen this great movie, the protagonist’s actions and decisions are all about this. The 20-year imprisonment is the condition or the environment. What he wants to do there or what he can do about it is all in his hands. It’s very practical way to approach life. I can have thousand things that bother me but everything must come down to what I can do about them. I can’t do anything, I should not waste my focus. This zen story also touches upon these circles.

One day while walking through the wilderness a man stumbled upon a vicious tiger. He ran but soon came to the edge of a high cliff. Desperate to save himself, he climbed down a vine and dangled over the fatal precipice. As he hung there, two mice appeared from a hole in the cliff and began gnawing on the vine. Suddenly, he noticed on the vine a plump wild strawberry. He plucked it and popped it in his mouth. It was incredibly delicious!

I may not have known these copyrighted concepts before but this has always been my way. I hate to complain. I hate to whine. That’s because if I can do something about it, I feel that I just have to do it. Otherwise, just understand that that’s the way the environment is. The world may never meet my expectations and it’s not supposed to. It’s a set of random things that keep evolving – human and otherwise. How I deal with the expectations of the world is all in the way I respond to my environment. I must say, it is so much fun doing that. It’s like a strategy game. You make your moves. You feel like you’re range of control keeps increasing as you get better at it.

How’s it for you? Is your circle of influence closer to your circle of concern or is it expanding?

This is not an excuse for a post. I’ve been thinking about writing a post about the personalities I like and admire. So this is purely based on my scale of admiration for these. Also these are people that have entertained me, have taught me quite a lot in life. There is not even one female in this list. I didn’t realise that until I finished writing. Now, don’t pick me on that! The below list is not certainly in any order. Here we go now!

Andre Agassi: I’m a big fan of Andre Agassi. I liked his style before I learned that he had substance too. In 1992, I was watching and cheering him all the way to the finals of the Wimbledon. He was unique. He was a crowd puller and an entertainer than a tennis player and athlete. He was much more human when you compared him with others in his league. His Wimbledon win against Ivanisevic in the finals was a victory of mankind over machines. Was he the first male tennis player to cry in the court? Surely must be one of the rarest. I loved his pony hairstyle and wished I had something like that. Did try that too!

Jose Mourinho: He could very well be the odd one out in the list. He is special because he can be the odd one out in any group. People would describe him as successful, intelligent, objective, sharp-tongued and down-to-earth. That’s what he is. Even his biggest fans would also admit that he is brash, arrogant, cheeky and cunning at times. You just don’t mess with Jose. For me, he is a symbol of confidence. He is very good and he knows that he is very good. He walks as much as he talks. He is the most successful young manager in the world of football management dominated by older pros. His success was built primarily on his people management and his analytical methods. He was the reason why I started following Chelsea FC. Legend.

Mahatma Gandhi: Unbelievable. To live his life the way he did, is just impossible. He must be one of the best leaders ever to have lived. It’s not very easy to lead a mass of 300 million with a principles of non-violence and truth. With masses, the psychology that easily works is that of violence and revenge, not non-violence, truth and patience. I have the highest regards for his principles and the way he united people for one common cause. I wonder how he made millions believe that ’satyagraha’ is the right way to achieve independence. Do you know that he had once listed down seven social sins – politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice. Albert Einstein once said that generations to come will find it hard to believe that such a man lived ever in flesh and blood and walked upon this earth. There is no better summary of Gandhi’s life than that one.

Sachin Tendulkar: I think I was his cousin or a brother in my previous birth. I love this guy so much. He’s a genius. He’s gifted. He’s supremely talented. I feel privileged to have been a contemporary of Sachin Tendulkar. No one has entertained me like Sachin Tendulkar has. I was not alone in turning up, tuning up and waking up only because he was playing. For the kind of adulation he receives in India, it’s hard to play and live like he has. Incredibly level headed, humble and mature, he is a symbol of consistency. He is a phenomenon. He is an era. He is a great role model. That quote of Einstein on Gandhi holds good for Sachin Tendulkar too.

A.R.Rahman: Genius. Consistent. Mature. Level headed. Humble. Sounds like the paragraph on Sachin Tendulkar, isn’t it? I love Rahman for the same reasons that I mentioned for Sachin. The thing I’m very highly impressed is the way he keeps on bettering himself even though he is the best in his league. Every time I listen to a great album from Rahman, ‘I’d be thinking this is his best yet’ and I’ve thought this way more than a dozen times. He is just unbelievable. The era in which he is making music is entirely different than the one where some of our greats had made music. He has already revolutionised music in India and he has a long way to go. I feel privileged to realise that I could still be listening to Rahman’s new smashing music even after 10 years!

Frank Lampard: When he ends his footballing career, he could very well be the best Chelsea player in the club’s history. That’s no mean feat. He is pretty similar to A R Rahman in his personality. He has achieved so much and has many more years left in him to achieve more. The dedication and professonalism that he still shows is incredible. He must have been one of the most underrated and jeered/abused player of his league. He doesn’t care about the criticisms and just goes on to prove them wrong, season after season. I’m sure he won’t stop until the whole football world accepts his genius. Another fantastic role model.

Vijayakrishna: Yup, it’s me. I think I’ve been an inspiration for myself and I thoroughly enjoy being myself. Nobody knows me as much as I know. So I’m the most capable and competent person to talk about how inspiring I have been for myself. No matter how expressive you are, you’re not even going to express half of what you actually are and that’s that half that other people would understand, mistake, like, hate, admire, despise, adore, ignore you. No one will ever know what’s their in the other unexpressed half in me. I’m very proud about how I have lived my 30 years. I admire myself. I’m sure you do that to yourself. It’s a different matter if you want to admit that or not!

If you don’t know any of these names (except mine . . .), just help yourself with google/wiki. I’ll do a bit of analysis for you. Out of these 7 personalities, four are sports personalities, one was a spiritual/political leader, one musician and myself. I think that pretty much respresents me.

Deja vu? One of the many things science has not explained. I don’t know how to call ‘deja vu’. You can call it an experience or a feeling. Let me try to explain the term ‘deja vu’ for those who are not familiar with the term. Have you ever gone to a certain place for the first time in your life and have felt ‘man, I’ve been here before’? Have you ever thought ‘Wait a minute, we’ve had this very discussion before, in the same place with the same people, all exactly the same’?

It has happened to me, many times. There are places in different countries where I felt that I’ve been there before. It’s not all that cinematic that I could find my way through the gullies and canals. It’s just that in certain places, you get this feeling that ‘I’ve stood in this very place and have looked at this image in front of me, but don’t know when’. By definition, it is an ‘already seen’ feeling. Some sense of familiarity. There were many occasions when I thought I’ve had this very discussion before, this statement, this laugh, this posture, this set of people, this time of the day, this very place and all together. Sometimes they are interesting, some time they are downright scary.

How would you explain this? I see that this is being explained from various angles. There is this convenient explanation that says this has something to do with a mental disorder. That’s a bit lazy to call it that way. Even dreams would then be a case of mental disorder. Also, as far as I know, most of the people I’ve talked to on this topic have said that they have experienced deja vu. You don’t have so many people walking around with mental disorders. The world’s not so bad.

There is also this sub-conscious memory angle. Some believe that the deja vu feeling you get is from your own memory. If during my first visit to London if there’s a place where I get this feeling that I’ve been there, that’s all from my own deep lying memory. The conscious memory records all your real life experiences that you’re part of, things that you experience, read, see and hear. If you had seen something in your dream and if you forget the dream when you wake up, that piece of recording goes out of your conscious memory and stays within your sub-conscious memory. When in real life, if you get to see one of those places that you had seen in your dream, in a flash, your conscious memory and sub-conscious memory meet to make that connection. Guess I’m making sense.

Some even extend this to say that the memories of your previous births are also hidden deep in your mind and the deja vu moments are the ones where your mind googles the current image and finds a match from your archives of previous lives. It doesn’t make sense for someone like me who does not believe in previous births or lives. Anyway, these sub-conscious memory rationale doesn’t explain how I get the deja vu feeling when I’m talking to a bunch of people. How could this situation be recorded in any part of my memory? This is an event and not an image. This event of discussion is just happening or unfolding as I get this feeling that I’ve had this very chat before. What could this be?

I’ve thought about this and I’ve given up too. It’s a strange phenomenon indeed. What is your understanding or explanation of deja vu? Have you had any such moments? I’ve had a lot of those deja vu moments. Many a time I also pause and freeze to fully realise that. I’m sure you’d have had yours too. The next time I do get a deja vu, I’d get back right here and update you. Wait a moment, do you think you’ve read exactly a post like this on deja vu on this very blog some time back? You’re being ‘dejavued’.