Week 21: Indus Valley, Feel-Good Scam, No one wants to be a manager, Will Smith slap

A couple of weeks back I submitted the concept "the meME of India" to the LinkedIn Creator Accelerator Program (CAP).

To be honest, it all happened in a flow, without a lot of effort, though I did work for a couple of days intensely.

Earlier this year I was reading a couple of books: 1) Bridgital Nation by N. Chandrasekaran, and 2) The Minimalist Entrepreneur by Sahil Lavingia and then I stumbled upon a fresh perspective (at least in my own view) about Entrepreneurship.

Parallelly I was being invited to join the LinkedIn Creators program and was encouraged to apply to CAP and that is it - I had the idea ready and needed some fine-tuning for submission.

As I wait for the results, these days when I bump into any conversations related to entrepreneurship or if someone asks me to explain what is The meME of India that I refer to, I am taking it as an opportunity to refine the narrative and prepare myself to go deeper on this topic.

Long story short, I am compiling a list of entrepreneurs I would like to speak to, and looking to make it a diverse and deep representation covering the full spectrum of -N to N stories.

If you are an entrepreneur and like to get featured (or) know an entrepreneur who might be interested to talk to me, can you please let me know?

Interestingly one of the topics covered this week is about India's entrepreneurial/startup ecosystem which I loved reading. Thanks to Sajith Pai and the team at Blume Ventures for making the report available for FREE.

Topics of the week

1. A fresh report on India's startup ecosystem

The Indian startup ecosystem has been growing at a great pace and there are several reasons for it. This week a new report called the Indus Valley Annual Report is released by Blume Ventures (Sajith Pai).

I found it to be a great source of diverse perspectives presented in a contemporary manner using colloquial language.

You MUST read the report both for the depth of the content and the novelty of the presentation.

2. Who wants to be a manager?

Most managers, in general, have a very poor reputation, at least amongst their team members. Do you think this is an understatement? And then we keep hearing how leaders are different from managers.

Many companies are looking to rethink and redesign the most important role in a company, to be able to succeed and contribute to the new world of work.

Read this thought-provoking article on how to make managerial roles interesting.

3. ESG, a feel-good scam?

If you are from the world of finance, investing, climate change etc. you can't say that you don't know what ESG is.

Since I keep looking out for diverse perspectives about any topic I am interested in, I ended up trying to go deeper and understand everything, as much as I can, (1, 2) Aswath Damodaran had to say, including his latest blog post where he calls ESG a feel-good scam. Do you agree with him?

When a concept is as widely sold and bought into as ESG, it is unlikely to be abandoned in a hurry, no matter how much evidence accumulates that it does not work or that it has perverse consequences.

From the internet/metaverse:

If you are into vicarious learning, you can't miss the Will Smith slap.

It has some learnings about how careers derail. Ok, relax! I am not saying Will Smith's ''career'' is going to end now.

Some people may not agree with these views but I highlight this post from Alok in the context of careers & workplace issues and also I found this debate between Moin and Deblina insightful.

“It is not the actions of others which trouble us, but rather it is our own judgments. Therefore remove those judgments and resolve to let go of your anger, and it will already be gone.” — Marcus Aurelius.

Personal updates:

I was forced to meditate on the topic of death due to the loss of a cousin this week. I am sharing it here not to disturb your thoughts but as a gentle reminder to live a gentle, caring and kind life, as I remind myself the same.

“While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.” –?Leonardo da Vinci

That brings me to the end of this week's edition.

Until next Friday,?keep?tracing your mastery #TraceYourMastery.

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