in vacant or in pensive mood

 Strategic planners have this innate habit and drive to connect seemingly unrelated dots and try to make sense of the world around them. No wonder that they immerse themselves into so many different kinds of things - and each will find its way into the work they do. Either it's in the brief, in the strategy deck, in the consumer insight, in the quest to simplify complicated thoughts and behaviours, anything. It's almost as if this constant need to connect dots and look for patterns is our coping mechanism to find meaning in chaos. It helps us understand the world better. And we do this so often that most often - it's on auto mode and spontaneous.  While we do this daily with the knowledge we assimilate along the way, we rarely utilize it to generate newer ideas when required. And then, I chanced upon a wonderful video by Mark Pollard, that showed me a new way to leverage this connection seeking behaviour of planners. It was used to showcase the power of lateral thinking, wi

Am I the only one to notice that there seems to be a sudden rise of people posting about Imposter Syndrome, especially within the strategic planning community? Almost every third post in my feed in the last couple of days have people talking about the Imposter Syndrome.

What's the last thing you'd love to see before you permanently close your eyes? For Voyager 1, it was a series of photos but the most iconic and undoubtedly the most significant one was this photo below. That small dot is our planet and this photo has been since called the "Pale Blue Dot" and is one of the most searched and coveted photographs in our spacial history.  This was the dream shot of Carl Sagan who was an advisor for Nasa at that time. He had to pitch this idea several times since the Voyager left earth and he was always denied since the photo would have no real scientific value or relevance. Thankfully - this wasn't done for any scientific pursuit but for a more emotional one. The Earth images were taken at 04:48 GMT on Feb. 14, 1990, just 34 minutes before Voyager 1 powered off its cameras forever . What a beautiful and unforgettable Valentíne's day shot the Voyager 1 had provided for mankind. But the image officially was received by the Nasa team

Since pandemic hit - we've seen many feel-good, positive, inspirational and motivating stories of people from all walks of life. We've seen front line workers, policemen, the general public and looked at the problem from different categories that we are used to buying into. Ever wondered how the pandemic has affected athletes? Not the ones who are getting to play now, like cricket, football, etc, but the high performance athletes who rely on events to showcase their weeks of training and compete with the greatest rivals to better themselves?  This one by Sporcks, a Spanish high-performance socks manufacturer - dedicated for triathlon, cycling and running did just that. All these high performance athletes depend on an end goal as a way to benchmark their efforts and use it as a carrot to motivate themselves to train, improve and get back to doing better than their earlier performance. But with the pandemic - all major sports events were cancelled and along with that - all their

 Dave Chappelle last month had released a video on Youtube titled "Unforgiven". This is the second one that I saw after his earlier one titled 8:46. There was one thing common in both.  It was a stand up routine but wasn't meant to be funny. There's a misconception that every stand up comedy show has to be extremely funny all along. But that is dead wrong. Stand up comedy should be funny - but should leave you with a thought you've never had before. It should be able to pull an "Inception" on you and plant a thought that makes you a different person. One that thinks a little differently than before. I watched both of these and laughed very little - but both were so immensely engaging.  Stand up comics are great narrators. Are amazing story tellers. And beautifully insightful. We watch them for their stories - not just for their jokes.  I like a more intellectual comic. Which is why I avoid most Indian comics who address the young millennials and yet rela