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n pens the object of desire was a beautifully shaped hero pen with the distinctive dark green body and the shiny gold cap with made in china engraved on it s clip this is when the phrase just meant foreign and awesome i remember asking for one for my birthday feeling ecstatic when it was approved then going traipsing around the neighborhood looking for one only to be stymied in my efforts after several hours having to settle for an imitation that sucked so bad it caused significant heartburn until a friend s dad was able to procure the genuine article a week later through most of school it was sneakers or any pair of shoes that weren t the regulation black leather pair that was mandated by the school i distinctly remember the first pair of sneakers i ever owned with the big lotto logo on the sides though i m fairly sure they were fakes the thick cushioning with the curves and the multi patterned fabric made them the most awesome thing i d owned of course they were never used for anything as mundane as sports but only for the most special occasions it was a sad day when after over four years of sterling service the sole decided to cash in its retirement check through college undergraduate there was this fascination with worn jeans of the just the right fit with the usual suspect brands priced at outlandish four figures and even indian brands in the high three figures we went looking for you guessed it counterfeits the thing about them of course was that they were often shaped like they were made to fit no one in particular and hence they d have to be taken to the neighbourhood jeans alteration specialist who would then transform the shapeless mass to hip hugging thigh clenching boot flaring perfection of course the whole exercise setting you back something like rs 400 meant that it was an annual or even a bi annual affair oh but the joy of getting that perfect pair then came employment and with it the opportunity for an underperforming wallet to hold currency notes yes plural and then hot damn a debit card i think for the first few weeks after getting it the lot of us made trips to the conveniently located icici atm within the office premises just to enjoy the feeling of abundance that can only come from a machine that makes a series of robotic whines before spewing cash the freedom that it bestowed was euphoric my first ever purely non functional purchase a u2 compilation cassette tape remains one of my fondest my first laptop a refurbished sony vaio bought on an auction site and it s successor 3 years later a newly launched model were two purchases where i remember refreshing the track your package page for 3 days straight waiting for it to arrive and then feeling the same kind of elation so the relationship seems logical the amount of gratification from a shiny new thing is a function of how long you ve had to wait for it from the time you first wanted it and how much it costs relative to your financial situation therefore as the time lag between wanting and having diminishes the first part of that equation and the relative size of the purchases also moves in your favour it stands to reason that it would start taking larger much larger purchases to provide that same thrill project that trend a few years and you can explain the sale of baum et mercier watches and audi a6 s each providing progressively lesser gratification than the last research supposedly says that wanting expensive things makes us happier than buying them i d rephrase that line to say makes us happier than having them because the purchase still tends to be pleasurable in anticipation of what we think we ll get from the thing another school of thought suggests that experiences are better than possessions and there is certainly some merit to it thinking back to some vacations that have stayed in the mind much longer than the excitement of a new phone while that makes more intuitive sense i m not convinced that a round the world cruise would be very different in its characteristics from the latest overpriced gadget what s your take do you find the same joy in acquiring things or was there something in the unattainability of it share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x email a link to a friend opens in new window email like loading comment 2014 isb orientation week what to expect when you re expecting life at isb in blah isb on april 15 2013 at 3 56 pm isb is not a swimming pool everyone who dives in won t come out wet 2005 visiting professor of long forgotten elective this slightly cryptic and in hindsight surprisingly insightful quote is an apt introduction to this post which is meant for the new class as you settle in and start finding your way around campus as my twitter feed shows references to the brilliantly named oweek i wondered about the few mostly useless and some douchey things i could share with the incoming class of 2014 a disclaimer a specific percentage of this class will be those who know exactly why they decided to do a business degree have already had informal coffee chats with alumni in their target shortlist are on the 4th revision of their elective bidding strategy and have just locked down their extracurriculars for the year this post is a waste of time for them it s more for those who were only now starting to be less wistful about their last job its comforting security and are now lightheaded from trying to commit all the name face associations to memory relax it get s worse well before it get s better 1 block out the advice yup oxymoron right off the bat right from the infamous alum in my room email incident of 2005 incoming classes have shown tremendous propensity to gather spoilers about what to expect at isb the isb alumni body now has about 3 000 members and roughly the same number of how to s and do s and don ts for an incoming class start your interview prep early definitely do an elp the lounge behind sv3 is an excellent makeout spot forget about grades focus on grades you re likely to hear all of it let it all wash over you but do what makes sense to you 2 don t check that box co founder of blah de blah association organised event raising funds equivalent to the gdp of estonia envisaged fantastic new mortgage backed product injecting phenomenal liquidity into markets when shortlisting from a pile of 300 resumes i ve tended to make a mental note either prone to delusions of grandeur or plays fast and loose with the truth if you re signing on for any event for the sake of the resume bullet point know that it takes all of 2 7 seconds for it to become apparent in an interview find a subject that intrigues you put together a team do some research take a provocative stand write a paper thumb rule is if you re not equipped to have atleast a luke warm debate on the point skip it 3 the aha s have it every now and then you ll find yourself clicking send at 3am on an assignment then rushing to attend a group meeting to decide on your markstrat submission returning to start another assignment due by 7am while fretting about the case prep you think you re 2 weeks behind on in your caffeine fuelled stupor have a part of you monitor your effort pay extra attention to the subjects you find yourself doing the optional readings on find yourself wondering where the night went as you ran monte carlo simulations on inventory planning immersed yourself into writing an impassioned paper on the promotion strategy for an underdog brand of grinders it might be time to get out of the bathtub and streak around campus because you my friend might have just discovered your calling 4 forest for the trees now for some doucheyness if y is the phenomenal day 1 job with stratospheric pay you applied to isb for then y bo b1x1 b2x2 r bo is the default you can end up with read worst you think can do x1 and x2 are your academic performance and aha insights into self awareness respectively and r is the residual the macro economic environment you graduate into based on empirical evidence r the part you isb anyone has no control over can be several orders of magnitude higher positive or negative compared to b1 and b2 inference not that x1 and x2 don t matter but don t confuse the job you think you ll get on campus with how you perceive your time at isb to the quaddies of the smart ass smugly asking about r square dunk him some more will ya to those who didn t find the use of a regression equation funny give it a term wishing you a year of terrifyingly abundant possibilities share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x email a link to a friend opens in new window email like loading comment what are we really proud of in blah life on november 12 2012 at 10 18 pm before the oft repeated cliches became those cricket commentary used to have the occasional nugget of insight one of those was when the batting team was cruising along at 114 1 and the commentator on air then said something along the lines of it s a good score right now but you have to add a couple of wickets to the score to see if it still looks good because that s how quickly the game can change and sure enough more often than not a clump of wickets would fall and 114 1 would become 118 3 and then 124 4 and make a seemingly impregnable position look decidedly precarious who said those words isn t particularly important in the context of this post because the cricket reference is only to draw an analogy the point is a simple mental exercise what are the elements that your sense of self worth is tied to and what happens if the most important ones are eliminated it s a funny question to answer and depending who it is posed to the answers are likely to be grouped into a few broad buckets intellectual prowess iq ranks on entrance exams undergrad grad school post graduate degrees physical prowess physical condition sporting ability aesthetics purely chance arrangement and proportion of features that denote good looks in the classical sense professional status not hard for most b school grads to relate to artistic talent and so on the buckets mentioned here are by no means exhaustive just indicative barring movie stars scientists professional sports persons who might have a large part of their stock tied to one of those axes i think it s logical to assume most people would define themselves by two or three dimensions like the radar graph illustrative here showing how two conventionally successful people might assess themselves so a large part of one s sense of self might arise from his her exemplary academic qualifications and the sought after job they bagged and now potent amounts of money earned for person 2 it might be the fact that they played national level volleyball have run 3 marathons under 4 hours and possess the musculature of one of those greek sculptures however easy it is to fall into the trap of classification there are no good and bad axes sure charlize theron was fortunate to be born with those physical attributes but then it was just such a chance combination of genetics that probably enabled stephen hawking author his books similarly it s fair to say that a lot of what makes us tick is a combination of the raw material we were born with some work and lots of luck but exploring that is a digression as well now add a couple of wickets to your score meaning knock off one or two of those high scoring axes on your graph or rather the signaling mechanisms that indicate high scores let s say all records indicating your performance on that entrance exam over a decade ago were lost or the bulge bracket investment bank that establishes your credentials is erased from the history books or if your cheekbones lowered themselves overnight just enough to take you from an 8 to a 4 or the skill you pride yourself on became irrelevant would your interactions with the world change the tone we adopt when introducing ourselves to strangers when interacting with peers with people in more and less fortunate situations in life if yes would it be for the better is humility an externally demonstrable trait or an internal state of mind share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x email a link to a friend opens in new window email like loading comment about lazy blogger test cricket lover government office phobe unitasker jargon deficient management consultant archives july 2013 april 2013 november 2012 june 2012 november 2011 september 2011 august 2011 june 2011 march 2011 november 2010 september 2010 august 2010 may 2010 april 2010 march 2010 january 2010 october 2009 august 2009 june 2009 march 2009 february 2009 january 2009 december 2008 october 2008 august 2008 may 2008 april 2008 march 2008 february 2008 january 2008 december 2007 november 2007 october 2007 september 2007 august 2007 july 2007 april 2007 march 2007 february 2007 january 2007 december 2006 november 2006 october 2006 september 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