Special Report

We are galloping towards a world when machines will be doing most of the work. That’s good news and bad news. On one hand, it means that most work will get done faster, cheaper and with fewer errors. On the other hand, it means a lot of people will lose their jobs, especially those who do things which a machine can do more efficiently, like driving cars or crunching numbers.

This demands that we build skills which artificial intelligence can’t copy, at least not as easily and not sometime shortly.

Writing is one such soft skill. The ability to form an emotional connection with other human being using words is a skill that can future-proof one’s career.

No matter who you are or what kind of job you do, ability to write well isn’t a “good to have” have skill anymore. It’s a prerequisite to survive the onslaught of technological disruption staring at you. It’s going to be the most important block in the future talent stack.

Now that I have convinced you why you should improve your writing skills let me offer you some insights on nuts and bolts of good writing skills.

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Have you ever sat on a park bench and observed how an orphan leaf dances with the wind, arm in arm? If you haven’t, do it. It’s an instructive exercise.

The last time I tried it, I couldn’t continue for more than five minutes. My phone interrupted with a buzz. And before I realised, I had wasted twenty minutes looking at my WhatsApp messages, and other social media feeds. Of course, the leaf had eloped with the wind by that time.

Isn’t it a common sight – people sitting on park benches with their eyes glued to their smart devices? Forget park benches; it has become difficult for most people to resist the urge to look at their mobile phones while waiting at the traffic light.

Here’s an interesting trivia. Since 2007, the sale of Wrigley’s chewing gum has been declining. And the reason behind it, they later figured, was an unusual candidate – smartphone. Flabbergasting, isn’t it?

Earlier, a significant portion of chewing gum sale came from the customers waiting in the long queues at the billing counters. Wrigley’s cleverly placed their products near the checkout counter. Apparently, chewing a piece of gum relieves the mental torture of waiting for your turn.

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It is not without reason that elders and a whole host of books and literature advocate doing selfless acts of kindness towards other people. Here is a true incident that a friend shared with me that has me believing that it pays as well to do good deeds in one’s life, whenever one gets a chance to do so.

This friend was boarding a flight and had booked an aisle ticket for himself. When he got to his seat, he saw an old woman sitting on his seat, talking to someone on the phone. He signalled to her that she was on his seat, to which the woman responded by shifting her legs so that he could get inside to the middle seat. She still had her phone stuck to her ears.

My friend finally spoke to her. “Excuse me Madam, but I think you are on my seat”, he said.

“You sit inside no?” pat came the reply from the old woman.

My friend looked at her in wonder and was about to retort to her when he thought the better of her age and went inside, plopping down in the middle seat, grumbling to himself and rolling his eyes at the old woman.

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In Safal Niveshak’s Art of Value Investing workshops, when we discuss the mental biases, we show the following video to our participants (click on the image to watch). If you haven’t attended our workshop, then I would suggest that you pause here and watch this video before reading further. It’s a test of your awareness so don’t cheat 🙂

I hope you watched it. How did you do? By now you know that I am not interested if you got the count right. Did you spot the Gorilla in your first attempt? Yes? You have seen this video before, haven’t you?

The intention of the Gorilla experiment, as you must have learned in the video, wasn’t to test your observation skills. It was to demonstrate a critical behavioural bias called Inattentional Blindness. It’s one of the big ideas from the field of psychology. If you want to know more about it, you can read  this post on our blog.

The learning here is that when we’re focussing intently on one thing, we may miss something else which is there in plain sight. Watching a video about invisible dancing gorilla isn’t going to make you immune to inattentional bias. I am going to prove this in a minute. Here’s another version of the gorilla experiment. Let’s see if you can win

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“Sometimes the hardest part isn’t letting go but rather learning to start over.” ~ Nicole Sobon

“The hardest part is starting. Once you get that out the way, you’ll find the rest of journey much easier.” ~ Simon Sinek

If I look back at the most difficult period I went through in my journey of Safal Niveshak, it was the time when I was making the decision to start. The usual fears of quitting a well-paying job and thoughts of not being able to earn enough to feed my family were my chief concerns that led me to several pauses before I finally decided to start this journey.

As I have realized over and over again, and I am sure you would vouch for it, starting something is the hardest part of anything — of cleaning the house, getting into yoga, becoming fit, planning a trip, writing a post like this, learning meditation, building a relationship, or even investing your money.

Starting is no doubt the steepest step, the biggest hurdle, the most giant obstacle standing between where you are and what it is you want to achieve.

Now, the reason starting is often so hard is because that first step is the heaviest, the one with the most resistance. That first step requires the most effort and the most motivation to move through.

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