Ideas...kick-start

I plan on sharing my ideas I've had in the past as well as those that I'm considering now. No, I'm not mad for sharing these because I'm actually looking for people to comment, criticize, guide, mentor, advise, collaborate or even find partners in pushing some of these ideas forward.

For starters, I thought I'd kick-start with some of my own similes/metaphors on ideas as touched on in an earlier post. I will start by quoting from What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20: A Crash Course on Making Your Place in the World and then share my own:

Ideas are like ______________________________________

because __________________________________________

therefore __________________________________________

• Ideas are like babies because everyone think theirs is cute, therefore be objective when judging your own ideas ideas 
• Ideas are like shoes because you need to break them in, therefore take time to evaluate new ideas
• Ideas are like mirrors because they reflect the local environment, therefore consider changing contexts to get more diverse collections of ideas
• Ideas are like bubbles because they easily burst, therefore be gentle with them
• Ideas are like the measles because they are contagious, therefore hang out with other people with ideas if you want to get them yourself
• Ideas are like spider webs because they are stronger than they appear, therefore don't underestimate them

Now, for my own, not-so-great examples:

• Ideas are like ice cream because under the slightest heat it melts away into non-existence, therefore be prepared to handle the heat when your ideas come under scrutiny

• Ideas are like seeds because seeds must be nurtured and cared for to grow into something beautiful, therefore ensure you provide the right environment for your ideas to seed & grow

• Ideas are like a house of cards or playing Jenga, where the house/tower can fall crashing down by the mere extraction of a seemingly innocuous piece, therefore be very careful in doing your homework or analysis before sharing your idea for scrutiny....

I have six months to live...

"You caught us at a bad time Muhammad...  I have six months to live, maybe two years if I'm lucky to survive chemo..."

Valerie couldn't contain herself much longer. I had unknowingly walked into a very distressing situation at my neighbour's house yesterday, around noon. I had a spare B&Q voucher (15% off) that the old man Tony is always interested in and I'd unknowingly walked into a family situation dealing with really harrowing news. Me, with my jokes of them leaving their doors wide open, with the keys in plain public view for all to see, their lack of security and how I wouldn't have the luxury of being that safe in South Africa...I didn't have enough time to read the situation, and then Valerie lay that bombshell "I have 6 months to live..." and I was shell-shocked. I knew they had been to the hospital for the results, but I wasn't prepared for that result!

I immediately went over to Val and gave her the best sympathetic hug I could muster. Moments of silence. I didn't know what to say. "I have 6 months to live, cancer of the blood they tell me. Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML). All of this from a sore throat! It's all over the body...I will have to undergo intense chemo for 6 months, stay at hospital for a month at a time. I'm too old for a bone marrow transplant...We're waiting for the hospital to get back to us....I'm not going to visit you in South Africa Mo!" 


What do you say to someone in this situation? Val is in her sixties, Tony in turning 70 this year. Val & Tony live on their own, they're absolutely 100% independent, much to my admiration. They've travelled the world, they're more active than me to be honest. Truly hard-working British commoners these folks are.  We've been neighbours for going on to 5 years now, but we've only got to know them after 2 years - Tony had seen me doing some really tough landscaping out in my front yard, I'd been toiling away for weeks and he'd come over asking me if he could take the dirt away for a job he had (will save me the 100 quid). It turned out he was a retired electrician, doing odd-building jobs and he was about to close shop nearing 67 years old at the time. We hit it off nicely from there, he helped me with completing my garden and then helping out with odd jobs I had at the house, very recently helping me with my roof, flooring, bathroom shower and driveway gate in my preparation to get the house in order for the move back to SA....Val and Tony have won our respect, love and friendship. When my parents were over, my father and Tony had a great time together. I wish I'd grow old and independent as Val & Tony were...

Val & Tony are always keen on holidaying, taking breaks and were quite spontaneous. This year alone they did a stint in Canada, the Bahamas & Holland. Not once would they complain of their old age or ailments (compared to most Asians), they maintained a sense of dignity, secrecy and civility - very prim and proper, very English-like.  And when news as sudden as this hits you, you really are left speechless. There were no previous symptoms, all Val had was a sore throat. She'd seen the GP, been for X-rays, blood tests - nothing out of the ordinary. GP was letting it ago, but Val insisted she didn't feel quite right, "I knew deep down something isn't right" so GP requested full blood tests, and then it showed up.

I was unprepared for this situation, finding the right words was difficult. In situations like these, I guess just being there, your presence is enough.  I couldn't mention anything religious, not because I'm Muslim and they're not, but more so because although they are Christians by name, Tony has no patience for religion or God, so I couldn't mention typical cases like "God has a plan for you, put your trust in God", etc. I just hope Val can find something to hold on to over this massive transition - maybe it'll be God, maybe something else, but somehow she has to come to terms with this news. "Sleep on it, you're tired. Take each day as it comes. You know we're here for you at any time, just let us know how we can help....Is there anything you wanted to do that you didn't have a chance to....Yes, actually I'd love to see the London Eye...but if chemo is going to start next week, I won't get that chance"...The London eye, right in our own backyard, and they've not had a chance to go there... :-( I will try to help them realise this in the limited time I have in UK.

I've got a month to go before the relocation move to SA, leaving friends to deal with this difficult situation. I'm gutted really...

Looking at Tony and Val with different eyes yesterday, it seemed like they'd aged ten more years...bad news can have this effect on you.  Tony needs to be strong, I fear the worst: he will resign to the inevitable and his active life as a handy-man keeping himself fit despite his age will tail off...I pray he finds something to hold on to...

I can only imagine what last night must've felt like for Val...getting old is one thing, finding out you have a life-threatening disease and knowing you're not fit-enough to see it through, probabilities of survival are low, is another thing altogether....

This is a first for me, I'm still trying to come to terms with it.... In the past I've seen people who were sick, you just knew they're not going to live long (my once healthy brother-in-law who had severe stomach cancer dying at the age of just 32) I'd been home to SA specifically to see him, he was in a terrible state, I knew then he wouldn't survive, you could see what the chemo did to him....

But this case is different, the opposite end of the spectrum. Here is a person just over twice my age, who has lived a full life, who on the surface looks as normal and healthy as any person in her age, to be given the death notice. Being in your late 60s you somehow prepare yourself, but you think you have time to prepare...

Review: What I wish I knew when I was Twenty by Tina Seelig

Tina Seelig runs the Entrepreneurial Thought Leadership at Stanford, a very impressive programme with guest speakers from all the top companies sharing their experiences of past failures and successes - invaluable insights freely available for download.  If you're seeking out knowledge to be a successful entrepreneur, then I highly recommend you visit Stanford E-Corner website.

Back to the book: Very well written, easy language in direct conversation-style, brings out the message in clear and simple terms. Although this book could be seen as yet-another-self-improvement-book-on-leadership-innovation, in that it provides stories and insight's into other people's experiences & resultant lessons learnt; it is unique in the following aspects:

• References to real classroom exercises being taught at Stanford. Don't be fooled into thinking this is a student text, the example challenges can be given to any company team and will be equally, if not, more challenging than the classroom experience
• Tina touches upon subjects that are generally considered taboo
• There is an element of realism, practical advice that is good food for thought
• Topics are light-enough to leave the reader time to analyse his/her own personal situation (For example: the bit on "Failure Resume" (FR) really got me thinking, so much so that I exposed version 1 of my draft FR here)

Another topic that got me going was from the chapter "Turn Lemonade into Helicopters", Pages 129-130, which I'll quote below [I am still working on my own similes :-)]:

...In my course on creativity I focus a great deal on the value of recombining ideas in unusual ways. The more you practice this skill, the more natural it becomes. For example, using similes or metaphors, to describe concepts that on the surface seem completely unrelated offers tools for revealing fresh solutions to familiar problems.....Teams are asked to come up with as many answers as possible to the following statement:

Ideas are like ______________________________________

because __________________________________________

therefore __________________________________________

• Ideas are like babies because everyone think theirs is cute, therefore be objective when judging your own ideas ideas 
• Ideas are like shoes because you need to break them in, therefore take time to evaluate new ideas
• Ideas are like mirrors because they reflect the local environment, therefore consider changing contexts to get more diverse collections of ideas
• Ideas are like bubbles because they easily burst, therefore be gentle with them
• Ideas are like the measles because they are contagious, therefore hang out with other people with ideas if you want to get them yourself
• Ideas are like spider webs because they are stronger than they appear, therefore don't underestimate them

All-in-all, this is a useful addition to my book collection. It will no doubt be used time and again as a reference.  Don't be fooled by the title, the lessons taught are relevant to anyone throughout their personal/professional life, 20s, 30s, 40s and beyond...

Writing a Failure Resume

This week I completed Chapter 5 of Tina Seelig’s "What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20: A Crash Course on Making Your Place in the World”; and was left thinking about a particular topic that I found quite interesting: writing a “Failure Resume”.  Other people have already blogged about this in the past (ETL, Tina's own blog, mistake bank) sharing similar impressions as I. But what I’d like to do here, is present my very own failure resume just as Tina has done in her book, but adding a little more detail: in addition to summarising the failure, I will include the lesson learnt and future objectives for improvements.

I find Tina’s book a fascinating read, it’s as if the book was especially written for me. I can really relate to Tina’s advice, how I wish I could’ve attended a proper institution like Stanford. I try my best to follow Tina’s ETL series (Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders) program, how generous of them to share this valuable information with the world, for free!!  Whenever I read books on entrepreneurs, I get really excited. I have this feeling in my inner core that this is me, this is something I can do, this is someone I definitely want to be - but haven’t yet taken that leap of faith yet, although I can feel it’s just around the corner.  I plan to share my past ideas with you in another post, just in case you think I’m a nutter, a wanna-be, just a dreamer getting high on books ;-)

So back to this “Failure Resume” and what is so interesting about it??  Most of us concentrate on all the successes and overlook the past failures that probably influenced us more than we’d like to admit ourselves, and could possibly have accounted for future success.  It’s good to keep a record of past failures, and in my opinion, could come in handy during interviews when you’re quizzed “What are your weaknesses?”, “Give us an example where things didn’t go the way you wanted”, etc.  Failing that, it is a good tool for reflection and planning your next growth stage, both personally and professionally.  

To excel and succeed, to reach the next stage or challenge, one has to take risks, try something different - and don’t be afraid of failure. One should embrace failure, because with failure, comes wisdom. A mix of successes and failures provides one with a good balance, well rounded experiences that you can use to your advantage.  The great companies, according to Tina, look for people with a diverse background and talent, willingness to learn, experiment and failure, but wise enough not to repeat past failures.  I, myself, am still searching for a company that embraces this culture - well it is the secret sauce of Silicon Valley after all!!

[April 2011]: So version one of my Failure Resume is below (I found this quite a difficult exercise to complete, this is certainly no 10-minute exercise. In my case, I’m not that experienced, I’ve only got 10 years professional experience, and most of the failures can be rationalised and turned up-side-down to be seen as necessary successes because of my over-arching desire of learning as much as possible, from as many different areas as possible - to be a Jack of all trades in Software):

MUHAMMAD J. KHAN

Professional Failures

Jumping ship too early. My desire to broaden my horizons can be seen as a failure of not giving enough time to stay for a long enough period to establish myself in the role. I find myself changing roles once I feel that I’ve learnt enough or seen enough, eager to seek out the next new challenge. I’ve learnt that you really should allow yourself at least 2 years in a job role before moving onwards. After all practise makes perfect. Just because I excelled in one project doesn’t necessarily mean the next project will be any easier. This failure can be seen as getting bored too quickly, impatient.  It’s a tricky one because you can find yourself falling into the trap of becoming too complacent, watching the years go by and then realising you missed your chance to make that exit you so desperately need right now.

Being made redundant. I left my country of birth after one year of working as a graduate engineer, to work in Ireland. I’d not been overseas before, and neither did I have enough workplace experience (my first company mostly employed people from the local university - we were all friends). It took me a while to settle in with the new company culture, moreover, the company was doing poorly in terms of projects, so for the first 6 months I literally had no real work to do. Although I made efforts to take on work and was proactive, I fear I wasn’t loud enough, blending quietly in the background.  When work did pick up and I was assigned to a good project where I thought I’d played an important role, I falsely assumed that my job was secure in the wave of redundancies taking place. Not so - I was made redundant (they train you to say “my job was made redundant”) - I see that as a personal failure on my part, not doing enough, not contributing to core projects as a failure.  Thankfully, the subsequent 8 years that followed, I made it a point to strategically move when my spider-senses detected a scarcity of work on the horizon.

Falsely assuming managers understood my expectations, not selling myself enough & working too hard. I recently came off an intense project where personally I felt I did an excellent job, even in my appraisals had consistently exceeded my managers expectations.  I assumed that I’d naturally move into a more senior position seeing that I’d proven myself on more than one occasion, doing work proactively, working long hours early into the morning, etc.  Oddly enough, I wasn’t given the appreciation I assumed was coming my way.  I did not communicate clearly enough to the main project stakeholder of my expectations, once the project was over, I found myself wandering, in limbo - all that effort, all my hard work wasn’t good enough to be noticed. Seeing that I wasn’t getting what I wanted, I decided to leave the team, leaving a hole behind now filled in by three people. A new project was kicked off, but it was too late for me to board that ship!  I realise now that expectations must be communicated clearly, and also, you should try NOT to do too much (if you’re overloaded, shout about it, don’t take it on), there’s more important things to worry about than work.

Refusing to play the corporate game.  Perhaps it’s because of my naivety, but for a few years I’d refused to play to corporate game of falsely smiling and being nice to managers, pretending to give a damn when in fact you don’t, just because you want to climb the corporate ladder.  Yes, you need to get on with all your colleagues, but when it comes to work and execution of tasks, one should be judged on only this - the value one adds to the bottom-line.  Maybe I have a cultural or religious bias, ideals that prevent me from mixing and socialising?  I’ve learnt that if you don’t allow yourself a little flexibility without compromising on your core principles, you need to develop some “street savvy, be street-smart” in the workplace, to make the connections and silently manoeuvre to positions advantageous for you.  Don’t expect others to do it for you, you need to consciously make the effort and plan ahead - take time to determine the corporate culture, identify the teams/people you’d rather not get involved with, have a plan of attack targeting the people you’d like to end up with.

Academic Failures

Not doing my best, not 100% focused. I used to be a straight-A/B student, but at university, I dropped the ball in my third & final years (the most important years!). Staying on my own with friends, having unrivalled freedom to experiment, even the distraction of girls, I ended up not attending lectures, avoiding the lecturers, and just sitting for the exams with only a month’s preparation, gaining a 3rd class pass (66% if you average the 4 years), when I could’ve easily got at least 75% had I been focused.  Whilst I did successfully qualify, I regret not using the vast amount of resources that were available to us (e.g. experimenting with business projects, becoming more involved with the university staff, etc).

Poor relationship management. Whilst some of this can be attributed to the unnatural cultural legacy of Apartheid, and that it needed some mental fortitude for students from backgrounds such as myself to break through the invisible barrier between different people (black/indian/coloured/white) - I failed to build any meaningful relationships with the faculty staff at university, so much so, that when I enrolled for a Masters in Ireland, the professor in charge was not entirely positive in his recommendation.  We were not on talking terms socially, I’d only visit him when a report or presentation was due - we did not have a mentor/student relationship.  At university the class would be naturally be separate into racial groups, we didn’t really interact with each other.  Had we learnt how to make these relationships in university, then working in a multicultural company would’ve been a piece of cake.

Personal Failures

Not knowing enough - choosing the wrong career path.  Perhaps I’m being too hash on myself, but one of my failures goes way back to when I finished high school, the period where you decide what to do for the rest of your life.  I feel had I known better, I could’ve made different choices that would’ve set out a path so different to where I am today, although the present one isn’t so bad.  Nevertheless, I failed to do the research, the serious searching that was required at this important juncture of my life.

Not executing my ideas, not taking enough risks.  I have always had ideas that could’ve led to something great, if only I’d acted upon them.  Either I take too long to experiment with the idea, or lack the confidence to push it through, take it to the next level.  I have executed on a couple ideas, but this was within the context of a safe environment of the workplace.  If I failing to execute, I can’t call myself an entrepreneur. I need to stop making excuses (no time, work, family, no money) and take a chance.

Rewarding myself.  I over analyse and keep putting the needs of others ahead of mine.  I am also too hard on myself, and very self-critical. Personal time and space is important, and is a right of an individual. I don’t allow myself enough of this, and also have failed in keeping my interests up-to-date, for example: making sketches, doing some programming (i.e. learning new languages outside of work), or taking time out to be active.

Relationship management. There were times when I found difficult to separate out my work persona from my family persona - and expect my family to be run just as I’m running a project at work, to an extent that I’ve been told I act like a general in the army, too strict with the wife and kids, with too many expectations. Over time, I’ve improved and trying hard to change :-)

[October 2016 Update]: Five years onwards and I've had a relook at my failure resume, read here!

Getting back to being creative again....

I find myself reminiscing about the past recently, and find it fascinating how time flies by so fast, that before you know it almost two decades passes you by, even though I can remember my teenage years as if it was just yesterday.  I am searching for a something, a past time, a time for myself where I can relax, do something interesting and gain some satisfaction from doing so :-) Of course, I am quite enjoying blogging, although finding the time is proving difficult - and I'm quite conscious of my blog becoming an outlet for being a humble brag - but I guess my blog can be seen as me reaching out, perhaps someone comes across my posts by accident which could set things in motion and change my life in ways I could never imagine ha haa, lol - I'm such a dreamer :-)

I used to sketch/draw back when I was in school, you could say it was a hobby of mine.  I would mostly draw from pictures, not from my own imagination though. I would also draw plants (our house was filled with pot plants) and flowers. I would enter art competitions, but never did take it quite seriously though - I couldn't see a lucrative future in art, neither our school teachers help to promote the arts/culture.  

After school, enter university, then work, then married life - I really didn't make any time to continue my sketching seriously.  But I am thinking about making a start, I think it'll be a good stress reliever...

I want to put my art out there, and would like whoever stumbles across it to give an opinion. Remember this is stuff that I drew about 15-20 years ago. Click here for the full picture

Hand-drawn replica of the cover from "The Best of Lawrence Green"

The above sketch was taken from a book that I'd received for a History prize in primary school, ended drawing this during the July school holiday in 1993... 

In high school I made some friends who were quite talented and interested in art. One of the guys was heavily into the 1940s war comics that featured classic fighter planes (of the like described in this blog post); we'd all have a go at sketching whatever we found interesting. Remember these were all free-hand drawing, not tracing (Click here, here and here for all the pics below):

I went through a phase of being fanatical of Bill Watterson's Calvin & Hobbes, through another friend of mine. I couldn't afford buying the books myself, but I made sure when I was working I bought every title there was :-) I sketched these during my last year of high school, in between studying and writing final exams:

Weirdos from another planet

The days are just packed

Something under the bed is drooling

Homicidal psycho jungle cat

Attack of the deranged killer monster goons

Yukon Ho!