Freezing Thoughts

In today’s world, travel is heavily romanticized. Social media feeds are filled with stunning landscapes, exotic destinations and thrilling adventures, painting a picture of a traveler's life as one of constant wonder. As someone who gets asked, “Where are you?” more than, “How are you?” on phone calls, I can attest that the reality is more nuanced. While my journeys do take me to amazing places and occasions, whether witnessing the Northern Lights in the Arctic, watching a cricket match in Dubai, or exploring stunning landscapes of Canada or Australia, these experiences are mostly intertwined with work. It requires a lot of planning to weave my personal interests around work obligations, making every trip a major balancing act. It’s never about ticking off destinations or checking items off a bucket list for me. More often, my trips are driven by necessity; they are always accompanied by sudden meetings across time zones, conference schedules, and long unplanned stays for forging ...

When the English cricket team embraced Bazball under Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum, it closely resembled what often happens when a struggling company brings in a new leader to shake things up. A classic example is Apple in the late 1990s. When Steve Jobs returned, Apple was fearful, slow and close to irrelevance. Jobs simplified everything, removed hesitation and encouraged boldness. The early iMacs were colorful, unconventional, and energizing. Importantly, that phase wasn’t about perfection, it was about restoring belief. Bazball did the same for England; after years of tentative, joyless cricket, Stokes and McCullum told players to stop worrying about consequences and simply play. Confidence returned, players expressed themselves and results followed quickly. Like Apple’s revival, the initial success was real and deserved.  However, many turnarounds fail when the corrective idea becomes absolute truth, rather than a temporary remedy. This happened at Uber after its explosive e...