3 Useful Ideas — Let Purpose Drive You So That Serendipity Can Find You
Follow Your Intuition Even When You Cannot Rationalize It. Use Your Anxiety As Fuel.
Every Sunday I share 3 Useful Ideas to help you pursue a rich life.
This week:
Let Purpose Drive You So That Serendipity Can Find You
Follow Your Intuition Even When You Cannot Rationalize It
Use Your Anxiety As Fuel
You can find all past editions here. Also check out my Master of the Deal podcast and the M&A This Week newsletter.
Let’s dive in 👇
(1) Let Purpose Drive You So That Serendipity Can Find You
ONE Championship was bootstrapped. They decided to raise their first institutional round. They hired an investment bank to help them.
After the meeting with Chatri Sityodto, the founder of ONE Championship, Atin Kukreja, the investment banker from Ripple Dot, walked into the same elevator as Shailendra Singh, the Managing Partner of Sequoia Asia. Shailendra happened to see the slides that Atin was carrying in his hands and asked:
Shailendra: “what company is that?”
Atin: “Oh, it’s a sports company called ONE Championship.”
In that one minute elevator ride, Shailendra decided that he wanted to fund them. Within two days ONE Championship had their first cheque of $15 million.
About a year later, Shailendra arranged a meeting between Chatri, Mike Moritz and Douglas Leone. At the end of the breakfast Mike said
“Hey Chatri, there are founders who are born to do something gargantuan like Bill Gates. And you are that guy for this opportunity. This is going to be a home run.”
Shailendra called Chatri two hours after the breakfast meeting and said:
“We will put in a $100 million at a $1 billion valuation. Mike and Douglas think that you are on to something special.”
Chatri was in shock. In that one hour meeting they had sliced and diced the business and the founder and made a decision. Today ONE Championship is one of the top ten sports platforms in the world.
Chatri - “this whole journey has just been moments of serendipity. Moments of good blessings. It is mind blowing to me for us to get this far.”
Last week I had written about meeting Deepak in Dubai and how great partnerships happen serendipitously. Chatri’s is another example that supports this thought. I believe that in our lives there are unexplainable imperceptible forces at play that define us. It is what I call “the invisible vibe”. You cannot see it but you can feel it. You can feel it in a persons tone, body language, and actions. And if you are driven by a purpose that goes beyond you then you will tap into this powerful invisible force, which will propel you forward in unimaginable ways.
Listen to Chatri’s inspiring story. You can feel the invisible vibe that he carries:
(2) Follow Your Intuition Even When You Cannot Rationalize It
Imagine you are in school. You really don’t know what path you want to pursue in life. Someone suggests you do engineering so that’s what you end up studying. After college you decide you want to do MTEC in your dream college which is IIM Mumbai. To get in you must pass a qualifying exam called GATE. You prepare hard. You end up doing really well by getting an all-India rank of five. You are ecstatic. Your dream is coming true. You have got in.
You visit IIM Mumbai’s campus, the college you dreamt of. In that visit your intuition tells you that this is not for you.
Rationally this makes no sense! You have everything you wanted and worked towards. But something in you - your intuition - tells you otherwise. You end up taking a gap year, studying for CAT and getting into an MBA instead.
This is exactly what Anand Bhageria did. He could not rationalize why he did this, but he is very happy now that he listened to his intuition.
Follow your intuition even when you cannot rationalize it.
Listen to Anand share this story here:
(3) Use Your Performance Anxiety As Fuel
If you are feeling anxious at work, it means that you are very attached to an outcome. You are desperate to get the results that you desire. So any speed bumps between you and your goal tend to get your heart skipping a beat. It is not a pleasant feeling.
I would argue that this is a good thing. It shows that firstly you are committed to the goal. That it is important enough to make you feel uneasy when you hit speed bumps. I would also argue that dealing with this feeling is how you become anti-fragile.
“But Harsh how should I deal with this paralyzing feeling? How should I become anti-fragile?”
Here is what I do:
To break the pattern of thought, I start breathing very slowly. This focus on the breath tends to help reduce the thinking. My monkey mind starts obsessing over the issue less because it is too focused on the breath.
I sleep on it. A lot of the mental monsters we create tend to be nothing more than our tired minds misinterpreting situations. Look at the same issue with fresh rested eyes when you wake up.
I remind myself that the outcome is not in my control. Only the input is. Yes I want the results but I don’t know in what zig-zaggy way I will get to it. My job is to give it my all and have no regrets.
Lastly, I try to listen to some music! My wife took me out to a friend Kabir’s performance yesterday and that just changed my mood.
As long as you are alive, anxiety will be a part and parcel of your life. You will face anxiety at work. You will also face family anxiety, health anxiety, financial anxiety. The list goes on and on. You must learn to deal with it. It’s better to flip it on its head and use it as fuel to do more, do better and perhaps do newer things.
👋 I’m Harsh. Every Sunday I share 3 Useful Ideas to help you pursue a rich life. Read by 7000+ founders and CXOs. If you’re curious about what I’m building, here’s where I spend most of my time:
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