An Inspiration A Day

Tolstoy said it right. “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” 

My only goal in life growing up was to have a happy family. I wanted to escape so desperately from the unhappiness of the family I was born into. I was on track to achieving my goal for a short, fleeting period of time. But of course, as someone who has never known what a happy family is, it took me no time to drive the truck of my family’s happiness into a ditch.

It began with unforgiveable personal and career mistakes. One who is filled with shame and regret and self-loathing cannot possibly spread love and warmth to the people around them. Self-loathing slowly transformed into loss of honesty and vulnerability which led to a complete breakdown of communication. Then came the ultimate kicker - taking my soulmate for granted. Over and over and over again.

It didn’t take long for me to become an exact incarnation of the person I did not want to be. It is hard to shake your roots and rewire your DNA.

I have one thing going for me though. Hope. And awareness. And the recognition that if I want I can turn things around. 

Happy families across the world have one thing in common - they talk to each other. Their time together is filled with conversation. Not necessarily deep musings on life, just everyday banter. The details of life. Feelings, emotions, dreams, disappointments, hopes. Happy families are vulnerable and transparent and comfortable with each other. They have fun with each other. 

And it all starts with having a conversation not in your head with yourself but with the person you share the bathroom with. 

Bitcoin is digital money. e.g. send $ from Alice -> Bob. 

Ethereum is made up of smart contracts i.e. each transaction is defined by a rule. e.g. Send $ from Alice to Bob if date = mm/dd/yyyy.

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Bitcoin’s scripting language has limited functionality, reads like machine code, is hard to use and understand.

Ethereum’s scripting language is much easier to understand, has a lot more capability and flexibility and lends itself to development of apps. Solidity for Javascript and Serpent for Python.

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The value of the Bitcoin network’s token - Bitcoin and the Ethereum network’s token - Ether lies in the applications built on top of the networks. 

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#Awesome

1/Recognizing when the lizard brain is going into overdrive mode. Consistently making an effort to keep my brain space uncluttered and productive. Long way to go but focusing on one step at a time.

2/Being more patient and creative with my daughter. 

3/Meeting a new set of neighbors and making friends.

4/Consistently revisiting the career advice I recently got and feeling inspired by it. (Advice -> All I need for my career to take off are one or two good years. All it requires is engagement, passion and effectively using my brain power)

5/Resisting the temptation to get lost in social media feeds. Not completely there yet but getting close.

#Not Awesome

1/Sliding into panic mode easily and making decisions from a place of nervousness and anxiety without a calm mind.

2/Revisiting the past over and over again. Failing to let go and moving on once and for all. Being unable to forgive myself.

3/Continuing to lay blame on my parents for all the ways I am broken.

4/Still struggling with assuming positive intent and affording people the benefit of the doubt

The general assumption in social science and popular culture is that humans have a rational thought process. Our decisions, words and actions are a result of efficiently weighing the pros and cons of a situation and deciding what to do next based on the best case outcome. Sure, our rationality may be diluted by emotions such as fear, anger, discomfort and by our relationships but fundamentally we are rational beings. This is the widely accepted story.

It turns out, our base process may be flawed. Our brains don’t alway follow the true process of rationality. Breaking down a situation into pieces, evaluating each piece separately, gathering all available data and information, weighing the impact of each piece, balancing the trade-offs and ultimately arriving at a logical decision. No, our brains are lazy and take short cuts. Two such short cuts are Simplicity Bias and Availability Bias.

Simplicity Bias is the act of choosing the less complicated alternative — the simple answer. As an example, a study asked participants whether the description of a soft-spoken, bespectacled, warm and friendly gentleman, let’s call him Steve, would likely fit a Farmer or a Librarian. The quick and popular answer was of course Librarian because when we imagine a librarian we think of a person like Steve. However, if the participants had cared to dig into the data and looked at labor stats, they would have discovered there are far fewer librarians than farmers so the likelihood of Steve being a farmer were much higher. But simplicity bias kicked in leading the participants to arrive at the simpler answer.

Availability Bias on the other hand forces us to look at the easily available information on hand and use that to form our decisions. When considering whether infidelity was more common amongst politicians compared to doctors or lawyers, most people say it is the politicians. Why? Because we hear about their stories more. It’s covered in the media, they are public figures so we talk about them more, the limelight is on them. Their affairs become scandals. But we rarely hear about our doctor’s or lawyer’s marriage problems let alone their extra marital escapades. Information about politicians affairs is available and omnipresent which allows us to jump to the conclusion they must be having more affairs than the rest of us.

The same processing flaw kicks in when participants in a study were asked if there were more letters starting with the letter K (this could apply to any letter of the alphabet) or where K was the third letter in the word. Any scrabble player will tell you it is easier to think of a word starting with a particular letter than if the letter was positioned anywhere else. The obvious answer therefore is that more letters start with the letter K than with K in the third position only because participants were able to easily recall words starting with K.

My husband and I started the Whole 30 program a few days back and while meals have been a challenge, it is a challenge we were prepared for. What we weren’t prepared for however was the challenge of finding the right beverage. There are almost no options for beverages that have no added sugar, dairy or alcohol. Drinking plain water gets boring after a while. 

So in my search for the perfect Whole 30 compliant beverage, here are some options I have discovered.

Starbucks iced latte with coconut milk. Have it plain with no sugar. It has a delicious coffee flavor and is great to sip on at work.

Watermelon cooler. Cut up a seedless watermelon and process it in a Vitamix. Then add some black salt, some chat masala, pinch of salt and some slices of lemon. Store and refrigerate. Great for a cool after-work drink on a hot afternoon.

Hint. Plain water with a hint of flavor. No sugary substances. Fantastic thirst-quencher.

Fruit infused water.

Unsweetened tea steeped in herb and fruit.

Almond milk smoothie. I make a delicious breakfast smoothie with almond milk, frozen berries, chia seeds and protein powder.

Chilled coconut water. Can’t go wrong with coconut water. Except when you have the flavored version. Just have it plain. The flavored version has added sugars.

Beet juice. Add a splash of lime juice and pinch of salt. Delicious when chilled.

Carrot juice. And tomato juice. Same.

I used to run a tech startup in DC. It was called TappedIn and it was one of the first apps in the social discovery space. I like to say we were ahead of the curve. We ran the startup for over 3 years, raised money, hired a team, built iOS, Android and web apps., partnered with TEDx events and hit a whole bunch of other milestones.

Until we hit the end of the road. 

The money ran out as did our patience. Life got in the way and we decided it was best to move on. So we did. That was mid 2013. I wrote a lessons-learned-from-failure post after the paperwork was done and the heartbreak was over.

And now 3 years later, I am starting another venture. Something completely different. Something I would never have imagined. My husband and I launched The Silver Bullet last month. The Silver Bullet is an Airstream rental company. In fact we are the only Airstream rental company on the east coast. The amazing thing is that just 5 months ago we hadn’t even heard of an Airstream. It started with a casual conversation between Kruttik, (my business partner and husband) and his friend who was complaining about wanting to rent an Airstream for his family but was frustrated with the lack of options. He mentioned casually, “I wish there were more rental options for Airstreams. It would completely change my family’s holiday experiences.” That set off a light bulb in our heads. We looked at Airstream pictures and were instantly in love. How can one not be? A few days of obsessive photo scanning and reading later, we decided to give it a shot. And here’s where all the lessons from my failed startup experience kicked in.

For one, we first found an opportunity in the market and then figured out a way to solve for it. Unlike TappedIn, we didn’t build a solution first and then try to force fit it on a problem. Our research showed us there were only two Airstream rental companies in the entire country and not a single on the east coast. So if someone from New York wanted to rent an Airstream, they’d have to tow it (and back) across the country. Our next step was to test if there was a real market need here. We created a bare bones website, put up some Craigslist and AirBnb listings and waited. Over the next few weeks, calls, messages and emails started trickling in. We got inquiries from all over the country – not just the local market. It didn’t stop at inquiries; people were willing to send over payments! When we had multiple clients willing to book now, we knew it was time to take the next step.

The next step was buying an Airstream. We spent a couple months obsessively trying to find the right fit. We needed something that would be great for rentals but that was also a wise investment. There were other factors like locations, size, value after depreciation etc that we had to consider. Once we found what we liked, we moved ahead with the purchase decision. The important thing to note here is that we didn’t jump into it unheeded like we did with TappedIn. We have both kept our fulltime day jobs. That allows us not only the ability to bootstrap without relying on raising investment dollars but it also gives us safety net. If this thing doesn’t work, we won’t fall into an abyss. We are taking risks but these are cautious, calculated risks.

We have a very clear understanding of who our target market is, what they are looking for and why. Our challenge is in figuring out where they are and going to them. One of our big mistakes with TappedIn was that we built a one size fits all product. It didn’t have a clear story. What does it do? For whom? Why does it matter? We had a slightly different answer to these questions based on whom we were selling to at the moment. Which is why raising money became so hard with TappedIn. Investors heard a different story vs event organizers vs users vs corporate partners. With The Silver Bullet, we’re tapping into the desires and dreams of an already established community of Airstream lovers. These are people who love the timelessness, beauty and excellence of an Airstream. There is a palpable spirit of adventure in Airstream lovers and they are all engaged with the same story. Our tagline goes, “An Airstream Is An Adventure. Find Yours Now.” It is one story and it resonates with all of our target audience.

We’re taking baby steps, figuring things out as we go along and making sure we’re having fun while we’re at it.

Something happened yesterday that seemed like an impossibility before. I wore a swim costume in the company of my parents. I grew up in a mildly conservative Muslim family in the 90’s to parents who educating their girls but not in giving them liberties to make their own decisions. I never wore anything above my knee until I left home in my early twenties. And yet there I was frolicking in the pool with both my parents in my one-piece costume without getting a single disapproving look. I joked with my husband about how it took me 34 years to wear a swim costume with confidence.

How did this happen? It was a combination of several factors.

They are in my house which means I get to define the rules. I am hosting them and am respectful of their values – which means I won’t openly drink alcohol in front of them - but it means I get to decide what is right and what is wrong. The reason I get to do that is because I am financially independent. I run, fund and manage my own life. They are welcome to be a guest and share my home, my life and my family but we practice my values in this household. The key here is financial independence. You cannot live your life on your own terms if someone else is footing the bill.

Their staunch, conservative values have conditioned slowly over time to become milder and more tolerant. I have been wearing shorts, dresses and skirts around them. They are in America which has allowed them to be deeply steeped in the liberal way of life. Facebook allows them to peek into the lives of younger cousins and family members who are also practicing modern values. They are now seeing the world through new eyes.

I have earned their respect and trust in managing life. They are witness to how I balance career, domestic, parental, matrimonial and familial responsibilities. They like what they see. It is not perfect of course and there is dissonance between our values but for the most part they admire (and are proud of) the life I’ve built. I occasionally make the wrong choices but more often than not they are happy with the choices I do make.