Subject in the Almanac Index
Psychology
Cognition, emotion, behavior, and psychologically framed claims.
The cost of selling to the wrong customer
In 2017, I received a sales call from a company offering payroll and HR software. I was running a product company with an 18-person mobile apps team.
The Calibration of the Lens: Correcting the Observer
In 2007, I replaced a windshield because the view seemed distorted. The problem was my eyesight, and the source records the unnecessary cost as ₹7,500.
Systemic Clutter: Beyond the Hotchpotch of Desire
Desire becomes clutter when several wants compete for the same limited capacity without any clear order among them. Wanting more is not automatically greed.
The Cognitive Firewall: Filtering Systemic Noise
Theory U names three familiar barriers to attentive inquiry: the voices of judgment, cynicism, and fear.
Language changes what I can notice
The words I use do not create reality, but they influence which parts of it I notice. If I call a project a failure, I may see only the ending.
The Temporal Buffer: Architecting the Emotional Pause
A pause between emotion and action can create room for judgment. It does not make sensitivity a defect or guarantee emotional stability.
The reality filter
What you look for can shape what you notice. If you start looking for a red Tesla, you may notice more of them.
Unspoken Incentives: Architecting for the Elephant
What people say they want and what their circumstances reward are not always the same.
The Opinion Observer: Decoupling from the Ego
An opinion is an interpretation, not an identity. That distinction creates room between a thought and a response.
Biological Sovereignty: The Architecture of Being
Understanding an idea and acting on it are different forms of learning. Repeated practice can make a behaviour easier to perform with less conscious effort.
Three Brains: Thinking to Doing to Being
You don’t become a new version of yourself by reading about it. You become it by rehearsing it until it rewires you.
The Quantum Observer: Collapsing Your Preferred Reality
Changing jobs, cities, or relationships does not always change the patterns a person carries into them. That observation needs no analogy to quantum physics.
The Quantum You
She walked into the cave to escape the storm. But the storm was inside her. Years of heartbreak, rejections, missed chances.
The Airlock Protocol: Preventing Emotional Bleed
In 2010, I used Napoleon’s image of thoughts arranged in drawers to think about compartmentalization.
What helped me stay calm in 2009
In January 2009, during the economic downturn, I wrote about trying to remain “cool.” The word feels casual now, but the need behind it was real.