In Greek mythology, the great Hercules had to perform 12 labors as a penance of the terrible crimes that he had committed. One of the labors was to kill Hydra. It was a serpent-like monster that had many heads. If you cut off one hydra head, two more would grow back in its place.

The more heads you cut, the more the heads would grow up. The more you try to kill it, the more it would get stronger. Harm is what it likes. In fact, it feeds on it. It looks forward to it.

Hydra represents antifragility. It’s a word that has been on my mind lately. And is quite relevant in the current times.

The word Antifragile was popularised by Nasim Taleb who wrote a book by the same name Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder.

We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.
- Bill Gates

The end of the year is usually a good time to sit back and reflect upon how the last year went by. But this year is a special one because not only is it the end of the year but also it is the end of this decade. I started thinking about how life was at the beginning of this decade and how has it changed over the course of the last ten years.

Bangalore had not become Bengaluru yet. It was still the startup capital of India, but had only a few tens of startups. And the word startup was still frowned upon by the elders in most families. There was no WhatsApp or Instagram. Or Uber, or OLA. Neither Trump, nor Modi in power too.

Unimaginable, right?

The world was simply a different place back then.

So, I thought maybe it is a good time to sit back and reflect on how this decade has gone by. Here are a few big things that happened in the last ten years which, according to me, fundamentally changed our way of life.

In Japan, millions of people have Ikigai (pronounced Ick-ee-guy) - a reason to jump out of bed each morning.

What’s your reason for getting up in the morning? And No, before you even think about it, morning alarm is not a valid reason.

The Japanese Island of Okinawa, where ikigai has its origins, has one of the largest population of centenarians (people reached the age of 100 years). And ikigai is speculated to be the reason for it.

According to wikipedia, the word translated to English roughly means “things you live for” or “the reason for which you wake up in the morning”.

The term ikigai compounds two Japanese words: iki meaning "life; alive" and kai meaning "(an) effect; (a) result; (a) fruit; (a) worth; (a) use; (a) benefit; (no, little) avail" (sequentially voiced as gai) to arrive at "a reason for living [being alive]; a meaning for [to] life; what [something that] makes life worth living; a raison d'etre".

If there was ever a day to follow sports, Sunday was that day. PV Sindhu created history. Ben Stokes delivered a miraculous Ashes victory for England and Virat Kohli and his men smothered West Indies in a one-sided contest.

While all the three stories are worth celebrating for different reasons, the one I personally enjoyed the most was the Ben Stokes innings. He single-handedly snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. This apparently is the first time since literally the inception of the game that a team has won in spite of getting out so cheaply in the first innings. And it’s the largest successful 4th innings chase for England. For a team playing this sport for more than a century, its a huge achievement.

From being reduced to 268/9 to chasing down 359, as he was inching closer to the victory, the one thought going in my mind was - Man! How does this guy consistently find himself at the center of such thrilling situations? 

Today, I wanted to write about one of my all-time favorite books. It’s a book called The score will take care of itself by a guy named Bill Walsh. He was the head coach of the NFL football team San Francisco 49’ers. In his first season he took over, they ended up 2-14. They were one of the worst teams ever to play in the league. And within the next 24 months, they won the super ball - the first and the only team in the NFL history to go from worst to the best in two seasons. And this book is a story of how he led that transformation.

To me, this book is not about the story of San Francisco 49’ers path to glory. It’s not even about football. It’s a blueprint of how to make a turnaround - in sports, in business, and in life. Some of the lessons mentioned here can be - and should be - directly applicable in the situation we find ourselves in.

I wanted to share a few parts from the book that I found very inspiring and hopefully excite you enough to buy the book and read it yourself.