E22 – The Power OF BECAUSE
Professor Ellen Langer the godmother of mindfulness conducted an experiment in 1970s. She was trying to do an experiment to understand how mindful or mindless people are. She wanted to check how difficult it…
E20 – The Importance of Clarifying Objectives
This story is proof that in almost all languages the six most powerful words are, “Let me tell you a story,” and stories are not only memorable but they travel and this one travelled a lot. I read this story for the first time in Paul…
E19 – Fighting Yellow Fever
In the late 1900s a French-Scottish physician called Carlos Juan Finlay had been practicing medicine in Cuba. One of the diseases that plagued the region was yellow fever. The popular belief in the medical profession was that yellow fever was caused…
E18 – Breaking The 4 Minute Barrier
With the conclusion of the Mumbai Marathon my Facebook feed is awash with proud achievements of many friends and ex-colleagues. The big news is “Sub-4”, running the marathon in under 4 hours. This reminded me of another Sub-4 triumph many decades ago……
E17 – Behind the White Screen
This story is about a musician. They year was 1980. In Italy there was a very talented trombone player called Abbie Conant. A trombone is a wind instrument much like a trumpet. It requires a huge lung power and is traditionally assumed to be a man’s instrument. Abbie was…
E16 – The Threat To Bono
This story is about one of my favorite band – U2. In 1976 when they were still teenagers studying in the same school in Dublin, Ireland, Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr decided to form the band ‘U2’. They released their first album in 1980 and it was very clear from the start that they were very good……..
E15 – The Mann Gulch Fire
This is a story about a devastating forest fire that tragically claimed the lives of 13 firefighters in the mountain of Montana. It was 5th August, 1949. The weather was ripe for a forest fire – dry, hot and windy. A lightning strike at Mann Gulch started a blaze covering an area of 50 to 60 acres………
E14 – Importance Of Context
It’s in Washington DC, Friday 12 January 2007 7:50 AM. Its rush hour traffic in the Metro. There are people busying by. In one station L’enfant Plaza at 7:50 AM, a nondescript American white male steps out and walks across and positions himself next to the trash can. He’s carrying a small case…
E13 – Positive Deviance
The year is 1990 Jerry Sternin and his wife Monique and their little 10 year old son, Sam have just landed at Hanoi Airport. The Sternins have been sent by the Save the Children organization at the behest of the Vietnam Government to help with a huge issue of child malnutrition……..
E12 – Smell Of The Place
Charles Pellerin was the director of astrophysics at NASA, where he led the team that was responsible for perhaps the biggest scientific screw-up in history. In 1990 Charles and his team sent up a telescope worth $1.7 Billion into the sky and then found out that the telescope couldn’t focus because…