E37 – The Day Notre Dame Burned
It was around 6pm on April 15th, 2019. The security employee monitoring the smoke alarm panel at the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris was just three days old in his job. Stationed since…
E36 – Persistence Pays
In 1968 Dr. Spencer Silver, a PhD in organic chemistry was working intently in laboratory at the 3M company. He and his team were looking to create strong adhesives that could be used in aircraft construction….
E34 – Fearlessness
Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw also called Sam Bahadur (or Sam the Brave) was arguably India greatest general.
He was the Chief of Army Staff for the Indian Army during the Bangladesh war in 1971. This incident happened three decades before that war. The year – 1942, The Location – the forests of Burma. This was before the second world…
E33 – IQ Vs EQ
This story is from a speech given by Jeff Bezos the founder of Amazon at a commencement address at Princeton University. Jeff Bezos’ parents married very early when they were at the prime young age of 16 or 17 and so every time Jeff had a holiday his grandparents tried to remove Jeff away from the family so that the parents had some me time……
E32 – Does your boss have your back ?
This is story about a lesson in leadership that the Dr Satish Dhawan then the Chairman of The Indian Space Research Organisation taught Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam who was then the Mission Director of a Satellite Launch Program. It was 17th of August, 1979. At SriHarikota Space Centre, a 4 stage Satellite Launch Vehicle was ready for lift-off……
E31 – Human Computers
There was an African-American girl called Dorothy Vaughn who was born in 1910. She was very good at her studies and did well through college and she went on to become a…
E30 – Brown M&Ms
Van Halen is a famous American Hard Rock band formed in Pasadena, California in 1972. It is credited with restoring hard rock to the forefront of the American Music scene in the 1980s…..
E29 – The Battle of Taranto
Few people have heard about the Battle of Taranto which took place on November 11th and 12th, 1940, even though it has forever changed…
E28 – The Pygmalion Effect
Today’s story in a small way involves one of my favourite movies the Audrey Hepburn & Rex Harrison Classic – ‘My Fair Lady’. Based on George Bernard Shaw’s classic ‘Pygmalion’, the movie mesmerizes us about possibilities as Professor Higgins demonstrates…
E27 – The Street Corner Experiment
This is a story about an experiment conducted around the time I was born. The winter of 1968. The place New York. Three researchers – Stanley Milgram, Leonard Bickman and Lawrence Berkowitz picked a 50 ft stretch of a sidewalk in New York for this experiment……