"CEOs can't wait to read Sunny Bindra's articles every week."

So I was reading this book called How to Deal With Idiots. (Don’t ask. In my defence, I was more interested in the subtitle …and stop being one yourself) I was struck by a term used by the author, philosopher Maxime Rovere: bedazzlement. It refers to the confusion we all feel when we are trapped […]

Some quotations make you laugh out loud—and then stay with you, poking at your thoughts for days. Here’s one that did that to me recently, from the TV series Justified, based on Elmore Leonard’s stories: “If you meet an asshole in the morning, you met an asshole. If you meet assholes all day, you’re the […]

Ever seen turtles hatching?  If you haven’t, make a point of being right there on our sandy shores when this quiet miracle plays out. Tiny turtles, no bigger than a child’s palm, erupt from the darkness of their buried nests. They have never seen the world before, yet they know exactly what to do. In […]

How often are we tempted to put on a good show, tell a made-up story, sell an illusion? A Potemkin Village is something built or staged to give a false impression of prosperity, success, or good order. It’s a facade that hides a less flattering reality. The term comes from a story that’s probably exaggerated. […]

My son was talking to a close friend about a big change ahead. He would have to start afresh, get used to a new place with new faces, and tackle advanced knowledge. Here’s what the friend said, in conclusion: It will be difficult, but you’ll get through it. What a profound sentence that is. I […]

I was attending my son’s university graduation ceremony recently, and amidst the pomp and parental joy of the great occasion, I caught a snippet of profundity in the air. The university’s chancellor, in giving his congratulatory words to the students, made this phrase his final piece of advice to those going out into the world: […]

I have never been of the crowd.  From a young age, I flinched from the tumult of group interaction and enforced sociability. School playgrounds felt like battlefields, parties a series of uneasy truces. I simply existed on a different frequency. Where others thrived in the noise, I was attuned to silence, solitary trails, and quiet […]

Do you keep getting dumped on because you’re the accommodating one? Perhaps a lot of work lands on your desk because you’re so willing. Perhaps friends and even close relatives take you and your efforts for granted, not seeing how much you do to help them in their lives. If any of this sounds familiar, […]

In the days of yore, currency was in the form of silver or gold coins. If you allowed bad currency (debased, or even counterfeit) to be treated as equal to proper currency, guess what happened? Yep, the proper coins disappeared. People spent the bad money (because—why not?) and hoarded the good money. Eventually, the good […]

On Kenyan roads, many drivers seem to be in the grip of a particular madness: the need to get there quicker. On any given highway on any given day, there will be cars overtaking in the most dangerous situations. They will come blazing out past sharp bends. They will squeeze back into their lane with […]

We all respect thinkers. Well, most of us, anyway. Thoughtful people are of immense value in a world running on shallowness and the absence of critical reasoning. They go deep, and they re-emerge with insights, wisdoms, and solutions that regular people cannot. Many folks like to hang out with proper thinkers, at least some of […]

The pause that saves us Creshonda Smith moved to Italy from America a while back, first to Rome and then to a remote town in the far south. She got a huge culture shock. Not about language, food, or fashion; but about attitudes towards rest. In her words: “For most of my life, being busy […]

I was very lucky when I was young to come across this concept: ACTIVATION ENERGY. I want to show it to you today. If you’re feeling stuck, stranded, unable to get going—this idea may just be the trigger you need. It certainly did wonders for me. In science, activation energy is the minimum energy needed […]

A plain wooden coffin. No ornamentation, no gilded handles. An ordinary pickup truck, serving as the final hearse. A tombstone bearing just one word: Franciscus. And yet, the world stood still. Presidents, monarchs, patriarchs, imams, rabbis. Heads of state and heads bowed in reverence. All gathered in one of the grandest public squares on Earth, […]

“The respect a person receives due to wealth is not their own; it is the respect for their wealth.” That was written by the writer Munshi Premchand, perhaps a century ago. A man draped in money is often showered with deference, but let him lose his fortune, and watch how quickly that reverence evaporates. What […]

You stare at your garden as it dries out, waiting for some rain which doesn’t seem to be coming. You finally give in and water the whole place. The very next day the rain comes. You often order food using your go-to app, and it’s always on time. Except the day when you have guests, […]

“In a perfect world…” How many times have you heard that, or said it yourself? The human yearning for things to be better, more conducive, more acceptable, seems to be insatiable. We bring our children up in the pretence that the world is far better than it really is; that life is manageable and addressable, […]

We must have passions, we are told—our greatest achievements will come from it. True enough. Humans are creatures of passion. It is passion that sparks our most extraordinary feats, driving us to create, innovate, and pursue our dreams with unrelenting energy. Passion fuels motivation and unlocks the kind of performance that defies expectations, often turning […]

Have you ever watched a young cat? Many of these creatures are not “brought up” by their parents—they tend to get separated from their mothers at quite tender ages. Yet they seem to know exactly how to get into hunting positions; exactly how to eat, and how much; exactly how to clean themselves; exactly how […]

A New Year is the time to look ahead, to plan for the future, to make preparations. Right? And yet. Last week I closed the year urging you to be aware of the words of the wise since time immemorial. Be present. Be rooted in the here and now. Tomorrow is a dream, today is […]

“Our revels are now ended.” As another year slips away, we can look to Prospero’s famous words from The Tempest for some wisdom. That passage is considered one of Shakespeare’s most poignant reflections on the nature of life, art, and impermanence. The end of a year is a good time to reflect on our “revels.” […]

UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead outside a Manhattan hotel in early December. A suspect was arrested a few days later, and revealed to be Luigi Mangione. The alleged perpetrator now faces charges including murder as an act of terrorism. Mangione is Ivy-League educated, and the scion of a well-to-do family. Upon his arrest, […]

I saw Phil Rosenthal attempt to learn dancing in Buenos Aires, in an episode of Netflix’s Somebody Feed Phil. When he later spoke to his parents back in the US on a video call, his father gave him this advice: “Your dancing was a little klutzy. Maybe leave that alone and stick to what you’re […]

If you belong to my approximate age-group of humans, you know we were brought up to do things in very specific ways. When we wrote to people, for example, we had to address them as “Dear.” No one stopped to ask: dear? How can a stranger be dear to me? Why would I call them […]

To be born in a Nairobi slum can feel like being given a life sentence, to exist only in the prison of continuous poverty. We see the poor all around us, and mostly, we look away. Our own lives are difficult enough, we say. It takes all my resources and attention to just look after […]

Do you find it hard to say no? You’re not alone. We are conditioned to say yes to things. We find ourselves bounced into socials, meetups, one-on-ones and the like all the time. Many of those time-sinks we had no desire to say yes to, but social and peer pressures won the day. Professionally, there’s […]

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Liverpool seemed to be an unstoppable football club, clinching trophy after trophy and blowing other teams away season after season. But that era came to an end in 1990, and the club didn’t win a league title for the next thirty years. Enter Manchester United. Under Sir Alex Ferguson, they […]

Recently, I was gazing across Mombasa’s Tudor Creek at twilight. Nyali Bridge was there in the distance, a perfect picture of twinkling lights. From here, the vehicles crossing the bridge were a pretty series of coloured beams, moving silently, like a movie watched on mute. I had crossed that bridge earlier that day, and it […]