Granddads’ hands are usually quite rough. Grandkids’ are mostly soft. And that’s the Buddenbrooks Effect. The label comes from Thomas Mann’s 1901 novel Buddenbrooks, which chronicled a merchant family’s decline across generations. Ever since, it has been shorthand for a familiar pattern in family enterprise: fortunes often thin out after about three generations. The founders […]

Everything crumbles, eventually. What we assemble comes apart again, sooner or later. The physical structures we put up will someday come down, however robust they look today. The institutions and businesses we design, build, and nurture may enjoy proud runs, then fade. Globe-spanning empires—Roman, British, American—end up buckling under their own weight. Even our best […]

One evening I found myself watching people build cathedrals out of sugar. The Great British Bake Off, a phenomenally successful TV show, had reached that familiar moment: the showstopper that isn’t really a bake so much as a table-top construction project. A “showpiece” with a narrative brief: fairyland, iconic monuments, whatever the week’s theme happens […]

I wrote here recently about a close friend of my son offering him some real life counsel. That was Aiden: learn to accept difficulty without being defeated by it; accept impermanence without despair. Now another close buddy, Armaan, has added his own small truth: every life is a game of Snakes and Ladders. (Before I […]

John Lloyd was, by his own admission, useless at mathematics. He made it to university, tried to study Law. In a recent interview, he told James O’Brien he got a terrible degree, which he “passed by one mark or something like that.” He then decided to do something he enjoyed and thought he could be […]

I saw a big company saying recently that it was taking a balanced approach in navigating a dynamic operating environment. What the hell does that even mean? All operating environments are dynamic. And of course you’re taking a balanced approach. Why would you take an unbalanced one? That sentence is known as a nothing burger. […]

I recently asked you to become more foolish. Today I’m asking you to be boring—all year long. The nudge came from this excellent tweet by Mark Manson: “The older I get, the more I realize that success at most things isn’t about finding the one trick or secret nobody knows about. It’s consistently doing the […]

I have only read thirty-something books this year. For me that’s news, and a “things that make you go hmm” moment. I have been trumpeting book-reading on this platform for aeons, and 50 books every year was my hard floor for the longest time. So what gives?  Partly it’s just about getting older. It seems […]

I seem to work mostly as an advisor and teacher these days. I never set out to be; I fell into these roles by accident, and by request. It never escapes me that there is something more than faintly ridiculous about giving advice to others. Why should any one human be better than any other […]

Ever made a fool of yourself? I know I have. Many times. But I never wanted to. When I was growing up, being foolish was not at all desirable, or even tolerable. The world was divided into educated people and fools. The latter were illiterate, unprofessional, ignorant. They were not allowed to make any decisions […]

It was bound to happen. We were always going to use AI badly before finding its true value in human society. So yes, the junk is everywhere. Auto-written sludge. Copy-paste thought masquerading as insight. Deepfake giggles. Automated outrage on tap. That’s the obvious misuse: people using a powerful tool to do lazy things. The part […]

I listen for a living. Good counsel begins in the ear, not the mouth. All useful advice starts with deep listening. If an adviser, coach, or mentor rushes to tell you what to do without first understanding your world—how it looks and feels to you—they’ve missed the plot. If they lead with instructions rather than […]

There are people who look at Zohran Kwame Mamdani and see only one thing: a Muslim. But New York City’s new mayor is much more than that. Many in the world can lay claim to him. Ugandans can, because he was born there. Africans can, because his middle name signifies pan-Africanism. Indians can, because their […]

What does it take to make a go of this life? Skills and smarts help. So do character, connections, timing, and health. But there’s a quieter edge that decides more than we admit: resilience—the ability to be knocked down, find your feet, and carry on with new clarity. Your “bounceability” as a human, in other […]

I visited a bank branch recently. That’s no longer a feature of my life; digital acceleration in banking has been real, and like most people I happily transact online and through mobile apps. Most of the time. Once in a while the need for an in-person visit to a physical location, after battling traffic and […]

A and I. Two letters that are on everyone’s lips these days. Artificial intelligence, we are told, is the greatest opportunity in the history of humankind. It will free us all from drudge work and lead to an unprecedented productivity boom. Artificial intelligence, we are also told, is the greatest threat to the future of […]

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 […]

I looked down from the stage. The seats brimmed with the who’s who of Kenya. But they were looking on not with boredom or envy, but with affection. I was speaking at the launch of an autobiography, Concert of Life, by Francis Okomo Okello. I don’t normally attend big socials, but this time I had […]

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 […]

A voice rises across the dining room. One customer is clearly furious, the server is flustered, other diners are watching. The temperature is rising. You’re the manager. What now? Here are three options often seen in the wild. One: Storm in, shove your server aside, apologise like mad, blame your staff, and promise heaven. Later, […]

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 […]

Today I want to introduce you to a gentleman called Tancredi Falconeri. He’s not a real person, but he uttered one of life’s enduring wisdoms. Tancredi is a character in Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novel, The Leopard. The novel came out before I was born, but it has great modern relevance. I keep pointing this […]

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, […]