Introduction
Welcome to The ContraMind Code.
The ContraMind Code provides you with a system of principles, signals, and ideas to aid you in your pursuit of excellence.
The newsletter shares the source code through quick snapshots for a systems thinking approach to be the best in what you do.
The Code helps you reboot and reimagine your thinking by learning from the best and enables you to draw a blueprint on what it takes to get extraordinary things done. Please share your valuable thoughts and comments and start a conversation here.
Take a journey to www.contraminds.com. Listen and watch some great minds talking to us about their journey of discovery of what went into making them craftsmen of their profession to drive peak performance.
How The Ivy League Broke America
This article by David Brooks is truly phenomenal because it traces the philosophy and approach to education over the last few decades. He writes about how the definition of meritocracy in academic institutions has lost its meaning in today’s context and why we need something new. More importantly, he poses some challenging questions about whether the objectives of meritocracy using ‘standardized intelligence tests’ in Ivy League schools have achieved their desired results. He then outlines and redefines what merit must mean and the qualities it should embrace.
Here are some thoughts that David Brooks has shared that can make you think and provide you with some points for reflection:
‘Teachers can’t teach what they love, because the system is built around teaching to standardized tests. Students can’t focus on the academic subjects they’re passionate about, because the gods of the grade point average demand that they get straight A’s.’
‘Two people with identical IQ scores can vary widely in their life outcomes.’
‘Intelligence is not the same as effectiveness.’
‘Success in school is not the same thing as success in life.’
‘If you don’t keep succeeding by somebody else’s metrics, your self-worth crumbles.’
‘The challenge is not to end the meritocracy; it’s to humanize and improve it.’
‘Our definition of ability shouldn’t be narrowly restricted to who can ace intelligence tests at age 18.’
Keys to meritocracy and qualities that need redefinition, according to David Brooks:
Curiosity
A sense of drive and mission
Social Intelligence
Agility
Read the entire article here.
Dr.Duvvuri Subba Rao, Former RBI Governer On His Life and Career
In the Point Blank Show, Abhishek Kumar does a fantastic job of asking very probing and inquisitive questions to dig deep into the beliefs, values, and experiences of Dr.Duvvuri Subba Rao, one of the most respected governors in recent times in India. This conversation contains insights and life lessons that no leadership course or education can give you.
Here are some key takeaways from the conversation:
If you are driven by excellence and the need to be the best in what you do, you prepare irrespective of the number of years of experience or achievements - “I prepared for this like a 25-year-old. So, you know. Every interview, every event is important.”
The importance of discipline in life: “Discipline gets you a long way. He taught us not only the importance of being disciplined but to enjoy being disciplined.”
Failures are common, even for the best of the best, so don’t focus too much on them. “You have to learn from your faults, from your mistakes, from your failures. But when you're doing something, pay your full attention to that.”
There is no better experience than being in the market or on the ground to get a first-hand feel of the reality: “To be an effective IAS officer, seeing is believing. If you actually go and see that, it's a much more enriching experience than sitting in your office and reading a paper, reading a file.”
When you are a senior leader, remember that every visit to the market or a client office or an update is carefully curated by your team, so find ways to break through this shield: “Dr. Manmohan Singh very rightly said, if the prime minister goes to a village, he's not seeing the village as it is. Once the people understand that you don't want this paraphernalia, the paraphernalia will disappear.”
You may not always get to do what you are passionate about, but you must find ways to do anything you are given with passion: “My experience has been that life does not offer you or give you the opportunity to pursue your passion. To succeed in life, you have to do whatever you are enjoying to do with passion.”
As a leader, you need to learn from others to lead: “The challenge of an IAS officer is to learn from the people you have to lead. You know, you don't know many things. You ask your staff, what is this?”
You need to learn to make decisions without having all the data in hand: “Challenge of taking decisions without having data in place in real time. You need people at the top because they've got to make judgment calls. And that's what I had to do in my limited roles.”
Learning how to communicate is vital: “One of the things I learnt is straightforward communication, unambiguous language is very important..”
Doing a job cannot be transactional and entirely rational: “Am I doing my best because I'm being paid, or am I driven by a larger cause?”
To become a great leader, you must become a great teacher: “They ask difficult questions, but then you learn as you teach.”
You can also listen to this episode on YouTube.
Big Ideas In Tech 2025
A group of 50 a16z partners shared their ideas on ‘What big ideas in tech will define 2025?’
If there is one takeaway that you can have, it is the final closing that caught our attention, which summarises where technology will be going in the next few years: ‘Bringing Romance Back to Production’.
Here are some big ideas that you can start to get ready for.
Why Non-Cognitive Skills Will Matter As Much As Your Cognitive Skills
It’s an interesting coincidence and commonality that one encounters when reading David Brooks’ article and watching the big tech ideas of 2025.
First, let’s look at the most critical insights from the a16z’s big tech ideas of 2025. As we can see from the trends, tech is rapidly becoming embedded in many industries like never before. Whether you are in sectors like Pharma, Finance, Engineering Products, Education, Consumer Products, Medicine, Healthcare, Art & Design, Professional services like law or chartered accountant or architect firms, citizen services in government, etc., driving tech-design thinking and adoption is not an option but a necessity.
Looking at it from another viewpoint, if you are in technology and don’t develop a deeper understanding of the industries mentioned above, you may not have a future as a pure-play technologist in the coming years. Some terms that sounded interesting but transformational were:
‘Future jobs will cross the chasm of hardware and software.’
‘Bring romance back to production.’
So, just technical skills may not matter anymore, but understanding industries, their ecosystems, consumers, long-held beliefs, behaviour, and industry challenges requires strong non-cognitive skills like curiosity, agility, social intelligence, etc., including a sense of ambition, drive and mission in every person. Because you will need to solve problems that have never been done before.
At the end of the other continuum, if you are a doctor or, a lawyer or, a creative person or, a production engineer or, a procurement specialist or, an electrical engineer, or an automotive engineer, technology is something you can’t wish away from. You must develop and improve your cognitive skills to imagine tech applications in anything you design, develop and deploy. Or, at the very least, learn to work alongside tech, AI tools and platforms.
So, how do you prepare yourself for the change that is happening around you:
Learn more about industries and their businesses. Don’t confine yourself to the area or field you work in. Inter-disciplinary knowledge will be vital for future jobs.
Experiment and build a zillion hypotheses on what works or does not work in that industry or technology stack that is deployed currently.
Be ready to stretch yourself to ‘zones of discomfort’.
Get comfortable with handling failure, as not all experiments will be successful.
Stay persistent. Do not get swayed by short-term reactions or disruptions.
Learn to work and co-create ideas collaboratively with people.
David Brooks summarizes this beautifully: “Is your IQ the most important thing about you? No. I would submit that it’s your desires—what you are interested in, what you love.’
To succeed in the future, you must bring your cognitive and non-cognitive skills to play at anything you do.
Some of the lessons we learnt from this week’s mission:
Cracking the school system and having a high IQ does not guarantee success in life.
Learn to enjoy being disciplined.
Future jobs will cross the chasm of hardware and software.