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.
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.
Newsweek Is Making Generative AI A Fixture In Its Newsroom.
How are the old-world media companies transforming from a ‘Post-Search, Post-Social Media’ world to an AI world? This article in NiemanLab captures how Newsweek is making such a transition.
Here are some key highlights from this article:
Staff writers and editors are encouraged to experiment with AI to boost speed and efficiency.
Newsweek’s engineering team launched a custom-built AI tool that produces short-form video summaries of existing news articles.
The tool first creates a video script summarising the news story, then finds and pulls relevant stock images and video clips, stitching them together into one cohesive video.
Newsweek wants their journalists to think of themselves as data and analytics journalists who do public service journalism!
Editors are mandated to integrate AI into their workflow as part of a new Live News desk.
Newsweek is building a culture of transparency and accountability for any errors that occur, whether they’re human errors or AI errors.
Read the entire article here.
Dr.Venkat Padmanabhan On A Culture Of Making Things ‘Real’.
Dr. Venkat Padmanabhan is the Deputy Managing Director at Microsoft Research India, where he founded and led the Mobility, Networks, and Systems group. He previously worked at Microsoft Research Redmond for over eight years. He is an INAE Fellow, IEEE Fellow, and ACM Fellow and has received numerous awards, including the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology.
Here are the highlights from the conversation:
It is essential for youngsters to read and immerse themselves in high-quality content.
His experience with Professor Randy Katz at UC Berkeley who taught him the importance of thinking beyond just technical work from him.
His learnings from his research internship helped him understand how they were not creating something that was routine. Finally, his advice is, ‘Don’t be afraid of doing something that inspires you.’
Defining a problem, developing a framework for solving it, and understanding that engineering is about solving problems within constraints is vital.
The importance of mental models and the three design principles guiding the HyWay.
He shares the importance of communicating clearly if you are a leader, specifically in research, inspiring people, writing your ideas down clearly, and having informal communication with teams.
The thought behind the ‘Networked Brain Project’.
HAMS Project - The evolution of the idea, how it got attention, and how innovative applications were found.
His definition of Impact - ‘Doing work that makes a difference.’
Problems with the research ecosystem in India - Why paper is not the right currency for measurement. The culture of making things real is vital.
Listen to the entire podcast:
Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube
Creating An Olympian Mindset To Work Ethic.
In this out-of-the-world conversation between Harry Stebbings, Keith Rabois and Mike Shebat, they talk about how to unlock greatness and why you need to work incredibly hard if you want to be the best in what you do!
Here are some key points that caught our attention:
Have a ‘Day 1’ mindset throughout your career—you must be ready to do it every day.
People who are way too focused on title and cash all the time are a red flag for any company -it does not matter if it is a start-up or a large, established company.
Find people who are amplifying your cultural values.
You should put yourself in a situation that challenges you.
Developing a skill of resourcefulness is important when you are young.
Most people optimise themselves for the middle of the bell curve. Don’t fall for it.
Culture is like concrete. Pay attention to it early. Otherwise, it will be difficult to break or change it later.
To fulfil your potential, have the ambition and be ready to work insanely hard to achieve it.
Do a mental check. Has the person from whom you are learning and getting advice done it in the first place?
The risk of not being upfront about what to expect at the workplace and saying to people how you feel about their work and attitude is vital—be unapologetic. You must be ready to accept hard feedback and work on improving yourself constantly.
You can click the above link and watch the video.
To Unlock Your Greatness, You Need An ‘Work Incredibly Hard’ Work Ethic.
They say that when you meet great people, or people who built great companies, or people who are masters of their craft, you tend to look at their present status but fail to consider the hardships and sacrifices they may have made in the past or the effort they may still be putting in to stay on top.
Many of us grossly underestimate the effort, discipline, intensity, losses, and failures they may have had in their long journey to achieve excellence and greatness.
The truth is, most people around you don’t understand or appreciate the level of focus and energy you must put in at whatever you set out to do - if you want to unlock greatness or excellence in yourself. Worst of all, they also act as speed breakers and impediments if they are part of your team, discouraging you from working or living up to your own potential.
The common questions, thoughts or opinions that they throw at you are:
“You are not being paid enough to do this, so why do you want to do more?”
“ Is it worth all this effort? It is too risky.”
“ Do only as much you paid for. Don’t go beyond the brief or your job role.”
“That’s not your job.”
“Why do you work so hard? Relax and stay within your boundaries.”
However, the best - the ones who have achieved greatness or excellence put in incredible effort and practice, even before they get their money’s worth or value. It may be worthwhile to remember that the incredible effort from their side preceded the money they earned later. Moreover, their achievements do not stop them from putting in more effort. They work and break their own benchmarks all the time. Have you ever thought about what it takes for the athletes to break their own world record? That’s the Olympian mindset - Get up every morning, put an insane amount of time into practice, and focus on the process and not the outcome. The results take care of themselves. If not, they go back to the drawing board to work harder!
There is a culture of mediocrity in the air, which is why a majority settle down to the middle of the bell curve. Not that they intentionally intend to, but most are unwilling to put in the effort as they measure everything they do against ROE(Return-on-effort). This environment around you also creates a ‘false sense’ of rules and expectations, forcing you to follow the norm.
Easy money and effort are unsustainable. A majority fall into the trap, while a handful don’t care. What’s stopping you from being a ‘part of the handful’ is something that you must keep thinking about and working your way to stay away from any such distractions.
Average is normal. Excellence is an outlier. Strive to be an outlier, and don’t count your effort all the time. Break the benchmark of your ‘effort intensity’ every day. Greatness demands insanely-minded individuals who don’t play to norms and also push others to break the norm. Search, find, attract and surround yourself with such people.
Play to be an outlier if you want to achieve excellence and greatness.
Some lessons we learnt from this week’s missions:
Only companies that adopt innovation and change - thrive and grow.
Try to do anything, only if it inspires you.
Have an ambition and be ready to work insanely hard to achieve it. That’s the secret to greatness and excellence.