Naveen Kumar Chowdari

“My life is like a flower. I was sowed at some point in time; I became a bud, was born, and bloomed like a flower. It doesn’t matter how much I protect myself, how fragrant I am, how alive I may be – one day, I am going to wither away.”
― Om Swami, Mind Full to Mindful: Zen Wisdom From a Monk's Bowl

“We see the same behavior when athletes wear unwashed lucky socks, when investors buy hot stocks, or when people throw good money after bad, confident that things must take a turn for the better. We yearn to make an uncertain world more certain, to gain control over things that we do not control, to predict the unpredictable. If we did well wearing these socks, then it must be that these socks help us do well. If other people made money buying this stock, then we can make money buying this stock. If we have had bad luck, our luck has to change, right? Order is more comforting than chaos. These cognitive errors make us susceptible to all sorts of statistical deceptions. We are too quick to assume that meaningless patterns are meaningful when they are presented as evidence of the consequences of a government policy, the power of a marketing plan, the success of an investment strategy, or the benefits of a food supplement. Our vulnerability comes from a deep desire to make sense of the world, and it’s notoriously hard to shake off.”
― Gary Smith, Standard Deviations: Flawed Assumptions, Tortured Data, and Other Ways to Lie with Statistics

“As Schopenhauer said: “We seldom think of what we have but always of what we lack.” Yes, the tendency to “seldom think of what we have but always of what we lack” is the greatest tragedy on earth. It has probably caused more misery than all the wars and diseases in history.”
― Dale Carnegie, How to Stop Worrying and start Living

“If you ever hear the words conventional and wisdom conjoined, reject them. Because if it is conventional, it isn’t wisdom. And if it’s wisdom, it isn’t conventional. —Herb Kelleher How has Southwest been able to attain uncommon results in the worst industry in capitalism? The company has succeeded by being unconventional. Herb likes to tell the story of how a Washington think tank told the company that it would not be able to survive without six of the “keys to success” that other carriers have used. Southwest followed none of those keys to success. At every point of Southwest’s history, the company has successfully challenged industry norms. Southwest differed from the competition because of its low-cost fares. In the 1970s, before deregulation, flying was expensive, because the government controlled the prices. Rollin King and Herb Kelleher’s idea was to provide lower fares and enable a greater number of Americans to fly. Southwest would not be competing with other airlines but with other forms of transportation.”
― Sean Iddings, Intelligent Fanatics: How Great Leaders Build Sustainable Businesses