Countdown counts!

"You’d get very rich if you thought of yourself as having a card with only twenty punches in a lifetime, and every financial decision used up one punch. You’d resist the temptation to dabble. You’d make more good decisions and you’d make more big decisions." —Warren Buffett , quoted in The Snowball, by Alice Schroeder

Countdowns are a wonderful thing. It is a negative sequence of number yet it generates a positive energy out of it. In the punch card analogy above Warren Buffet teaches the core of value investing or rather 'Quality' investing using countdown. You only have so many chances to take, be wise in using those.

I used to follow MyFitnessPal website for my calorie tracking (ahem! .. yes once upon a time!!). It gives a number of calories, let's say 2000 per day, for you to consume and as the day progresses and you eat into into calories. Goal is not to exceed 2000 calories a day in this example. And, viola, you'll loose weight. It create a small deficit in daily calories intake vs the requirement based on your body weight and other factors and that small deficit contributes to weight loss. Countdown concept effectively used.

Yoga emphasizes a lot on calming yourself, taking slow breaths - while doing pranayam you slowly breathe in and slowly breathe out! I had read or heard about a Yoga or ancient Indian concept somewhere that everyone's total breaths in a lifetime (the number of breaths a person will take in a lifetime) are predetermined; set in stone by destiny or karma even before a person is born. As you're breathing in and out, you are consuming your total breath quota. Now, if you want to leave longer, start breathing slowly elongating the time spent between each breath. Anyway, the total number of breaths you will take are determined then why to hurry in consuming those breaths by breathing faster in anger or under stress? Again, a concept of countdown effectively used.

Be it a countdown to new year or 'T-minus' countdown to a rocket launch - we all love countdowns!

Tell me about yourself

I came across an article on LinkedIn here. It was about the most important question asked in an interview. 

To me, interview is often a chess game. Interviewer is trying to see if you are the best fit for the job being offered and A) an average interviewee is often trying to get fitted into the job, where as, B) a smart interviewee is trying understand if this is the best job at a highest possible salary level he/she can get. Anyway, coming back to the most important question asked in an interview. In my opinion, the most important question asked in an interview is the one typically asked first right at the opening of the interview - "Please tell me about yourself" or "Could you please walk me through your experience and background" or similar variant.

It sets the tone of the entire interview. The first 2 to 5 minutes you'll take to answer this question can help you take control of the interview from interviewer. If you handle the question correctly, you not only make the first impression right, you can also help guide interviewer to the next set of questions that are more suited to your strengths. It takes a smart interviewer to understand this move and take control back. You can win the interview in first 2-5 minutes on psychological terms, what remains afterwards is assessing the suitability of candidate for the job function and assessing the suitability of job (responsibilities, position in the corporate hierarchy, salary etc. etc.) from the view of candidate. 

So, I think, it's very important to think through what you'll be talking in your first few minutes of your self speech and make the first move right!