Smoke, Mirror & Shadow

By Vishal Mehta

This book is a random mix of fundamental issues and challenges we go through in our professional and personal lives.

In no particular order or sequence, each of the 23 chapters addresses a distinct angle and approach to think, learn and apply lessons to better ourselves. The content features various multi-dimensional scenarios, illusions, problems, opinions and biased views and suggestions.

The chapters use several real-life anecdotes and personal examples - from author's experience, adopting a more narrative and informal style.

This is not a step-by-step expert advice on how to achieve perfection in all pursuits.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vishal Mehta
• Release date: Mar 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301956111

Vishal Mehta

Vishal Mehta is a UX professional and technologist with a strong eye for details. He carries more than 16 years of industry experience. Master’s in Computer Sciences from University of San Francisco, his best pastimes are playing chess, designing anything, writing about anything. Vishal helps product companies in San Francisco Bay Area with their user experience needs.

Book preview

SMOKE, MIRROR & SHADOW

By

Vishal Mehta

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

Vishal Mehta on Smashwords

Smoke, Mirror & Shadow

Copyright © 2013 by Vishal Mehta

This ebook is licensed for your personal consumption only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Non-fiction Reading Material

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Many thanks to my family and friends who have offered their support and have allowed me to practice my writing skills on them.

The book is formulated as very short 23 chapters. Each chapter depicts discrete scenarios, problems, illusions, opinions and examples from real-life that are fundamentally thought-provoking, often simplistic ideologies and principles that we can apply to make ourselves a better someone. This is not a story where a sequence needs to be followed while reading.

I hope you enjoy the biases and prejudices as well and take them as per your sensibilities; as much as I enjoyed expressing them in writing.

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SMOKE, MIRROR & SHADOW

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Is Threat a Motivator?

We respond to threat or fear very naturally.

In fact fear seems to be our topmost motivation. Smart leaders know this and they implement it around them very well. And the heads side of the coin is that it is a very good motivator. Let's discuss with a few examples why it is important to consciously realize the importance of fear perception as a motivation.

Let's consider the cleanliness quotient of any city in an advanced nation—say the US. The quotient (high or low) is largely determined by the people of the city, residents or visitors. Someone knows that to maintain order, a perception of threat against cleanliness violators is required. Why? It's an easy assumption that not everyone has noble intentions. People with noble intentions will keep the city clean anyway. Others will not unless there's some fine, some punishment, pain, or embarrassment in some form. This threat, if perceived as real, works wonders; the credit goes to the way it is implemented, spread as a rule and followed. The leadership here mainly cares about noble actions, as they know they cannot expect miracles in expecting noble intentions from everyone—certainly not an overnight change of heart. A threat perception of punishment!

Let's say a team of 22 software developers gather to deliver a project of 18 months duration in a software company. The leader understands that there's a mix of people—not all are passionate about the progress of the company, etc. For appropriate and consistent output, the leader has to implement a threat perception