Community Archive

🧵 View Thread

🧵 Thread (22 tweets)

Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• almost 7 years ago

Let’s do this again! Breakfast AMAs are so fun https://t.co/NfIak9PARh

Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• about 7 years ago

Free advice for the next 20 mins while I get breakfast, AMA

11 5
9 1
10/5/2018
Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• almost 7 years ago
Replying to @visakanv

The honest answer is that I’m a bit pathological about this. I have a rather compulsive need to surround myself with people I trust and admire. I think I’m overcompensating for feeling like a social outcast and misfit growing up https://t.co/KuEoMj0Dx3

29 0
10/5/2018
Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• almost 7 years ago
Replying to @visakanv

So for me, socialising is part of a long game of building, brick by brick, a place I can call home. There are push and pull elements. It would be nice to be surrounded by cool people. But I don’t know if that’s enough to motivate me? Lots of things would be nice, after all

28 1
10/5/2018
Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• almost 7 years ago
Replying to @visakanv

I think rather I’m motivated by a sort of fear. The world is changing pretty quickly. I’m not confident that my place in it is secure. I don’t have a particular ingroup or tribe that I trust to take care of me. So I need to build my own trust network, person by person

73 5
10/5/2018
Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• almost 7 years ago
Replying to @visakanv

Aw yeah https://t.co/Frsd37UYbr

Tweet image 1
6 0
10/5/2018
Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• almost 7 years ago
Replying to @visakanv

Ooh good question. I’m still in the process of it, but having left my first job (was there 5.5 years!), I’ve been thinking lately about how that had shaped my perspective on work, on what I owe others, what I owe myself. Responsibility and accountability https://t.co/Wd71xr2Q3U

7 0
10/5/2018
Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• almost 7 years ago
Replying to @visakanv

My ex-boss took a huge chance on me by hiring me - I had no prior work experience, no qualifications, and on retrospect, a bunch of unresolved personal issues that affected my ability to perform at work. I was 22, broke, newly married and extremely desperate and anxious

7 0
10/5/2018
Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• almost 7 years ago
Replying to @visakanv

I didn’t think I’d last a year. Somehow, I ended up there 5.5 years! If I’m honest with myself, the last year was not my best. I was starting to coast. I had hit diminishing returns on multiple fronts but I struggled to accept it or be honest about it with myself

12 0
10/5/2018
Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• almost 7 years ago
Replying to @visakanv

So what I think I’ve been unlearning is my mental model of myself as a free agent. I think even at work in an incredibly open and supportive environment, I was using an outdated model - the student in the classroom. On retrospect this was a disservice to myself and my teammates

16 0
10/5/2018
Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• almost 7 years ago
Replying to @visakanv

The next time I get a job, or get involved in any sort of endeavour, really - I’m going to be a lot more mindful of my own interests, of my goals, of my plans, of what I want to achieve, what I will tolerate and what I won’t, etc. To do this I have to unlearn my repression

30 2
10/5/2018
Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• almost 7 years ago
Replying to @visakanv

3. This is another thing I’ve been changing my mind about a lot. I’ve kind of cycled back and forth on this. There are different kinds of leadership in all sorts of contexts. First let me queue up an old thread https://t.co/OjWoVicfv8

6 0
10/5/2018
Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• almost 7 years ago
Replying to @visakanv

First I thought leadership was nonsense. Then I thought, actually, I want to be Commander Shepard. (Mass Effect). Then I thought, shit, I don’t know anything though. Then I realised, damn, neither does anybody else https://t.co/JvXwaEp34E

Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• over 7 years ago

A long term tension in my life: I don't feel qualified to lead, but I don't see anybody really worth following, either. When, where and how did I inherit these annoyingly perfectionist standards and ideals?

287 21
15 0
10/5/2018
Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• almost 7 years ago
Replying to @visakanv

I think there’s a quote from Tina Fey’s Bossypants that’s like, ā€œwhen I was a little girl I thought being the boss meant storming around saying ā€œListen to me and do as I say, I am the boss!ā€ - but in practice there’s very little of thatā€. I love that šŸ˜‚

27 1
10/5/2018
Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• almost 7 years ago
Replying to @visakanv

Leadership in practice is really about taking responsibility for a context and an outcome, and of taking care of people. Often it means empowering others and getting out of their way. I like how Benjamin Zander puts it, as a conductor: https://t.co/lcm76Be5LN

Tweet image 1
68 11
10/5/2018
Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• almost 7 years ago
Replying to @visakanv

4. I am terrible at developing habits, next question šŸ˜‚ For me I can’t really change one part of my life without changing everything else. I woke up early consistently when I was in the military but that’s a pretty extreme method of habit formation https://t.co/qjy3lMzZOE

8 0
10/5/2018
Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• almost 7 years ago
Replying to @visakanv

5. - Left handed - tall + big feet - minority race in my country - inarticulate in the minority language - book nerd + writerly - ā€œgiftedā€-schooled + not Uni-educated - no exes + married young - high openness - agnostic https://t.co/YrU5Gfkzm2

13 0
10/5/2018
Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• almost 7 years ago
Replying to @visakanv

6. All my friends, eg you All my enemies, eg homophobes https://t.co/VrqlVVJHmT

6 0
10/5/2018
Placeholder
Richard D. Bartlett@RichDecibels• over 5 years ago
Replying to @visakanv

@visakanv I'm allergic to "empowering". In my head, it implies the leader has extra power and graciously donates some to the workers. Can you tell me more what you have in mind?

3 0
12/14/2019
Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• over 5 years ago
Replying to @RichDecibels

@RichDecibels Idk if there’s any word we can use that wouldn’t eventually pick up negative connotations because it’ll get weaponized by bad actors šŸ¤” I can talk about how good leaders have helped me over the years

1 0
12/14/2019
Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• over 5 years ago
Replying to @visakanv

@RichDecibels https://t.co/eWJ7k4RtBT

Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• almost 7 years ago

I'm trying to find my one of my commanders – Major Simon. Can't remember his surname. But I remember on my first day being posted to that unit, he personally came to visit me to ask me how I was doing, and if there was anything he could do to make my life better. Blew my mind

10 1
1 0
12/14/2019
Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• over 5 years ago
Replying to @visakanv

@RichDecibels https://t.co/vuEOaeeg7i

Placeholder
Visakan Veerasamy@visakanv• about 6 years ago

This is now a Dinesh thread. šŸ˜‚ He doesn’t post on Twitter too much but working with him changed my life in several important ways. (He would insist that I make that statement more precise. Important how?) https://t.co/NGiP9kvTjb

31 1
1 0
12/14/2019
Placeholder
Richard D. Bartlett@RichDecibels• over 5 years ago
Replying to @visakanv

@visakanv Thanks for the stories! I'm allergic cuz empowerment has been poorly treated! (My problem not yours.) In your stories I heard acknowledging, celebrating, encouraging, elevating and serving.

1 0
12/14/2019