Management Consulting and Case Solving

for Dummies

14. Some Life Gyaan and Overall Summary ☺

Issac Jojy

PGP 2014-16

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In this document, I’ll give you some general gyaan which I tell my friends and it really helps them.
(also how to handle work-life balance in a very simple super-easy manner which in Doc# 12, I
mentioned I’ll cover here), There are 2 broad things I’ll cover. One is regarding a person’s mindset
when it comes to putting in effort for whatever the person wants. The other is the person’s mindset
when it comes to dealing with people as part of putting in the effort. This is just my personal view.
Whatever you feel is useful for you, you can use. Rest of it – whatever you feel is crap, you can ignore.

Mindset change for putting in effort

In a lot of people, society has created a mindset from the time they’re young that personal efficiency
is defined as “I’m a human being. I have limitations and I am finite. Within my limitations, I’ll
put in the minimum effort with a focus on getting the maximum return on my effort, with a
strong focus on the result that I want” – I personally feel this is WRONG. This creates a lazy
complacent mindset in people. This limiting mindset turns into an infinite loop and makes a person
dull wanting to put only limited effort for whatever the person wants. When it comes to effort, the
way I look at life is “I’m an infinite being. Just because society tells me I’m finite doesn’t mean
I’m finite. What society is telling is only limiting my potential. Moreover, there is absolutely
no logic to what society says – There is no proof that human being are finite. It is just a
random societal notion. So, I consider myself to be an infinite being. I will put in infinite
maximum effort for whatever I want. The only thing that I can control is my effort. The result
is not always in my control. So, I will not bother about the return on my infinite effort. The
fact that I’m putting in the infinite effort will ensure that I get the maximum infinite return
automatically because that is how infinity is defined” This is a mindset I had from a young age
and it has paid off extremely well for me. As kids, we’re all told more or less the same thing but
somewhere while growing up, I saw a lot of my friends getting affected by the societal notion that
humans have limitations and turning out to be lazy. To friends who come to me for general gyaan,
few tips I give them when it comes to putting in effort are:
Step 1: Most importantly, acknowledge that their previous mindset created by society is WRONG.
Just because society tells you to do something a particular way doesn’t mean it is right. It is because
society has influenced you so much that you have a rather complacent lazy mindset. When you realize
that your effort is limited by this mindset, acknowledge that your earlier mindset is wrong.
Step 2: Consciously change the mindset to what I mentioned earlier. This will take time and effort.
But hey, if I can do it from the time I was a kid and a lot of my friends to whom I’ve asked to
consciously change their mindset can do it, there’s no reason you cannot do it. The only reason you
think you cannot do it is because society has created a notion in you that human beings are finite and
you can only put in finite effort. If you think that you’re a logical person, please prove this stupid
illogical notion. There is absolutely no proof to this notion. So, change your mindset consciously.
Step 3: Put in infinite effort for whatever that you want not being bothered about the return/result
on your time and effort. Infinity here is defined as the “never give up” attitude and practice, practice
and practice with a focus ONLY on the effort. The fact that you put in your infinite effort will ensure
that you reach your goal. And for whatever reason, out of your control you don’t get it, you’ll be
satisfied that you put in your maximum infinite effort. Like for instance, after doing a lot of cases,
suppose you develop your case solving skills and your people skills very well but during the interview,

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for whatever reason the interviewer was an a** and doesn’t select you – From your point of view, you
did your best. Over time, I have trained my mind to handle such situations by thinking “Big deal. I
put in my infinite effort and tried my best. There’s possibly nothing more I could’ve done. That
company doesn’t deserve me”. The effort is what matters. Making yourself dependent on the result
of that effort will make you lose your focus from the effort to the result. The result will happen, if it’s
meant to be but the effort is all that is in your control and your focus should only be on that. Period

Mindset change to counter the rat race effect

Disclaimer: Some parts of what I’ll be discussing in this section might irritate a few of you because as
part of life gyaan people used to come to me for, I used to tell them what I’ll be telling you know and
they used to get really disturbed and irritated. So you also might get irritated. But what I would request
you to do is think logically and objectively about the meaning of what I’ll be discussing. When I asked
my friends to do that, they realized their mistake and they put in effort and their performance
improved disruptively.
The effort mindset that I mentioned early is something I had from my childhood. But this second
mindset change was something I learnt the hard way. For explaining this, I’ll just define 2 simple terms:
Positive Energy: Thoughts and actions that result in a good positive feeling in you
Negative Energy: Thoughts and actions that result in a bad negative feeling in you.
I’ll explain this using my personal example. When I was doing my engineering, I was really affected by
the rat race mindset that society built into me from the time I was a kid. “Life is a competition. You
need to be better than the other person” Somewhere during my engineering, I figured that that
mindset was creating a hell of a lot of negative energy in me. I was really bothered by what grades I
got because I used to compare it with my friends and think “Yes, I got a higher grade than him” or
“F*ck, I got a lower grade than him”. At some point I realized that at one extreme, society tells you
that we’re all here as a family and we should all co-exist and help out each other. And on the other
extreme, the same society tells you that “You need to be better than your friend” and creates the rat
race mindset. For me, I figured both cannot co-exist together. If I try to maintain a balance between
the 2, I figured I’ll turn out to be a confused individual on an absolute scale. The “World is a family”
mindset created positive energy in me. The “Short term-competitive rat race – I need to be better than
someone else” mindset created negative energy and both these energies were clashing bigtime. I
acknowledged that only 1 of this can be true on an absolute scale and to decide which one is the
right one, I just looked at whichever mindset gives me more positive energy. I acknowledged that my
“Short term competitive mindset” is wrong because relative to the “World family – Long term
collaborative mindset”, the previous one was creating a lot of negative energy in me. I put in conscious
effort. It took time, but I know for a fact that as of now, I’m freed of the peer pressure competitive
mindset. The result – A hell of lot of positive energy which results in a lot of free time in my life,
which earlier I used to spend on handling the stupid negative energy created as a result of peer
pressure. And in that time, I started doing a lot of other stuff which resulted in more positive energy
like learning multiple instruments, stage performances, watching movies, reading books, playing
multiple sports, blogging once in a while etc. Again, the same thing as before – Just because society
has created a negative competitive mindset does not mean that society is right. And by society, I mean
our parents, teachers, professors, friends, movies that we watch etc. They’ve also been influenced by

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the same confused society. It’s just stupid to follow something you know for a fact is creating negative
energy in you. Just because your parents or teachers or professors or some friend tells you “that’s the
way the world works” doesn’t mean that they’re right. They’ve been influenced by the same confused
society before them. It will take time and effort for you to free yourself of peer pressure. But the best
part is you can use what I mentioned in the earlier section on the effort mindset – Put in infinite effort
to free yourself of peer pressure. That is what helped me. You can use it as well. It’ll be just a matter
of time and you’ll be full of awesome kicka** positive energy.
Moreover, even if you’re looking at it from a result point of view - a collaborative mindset creates
more Long Term WIN-WIN output for you and your friend than a competitive mindset which might
create a short term WIN-LOSE output for you/your friend. It’ll take time. Just follow these steps
Step 1: Most importantly, acknowledge that your earlier rat race short term competitive mindset is
WRONG. On an absolute scale, you cannot have both the “The world is a family” mindset and “I
need to be better than my friend” mindset true at the same time.
Step 2: Consciously put in effort once you’ve acknowledged that the earlier mindset is wrong. Do not
give up. It will take time, because all throughout your life you’ve been asked to have the competitive
mindset. It will definitely take time. Don’t expect this to happen overnight or in a matter of a few days
Step 3: Put in infinite effort using what I mentioned in the previous section on the effort mindset.
You’ll cross the threshold at some point where you’ll free yourself of all this stupid rat race peer
pressure effects - you’ll be full of positive energy which you can use for the time that has been freed
up in your life (which the negative energies used to take up earlier) to do stuff that creates more
positive energy and it is like an infinite loop creating more and more positive energy in you. ☺ A lot
of my friends used to argue “Why can we not go for a middle path between the 2 extremes”. My
response to them was simple
1. When you acknowledge that both mindsets lead to clashing energies within you, and you still
follow through the middle path, you’re consciously making yourself a confused person – For me,
that is just consciously making yourself insane. I know it’s a strong way of putting it, but hey,
that’s my point of view. Think objectively whether this is right or wrong and decide for yourself.
2. If suppose everyone in a society follows such a middle path between these 2 extremes, the result
I believe is mediocrity and average performance of society on an absolute scale. And that means
that even your performance is just average on an absolute scale and you just think that it is good
because you’re so used to thinking that the middle path route is the right route. On an absolute
scale, your performance is also average if you follow the average path (middle path between the 2
mindsets). And in such a mediocre place, there has to be someone who is at the top of the class
and there has to be someone who is at the bottom of the class. It does not in any way mean that
on an absolute scale, the person at the top is better than the person at the bottom or the other
way. If your focus is on your infinite effort and continuous learning with a collaborative mindset
not being focused on the result at any stage, you wouldn’t care about what grades you get, what
companies you get placed or any of this stupid rat race parameters. You’ll be just bothered about
your effort, the learning in the process of putting in this effort, having fun with friends where in
you ask for help and help them to make yourself happy in both cases and have infinite positive
energy within you. This will disruptively improve your performance in whatever you genuinely

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 want. There is an element of consciously changing your mindset for this and consciously putting
in your maximum effort to change your earlier mindset, after you acknowledge that your earlier
mindset is wrong. The results will naturally follow but the effort is all that matters.
3. I’ll give you my personal example. This is a pretty long one. If you have some positive takeaways,
ensure you internalize it. When I joined IIMB, I had 4 broad reasons for joining. 1. Try out
consulting because I was interested in the diversity and brain capacity utilization in this industry,
although I knew that the lifestyle might be a little messy and some part of my time would have to
be spent in making ppts, which I wasn’t really fascinated about. I wanted to get an intern at a
particular firm for certain reasons, but trying out consulting as a possible career option was the
primary agenda. 2. I wanted to go on exchange and have fun for a few months. 3. I wanted to
properly chill out for 2 years before going back to the corporate world. 4. I wanted to explore
more in life on things beyond these corporate jobs. With these broad targets with no special focus
on the result, but only on the effort – I put in my maximum infinite effort for all 4 goals. I focused
primarily on the learning in Term 1 not being bothered about grades with a collaborative mindset.
The grades naturally came. My exchange was confirmed – Goal 2 achieved. I got into a club on
campus with a primary agenda of wanting a dedicated social platform for chilling out and having
fun and NOT a resume point. (I even mentioned that during my club interview – If you don’t
believe me, it’s ok. I don’t feel the need to prove it to anyone anyways) and additionally the
collaborative mindset helped me get a lot of friends on campus for chilling out – Goal 3 achieved
and still being achieved. For summer placements, I targeted the firm that I wanted to get in –
Put in my infinite effort to get into that firm, with a focus only on the effort and even if the result
had not been to my benefit – My response would’ve been “Big deal I tried my best. I will not have
any regrets” – But the fact that I put in my infinite effort led to the result of me getting placed in
that same firm and have currently got a job offer as well from the same firm – Goal 1 achieved
– Again the focus is only on the effort. During all this, I was exploring more beyond these
corporate jobs and I found a brilliant idea that I’ve been working on. I am interested in consulting
and interested in joining this firm I got an offer from. But right now, as I write this, I’m more
interested in this new idea that I’ve got and I’m even seriously reconsidering getting into consulting
even though I’m convinced that I’ll be a good management consultant. I was so fascinated by this
idea that after Term 2 when I got this idea, I’ve been putting in infinite effort on this idea that the
learning that I personally got from working on this idea was much more than some of the MBA
courses – This lead to me getting grade drops in a few courses, almost failing multiple courses but
wasn’t regretting it one bit because I had freed myself of peer pressure long time back. A number
like 3.9 or 2.1 CGPA doesn’t define me. Those no: systems have been created by society as part
of unknowingly promoting the rat race mindset. For me, this new idea is what I’m focusing all my
infinite energy and effort on – Goal 4 achieved and is still being achieved. If you noticed, even
from a result perspective, I’ve achieved all my 4 broad goals even though I never bothered about
the result and was only focused on the infinite effort with a collaborative mindset. And it is not
like I have succeeded in all my efforts. But the cases where I’ve not succeeded in my efforts are
only ones where there were things out of my control. But when I put in my infinite effort, I’m
convinced that I’ve tried my best. And what I so called don’t succeed in is only failure from another
person’s/society’s perspective. From my lens, with my motto of me being a continuous learning
machine, all those which society calls as failures are learnings for me to take care in the infinite
effort for the next time. So what is the result of having such an attitude – I always succeed from

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 my perspective and always win – ALWAYS WIN - whether it be academics, work, relationships
or whatever it is. The point of giving my personal example is not to tell you not to go to MBA
classes or do things you feel are radical. Actually on an overall basis, MBA has added way more
value to me than my engineering. For me, I made my decisions according to my genuine interests
on what makes me happy. That’s just my case. You’ll have to acknowledge that you are unique
and different in your own little way and look at what you genuinely want and what makes you
happy. And even if you’re confused in the process at some stage – That’s fine. A lot of people are
confused. If you want to try out consulting or any other industry for that matter, put in that infinite
effort to try out whatever field you want to try out and then make a decision. The tools to make
this easy and make you less confused are 1. the mindset change to kill the negative energies as a
result of being in the rat race and 2. the mindset change to put in maximum infinite effort for
whatever you want. The result – You end up being happy for yourself and not bothered about
someone else’s approval. And only when you’re happy for yourself can you put in the effort to
make other people happy creating positive energy in others which will feedback again to yourself
(Remember – we’re all created from the same energy source so all our energies are
connected to each other - so the positive energy will feedback – that’s why you feel good
when you help others ☺ ) making you even more happy making you want to help people out
further making you even more happy and it is like an infinite loop all of which together skyrockets
your confidence and your positive energy. Even preparing this compilation of documents – My
attitude was the same – Put in infinite effort to make these documents as robust possible to make
life for pgp1s a little easy making them happy creating positive energy in them which feedbacks
into me and makes me happy and creates a hell of lot of positive energy in me and the infinite
loop continues to create more and more and a lot more positive energy. Infinity is by far my
favorite word - by an infinite margin over any other word that I love to use in my life.
Infinity is infinitely awesome \m/ ☺ \m/ (All throughout these documents – teaching you
case solving and management consulting and all that was just my secondary objective. Because of
the nature of the content, I know that most of you would have found some part of the content
really boring. That is because you have a “result-oriented I’ll put my minimum input as effort”
mindset. If you had a “non-result oriented completely learning focused mindset” – that would
have resulted in you putting in infinite effort to learn and be happy for yourself in the process as
a result of which you wouldn’t have been bored” So unless you change your mindset, you cannot
be happy for yourself - My primary objective of doing this was to build it up logically and
sequentially to make you realize that if you change your mindsets and add the word infinity to your
life, you can also do anything you want and make yourself infinitely happy ☺ )

Overall Summary
The above 2 mindsets changes are my suggestions. End of the day, all what I said are points that will
be useful to you only if you feel it is right. Otherwise, there is absolutely no point. At least ensure you
internalize all the positive takeaways. All the rest you can ignore. The next 2 documents are references
I had used last year for case prep. You can also refer to the same. In all these documents I’m sharing,
I’ve tried to cover most of my learning from last year as part of consult prep as well as some personal
tips on how to live life. I believe I’ve covered most of what I wanted to convey.

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Don’t think of this as a bible. Ensure you just use this as a base/start for your preparations and put in
infinite effort ☺ using Case Prep-Resources 1 and 2 and any other resource that you’re able to access
and always remember that you’re a continuous learning machine ☺. Don’t focus on the Problem
solving speed when you start off your case preparation. It’ll take you time, but focus on the learning
and only on the learning, with an acknowledgement that you’ll screw up badly, very badly and burn
yourself into ashes in the process of screwing up, but the attitude of infinite effort will ensure that
you’ll rise from the ashes like a phoenix bird and rise higher than you had ever risen (I know
it’s a dramatic way of putting it but the point had to be made strongly). The problem solving drill
speed will naturally come with time. Also, in the process of your case prep, if you do not know
something (some random MBA jargon term or concept), don’t get psyched out. Keep it simple - Just
ask someone or google it and find it out. Everyone has to learn at some point. The continuous learning
and infinite effort are the only things in your control and the only things that matter – Not the grades.
Not the companies you get placed in. Not the recognitions you might possibly get. Not any of that
which makes you focus on the result which gets you into the rat race mindset. ‘Those are discrete
points in your life and the happiness is only momentary. But when your focus is ONLY on the
learning with an attitude of putting in infinite effort for whatever you want without caring about the
result with a long term collaborative mindset – You’re a continuous learner and unlike the
DISCRETE happiness that you have as part of the rat race mindset, the infinite effort
combined with the collaborative mindset makes you CONTINUOUSLY happy NOW and
FOREVER ☺ (“Forever” is just a summation of “Nows” ☺ in case you did not think of it).
And if you think about it deeply (might sound funny when you think about it initially, but do give it a
very deep thought logically and objectively), if this is scaled across 7 billion people (For example, after
setting the context, you can send it to your friends and they can send it to theirs – cascading effect),
people’s confidence and positive energy will increase leading to their productivity increasing which
can lead to a Global GDP boom in a matter of the time and effort that it would take people including
yourself to change the old mindsets and put in the infinite effort. And since people will be happy to
help other people (long term collaborative mindset + positive energy feedback as a result of others
being happy leading to your personal happiness increasing again), all the major problems in the world
like corruption, unemployment, poverty and all other problems people face can be solved and you can
actually imagine an ideal happy world where there is complete harmony and no rat-race mindset at all.
If you’re thinking “Yes. It sounds possible theoretically. But there’ll definitely be practical limitations”
My response: “In the last 1 year, I’ve worked extensively on solving these practical limitations based
on an infinitely strong idea that struck me and I have put my infinite energy and effort and created a
completely practical super-robust pragmatic solution (as part of my Goal 4) that MECE’s all possible
such practical problems/limitations that any human can think of and this solution will transform the
global education system in a matter of time. So get ready for a positive societal mega-disruption that
is going to actually make the world live like a family. Moreover, you just need to be bothered about
your personal happiness ensuring you have the right mindset and put in infinite effort to make yourself
happy and others happy which feeds back and makes you even more happy and you’ll naturally add
to making the world happy. Just ensure you make yourself happy – You don’t have to worry about
the practical limitations one bit - I’ll take care of all the so called practical limitations – put in my
infinite effort, making myself happy, making others happy which feeds back making me super-
infinitely happy. So, just wait and you’ll see how it all unfolds naturally and beautifully. ☺ ”

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Anyway, right now, you don’t have to think about all that. If that happens, it’s good. Otherwise also,
it’s good (Again – The Non-result oriented + ONLY infinite effort oriented mindset always gives
awesome peace of mind and infinite energy and effort focus to anyone and everyone with that right
mindset – Handling work life-balance is super easy now ☺ ) Just change your mindset if you feel it’ll
help based on the inputs I’ve given and make yourself happy by putting in infinite effort for whatever
you want without being bothered about the result but having a long term collaborative non-rat racy
mindset to fill yourself with positive energy to make yourself happy and to make others happy which
again feeds back positive energy into you and makes you happy again and it’s an Infinite loop –
Woohoo \m/ ☺ Change yourself to make yourself filled with infinite positive energy and infinite
happiness and the world around you will adjust accordingly. ☺

Again, do this conscious mindset change only if you feel it’ll help you increase your happiness and
positive energy. Don’t do it because I told you to do it. Do it only if you are convinced it will help
you. But not doing it after you realize it will help you is just a dumb stupid way of looking at life.

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 Below is the link I had mentioned earlier in Document 6 – A post I had written post getting placed
in summers (Read later) http://zindaginamilegidobaraa.blogspot.in/2014/11/taking-control.html
“Don’t take life so seriously. But be sincere to it”
http://justsomething.co/these-25-pictures-will-make-you-completely-re-evaluate-your-
existence/ Go through this link after this finishing this document – Influenced me a lot when I saw
this sometime back – Will give you more reason why you shouldn’t take life seriously and be sincere
to it. By “being sincere to life”, I mean that you need to put in infinite maximum effort for
whatever you genuinely want with a long term collaborative mindset when you deal with people
as part of putting in the infinite effort. The “don’t take life seriously” part ensures that your
dependency on the result of your infinite effort is 0. If the result happens, it’s good. If it does not
happen, even then it’s good. The only thing in your control is your effort and ensure you maximize
it – You can see the sky from earth. So, not even sky should be your limit when it comes to
effort. It should be infinity and more infinity – Never ending never give up attitude
Practice with a focus on ONLY the effort because that’s the only thing you have full control
on - not just as part of Consult Case Prep., but generally for everything you want in life ☺
You can send this capsule to your MBA friends if you think it’ll help them and that’ll make you
more happy with the positive feedback infinite loop concept I’ve mentioned several times ☺. You
can forward them the mail I sent and ensure you ask them to go through it sequentially from
Document 0 and not just Document 14 because the entire capsule needs to be administered and not
the final bits and pieces of the medicine inside the capsule. If they change, it’ll be easier for you to
change your mindset faster. If you feel like sending it to your friends – Send it & make yourself
happy. If you don’t feel like sending it, don’t send it & make yourself happy even then ☺
I’m currently in Milan, Italy on exchange on a short break achieving my personal Goal 2 (in parallel
working on Goal 4 as well – Even sending this to you is part of that) ;). So I feel it is customary for
me to use a random local language finishing line for this learnings compilation.
Ti Auguro il Meglio ! ! ! = All the best ! ! !
After making the mindset changes and after you start putting your maximum infinite effort with a
long term collaborative mindset – you can mail me if you need further help not just with case prep,
but with regard to ANY problem you’re facing in life however small or big you may think it is. But
with my exchange travel itinerary and limited access to wifi, I can’t promise a quick response. Still, I
will try my best to help to solve your problem, make you happy and in turn make myself happy ☺
Remember once again that summer placements aren’t the biggest thing on the planet.
\m/ You guys are all going to kick a** ! ! ! \m/
Signing off,
Jojy \m/
Take care. Bye ☺

Go through the 25 pictures link given above NOW ITSELF, and then ensure you come back
and read this document once again. After that, if you’re interested - visit my blog
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http://zindaginamilegidobaraa.blogspot.in/2013/04/hello-there-people.html