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What is the optimum number of hours of sleep an average adult needs to feel truly rested? The usual answer that most people give is “Eight hours”. But is that really true? In my experience, this generalization does not apply to everyone. Many people need less than that, and it is well known that as we grow older, we need less sleep. If we are able to map exactly how many hours of sleep leave us well rested, and that number is less than we have always thought, then voila!—we have the scope to automatically open up some extra time for ourselves. In other words, we have stretched our time. Of course, this is not to say one should force oneself to get by on less sleep—th...

In earlier posts I have spoken about the relationship between speed and time. Essentially, if you increase your speed, you are freeing up time to do something else. Let’s take the simple example of walking. Suppose you are in the habit of taking a daily walk for exercise, six days a week. You spend 1 hour each day doing this, and usually walk at a speed of about 5 km per hour. Now, suppose you increase your speed to 6 km per hour, you will still walk 5 km, but it will take you 10 minutes less to do this. Thus, you will free up an extra hour per week (and get fitter, as your walking intensity has also increased). Another example of speeding up that can help you immensely at work is inc...

I am currently one of 12 contenders in the running for the position of a member of the Board of Governors of the Society of Actuaries, an organization whose activities, as I mentioned before, I have not participated in for about 20 years. My initial reaction at having got this far was happiness and excitement at having made it through the rounds of selective elimination. However, coupled with this feeling was the latent knowledge that I don’t really have much chance of winning the final election. For those casting the ballot I am, after all, an unknown entity, having never attended meetings, taken part in SOA activities, or published in actuarial journals or circles. Why would the Soci...

While I did the research, I realized that most of the members had followed a typical path of having tremendous credentials either as highly successful actuaries, or in the roles of chief actuaries in large insurance companies or corresponding employers of actuaries, or they had a strong publication or public face. I had none of these. How could I overcome this problem? I reflected a while and realized that the Society was taking a stance that its education and evaluation had been highly focused on the hard attributes associated with actuarial science, whether it’s statistical science or life contingencies or risk theory, or the like. I have a fundamental belief that as globalization ...

And so, the process began. I first learned that 37 people had been invited to participate in the initial round. This consisted of filling out a questionnaire, after which 24 people would be selected based on their responses to go on to the next round. This first round involves absolutely no conversation, but simply an exchange of details. The questions asked were rather interesting. My view of the SOA was that it’s a very, very hard scientific organization and that all they would ask of me would be my accomplishments, my “hard skills”, and the specific skills that I could bring to the Board of Governors. But in actuality, some of the questions were about strategy, about gov...

Two thoughts hit me at once, one after the other. The first was that I’d be absolutely wasting my time here. The SOA has about 10000 voting members, at least 30 percent of whom must cast a vote. Over the years, I have had no contact with either the decision makers or with the voting members; nor have I written or published anything for the Society—so it seemed to me that I did not stand any chance whatsoever of making it through even the initial screening. But simultaneously another thought occurred to me: What a fabulous learning opportunity this promised to be! This thought was highly exciting—it would be enjoyable putting myself through the process; learning how an organ...