Most of us check the odds before we try something big. MIT-trained engineer and serial founder Sanjay Manandhar, author of The Why Not Advantage, says that's the wrong number to look at. A statistic describes the crowd, not you.
At 16, Sanjay applied to US schools from Kathmandu. He needed a full scholarship and airfare, and his friends asked if he was nuts. In this conversation, he shares the formula he uses to rewrite his odds, what a Nobel Prize winner's 40 years of persistence teaches about timing, and why your odds change the moment you take action.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- Why "probability does not exist," and the difference between the crowd's odds and your personal odds
- The BPCA formula (Belief x Preparation x Context x Action), and why a zero in any one variable takes your odds to zero
- The variable people underestimate most, and why the hardest negotiation is the one with yourself
- What Katalin Karikó's path to the Nobel Prize reveals about preparing for the moment context turns in your favor
- "Activation energy": why progress feels stuck right before a breakthrough, and how to push through
- Why any action beats overthinking when you're stuck, even if it isn't the perfect move
- How to keep your conviction without falling into confirmation bias or following the crowd, with lessons from the dot-com bubble and Theranos
- The deathbed test and the five-year test: two tools to decide what to do this week
About Sanjay Manandhar:
Sanjay Manandhar is a serial technology entrepreneur, mentor, and author of The Why Not Advantage: How Small Probabilities Create Outsized Outcomes. Originally from Nepal, he is an MIT-trained engineer. In 1994, he helped bring the internet to Nepal, and he has since founded and led multiple technology companies. He lives in Cambridge, MA, and loves trekking and motorbiking.
Connect with Sanjay:
Book and author site: https://sanjaymanandhar.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjaymanandhar
The Why Not Advantage is available on Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook.
Mentioned in this episode:
Bruno de Finetti, Italian mathematician
Katalin Karikó, Nobel laureate and mRNA vaccine pioneer
Bronnie Ware, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying
Know someone usure of which path to follow? Send them this episode.
Quotes from Sanjay:
"Your odds change in your favor the moment you take action."
"You don't get to run your venture 1,000 times or your career move 1,000 times. You have one chance, maybe two."
"Negotiating with a counterparty is hard. The harder part is actually negotiating with yourself."
Chapters:
00:00 Agency, and why the odds you're quoted aren't your odds
01:17 "If you think of it, do it": his mother's advice about time
05:01 One talk to 60 people that led to an $80M startup
08:07 "Probability does not exist": the idea behind the book
10:39 The BPCA formula: why one zero sinks your odds
13:11 The Nobel winner who waited 40 years for her moment
18:05 The variable people underestimate most
19:55 Survivorship bias: is beating the odds just luck?
23:29 Why almost everyone who starts a marathon finishes
26:04 Activation energy: why water won't boil at 99.5°C
30:13 Overthinking? Any action beats the perfect action
34:00 Conviction vs. the crowd: lessons from bubbles and Theranos
39:07 The deathbed test: what you'll regret not doing
