November 2025 | aboutSG

Wk 47-25 – Weekly Notes

Nov 23-24, 2025
Various times, various places.

I had a busy week. Not busy but hectic. I was about town and had some work. Here’s notes and thoughts from the week gone by.

PS: I was half in the mind to not do this (because I am already on Monday night) but then I thought, jaisa bhi hai, karte hai.

💭 Highlights, reflections, updates and notes from the past two weeks

And no, these are not in any order.

1/ Year Compass

It’s that time of the year where I will take print-outs of Year Compass and fill it in.

I’ve been using it for a while to figure how the year went by and what I plan to do in the next. If you are also the productivity kinds and like to reflect, this could be an interesting tool. At least I have benefitted from this. You may want to check this out.

I find the tool very very useful. It makes me go thru my calendar, photos, conversations, notes, thoughts etc and allows me to spot my mistakes. This also keeps me on track in terms of what I want to do and how far I am.

Most years, I make elaborate plans and from whatever I plan, I only get to do a fraction of things and that’s ok. I am hard on myself and unless I have goals that are larger than myself and my aukaat, no point putting those goals in place.

Even if this this is not for you, I urge you to see it once.

Pro Tip: Download the Digital-A4 version, take two sets of printouts and work with a pen and paper (not iPad / Comp). And on the first, write everything. And on the second refine. And use the second one as your report card for 2025 and then the roadmap for 2026. And if you do take this advice and work on it, please share your plan with me. May be we can help each other get to those goals?

2/ No Coffee

See this tweet.

I am glad to report that I didnt have coffee this week. And, as I write this, today’s monday evening and I am yet to have coffee!

And I went to Starbucks only twice. I did goto other coffee shops (but did not order coffee).

To be honest, I dont miss coffee as much as I miss the feeling of sitting at a table and working on things. I am trying to make my home the place where I sit and work but I like to see some chaos around me. I think co-working spaces are the best bet for me. I need to find a good one around me. And around wherever I go.

So, do I want to continue not having coffee? I am not sure.

I want to not be a leech and I want Starbucks to survive their India journey. The other day I read that even though they’ve been here 12 years, they are still in the investment mode! Wow! If they were backed by a VC, I am not sure they’d survive this long. They would already be on the death bed!

3/ Death bed

See this tweet.

I said, When I am on my death bed, who would I want to be next to me? And who are the people who would drop everything and come see me on my death bed?

This means that while I will have friends and acquaintances and all that, going forward I would allow a very small number of people to get thru the defences.

Also, the point is moot. I dont think I would want to have anyone next to me when my time comes. I would rather be with strangers and all that and not have any of my loved ones see me.

So that.

4/ Warikoo’s Team’s Salary

Warikoo made his team’s salaries public. Many things came from there on. Here’s a list.

I pay more than Warikoo! And yet I am unable to find great talent.
I love the radical transparency with which he runs the business. I run mine with a lot of transparency as well but he takes the cake.
Great people (I know at least one person who works for Warikoo and I made an offer to pay her 2X of what she makes) choose to work with people who have great personal brands. I dont have it. I need to work on it.
As much as people are important, performance is important as well. This has been a problem for me. I need to index higher on performance. I will do that going forward. It will be tough – primarily because I dont know how to go about it – I’ve never known how to do this. Plus its not something that I can read from book. Its about people and thats messy and all.

There was more but I forgot. I may come back to this.

5/ Magic of IRL meetings and Power of Handshakes

I bumped into a former client the other day. And it was a fantastic meeting. From getting to see his scars to seeing the human side of him to getting a new opportunity, I saw all of those happen in one one-hour interaction!

This is one of those things that COVID-19 has taken away from us – the magic of in-person conversations. While its more efficient I wish we can bring back these IRL meetings, handshakes and texture of people!

In fact, I had started to say no to IRL meetups (cos why travel) but I will get back to these IRL meetings. I will still figure the time and travel and all that.

6/ Nath Saab

For context on him, read this.

Another lesson I learnt from him is the idea of panna faadna. I wrote about it here (section B). I think it needs a page on this blog but for the time being, I will replicate here.

Imagine our life is a notebook. Each person in our life is a page. And you can add as many pages in that notebook (once you meet new people). And then the page can extend to any length (depending on your relationship with them). And like any well-used journal or notepad, it can extend in all directions.

However, once you sort of break your relationship with someone (say, someone moves away from your life, someone does something uncool etc etc) you tear their page from your notebook. And then that’s that. You stop bothering about them. They become a stranger. You operate from a place of indifference. You are kind to the world, you are kind to them. You wish them success but you shall not partake in that. If they need help, you are not proactive. You let them come to you. So on and so forth.

He of course has a far deeper reason and philosophy. What I wrote is mine.

And yesterday, I tore one more page off my book. I wish the individual all the luck. I continue to love but I am no longer invested.

So, that.

This week, I tore two more pages from my life’s book. Both pages are relatively fresh and yet I cared deeply for them. One I’ve known for 2-3 years. The about 18 months. Both seemed to have outgrown me and took my patronage for granted. I dont expect that people I support put me on a pedestal but I expect them to be polite and respectful towards me.

Not worth ruminating. Made a note in my Roam. There are now 4 people there. I should re-read Meditations.

7/ Inevitable future

The world is changing fast and I dont know how to navigate. I am thinking, do I create a group of people I trust and talk about things there?

Some themes I see emerging…

Network
Atoms vs Bits
Personal Brand
Personalized Health
Hard Skills and Soft Skills
Interdisciplinary intelligence

I am sure there are many that I am missing.

So, I am thinking I will add people who I trust and who I was to be on my death bed. The idea will be to spot where we are (as individuals, as a group and as society) and what we could do as a collective to be a part of this inevitable future. I am not sure what shape would it take and who would I include in it. But this has been simmering in my head.

Give me thoughts?
Ask me questions?

8/ Urban Poverty of Time

I was talking to C about something and I happened to mention Urban Poor. In one line, its the people who don’t have the resources and yet take on debt to appear of a certain strata to appease people around them.

Lately I’ve started to spot people who are poor with their time. You know, young people who are perpetually short of time and yet are travelling for concerts, going to meetups, joining board game groups, attending festivals that they have no clue about.

I see so many young people waste so much of their time on doing things that would seemingly get them acceptance and approval from the world around them. And then after they come back from these social dos, they are left scrambling to get things done and all that.

PS: I want to develop this idea a little more. Lets see where I get.

9/ On saying yes!

See this tweet.

I have lived a life of “always yes” till I was 40. And my excuse was lack of focus. And undiagnosed ADHD. This served me ok – I learnt a lot. But in societal measures, this didnt serve me well.

And despite that, I continue to believe that one must say yes to everything. And I know a lot of people who are sharply focussed even at the age of 20.

So, you do what serves you (yes or no) and what has served your people. But this is worth reading and thinking.

10/ Harada Method

See this tweet. I have been a fan of Ohtani and how he’s built a deliberate life. I did not know that he was following Harada all this while.

Since then multiple tools and apps have popped up that help you visualise this Harada method. I have used goalpillars.com to visualise quiet a few. Here’s one.

The point?

You must try the method to build a map for your success.

Ok enough!

📷 Some Photos from the week gone by

Some photos that I took and save over the last week are here.

🈺 LARGE objective from the week gone by?

I had two large things when I started this year. Book 2 and a yearly plan (that I’ve been writing for a long time. This year I couldn’t). And I just added health a few weeks ago.

No update from the last week. Plus now that we are close to the end of this year and I am working on Year Compass, I will probably make updates to this as we go along.

☑️ So, what did I get done last week?

This is a one-line report on progress I made on various things that are important to me. I will only talk about things that I got done. Shipped. Not WIP.

On this as well, I dont have an update for the last weeks.

📊 The tracker from the last week

Here’s the tracker. Publishing this after a while. Took a lot of effort 😀

What do you see?

🏃🏻‍♂️‍➡️ Health

I am not publishing this at this time.

The food log, my daily health log channel continue to be active.

📖 Interesting Reads / Views

Not too many. And whatever I had, I have covered those in the note above. You are welcome to join this WA group where I post updates often.

🧠 Reminders from last week

This section captures things that I want to not forget. I add those to SG’s Office. I will copy paste these week on week and track updates.

I’ve been skipping this for a while now.
Lets see when I get back to this.

🥡 So, one thing that defines the past week?

Blur.

I dont even know where this week went. And there is no better word than this to capture that emotion.

Oh and in the previous weeks, the one-word reviews have been… Sad, Getting Back, Unsettling, Regular, Grind, Sad, Tough, Routine, Routine, Busy, Grind, Blur, Stress, Numb, Blur, Fast, Uncool, Disappeared, Experience, Grind, Busy for Nothing, Regular, Getting back to action, Slack, Busyness, Action, Survive, Looking Up, Survival, Taste, Community, Respect, Money, People.

This week was not

—
Phew!
Lemme know what you think.
See you around.

Oh, and this too shall pass!

PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes.

The previous editions are here: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 44, 46

I’ve missed the following weeks: 9, 15, 17, 22, 24, 41, 43, 45

PPS: Please do point typos.
Grammarly is not working with WordPress and I don’t have energy to cut paste edit this in some other spell check thing.

PPPS: In case you see me being inconsistent in anything – work, writing, reviews etc, PLEASE do point out.

Wk 46-25 – Weekly Notes

Updates from the weeks 45 and 46.

10:30 AM
Nov 15, 2025
Starbucks, Versova
Completing this on morning of the Nov 17th

Its been two weeks since I’ve written this.

Life happened; which I will come to shortly. But if I look at the trend, I have been pushing these posts to alternate weeks for the last three weeks. Maybe I need to change the cadence to that?

So, a large part of why I’ve not been able to publish is that I no longer have free weekends. I don’t get the time to reflect on things and thus I don’t get time to write.

I don’t like this, to be honest and I would like to change. Lets see when and how.

The other thing is, this update takes well over 4 hours for me to write (over 2-3 sittings). Which I am ok to be honest. I think of this as my weekly journal that keeps me sane. Plus this gives me an illusion of control.

The messy part is to update the trackers. And I know that tracking is as important as the commentary. And I want to do a decent (not perfect, not great) job at it. The days when I feel I am unable to even do the decent, I tend to procrastinate. And then things spiral.

Ok, enough. Lets get started.

Oh, the tracks of the post are Rolling in the deep and Believer. The second link is to a playlist. Enjoy while you read this post.

💭 Highlights, reflections, updates and notes from the past two weeks

And no, these are not in any order.

1/ Mahabharata

For context, I had taken a challenge to write 100 posts in 100 days, each inspired by a story from Mahabharata. And a lesson from thereon.

I could only write 43 of those. Here’s a list.

So, I failed. I have a lot of thoughts about that. While you can read the long post, the summary is – I tried and I failed. And unlike the time when I would get sad and beat myself over it, this time, I am giving myself a break. I acknowledge that I tried. And failed. And I need to move on.

Also this has made me realize thats I need to work harder to find 1000 true fans. In fact, EACH of us must do whatever we can do find 1000 true fans. Krishna was here over the last few days and while talking to him, I realized that instead of you chasing money or learning, you MUST chase a 1000 true fans and once you get to that, life can be better.

As we speak, I have 3 true fans. In case you want to know more about it, here.

Apart from this, while I am on this, I must write about Paul’s Pathless Path. I’ve been reading the book and it’s very very interesting. And refreshing. Especially the stage of life I am at.

Inspired by this I am considering building a coaching practise. This is far cry from how I operate. In life I have not wanted to charge for my patronage – if anything, I give out a lot. Plus I believe that seekers need not be left behind because they cant pay. May be I will make it so expensive that only the ones with resources are able to buy? And ofc, I continue to offer my time for free to the ones that need it.

Like most things, I’ve made public posts. See this post on linkedin and this on x. Lets see where it lands.

2/ Kindness and Politeness

One of my largest values in life is that of kindness and politeness.

To a point that if you talk to me in a rude, condescending, undermining tone, you can expect me to walk out from even the grandest prizes on offer. I have done that in the past – one time I even put my entire company’s very survival at stake.

However, over the last few weeks, I have found myself being rude and unkind and impolite and short-fused and all that. Not just to strangers but also to folks I love.

Case in point, Riya.

I’ve known her for a while and she’s one of the smartest young people I know. Lately, she’s been working to help me build distribution for my work on the internet. She put together a podcast, a newsletter, an entire social media profile and more. A few days ago, on a tiny thing, I lost it and I spoke to her curtly. And I shouldn’t have.

I don’t have an excuse. If I was frustrated, I should’ve kept that to my self. If I were angry, I should’ve chosen better words. If I was not well, I should’ve pushed the call and not bring a bad self to that.

I will do better.

And Riya, if you are reading this, I am sorry.

3/ Health

Despite all the efforts by Dr H (via FOXO) and all the people around me, I cant seem to find a way to eat better. I cant seem to find a way to workout. And I cant seem to get any better.

I can see my energy levels go down. On Friday, I was with some friends and I was unable to even sit up. On Saturday, I had a splitting headache and I didn’t know what to do about it. I have this lingering pain in my back for so many days and I know I need to fix my posture but I havent moved my ass on it. So that.

I know that the answers are simple. I am also sure that things needed to be in the top decile of health for your age group are not tough at all. And yet, I am unable to do shit about it. And since I am a rationalizing human and a smart one at that, I blame the lack of focus on health to lack of money.

Lemme make my case here.

So, if you’ve been a reader of this blog, you’d know my fandom for Kuldeep. I read that he’s on GLP-1 and he lifts like 140 KGs and he’s got a weighing scale that costs 40000.

While his dedication is remarkable and the hard work he’s putting in great, I want to believe that a large part of his ability to be so focused is because of the resources he’s got – you know, afford a doctor to prescribe meds, buy things etc etc.

And yes, I do know that for every Kuldeep, there’s a, say, Fooldeep who doesnt have any money at all and YET does more than Kuldeep and is better than Kuldeep. For fucks sake, I could be this Fooldeep!

I mean, I do have some money. And instead of investing that in my personal brand, I can use that to build better health. I have been wanting to buy an air purifier. I want to join a fancy gym. I want to get a domestic help to cook. How tough is it for me to invest this?

NOT AT ALL!

I will have to cut EACH of my wants (you know, fancy devices, trips, dinners, gifts etc) and I should be ok. If I cut Starbucks from life, the money saved there would be enough to fund like three SG fitness projects.

Wait.
May be that.
What if I abstain from Sbux for a week?
Will try and report.

Ok, moving on.

BRB, ordering a pizza for myself.

4/ Naval on Curating People

Naval dropped a new podcast. It’s titled, Curate People.

Like most things from Naval, this too is worth its weight in gold. I’ve heard is twice and I have made LOT of notes. He’s made the following chapters from the conversation…

On each, I found myself nodding vigorously.

I could relate to my experience. And I realised that I’ve been on the right path. Just that I’ve not been able to curate enough. In fact, the secret of my failure is hidden in plain sight. That I am not a genius and thus I am unable to find others to work with me. I could’ve attracted them with money but my ability to do so is limited as well.

Also, I relate this to what HT told me a few weeks ago (about not being apologetic and leading with confidence). May be this has been my anathema all this while? May be I continue to be a scatterbrain and yet offer confidence and clarity to folks I get to work with.

What say?

Oh and this brings me to the next point. Smartness and poverty.

5/ Smart and yet poor

I saw this quote and I felt a sucker punch to my gut.

“If you are so smart why are you still poor?”

I’ve of course believed all my life that I am among the smarter lot. And this gets reinforced most times I meet people (this also means I need to find better circles to hang around in). And yet I am poor. And I havent been able to spot the reason for poverty.

Lemme try to decode.

One thought is that my relationship with money is not the best one.

I often give it out more than I must. I also tend to not value my time and my energy enough to seek the commensurate monetary value. And I seem to run a leaky bucket – to a point that I piss off a lot of money in life – you know, Starbucks, Eating out etc. For context, last year, I spent about 5 lakhs on eating out, another 3 lakhs on Starbucks. And btw, just 21000 on clothes. Lol.

This year, these numbers are 3.5 lakhs on eating out, 1.7 lakhs on Starbucks and 19K on clothes.

Point?
I can totally save these 5 lakhs if I get better habits.

Second thought is that I need to not leave so much on the table.

I suffer from the want of being likeable. By all. I want to be polite and nice and Mr Please Everybody Else. And because of this, I leave a lot of money on the table. And I dont ask others to do more. And I dont give candid feedback to people who dont.

Thing is, I need to find a way to stretch my money to do more. I want to demand value from the investment I’ve made. I have tried to pivot to being a demand person but I havent been able to change. This likeability is a core part of my identity and each time I have tried to change this, I have failed. So that.

Third thought is using money to please others.

Thankfully, I dont suffer from this affliction. I do things that please me and no one else. So that’s cool.

Fourth thought is Survival. And not growth.

This is a deep one. Some people are designed to take large risks and do more with their lives. I havent taken any large risks to be honest. I’ve only taken small ones. And with small risks come small results. So, I am mildly successful at best. And I am a “never was” (not a “has been”). And I can attribute this to my thing of finding a way to not die. Each time I am in a soup, I come out alive. I am not really on the edge. I am not that atomic explosion that blinds everyone for a ten second window and then the clouds of dust tell the story of that blinding genius. I am rather that candle that flickers and flickers and flickers till it runs out. There is no large announcements. There is no aftermath. Just a candle that was.

Fifth is my chase of freedom and relaxed life of today.

You have only two resources you balance – time and money. And you can do only two tradeoffs – live a tough life today (put in time, save money) and enjoy in the future or use money today to buy convenience (and time) so that your head is free to work on tasks that you need to apply your head to.

I’ve chosen the later.

And in fact, even on the later, I pay a lot of money to avoid mental fuckery. For example, a large part of my spends on Starbucks is to find an AC, comfortable seats, clean rest rooms et al. And not for coffee! I dont even like coffee that much! I am totally opposite of Marshmallow folks.

So may be I dont have enough that allows me to compound?

Sixth is my philosophizing.

Lemme start with a quote by SRK.

My father told me very early on in my life, he said, ‘If you are poor and you are crazy, you are called a lunatic. But if you are rich and you are crazy, you are called eccentric.‘

I cant find the source of this. But I hope you get the message. And I hope you can spot the lunatic in me.

Ok enough about money. I am bored. Need to move on.

6/ Punit Pania and Vishwas Sharma

One of the highlights of the last two weeks Punit’s live show.

I’ve been a fan of the guy and he really made me think so much. Of course he’s funny as well. You must check out his work. He narrated the story of Akbar and Tansen’s guru and left such an indelible impression on me. I wish I had it in me to be an artist and not a content creator.

The other highlight was Vishwas Sharma’s book – Berozgaar Engineer aur Gungi Gun ka Insaaf. Read it here. I’ve not read a good pulp fiction in a while and this one served everything you could ask for!

📷 Some Photos from the week gone by

Some photos that I took and save over the last two weeks are here.

🈺 LARGE objective from the week gone by?

I had two large things when I started this year. Book 2 and a yearly plan (that I’ve been writing for a long time. This year I couldn’t). And I just added health a few weeks ago.

I dont have an update for the last two weeks.

☑️ So, what did I get done last week?

This is a one-line report on progress I made on various things that are important to me. I will only talk about things that I got done. Shipped. Not WIP.

On this as well, I dont have an update for the last two weeks.

📊 The tracker from the last week

I am not publishing this. I hardly took note. I will get back next week.

🏃🏻‍♂️‍➡️ Health

Like the tracker, I am not publishing this either. The food log, my daily health log channel continue to be active.

📖 Interesting Reads / Views

Not too many. Not publishing this. However you are welcome to join this WA group where I post updates often. The last few updates are…

1/ This year’s Year Compass is here.

https://yearcompass.com

In case this is not for you, I urge you to see it once.

Good luck!

2/ On saying yes!

See this tweet.

I have lived a life of “always yes” till I was 40. And my excuse was lack of focus. And undiagnosed ADHD. This served me ok – I learnt a lot. But in societal measures, this didnt serve me well.

I continue to believe that one must say yes to everything. And I know a lot of people who are sharply focussed even at the age of 20.

So, you do what serves you (yes or no) and what has served your people. But this is worth reading and thinking.

3/ Harada Method

See this tweet.

🧠 Reminders from last week

This section captures things that I want to not forget. I add those to SG’s Office. I will copy paste these week on week and track updates.

I’ve been skipping this for a while now.
Lets see when I get back to this.

🥡 So, one thing that defines the past two weeks?

Sad.

Yeah, thats the word. Cant think of anything else.

Oh and in the previous weeks, the one-word reviews have been… Getting Back, Unsettling, Regular, Grind, Sad, Tough, Routine, Routine, Busy, Grind, Blur, Stress, Numb, Blur, Fast, Uncool, Disappeared, Experience, Grind, Busy for Nothing, Regular, Getting back to action, Slack, Busyness, Action, Survive, Looking Up, Survival, Taste, Community, Respect, Money, People.

This week was not

—
Phew!
Lemme know what you think.
See you around.

Oh, and this too shall pass!

PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes.

The previous editions are here: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 44

I’ve missed the following weeks: 9, 15, 17, 22, 24, 41, 43, 45

PPS: Please do point typos.
Grammarly is not working with WordPress and I don’t have energy to cut paste edit this in some other spell check thing.

PPPS: In case you see me being inconsistent in anything – work, writing, reviews etc, PLEASE do point out.

Wk 44-25 – Weekly Notes

Updates from Weeks 43 and 44 of 2025.

5:41 PM, Nov 2, 2025
Silk Road Cafe, Versova

I am here cos the Starbucks I hang out at, their AC is not working. And I literally melt when I am at a place without AC. And thus. And tbh, this is not a bad place. I dont see a lot of people who’d make the place creepy (like at Starbucks) and thus I like it. Lets see if I come here more often.

So, before I start the review, today’s SRK’s birthday. There was a time when I was a big fan (still am but I am wiser to not attach emotions to my fandom) and I would some day like to work with him. But for today, I am content with merely wishing him birthday from afar.

Thank you, SRK, for telling me what love could be. And what power of dreams could be. And what ambition could be.

And thus, the track of the week has to be this…

Brings me to the next part of this post.

💭 Highlights, reflections and notes from the past week

And no, these are not in any order.

a/ So this last two weeks, I wrote two posts.
One about 25 questions. And the other about Piyush Pandey. He passed away a week or so ago and while the entire country was shocked, nothing seems to have stopped. Sobering lesson in Pale Blue Dot. And ego.

b/ I need to fix my home situation.
I have a 1 bedroom hall house. And I have AC in just one of the rooms. That means I work in that room and sleep in that room and host people in that room. And this means I have chairs, working table, my mattress and everything else in this room. And this means that it’s cluttered all the time and anything thats cluttered is dirty for me. And I dont like it.

I know only I can fix it. Either I need to find a solution or I need to stop crying. I was to do this over this weekend but I couldnt. May be next weekend.

c/ Money mindedness
Thanks to this post, I want to be a money minded man.

d/ Saw a Tim Cook interview onboard AI1736
This one. I realised that he cant talk about Apple till date without talking about Steve. Even though it’s been like 15 years!

Also, I realised that each time I see a film, I want to be a film maker. I dont know in what shape!

e/ A superquote on Spartans (from 300).
“Spartans true strength is the warrior next to him. So give respect and honor to him and it will be returned.”

This is what I want to build as culture at each place where I am at. Strength thru others.

f/ sgMahabharata is at 39 posts!
w00t!

Yeah, just these. I do have a lot of notes and commentary. Do read.

📷 Some Photos from the week gone by

Some photos that I took and save over the last two weeks are here.

The photo that I would like to highlight is this..

🈺 LARGE objective from the week gone by?

I had two large things when I started this year. Book 2 and a yearly plan (that I’ve been writing for a long time. This year I couldn’t). And I just added health a few weeks ago.

Book 2 – There was no movement.
Nothing to report. The trigger by NanoWrimo makes me want to start on it again. But I dont really have the time at this time : (

Yearly Plan – I dropped it long ago.
Now its time to think about the plan for the next year. Lol.

Health – No large updates except the fact while I was in delhi, I actually lost a couple of KGs since I ate in discipline! Since I’ve come back, it’s been tough to manage eating well and I think am back to 93. Lets see how the next week is. PS: I track my health updates here, in case.

☑️ So, what did I get done last week?

This is a one-line report on progress I made on various things that are important to me. I will only talk about things that I got done. Shipped. Not WIP.

Health
Meru
C4E
Brand SG
People (Family, Friends, Strangers, etc)
Book2
Shauk (Music, Films, Poker etc)

Health. Was ok. I am encouraged to give myself a 0.

Meru. Great progress. But nothing to report per se. And still no consumer launch. And thus a 0.

C4E. No action from my side. No comments. A 0.

Brand SG. Last two weeks was slow. So 0.

People. Some action on this. Met many friends, alums and others. Loved it. +1.

Book 2. Nothing. -1.

Shauk. Saw a play. Must watch more. A 0.

So the overall score for the week is 0!

Few weeks ago, I had decided that I want to get a positive score each week. I had to organise my life to be able to get to a 0. I think I’ve made the tracker. I need to run it now. Let’s see how it pans out in the next few weeks.

Brings me to the tracker of the week…

📊 The tracker from the last week

I am not publishing this. I hardly took note. I will get back to this from next week on.

🏃🏻‍♂️‍➡️ Health

Like the tracker, I am not publishing this. I hardly took note. I will get back to this from next week on.

The food log, my daily health log channel continue to be active.

📖 Interesting Reads / Views

Quite a few. Here we go.

Also, I am publishing these on Substack as well. Here is the substack. And here’s the permalink to the post.

1/ From Collabfund

From this piece on Collabfund, https://collabfund.com/blog/if-you-get-the-chance/, I have taken these notes…

“I found in my career that if you take pride in the little jobs, people will think you worthy of the bigger jobs.”

This is important cos I see so many people wanting to do large things but they are not willing to put in the reps required. And here’s the interesting thing – reps typically look like little jobs, done many times over!

Unfortunately, I didn’t appreciate this lesson enough early in my career. As an example, after graduating from business school, I thought I could come right in and impart my newly found wisdom, when I should have been a better listener and executed the mundane tasks with as much vigor as the more interesting ones.

This – if I could give this advice to young people, I would ask them to first listen and then act.

“Just focus on doing the best you can with those two reps. Make them as perfect as you possibly can. Then focus on the next two, and the next two, and the next two.”

And people are at it, I would want them to do one thing well. Little ironical since I am not the kinds to be able to focus on one thing!

2/ From the markers of Hey

I read this post from the makers of Hey. The biggest takeaway for me was this line,

But the most interesting designs to me are when design changes your behavior. Even the smallest details can change how someone interacts with something.

Thing is, as custodians and builders of taste, we must take each opportunity to change behaviour. Even if you are not a designer, the opportunity to impact change is always there!

3/ From the founder of Replit

From Amjad (founder of replit), on his recent post, he talks about how to win.

While I am not as competitive as him, I am in agreement with 4 of the 6 things that he mentioned – dont die, never quit, do hard things and put something back.

The one that I cant seem to wrap my head around is “locking in”. And I am not sure where I am on the “playing by the rules”. I am from India and to make things work, we often have to be flexible on rules and ethics.

4/ Alex’s three-month marketing plan

This post by Alex is INCREDIBLE!

My takeaways are…

Personality Driven Content – I need to find a way to be louder with my personality. I am 43. If not now, when?
Each person on the team HAS to be a brand on the internet. Period.
Need to operate the business as a content company. Each week I read something like this and I nod alongside and yet this remains a challenge.
Need to have LARGE distribution. Need to find people with large following who are willing to support.
Build a distribution engine where each piece you create is repurposed 100 times.

Also listed these here. Ask for access.

5/ Julian Cole on Strategy

This post talks about how to write a strategy presentation. As someone who worked on brand strategy for like 15 years, I can validate, this is spot on!

A flowchart diagram divided into five vertical sections labeled Reflection on the left showing Where we are today, Ambition in the center-left showing The tomorrow we could have Where we are today could have, Challenge in the center showing The challenge we need action change for, Jeopardy in the center-right showing The insight that unlocks this, and Hope on the right showing Gives us a way through that unlocks this idea Where we are today could have. Arrows connect the sections horizontally from left to right indicating progression. — Source: https://x.com/juliancole/status/1980870485287338262

6/ Rahul Mathur’s breakdown of Meesho

Rahul is one of my fav writers these days. Other are Kuldeep, Ankush, Harnidh.

In this thread, he breaksdown Meesho’s IPO. For me, the highlights and lessons are…

The AOV is going down by design! And they are a 75% CoD business.
They have an in-house logistics arm that does 20-30 lakh order PER DAY! On their website, they say they pick 40 lakh orders PER DAY!
People are discovering products via creators. This segment is opaque to me (because I live and think in a different TG)
The business has seen few large pivots. Again, I dont track it as much and thus I dont know the specifics. But intriguing for sure.

May be I will read more about it. Looks unlikely because the segment Meesho serves is not something that excites me.

And +1 to Rahul for all the hardwork he does.

7/ “This is new to me”

On this tweet, saw this line…

Instead of “I’m bad at this”. Say “This is new for me”. This gives your brain the space to learn instead of shut down. This is neuroplasticity in real time.

Interesting idea. Especially for me since at this age, I am finding very very hard to change how I have lived and operated.

8/ How to engineer luck

This post talks about how to engineer luck.

Now, luck is one of the favorite topics and while I didnt learn anything new from the post, it was interesting to read from somoene else’s lens. Some lines that I’ve highlighted are…

A/ Unscheduled calls. I’ve started to make these lately. Not sure

Super-agent Ari Emmanuel makes dozens of unscheduled calls every day. His opening line: “Can I help you with anything right now?

B/ Luck Razor…

If stuck with 2 equal options, pick the one that feels like it will produce the most luck later down the line. I used this razor to go for drinks with a stranger rather than watch Netflix.

C/ Proactively make intros. On this, my only note is that I want to make intros once I realise that both the parties want to be introed. Ofc, I trust both parties, I know it would be of value and all that.

Networks are unique because they don’t divide when you share them — they multiply. There’s no higher ROI on any other 30-second activity. (Note — do not confuse this with making introductions where only one side gets value from it)

D/ Give!

Give aggressively, give early, give without permission.

E/ Permissionless entry into the rooms. I have been a GREAT beneficiary of this and I cant stop recommending this enough.

Find the most talented people you know and help them as much as you can, permissionlessly. Share their projects, give feedback, and make introductions. Successful people have a special place in their hearts for the people who helped them before anyone else did.

9/ Lessons on life, from a 22-year old

This is a feel-good post for Sunday.

A young person discovering life. I wish each young person here gets to live such a life and pick lessons along the way. So many lessons packed into that one!

I found myself nodding and smiling at the words. Must read.

10/ Chat GPT on Longevity

This post on insta has some thoughts on longevity.

Not sure if this is correct (afterall, AI is known to hallucinate). Here are a commentary on the post…

Stress shortens your life more than sugar. I think I dont take stress but I am told that my Cortisol levels are not good. So need work on that.
Live now. I’ve lived my life with this principle. So am ok.
Don’t force yourself to stay in draining situations and do things that you are internally not opposed to. This means bad marriages, bad jobs, energy drains etc etc. Mostly I am ok to get out of those. But when I can’t I need to be faster to get out of those.
Deep connection matters more than any supplement. I need to double down my efforts on building more communities and being more immersed in those.
Find purpose larger than self. I need to work on this one. At this time, I dont have a large enough purpose apart from the chase of freedom.

While on longevity, do read this piece from Lenny San’s newsletter.

11/ Ever wondered why do people touch their ears when they are talking about their teachers?

I knew this intuitively but then I got reading.

In one line, it’s usually a gesture of respect, apology, or humility. A more nuanced and detailed answer is that when you talk about a teacher, touching of ear is a symbolic acknowledgement that you are saying sorry even before you start talking because you may misspeak.

A deeper nuance is that even if you not misspeak, whatever you may say will always be a fraction of what your teacher already know. So, by touching your ears and apologizing, you are admitting that you are nothing compared to your teachers.

While I am not for any such subservient behaviour, this one, I quite like. Make what you will of this.

12/ India against India

In this post, the writer makes some very compelling arguments about India. shared this with a few friends.

On one side, some folks said this is a very biased view against india. And they were quick to dismiss.

On the others, mostly folks who love india deeply and are settled abroad, said that this was an objective piece.

You could be on either side but there is no denying that this is a compelling piece of writing and the author has a way with words. If nothing else, think of this as a satirical piece and enjoy for the sheer joy of reading.

13/ Creative Slop

In this thread, the writer argues that large cultural revolutions often start as slop. And in the world that we live in, we are often tend to dismiss the new!

A lot of groups that I am a part of are dissing work done by folks on AI as slop are not even acknowledging the effort!

14/ Conceptual stories vs Perceptual Stories

In this piece, the large takeaway is that brain remembers conceptual stories more than perceptual stories. There are different ways you could fill in the details of that story. You could give perceptual descriptions of how your food looked and tasted. Or you could focus more on conceptual experiences, such as what that food made you think and feel.

15/ Notes on India

In this piece, Jason talks about what he saw while he was in India.

I thought it was a very accurate understanding of India (and unbiased one at that). Do read to understand us. Made many highlights. Listing a couple points…

It seems that most Indians operate in a fundamentally open-ended and uncertain environment

…

In India, cooperating with the rules almost always lands you in the sucker’s quadrant of the prisoner’s dilemma, whereas creative defection is generally net positive (perhaps in a macro sense, society operates less efficiently because of it, but in a personal sense, defecting wisely pays off).

16/ Jack and Jane of trades

In this tweet, the writer claims,

“Specialize or die” made sense in 1995. In 2025, it’s a death sentence. The future belongs to generalists, and the proof is in Systems Theory.”

Do read the thread.

17/ Naval on working for self. And work-life balance.

In this podcast, Naval talks about how when you work for yourself, the concept of work-life balance ceases to exist. He talks baout how the taste of freedom makes you “unemployable”.

Once you are “free” you are unable to find yourself fitting into any structures and you find ways to get back the call of the wild.

I can 100% resonate to this 🙂

18/ This post by Ankit Sawant on Cleartrip

I’ve always loved Cleartrip for their design and CX. This is a great post about the business in general and how design can play the central role in building business. Ofc, cleartrip is nowhere close to the top but still!

19/ On people

Saw this tweet and I was blown apart. Such a simple chart. Such a difficult lesson.

as a professional (and human), your ability to understand this lovely chart I made will determine your success in life and in making appeals to people

in 2025, may you stop wasting so much of your time and energy convincing (or outright trying to manipulate) people to enter the… pic.twitter.com/Dj8zAm5LaI
— Mimi Aboubaker (@mimi_aboubaker) December 31, 2024

20/ On running

This piece on running is among the best you will ever read. Here are a couple of quotes that I am taking home…

I didn’t want my id to overcome my superego

One lesson I learned about running that also applies to writing: The best time to do something important is usually right now. And when you have to get something done in a short amount of time, it’s wise not to spend that time complaining about how little time you have.

21/ Andrej talks about how agency will be more important than intelligence

See this link.

Andrej talks about how agency is going to be more important than intelligence. And I agree. I’ve long believed that once AI commodities intelligence, we will need people to get things done! The question to ask – are you the kinds to “I’ll figure it out”

Also, I love how he talks about internal locus of control. A great way to explain agency.

22/ Social Capital Balance Sheet

Saw this tweet and I was blown apart. Such a simple chart. Such a difficult lesson.

Two large takeaways for me

1/ “Your ability to affect the world, to bring things into being, to convince people to work with you, work for you, and for investors to invest with you is based deeply in your reputation. And if you don’t care what people think about you, you will necessarily accomplish less, work with fewer people, raise less money.”
2/ “Humility is the delta between performance and ego”

🧠 Reminders from last week

This section captures things that I want to not forget. I add those to SG’s Office. I will copy paste these week on week and track updates.

I’ve been skipping this for a while now.
Lets see when I get back to this.

🥡 So, one thing that defines the past week?

Getting back in action.

Slow and steady but after a two week break, I am now trying to get back to churning the wheels. I am hopeful that the coming week will see solid action.

Oh and in the previous weeks, the one-word reviews have been… Unsettling, Regular, Grind, Sad, Tough, Routine, Routine, Busy, Grind, Blur, Stress, Numb, Blur, Fast, Uncool, Disappeared, Experience, Grind, Busy for Nothing, Regular, Getting back to action, Slack, Busyness, Action, Survive, Looking Up, Survival, Taste, Community, Respect, Money, People.

—
Phew!
Lemme know what you think.
See you around.

Oh, and this too shall pass!

PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes.

The previous editions are here: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42

I’ve missed the following weeks: 9, 15, 17, 22, 24, 41, 43

PPS: Please do point typos.
Grammarly is not working with WordPress and I don’t have energy to cut paste edit this in some other spell check thing.

PPPS: In case you see me being inconsistent in anything – work, writing, reviews etc, PLEASE do point out.