21 Jul 2024 – Morning Pages

I am back with some braindump. Let’s start.

1/ Work. C4E.

At work, at C4E, we are at an interesting juncture.

We run a stable business and yet we are one mistake away from ruin. From my vantage point, I dont know what to do to fix it. There. I admitted.

The thing is, we run C4E in a unique manner and the world we live in is not designed to allow us to thrive. Of course, we would jostle around and find our spot but till that time, we remain perched precariously on the edge of a mountain and we are one slip away from ruin.

As the chieftain of the village, my only job is to ensure that while we continue to find sharper peaks to scale, we don’t slip down the abyss. And I am sort of out of ideas on how to prevent this ruin.

One of the things that I am thinking about is to push everyone at C4E to put in deliberate effort into building our respective personal brands on the internet.

And this means consistent, deliberate effort to create and share content (in any format of any length). And while that happens, we need to be a part of a community larger than self (or become part of one) and build networks – loose or tight.

Some of us may not know what we stand for (I stand for way too many things and I need to find a smaller list) but that does not mean we dont create, ship, or network.

It is this basic, boring, drudge-full work done over and over again with discipline and consistency that would make us successful. As individuals, as a group and as C4E.

So that.

And to get us going on the treadmill of discipline, I need to probably lead the way. And knowing myself, I suck at it! So that’s some work for me.

The other thing that we can do, while we work as an agency, is to build a content destination that people are willing to pay for (aka subscribe to).

I have tried that in the past with TRS. I’ve even tried podcasts with Podium. But I was not successful with either. I’ve not given up and I continue to think of media businesses. And I take heart from publications like Goya, Alipore Post, Homegrown, and others; and content companies like Humans Of Cinema, Chalchitra and others that seem to be seeing the impact of compounding.

So, could that be a thing that we can build? And yeah, I know it’s 100X tougher to build content destinations unless you have a great Instagram game. Or you have famous people at the helm.

Come to think of it, I’ve had the right ideas at the right time. Just that I haven’t been able to push myself to deliver on those. I need to work on my delivery muscle if I have to make that dent. Or may those billions.

Ok, moving on. This is more like an internal memo.

2/ From RD to Harpreet and to CSS

A few nights ago, I saw a session where a passionate RD Burman fan took a crowd of 50 through Pancham’s biography. Loved it. More than the music and the passion for Pancham, I loved the stories. After all, it’s with the stories you attach meaning.

The more eye-opening was bumping into Gurpal Singh – an actor that I had seen a lot while I was growing up. The RD session was curated by Gurpal Sir. The day after the RD session, I attended a live performance by Harpreet.

Again, the session was arranged by Gurpal Ji.

Both pics were clicked by me, just that the second one had better lighting.

So, the hero of this is neither RD, Sangoi Sir or Harpreet. But Gurpal Ji.

He’s made the effort to create these mehfils and bring people together.

There’s something rustic, something earthy, something homelike in the way he organises these sessions. There’s friends helping each other. There’s no ego. There’s this chai, that someone quipped “as meetha as Gurpaj Ji”.

Then there’s these Kachoris that are bought from some local store and yet taste like no other Kachori I’ve ever had. Mind you, I am from Delhi and I’ve had a million Kachoris from thousands of places. Damn, I want a Kachori now but I can’t – am on 6th day of my Keto.

The point is, Gurpal Ji has shown me the light. And I am inspired to do more things that bring people together.

Truth be told, I did start a series of such sessions with CSS but it has fizzled out after 4 sessions.

On one side, I am sad about it and on the other, I am content that we tried. Also, these 4 sessions did teach me a lot of lessons. I think the model is there. I just need a DRI, some budget and a person to run it full-time. If you are a young college student and do this with me, please write in. Here’s a JD of sorts.

3/ Longevity

It’s no secret that I think a lot about frailty, unpredictability, irrationality and shortness of human life, lifespan and healthspan. Especially in light of my middle age and perpetual struggle with my inability to do great things.

So, I read a lot about longevity. And I found this chart on Twitter that talks about things that impact your life and satisfaction

Among other things, interaction with other people seems to be the top cause of high and low satisfaction. This is probably cherrypicked a piece of evidence to support my belief that we need communities and villages to thrive. The kinds I am trying to build.

In fact, if you look at 1 and 2 above, you’ll notice that both those hint at strong community pieces.

So that.


So this is it. For the day. Let’s see if I can build a daily writing muscle. Wish me luck!

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