Monday, Oct the 6th.
I am late by a day.
And here’s an important note. I will not publish this for the 41st week. I am on the road and I dont want to open my computer. Let’s see how that experiment goes.
Ok, coming to the 40th. It was a fast week. I dont have a lot of distinct memories or even notes. They are sparse.
Oh, since I was a lot in traffic and in mindless work, I discovered and rediscovered a lot of music. Here are some shares. This band and fabulous singer. Doobey. So Good to Me. Rani. In fact I will feature Rani here.
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💭 Highlights, reflections and notes from the past week
PS: As always, these are not in any order.
A/ Lessons from Rana Sir
I met Rana Sir for a walk at Carter’s Road. While Carter’s is like Mumbai’s favorite hangout place and you see more fancy people than you see actual walker, Rana Sir, Chandni and I did walk.
And oh man, what a revelation. The guy’s a genius. I cant stop thanking my stars that I have him as a mentor. Here’s a page from my first and only book.
And no, I am not making those lessons public, just as yet.
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B/ Bumping into people from Internet
In the last week, I bumped into two people who know me from Internet. Both these people have NOTHING in common with me (no common friends, no alma mater, no Starbucks, nothing), except we met on Internet. Via a thing them and I caused (I made some WA groups, they left some comments).
Not that I care for fame or something but these serendipitous connections make life worth living! Must strive for more!
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C/ Theatre
I’ve been DYING to see some life theatre performance for a while. And I havent been able to. I open bookmyshow everyday and I try to see what’s playing near me. And then I try and make plans around it. And then some work creeps up on me.
Come on, universe.
PS: If all goes well, on the 11th, I will attend something. Let’s see.
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D/ Cleaned and organised my life.
Since I moved on from C4E, I’ve not had someone to work with me. This means I dont have anyone to tell me what to on, who to push, follow up for me, give me file locations, jam with me and all that. And I was seeing the impact of that on my work. I was strruggling to even find my bearings.
So one of those days, I slept early and woke up at like 530 or something. And then I organised my life. Wait, not life. But work things. This means, I made a bookmarks bar where I listed all things that I am working on, cleaned tags in Roam, made my TDL and then some more.
As a test, I challenged AK to ask me pull a file that she was working on. And I could!
So, thats’s a big win for the week.
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E/ Jaane wale ko kaun rok saka hai
In the last week, two of the people I really care for told me that their number 2s are moving on. In one case, one even committed an act that is inexplicable.
I know people move on. I’ve had many folks move on. And even though I want to forget and forgive and understand, its a deep gash that I cant seem to find an answer to. Anyhow. The point is, people go. I am lucky that I’ve experienced this and thus when someone moves on, now it doesnt surprise me. Neither I am hurt. I have accepted the reality. Marcus would be proud of me.
However, it was tough to explain to both these folks. In both cases, my friends literally gave a part of their lives to the ones who’ve moved on. And the first emotion that they had was of surprise.
“How could he?”, “What did I do wrong that he had to do this?” and similar.
I had to explain to that often it’s not you or what you’re building. Just that the paths diverge. See the chart below.
This chart is an oversimplification of relationships but I think it works well.
You think and believe that what you’re building is the life of a parent or a dog but it’s actually a friend with benefit. And instead of being harsh on yourself about lack of judgement about identifying people, you ought to move on and try and find the next person who could stay with you.
I just hope more people learn this lesson, earlier in life. And yes, I am cruel to wish this upon you.
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F/ Hormozi on Mental Toughness
Alex has done GREAT service to humankind by making this video. I’ve communicated this to many people in many ways but I never had one reference point to it.
If there’s one thing you see this week, make sure it’s this.
PS: Dont be thrown off by the words you see on thumbnails. I’ve seen some very scary thumbnails for this video. Am sure some A/B testing is happening there.
Also, I am a big big fan of his work. Alex is what I would have wanted to be. Runs his life the way he wants to, eats well, works out and supports others.
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G/ Monumentum is taking shape
Some of my people are building this new thing. I am very excited for them. More about this in the next few days.
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H/ Financial Stress
Financial stress has reached its peak. I found myself scrambling to find avenues to take loans. I thought about revolving credit cards, taking a personal loan, asking for it from a friend (who will take it as an OD from his bank and give me).
No, I dont need solutions from anyone here. This is my battle and I will fight it. I just want to capture it here.
Oh, and the lesson from this bit is to get more money wise and fix my relationship with money. I need to be lot more open and upfront about it and stop leaving it on the table. At this time, I pay for convenience and to avoid tough conversations. I must build the resilience to not hate money.
I also wrote last week that I will start charging for my counsel, even if it’s token. I’ve not been able to bring myself to do that.
Any how. Let’s see where I end up.
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I/ Mahabharata
I have been writing one lesson a day from Mahabharata on Linkedin. It’s a brilliant exercise. I love it! It makes me read some part of Mahabharata, makes me read its interpretations, makes me connect to some thread from my life and then I write.
AK’s told me that what I write is not giving. I understand. I am trying to tweak it for the medium and the readers. And that’s ok. I ought to experiment. Maybe I will get a post written from AI and see how it performs. Actually good idea, lemme fire it!
I just prompted chatGPT.
Lets see what comes out of it.
The only trouble is, I don’t want to add to AI Slop and do things for the sake of doing those. Let’s experiment and see where it goes.
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J/ Goa
I am in Goa this weekend for 2-3 days. I’ve not been to Goa in a while. While I am not looking forward to Goa as a place but I am doing this with my parents and thus.
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K/ SOTY
C4E is building a Student of The Year thingy. This has been one of my longest standing ideas. I was never able to execute this. I am glad that folks feel the importance of the same in my absence.
I am excited!
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L/ Notes from Apple in China
I’ve been reading the book for a while note. Each chapter is a treasure trove of knowledge and information and lessons. Just from yesterday’s reading, I am inspired to go deeper into storytelling, negotiations, sales and more.
I will write a longish post on this sometime. Let’s see when.
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M/ Sit in the Mud
I met a few people last week and one of them told me that she’s not been able to sleep for two days because of something that happened at her work place. Then I met another friend and he was also in that overthinking loop. And this is when I realised that even though folks have friends and families and all that, deep down, everyone is alone. And I really wish I could help fix those things.
At least to these people, I told them that they can reach out to me when they need inputs or counsel. They MUST not think that I am busy. I am never busy for my people. And even if they think they are bothering me, just say SOS and I will be there. I want to experience how it is to sit in the mud with you.
See this…
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N/ Zone of Genius?
Read this.
I think I know where my zone of genius would be. At the intersection of ideas, connections, people, meaning.
This dawned upon me yesterday when I spent the day talking to people. For Meru, I did a session for some folks on writing. Then gave gyaan to some kids. Then helped someone else build his personal board of directors. And then walked with someone else. To a point that I was exhausted and wanted nothing but sleep.
I was in the moment, in the flow. Didnt know where time went.
And that’s probably where I want to be in life.
I am not sure how the money bit works on this. But may be I will explore this.
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O/ Focus
It’s no secret that I am the most unfocussed person there ever is. While I can club each thing I do into an umbrella (enabling people), it comes across as an excuse, even to myself, tbh.
So, I’ve been thinking about focus for a while. And what would it take to get that in my life. the very thought of this makes my entire being revolt. Why would I make my life into a unidimensional one when I can be free and explore?
I dont have answers. But I am thinking on this. May be I will pose this to my braintrust.
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📷 Some Photos from the week gone by
Here are some photos that I took and saved in the last week. Here.
The cover would be this…
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Lemme know which one do you like the most. And do share some of your photos with me!
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🈺 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.
Yearly Plan – I dropped it long ago.
Now its time to think about the plan for the next year. Lol.
Health – I am thinking about this all the time but I havent been able to act upon it. From what I track, I am eating in moderation but neither my weight, nor my energy is getting fixed. Sigh!
PS: I track my health updates here, in case.
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☑️ 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. Not too many good things to report. I now try to”cook” one meal at home. This means I boil water, dump Saffola oats and each. Or I boil eggs. I am not walking. I am not even working out. I will put this on 0.
Meru. Making progress. Again, I can’t talk about it out loud. Will talk more when I ship. Oh, I did take a session on writing auto-biographies. A 0.
C4E. No action from my side. No comments. A 0.
Brand SG. No large things to report, apart from the fact that Riya has been consistent. I’ve realised that each thing I do or work on, once I have someone supporting me, things tend to move!
People. No action on this.
I’d say 0.
Book 2. Nothing.
So, -1
Shauk. No action.
No time.
a 0.
So the overall score for the week is -1
Last week I had decided that I want to get a positive score each week. And this means I need to organise my life better to ensure that I ship this positive score.
Will report once I do.
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📊 The tracker from the last week
Here is the tracker for the week gone by…
What trends do you see?
I see…
- Fewer greens
- Terrible recovery
- Ok on food
What do you see?
🏃🏻♂️➡️ Health
I added Health as a key section some days ago. I am still discovering what to cover here. Let’s see how it goes.
I read somewhere that you need 4 things to live long – sleep, exercise, diet and community. I will track all four. And then some more variables that I feel are important to me. Let’s see what comes out. Also, I log a few things at these links – food log, my daily health log channel.
1/ Sleep
Sleep was all over the place. I am aware. I will work on this.
2/ Exercise
No action. I dont know what to do about this 🙁
3/ Diet
I track each thing I eat on my food log.
I’ve not been able to fix this but I have reduced what I eat. See this…
4/ Community
No large movement on this.
5/ REDACTED
This was being tracked till the last week. I have stopped this from this week onward.
6/ Movement
No action.
7/ Meditation
No action.
Overall, the last week on health front was not good. Again, despite all this tracking, no action 🙁
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📖 Interesting Reads / Views from the last week
Not too many but here are some interesting ones…
1/ Baby naming gets you 30K USD! Here.
2/ This piece by Samarth on GLP-1. Incredible read.
3/ Did you know that Linktree is a billion dollar business. Read here.
4/ The difference between Great Britain, UK and Britain and all that. Link.
5/ Oh, I am reading this book these days. Painfully slow cos time. But a riveting read!
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🧠 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.
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🥡 So, one thing that defines the past week?
Regular.
I am running out of emotions to capture things. I need to be a lot more nuanced on this. Let’s see what that is.
Oh and in the previous weeks, the one-word reviews have been… 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.
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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, 09 (missed), 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (missed), 16, 17 (missed), 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 (missed), 23, 24 (missed), 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39
PPS: Please do point typos.
Grammarly is not working well 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.