in2026, I will…

Saurabh Garg’s review of 2025 and the plan for 2026 and beyond.

Hello!

My friend Pritam says, “A fool with a plan beats the genius without it.” and I concur. And I validate. I am a genius without a plan. And this year, I want to build plans and processes. Lets dive in.

So, it’s been a while since I wrote. And of course many months since I wrote an in20XX post. And I am excited. Let’s dive right in.

2026 was supposed to be the year when I get to my first ever masterplan. In three lines, the masterplan included…

Climb Mt Everest
Make a billion dollars
Impact a billion lives

I did none of these.

And I am not happy about it.

And no, I am not beating myself over it. Here’s a quote that I am hiding behind.

जो क़िले हवा में न बने, वो ज़मीन पर कैसे बनेंगे?

Jo quile hawa main na bane, woh zameen par kaise banenge?

– Most commonly attributed to Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

I love the idea of imagining large scenarios and cooking up grand schemes and making them quilas in the air. Heard this first in Will Smith’s biography.

I’ve lived with its masterplan for 10 years if not more. The thesis was that if I need to do anything well, I need 10 years to do so. And a billion in 10 years was also ambitious (this was back in the day when we had few dollar billionaires and now with the tech and AI boom; this number is more like a 100 billion).

I did my bit of effort but was unable to get to these three.

I did go to the Everest Base Camp (in 2021 or something) and saw Everest from my naked eye. Also the trek to the base camp and the stories of people and the attempts and the tourism and the crowds at the Hillary Step pulled me towards it and pushed me away from it at the same time. And it would be safe to say that I am no longer keen on the summit. I accept defeat. And I will move on.

On the money front, I was never even in the contention to get to a billion. Heck, not even a million. However, this seems like a goal that is still in the reach and still attractive. So, we shall chase that.

On the impact bit, I did make a difference to the lives of a few people. Far from a billion but each person that I made a difference to made me realise that impacting a billion people is a grand, lofty goal and the best part of it is that you dont fail. Even if you help one person see farther, you’ve done well!

So that.

Now, before I do the review of the year gone by and talk about the plan for the next one, here is my Wheel of Life as on Dec 29, 2025.

I’ve been filling it for over 4 years now I’ve seen the spider’s web grow and shrink. And each time I fill this in, I take a hard, honest look at where I am. This is like a dashboard that tells me what needs to change. And each time after I fill this in, I take some actions.

Brings me to the review of 2025. Let’s go.

The review of 2025

2025 was a mixed bag. Like most years.

A. The large things

Three large things that I would pick as the highlights of 2025 would be Meru, sgABC and people. Lemme talk about these.

1/ Meru, my first brush with a “real” startup.

Prior to this, I’ve done startups and companies but all those were done with the immaturity of an over-confident dreamer. Meru happened with a lot more thought and for a change, I was not in the drivers seat. I merely went along for the ride and I played the role of mechanic, navigator, cheerleader.

If I had to capture lessons from the journey, here are some…

a/ Meru is a great example of how I made luck happen. It is an example of a deliberate life. I may or may not get a favorable outcome but I made it happen. I was at the right place and at the right time and I did whatever it took to leverage the access.
b/ I dont do well when I am not the driver / commander of life.
c/ The world is indeed malleable. I am still learning more about it. But I’ve now seen it in action. On ability to mould life, see this.
d/ I am unable to function when put in rigid structures. Subhendu told me that I am highly skilled and highly unemployable. I concur.

2/ sgABC is a mnemonic for something that I dont want to talk about in public at this time. Let’s just say when I write my biography (lol) and I had to pick one thing as the highlight of 2025, it would be sgABC. Hint, I am talking about a person here. Go figure!

3/ People. All my life I’ve believed that people create magic and I know that whatever I know or have, all of it has happened because I had shoulders of many giants to stand on.

However 2025 was the year when I realised that most people that I I could count on and considered close to me, are not really countable. This include family, friends, mentors, colleagues, coworkers, acquaintances, interns and strangers. You are truly alone and by yourself. This was the second time when such realiazation dawned onto me. The first time when I was left to fend for myself in COVID-19. Like back then, till date I continue to not have someone that I confide in (except this blog and thus this outpouring).

And no, I dont write this from a sore or a sad place but from a place of equanimous awareness. I know that not everyone is along with you for a long ride. I know life happens and people and their priorities change. Even when you make desperate calls to them at 3 AM to seek for help, they will offer little. And that’s ok – you must put your seat belt before you put for others. Tushar Sir sent me something incredible that has stayed with me. Here…

I know that when I wanted help, the folks I thought I could lean on were in middle of their storms.

Just that I hope that when someone comes to me, my storm is not that terrifying that I cant give my umbrella to them. I hope I am always around for the ones who trust me. And I want all my people to know that I can be counted upon when I am needed.

And yes, I continue to believe that people create magic and one must offer their shoulder to others.

B. Wins from 2025

I’ve always had trouble listing my wins. Since I am trying to be kind to myself (the ones around me), here are a few that I can think of.

0/ I survived. In terms of money, health, people and all. Its a miracle that despite the air we breathe, the food we eat, the roads we have, we are alive! And I am grateful for this. I love living. I love the rollercoaster of emotions that we are on!

1/ Rediscovered the joy of reading with Unseen and John Grisham. Both are far from each other in their genres and I think I will stick to these. I love pacy, crime thrillers (I aspire to write these) and take business lessons from biographies. Honorable mention must go to Vishwas Sharma for his debut, Berozgaar Engineer aur Gungi Gun ka Insaaf.

In fact, I also discovered my love for little joys like theatre, walks, sunsets etc. Though I couldnt do a lot of sunsets, theatre or walks in second half of the year (work took over). From whatever I saw, the highlights of the year would be Punit Pania, Bikram Bumrah , Manish & Shruti, Anup (see this) and am sure more.

2/ I picked Pickle Ball. I still dont call it a sport but it does bring out the competitive man in me. Wait. I am not competitive. I can be but I am not. I belive in abundance and everyone winning, even if its a sport.

Oh, it was also a thing that I had a strongly held opinion against and I am glad that I changed it. Lets see when I get bored of it.

I am told that I need to graduate to Paddle but I think I will stick to Pickle for the time being.

3/ C4E and I supported a few friends and seniors with their startups (FOXO, Chompz, Ananta Quest and others). We supported some more folks as part of SoG Grant. I dont want to talk about those. I like my donations to be anonymous.

4/ Took my parents to a luxury trip to Goa. Let’s see where we go in 2026. I dont do enough for my parents. And I want to change that. Just that they are comfortable in Delhi and I cant stand Delhi. Stalemate there.

5/ I got a kitchen. I’ve always had a kitchen in the houses I lived in. But in 2025, I got a person to come cook for me. And I also picked cooking. I define my cooking as boiling eggs. See this miracle I made when I wanted to get some sprouts.

Leave a man in the kitchen and this is the mess that he’d create.

Also, cooking is one of those things that I had a strong opinion against. I am now seeing my folly and I am glad that I have someone to cook for me. This is one of the advantages of living in India.

6/ Saw M&m. And during Songkran. The girls are growing up too fast. And I am increasingly not around for them and not important to them. And that’s ok. And not ok.

So that!

C. Losses from 2025 (and things I failed at)

If you know me, you know that I am a harsh on myself. I give more attention to things I fail at. And I allocate more words and space to things I fail at. But this year on, am trying something different.

And as I’ve grown older, I have started to be harsher. And kinder at the same time. Lemme explain.

Harsher – I no longer want the ordinary. I no longer want just a billion. I want 10. Or may be a 100. Or the trillion. See this…

Kinder – I no longer berate myself when I dont get to my goals. I forgive myself and work harder to try again.

So, when I make a list of losses, a lot happens under the hood. Here’s the list and a one line summary.

1/ Health. I was unable to get fitter. And since I am diabetic, have leaky gut, inflammation, bad posture and many more such things, I need to be lot more careful. And despite INSANE intervention by many people and many companies. However, I’ve lately got myself a cook and I try to not eat kachra anymore.

2/ Work. C4E’s topline went down YoY (thankfully, profit margins are up).

I lost many clients for C4E. Most to my decision to not working for them. Some to our inability to ship. The only reason C4E is still around is because of AK, C, F, KP and everyone else who supports the village. Left to myself, I’d push it to ruin.

I still dont understand how to make money work. I am perpetually running on fumes and I have to often take working capital loans. Some day I would escape this rut. But I now know with 100% certainty that money moves the world. I’ve seen people change the way they talk to me when they see that I have access to more money. And no, this is not the case of world being your reflection.

I was also unable to inspire more people to do the extraordinary. The halo effect around Steve Jobs? Well, I am far from it.

3/ Projects. I couldn’t sustain many projects – CSS, AI Film Festival, Towards Eternity, Microdramas, TNKS AI film, Monumentum Partners, Book 2 (lol) and more.

And I didn’t stop cooking up newer projects.

in2026, I want to focus more. This means I will initiate fewer things and I will pause a few things that no longer

4/ People. I lost many people to my ego, to competition, to my inability to pay, to my inability to inspire them. And some people went away inexplicably.

Each person that left, I sent them with my best wishes.

In some cases after they left and after I got to know that they are done with the place they moved to, I implored them to come back. But they didn’t. At least in 3 cases I made that urgent plea for help at 3 AM (as mentioned above) and yet they didn’t come back. At that time I was sore, even angry but as I write this, I am ok. Life happens. People change. Even I’ve changed. It’s important to document. Take lessons. And move on.

Oh and yes, a few people stuck to me. We stuck to each other. You know who you are. And thank you! I am grateful. I will do whatever I can do keep your faith.

Also, I drifted far from almost all my friends. Especially the ones that I went to school / college with. I cant blame them. Or me. We don’t relate to each other’s pain points or wins. Guess this is growing up.

While we are on people, do see this. If this does not make you cry, I dont think you are human.

PS: You may not cry if you dont know who these gents are!

5/ Mood. I saw that in the second half of the year I had more mood swings than I would have liked to have. I would often catch myself being needlessly rude, irritable and curt.

And I tried to fix it. I am not sure if I am 100% back to being the nice person I think I am but I am aware and I am working on it.

Phew!

I am sure there are more losses. But lets live with these for the time being.

D. The world around me

While I keep this blog mostly personal, increasingly, our lives are intertwined with the world we live in. And since in the next few years I want to play a larger role in the scheme of things in the world (thanks to Pritam for the trigger), I want to be lot more vocal about how the world around me is. And here is my attempt to analyse large things.

1/ AI
I dont need to spill more words or pixels here. The world has changed and we are in the middle of this shift. This is a larger one compared to the advent of Internet. I am excited to see what comes out of this. The second and third order effects are making waves and shifting the tectonic plates in every discipline, including the ones that were thought to be domains of experts; you know education, medicine, governance and everything else.

2/ The dichotomy of India
While the India growth story is undeniable, there is an increasing number of people who are quitting India. And I too am allured by other countries. I would love to live in a different country. And even though the global economy is getting “deglobalised”, in the long term, I am short on India.

I recently met (in 2026) someone from internet and he mentioned that after you hit a familial income of 20 lakhs per annum, India does not offer any additional quality of life improvements. And at lesser numbers than that, things have really changed (you know, from metro to cheap flights to convenience etc). I concur. I am over this 20 number and thus I want to water the grass and make it greener.

3/ Health
Everyone seems to be talking about it, thinking about it, working on it. Including me!

People are talking about living long (and maybe forever) and working towards it. So am I.

4/ Trump
You can’t ignore the impact made by Donald Trump on global stage. What a guy!

5/ Processes > Institutions > People
And this will accelerate.

While we will see rise of rockstars doing superhuman things, we will also see average Joes and Janes coming together to do larger things. I am as aversge as they come and thus I will have to work hard to put processes that can build lasting institutions.

So these.

I tried to think of more shifts but these 5 live in my head rent free.

E. Numbers from 2025

Often, this is the favorite part of my review of the year. Here are some numbers in terms of how the year was…

200,971 – money I spent at Starbucks
20,419 – money I spent on buying new clothes
8488 – average steps I walked in 2025. this was 7453 in 2024, 6713 in 2023 and 5621 in 2022. in 2021, it was 7397 and in 2020, 8305.
3500 – organic page views on this website thru the year. For the effort I take to publish this, this is pathetic. But thats ok. I do this for myself.
92 – average weight thru the year
23 – number of times I used #sgNegativeEmotion as a tag on my Roam.
51 – number of posts I published on saurabhgarg.com
6.2 – average hours I slept.
4.4 – average number of coffees I had, per day, in the year. Most days I have 2. This sounds high for some reason.
19 – number of flights. At least. See this.
2 – companies that I angel invested into.
0 – number of Diet Coke I had. I think. Lemme know if I am wrong. And this year on, I want to have some Diet Coke.

F. Photos from 2025

I take a lot of photos. These are candid shots of friends, screenshots from various apps and random tid bits that I gather from around me. I picked some 100 odd photos from 2025.

Made a gallery here. Do check it out.

I wanted to upload those here but took a lot of bandwidth. So skipping.

The plan for in2026

Ok, coming to the point of this post. The plan for 2026.

As always, I want to make the current year (in this case, 2026) the grandest year of my life. Yet.

I do want to make a dent in the universe and enable a billion people and all that. I do want to do large things and play a larger role in shaping how people live. I dont really want to go to space (I love my material and worldly comforts) till they put a Starbucks up there.

And I know its a journey and will probably need decades, if not a lifetime. Or two. I will work on my next masterplan (after failing on the by 2026 one)

And this means I have lofty goals (are they even goals if they are not lofty?). Here are some.

A. The Operating System

Each thing has an OS. Each person has a value system. Here’s mine. It has become a fancy word of sorts to talk about things of all shapes and sizes and manners. Here’s my attempt to make my OS. And within that, I want to build some habits and ecosystems that make me more effective.

Here are some thoughts.

1/ Focus.
I want to focus on one thing this year. This would be impossible for my ADHD mind and will take Herculean effort. But we shall make.

2/ Process first.
One of the largest lessons has been my inability to build processes. I throw people at a problem and then let it at that. Now, I want to change. I will make processes. In fact, if you see me do something without a process, PLEASE point out. For all the HFS traits I have, if I can make a process around my life, I will become unbeatable!

I am not a systems or processes guy at all and I will make mistakes and I want everyone to brace for it! When I say everyone, I mean people that work with me on a day to day basis – after all, these are the ones how will bear the brunt of my banana beahviour.

This also means that I will have to change my older ways of being people first. I’ve always been loyal to people and all my life I’ve operated from people-first thinking. I will shift to process-first thinking. I know its not for me and it will be tough but I will give it an honest shot and see where I land.

3/ Consistency.
Enough said.
PS: This also means that what I say and what I do and what I think and what I believe in has to be consistent!

4/ Team SG
I know I need to have many people I can lean on. Over the years many people have come and gone but I’ve not been able to get them to see life the way I do. And that’s ok.

When I started work, I wanted to make a cult but along the day I lost it and started to believe in diversity. One of the biggest mistakes of my life.

I am sure I have more but these two come to mind cos I spend all my time with them.

Going forward, I will get back to making a cult and finding my brethren (or whatever is the inclusive version of this word) of Spartans where all of us want to live life chasing their bliss and freedom. I’ve tried to find such people and I have won some and failed some. I got at least two. At least is the operative keyword here. I am sure there are more who are not in close vicinity and thus I am unable to see them.

This year I will try hard to build a team of people that I work with. Need to find more this year. In fact, made a trip to Pune early this year (lol) to try and recruit two. The jury is out on that. And of course, each person will have a seat at the table. Equal. Here’s another quote from Spartans…

5/ I want use the 8-8-8 rule for time.
I dont know if I can live with it but I will try.

I am hoping that this bifurcation will help me get disciplined.

At this time, my work, recreation, personal time are all muddled into one. I will try and bifurcate those. Oh, lately sleep has been ok (thanks to WHOOP and FOXO).

I ofc need to spot what “work” would be. And ofc, I am a believer in work-life harmony (and not balance). So, all in all, it would be interesting.

6/ “You are right.” If I am in a debate with you in a non-learning setting, you are always right. Of course, I want people to point gaps in my thinking and I want to learn by making mistakes. But at this time, I want to preserve my energy. And time. And thus.

In fact, the 6.1 would be Save time, not money. I have lived my life trying to optimise my time (and not money). I will be even more at it.

7/ “To be” book. Took this idea from Deepinder. This is a set of index cards where you write quotes / thoughts important to you and your revisit them everyday. I had this long list of things on my vision board for a long time but this to-be physical cards is a great idea!

8/ Operate from a place of kindness, empathy and equanimity. This was my operating system for the longest time but I lost myself along the way. I need to revisit this. Someone told me that people dont remember facts but will always remember how you made them feel. I dont want to have anyone ever remember me with shitty memories or opinions.

9/ Work on my brand.
Work with things that amplify Brand SG.
I have some reputation on the internet. Some off it. And I think its more or less coherent. In 2025, Prak gave me one of the largest lessons of my life (and that year) – about authenticity vs persona. in2026, I want to work on that.

10/ While I work, support more people do more.
I want to be the “platform for opportunity exchange”. Energy flows through me. I want to open doors. help and support with nothing in exchange. I have to aim to get into acceptance speeches (and not get attached to that outcome – its only a barometer of the impact I am making).

Phew! So I didnt set out to build a 10-point list but it is here now.

B. The Large Goals

I will single-mindedly, in a focussed manner chase these goals (one for each block)…

1/ Book 2. For Soul.
Lol.
I find this funny each time I write this. I have been trying to write this for like 10+ years. No, its not taking me that long but I havent found the time. This year I am committed. Like all the past few years ;P

The tangible goal is to publish book2.

2/ Fitness. For Health.
Again, this has been a perpetual goal. This year, I hope to make strides on this one. I have the cook, the motivation, the support system and for a change the intention to spend money to get to this.

The tangible goal is to do the human flag pole.

3/ Financial. For Work.
I really want to pay off my loans and save some and invest some.

The tangible goal is save 1 million dollars.

And to be able to do this, I need to find vocation worth putting my energy in. At this time, I have many options and I will pick JUST one of those. I have many options as we speak. And I am not ready to talk about those as yet. Stay tuned for those ;P

So that.

I know all three are large goals but hawa me quile and all that!

C. Other projects for #in2026

Apart from the large goals listed above, here are a few more things that I will chase in this year. These are not in any order. And I may not even pick these (focus and all that). But I want to write these..

1/ Get a residence and a business unit out of India.
This has to be within 4-5 hours of India (specifically Delhi).

2/ Do an event IP that sells 1000 tickets.
I have a vague idea. I have a few friends. Lets see.

3/ Direct a film. Or a short-film.
I dont have an idea on this yet.

4/ Build distribution.
And reach millions of people. Like Sahil Bloom does. I do have an idea. I need someone to help me on it. #sgDistribution

5/ Restart SoG. And build SoG Grant into a large Section 8 business.

6/ Get more articulate and presentable.
I’ve always shunned the idea of over-dressing and all that but I do see the merit now. And I will use this year to change that. I will speak slow. I will . See this.

I am sure there are more. I will may be add more here but let’s see.

Oh, and two things…

a. I had said that I will focus. And this is anything but focus.
b. Funny when I write these goals, money doesn’t feature in the list. Money is merely an enabler. And I like it. From a young Saurabh where I would chase fame and wealth, I have become that SG who chases his bliss and does things.

So… this is it from me. For some reason this feels incomplete. May be once I get some comments and feedback, I will fix.

Anyhow, as always, please do point gaps in my thinking.

And here’s a quote to end this piece.

I wish you courage.
In 2026 and beyond.

Thanks,
SG

PS: Thanks to Pradeep, Purav and Chandni for being the beta reader of this and suggesting edits.

PPS: I used Year Compass, weekly notes, photos, notes, Roam and other things to come up with this post.

PPPS: Here are other lists: 2025*, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016** 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011*, 2010*, and 2009.
* – I missed writing this in 2025, 2011 and 2010
** – In 2016, I didnt write a goal list but I did a review of sorts.

Wk 51-25 – Weekly Notes

6 PM, 21 Dec 2025
Starbucks, Versova

I cant believe it. We are in the 51st week of 2025. What started as an experiment is nearing a year. I’ve missed some 10 weeks (week numbers 9, 15, 17, 22, 24, 41, 43, 45, 48, 49) but I showed up the other 40. And I poured my heart and head out on this blog. For the world to see. World in this case is those 2 people who come here each week (I get an average of 23 impressions each 90 days and thus translates into about 2 people per week). The audience is beside the point. The point is that I’ve been able to become that person who does his actions and is detached from the outcomes. This itself is a loaded statement. If I am truly detached from the outcomes, what keeps me going. And I dont know the answer. I guess that’s for me to discover along the way.

Ok, without further ado, let’s get on with the review of the week gone by. I will use the “freewriting” format that I used last time (unlike what I’ve been using thru the year).

Let’s go.

Oh wait, the music for this post is the Lootera Theme.

Music from Lootera

Ok, lets go…

💭 Highlights, reflections, updates and notes

As always, these are not in any order.

A/ Ayesha at Filmfare OTT

Shikha and Nihit’s film, Ayesha got a Filmfare for the best short film.

By association, I am now a producer of a film that has won the coveted Black Lady. And while on paper, I may have won a Filmfare, truth be told, I didnt do an iota of work on this. Except maybe helping with some money. So the award is Shikha and Nihit and team’s.

Love when my people do well.

I hope they go onto to many more grand things. I am and will remain a cheerleader.

B/ Lal Babu

I now have Lal Babu in my life. He’s a cook on hire and used to work at a friend’s place. And I hired him.

Today was his day 1.

And even though he made some baingan ka bharta and egg curry, I did eat kachra from outside. I will stop it from tomorrow. Ok not tomorrow. I have a team dinner. But I have a cook now. After ALL the mehnat to find someone to cook for me and take care of my diet, I now have someone.

And with that, now I do NOT have a single excuse to not do well on the health department. If now I am unable to get them 6 packs and those marathons and all that, I have no one to blame.

C/ Unseen (the Deepinder Goyal biography)

I finished reading Unseen. And I did a session of sorts where I talked about my reflections from the book. I will also make a blogpost about it. But meanwhile, here are my notes (access only to friends).

Among the things that am taking away are…

Naina‘s website and System’s Thinking. I don’t know shit about either and I will invest time and energy to read more about them.
Focus. Not saying anything else.
A stack of notes where I will write my values and look at them everyday. I do have a tiny notebook where I note these things. I carried it to the Everest Base Camp as well. But I dont see it everyday. I need to make that.
I need to build a space and a place that’s like a sanctuary where I get to spend time with myself. At this point, I am unable to afford one but I need to build this. Like a base. Where I come back to even when I am on the road a lot. So, in 2026, after I’ve paid back the loan and secured the life and money for my people, I will build this. I dont know. May or may not be Mumbai. Let’s see.

D/ Hareesh Tibrewala

I met Hareesh Sir after a while.

Each time I meet him, I am more inspired to do more with my life. And operate from more equanimity. And do more things from an impact lens. Impact not as in social service. But from the space of doing meaningful things.

Oh, among other things, he’s putting up Manabu Labs. If you need help and inputs on implementing AI for your teams, he’s your man.

E/ Pickle Ball

I played Pickle Ball the other day with O-A-C. And I must admit it was good to be in a sporting arena. Lol, sporting arena!

Pickle probably is that thing that I had a VERY strong opinion about but was loosely held. I now think there is merit in all the hype about it. I should’ve spotted it early on. Could’ve built a business around it. Anyhow.

Vivek has been raving about it for months. I ignored it as an elitist phenomenon (which it is – each session is like 1500 bucks). But now that I have seen that it probably works for me, I will invest more time and energy in it. I see myself going back to court many times. In fact I was telling C that she should earmark days and dates in calendar for pickle sessions.

Oh, I played it a few nights ago. My legs are hurting till date. So, if nothing else, its good movement and cardio. Let’s see how many times can I go in the coming week. I am setting myself a target of 3 outings to the court. I know I am not going on Monday for sure. So, maybe will block Tuesday already?

F/ Misc things

In no order…

Photos from the week gone by are here.
Met Shweta and talked about reviving Party of 9
Met Karishma and talked about how I want to network with people who can give me a crore and forget about it.
While talking to AK, I talked about how much I loved Apollo Tyres’s Road is a Friend. See it here. I wish we had more advertising writers like this. And more brands like Apollo Tyres.
My daily morning solocasts series has now reached a number of 17. Tiny win for the month.
Spoke to Vanita after a while. And as always, it was the most human conversation I’ve had in a while. The questions were deeply personal and I dont really talk about those to a lot of people. No more comments apart from that. So that’s that.
Thinking about a podcast about storytelling. I am just worried that I dont load myself a lot with random things, in a year when I want to focus.
This tweet and the related thread about how one must always create even if you are old. Charlie was working till a few days before he died.
I am traveling to Chennai in Jan 2026 #jan2026. The primary agenda is to visit Sri Ramana Ashram. I will have lot of time and if you are there or know someone there that I must meet, please do let me know.
I am taking my time with Year Compass. I am halfway thru it. And I am yet to start the review of 2025 and plan for 2026.

Guess this is it for the week.

See you next week. Till then, peace!

—
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, 47

I’ve missed the following weeks: 9, 15, 17, 22, 24, 41, 43, 45, 48, 49

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 50-25 – Weekly Notes

Notes from Week 50 of 2025

~~14 Dec 2025.~~
15 Dec 2025.
Sunday.
Starbucks, Versova.

I’ve not written this more than 2 weeks now. Last post was this on Nov 24 or something.

Since then, a couple of things happened.

A, I had to travel on two consecutive weekends.

And b, I was not in the zone to write. I mean I could write but I was shrouded in darkness. I mean it. I am not sure if I am still out of it. But I know I will be. This is a recurring pattern where I go on a roller coaster and come out alive on the other side. And no, writing today doesnt mean that I am out of the woods. Just that I need to prevail.

Also, I think this is the time of the year when I get extra sad. For the simple reason that this is when I take a deeper stock of my life (you know, end of the year). And at the end of each year I realise that I am not worth a lot.

This “worth a lot” is subjective.

At least in my case, I attach a lot of value to my “accomplishments” (in terms of money, reach, impact etc). And on none of these pieces, I have done a lot. And thus the seasonal ~~depression~~ sadness. Plus, may be the Vitamin D levels are wrecking havoc. And that may be compounded by winters?

This reminds me, I need to start taking Vit D.

Funnily, with others, I am tad less harsh. When they tell me that they havent had a lot to show for their work, I am more kind and I offer encouragement. But when it comes to me, I am FAR more harsh. To a point that I overlook all the things that I worked on, shipped, enabled. Etc.

So that.

Anyhow. Moving on. The music of the moment is Mack Vocals, Rashmeet Kaur, Zombie. I have way too many links to individual tracks to drop. So I will do the next best thing – not drop any. You have to do yourself the service of listening to Mack Vocals. Please.

And with that, we come to the review!

PS: I will use a different format to write this.

💭 Highlights, reflections, updates and notes

As always, these are not in any order.

1/ #in2026

I have decided that in 2026, I will try to cut on my social media usage. I have outlined some reasons here. At some point, I will write a longer post. But for the time being, I am prepping to go fishing.

I will use my main phone as a dumb phone (AKA, assistive access mode on an iphone). Or I will get a basic Android phone that I can use for calls, notes, OTP, banking, navigation, payments, podcasts etc.

I am flipflopping between what to do and how to do. On one side, the challenge is HUGE and I would love to get thru the grind of not having social media on my phone. This will test me in all manners. But on the other side, I will have to disconnect from any opportunities that may come my way. So that.

Oh, in 2026, the themes would be fitness and book2.

These two were to be the themes for #in2025 as well. And for many more years prior to that. Lol.

Apart from these two major ones, there are many smaller things that I would like to chase. Here is a list (and I will try to elaborate on these). And for a change, this list is in order….

Health and Book2. Reiterating, lest I forget.
Network. More in the subsequent lines.
Learning. Something. Deep. You know, like an absolute expert. Top 1% in the world kinds. Vibe Coding. Poker. Nutrition. Music. I dont know.
Writing (apart from book2). This must become my primary way of communicating with the world. I will also use YT Lives.
Move to another country. Each year I try to make the move. Each year I fail. I will try again in 2026.
Teach. I want to restart SoG or something. A place where I can surround myself with younger, more curious people. I know it will be incredibly tough without me being on the internet. But I will try.
Wealth. I’ve made some milestones. A. I want to pay back all the loan I have on my head (about 40 lakhs). B. Once I’ve done A, I want to earn about 3.5 crores (to be able to pay my team well). And then, after A and B, I want to chase financial freedom.
Travel. One trip at least with Vivek. At least a couple with my parents. Maybe one with Poo. So that’s 4 already. Let’s see how many of these happen.

Oh, and no, this is not the goalsheet for the year. That’s a separate post and conversation. Watch out for that. Last year I missed it. This year, I dont want to.

On Network, while at C4E and then at Meru, I learnt that I know a lot of people. And some of those people know me back. And yet when I need help or inputs from those people, I am unable to move them. I get, what they call blank shots. I get a lot of gyaan and advice and all that but the real thing that matters – money, network, access – I dont get any of that.

So, I will be deliberate about finding people who are open with their wallet, phone book and other things.

In terms of tangibles, I want to know 100 people who can give me a crore each. And then start a VC fund in the next 5 years. #in2030.

I will place more tangibles around it.

2/ Unseen (the Deepinder Goyal biography)

I am reading Unseen these days.

And OMG, what writing! I am sure the story is a bit of exaggeration and some bit of corporate corrections but the writing is top notch. I am a fan of the author, Megha Vishwanath.

I’ve written a few biographies in life and I would love to write more. And I want to now “compete” with Megha for the quality of writing. May be I need to first put riyaaz in and write better.

3/ Free man…

One of the quotes that I use a LOT is this…

I find I’m so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it’s the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain.

– Red, The Shawshank Redemption

While thinking about it in some context, I spotted this one from Kerouac…

And then while chatting with Arti about life and all, she said something incredible. She said,”thats a good start..unlimited possibilities :)”

And I realised, what a great place I am in life! To have so much going for me!

4/ Ananta Quest

Over the weekend I attended Ananta Quest, an event by Sanjay Mehta, Aditya Save and their team.

It was one of those moments where I saw many mentors find their next step. And in my own tiny, insignificant way, I was responsible for getting them together. And no, I am not taking any undue credit for anything that happened there. But I love the fact that many people I love got together to do things that they find joy and salvation in.

I really want to do more of this.

Oh, I also learnt a lot of things about myself while I was there. The primary one, I would love to be a part of the events business in some way. And then the secondary one, I dont want to do events business ;p

5/ Docu on theatre

I have another itch that I want to scratch. Make a documentary on the lives and times of theatre professionals. You know, what excites them, what moves them. Why do they do what they do.

I’ve fired some shots. So far, no outcomes. I need to find a way to move this forward. But then I also need to find a way to focus. Let’s see when or how I do so. Ofc, there is a large chance that I dont do anything on this – you know, time, focus, priority etc.

N/ Misc things that am wondering on…

In no order.

1/ How can people work without a mouse?
I know people know a lot of shortcuts on the keyboard but I am too old to do so. I’ve even seen those Excel competitions and World Cups where people type faster than I can thing and make castles on excel!

2/ Studying / Learning.
I dont know how people learn after they are old. I enrolled in a nutrition course and I am unable to learn anything from there. To a point that I have stopped attending classes! And no, I’ve not given up. I will be back in action from the next month.

3/ Anti FOMO.
I forgot what I wanted to write here.

4/ House of Cards.
I’ve been itching to see House of Cards all over again. To me, it’s way too long (I estimate it to be about 70 hours of total runtime across episodes and seasons) and even if I were to give it one hour per day (which is a lot in the first place), the “project” would take me more than 2 months. I dont know if I want to commit to this long a project.

I can download and see on transits or flights. No, not flights. I want to write on flights. Lets see.

5/ Driving License.
I need to renew my driving license and I am lost in the maze between the RTO websites and non-helpful call centres. I am thinking I will apply for a fresh license (assuming I can do so!)

6/ This tweet. I am copy pasting text.

Early startups don’t fail because people don’t work hard. They fail because momentum leaks through hesitation, politeness, and unspoken assumptions. People hesitate to interrupt. They soften asks. They work around blockers instead of confronting them. They wait, assuming someone else will respond, decide, or notice. Each instance feels reasonable. None feel like failure. But together they create drag. Speed is not hours worked or how fast code is written. Speed is how quickly a team surfaces friction and resolves it. Speed is whether blockers are confronted immediately or politely avoided. Speed is whether decisions are made explicitly or left implicit. That’s why speed is a cultural property, not a process. You cannot add it with meetings, tools, or policies. It emerges when a team shares the same internal bar for urgency, ownership, and “all-in.” Early teams that win are not nicer or more organized. They are less ambiguous.

Made me think.

I am guilty for being way too polite (I think) and I am often way too soft. I need to be able to help people differentiate between politeness, kindness and “reasonable action”. More on this over the next few days.

This is about it.
No other large sections.
Like I said, I’ve been weirded out for the last few weeks.
Should be back in action soon.

PS: I am not happy how this has turned out. But I want to ship at this time. And then think about other things.

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

The previous editions: 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, 47

I’ve missed the following weeks: 9, 15, 17, 22, 24, 41, 43, 45, 48, 49

On theatre and Piyush Mishra

A brain fart from one of the Piyush Mishra plays I saw the other day.

A shot from the play. I clicked this on my iPhone.

Saw this play based on a book by Piyush Mishra.

The play made me think about many things. Trying to articulate here.

1/ What makes theatre folks get out of bed everyday?
There are hardly any people in the audience and there is hardly any money to be made. The ROI from just the time spent is disappointing. I know that each thing is not about ROI. Do they go thru this grind cos it’s a stepping stone towards Bollywood dreams? Is it the excitement of being under the spotlight? What is it? I must investigate. Meet some theatre people and investigate!

2/ The story yesterday is about a writer and his moral dilemma.
I dont want to go into too many details and spoil it, but he said that he’s not creative and he can only write about what he feels at this core.

This sounds scaringly similar to how I feel and think and write. I dont write from imagination but from what I’ve felt. Otherwise the words wont flow. In fact, I need inspiration from IRL events and folks to write. Most things in TNKS was inspired by real events. May be the reason am struggling with Caravan Serai is that I dont have access to any large real events from the past that I can take inspiration from.

3/ Towards the end, the writer says that hes a blot on the world of art.
Again, not going into details but as someone who takes inspiration from real things, I dont think he’s a blot.

His methods may be extreme and questionable but I can relate to what he did and why he did. If I was any strong, I would probably choose the same path. Does that make me a bad person? I dont know. Will that make me a better write? I dont know. Do I have the balls? No!

4/ I think I want to direct this play.
I will try and reach out to the theatre company and see if I can produce and direct this play.

In fact, if you are a theater company that’s looking for a director (and maybe a patron willing to support) and give me this opportunity to direct, please do let me know. And may be connect me?

Thanks!

Diary of an Air India Gold Digger

My recent experience as a Gold Member for Air India.

Took this photo a few years ago. From an iPhone.

~~Today~~ a few day ago, in the morning, the entire Mumbai airport was empty, except two islands – E and F. These two had probably 500 people in serpentine queue that spilled till outside the airport terminal. And these were of the Air India check in counters. And I was flying with Air India.

This anyway sounds like a horror story for people who take flights often and since this was 5:30 in the morning, most people in the queues were in zombie state and in various stages of anger, resignation and restlessness.

I was mentally prepared to skip the flight and take the next one only to not stand in the queue. My bank balance is testimony to my stupidity to avoid queues. In fact, I’ve have designed my life to avoid traffic and queues as much as I can. I leave painfully early in the day to reach painfully early and often the coffee shops that I’ve made into safe havens (from traffic) are still not open. I come back late in the night when the only traffic on the road is from folks who are drunk on life and high on social dos. I dont go to meetups outside of walking distance of where I live. I choose to work from a Starbucks that is a stone’s throw away. And now that there is an airport about 15 mins from my home in Delhi, I try and take flights to that one (just that Air India doesn’t fly there).

Coming back to the sea of sleepy people on the platform for check-in.

Thankfully, I asked one of the ladies about a different counter for Gold members. And she pointed me to a hidden island. Just at the mention of that, I jumped like 100 feet in the air.

Now, at the counter for Gold and above, there were more airline staffers than the passengers. There were more counters open than the wait staff hoping to usher people into those empty counters.

And at the counter, there were more ushers than the travellers to tag the bags with such care as if they were fragile babies. And they placed your bags on to the belts as if they were handling a radio active substance. And no, there was no drama about extra weight on the bags. Not for my bag. Not for pther people’s bags. You could just take as much. I saw a family of 4 with enough bags to start a new life. May be they were on the way to do that!

And then as I walked from there to security, I could see the security area was so empty like it was plagued. I tried to pass through it but I was stopped by the security folks because I was in premium economy. Lol, oxymoron.

Luckily since the airport was empty, save for the Air India islands that was moving slower than a snail, the general area security queues were non-existent and I could breeze through that. So the long queue at check-in did work in my favor.

But the point is, if I didnt have this Gold Card that I bought (not earned; as part of Vistara Credit Card that I’ve since closed) I would have been mindfucked. And I would have spiralled into a dungeon of fuckery and drudgery.

I think the validity of my card extends till beginning of next year (about 2 months to go). I thus need to find a way to get the Gold status again. I dont take enough flights anymore to earn the status by itself but I am willing to pay a card fee to acquire this to avoid hassle. Lemme research on that.

In fact, I think I should encourage each of my people to get this gold thing. I think it’s worth the money, especially because air travel is such a high involvement service!

Oh, btw, I wrote this from a premium economy seat that was not very comfortable. I prefer the emergency exit seats. And the next milestone in life is to only fly business class. I think I am 5 years away from that. Let’s see if I can make it happen any sooner.

Over and out!

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.

25 Life Questions about Saurabh Garg

Saurabh Garg answers 25 questions about life. Read to know more about him.

Saw this post. And I was inspired enough to write.

Here are the questions…

And answers…

PS: I will keep editing these answers as I go along. In case I make an edit at a later date, I will indicate the same.

1/ What does your ideal day look like?

This has many versions to be honest. And it changes minute by minute. As on Oct 27, 6 AM, my ideal day would look like this…

330 AM – wake up
4 AM – write for an hour or so
5 AM – work
7 AM – goto nearest Starbucks (the one closest to where I live opens at 8) and work or get work done
11 AM – meet new people
12 noon – gym or something
2 PM – first (and hopefully only) meal of the day and a short nap
3 PM – meet people (new or old)
6 PM – watch the sunset
7 PM – catch some play or something live or may be help connect people
9 PM – reflection on the day and lights out

I’ve changed this three times over while thinking about this. But one thing has remained constant. That I want to be free and have a 100% control over my time and I do not want to commute within a city unless its a walk.

I know the vagaries of the modern life can’t allow for either to happen. So I want to be able to reach as close to 100. And this means, no timesheets, no mandatory calendars, alarms etc. And this means I need to live bang in the middle of action (say Versova or Koramangla). Or build something that can run 100% remote.

I am far from this to be honest.

Today, I wake up without an alarm on most days (I will start using an alarm cos I want to be up early; I was up at 445 a few days ago and I want to edge towards 330), and spend the day doing what I want to.

Also, I would love to travel as much as I can. Till last year, I would travel a lot – I would take flights on a whim. This year has been bad on that. I will change that in the coming year.

2/ What did you want to be when you were younger?

At different times in life I’ve wanted to have different professions.

At one time, I wanted to be a detective.
I remember once my sis and a cousin (Sonam) where in some old house where we spotted some hand prints. I wanted to “investigate” the “murder”.

At one point, i wanted to be a video games designer.
Lol!

I’ve wanted to make ads.
I did get to take a shot at it but I wasnt good. Read more about it here.

I want to make films.
Again, I did some short films but I havent found success. I would still want to do it. But then AI and all. Plus, the industry is weird and all that.

Ofc, like all boys growing up in 90s India, I wanted to play cricket at a professional level. Then I wanted to play pool or maybe snooker as a professional. No, I wasnt good enough to qualify for any of these. I do have this thing where I want to play some sport professionally. Maybe poker. But now that its banned in India, I dont know what to do about it.

Oh, I have this bucket list. It’s time I updated this!

And no, I dont think I knew of this concept of entrepreneurship where I could just create things. So far I havent created anything large but I love the thought of thinking new things.

Will update this as and when more things come to my head.

3/ Who are you most inspired by? Why?

This is a long list. But at this time point, I want to name only one person.

Steve Jobs.

In fact, in the flight ~~last night~~ a few days ago, I saw a Tim Cook interview where he says that Steve’s original office is still preserved. After I saw that interview, I realised, I love him because of his aura. And of course his ideas and thoughts about doing great things that serve others.

Also, I have flip flopped over the years about who I am inspired by. I remember writing one time that I’d rather be Paul Graham and not Steve. But I seem to keep coming back to Steve even though he’s long gone.

Other usual suspects in this list, apart from Steve and Paul would include Elon, Bill, Jeff, Warren, Charlie and the likes. I know, all white, men, American capitalists.

4/ Who would you love to meet? What would you ask?

I am not starstruck per se. So, I dont know this answer.

And even if I met my heroes, I dont know what would I ask them. Plus, in most cases, the folks I’d like to meet are public figures and all they think, do, build, hide is in public eye and I can find about them. So there is no specific question per se.

Plus, there are many LLM models now trained on public figures that you can query and talk to them as if you are talking to your hero. This is my chat with Steve Jobs!

So, no one singular person and no specific question.

However, if I could, I would love to spend time with all my heroes and all, as a fly on the wall and see their process in action. That to me is more valuable because that is often not captured in any of the interviews or QnA.

5/ What habit would you most like to break? What habit would you most like to start?

I would love to be able to not procrastinate.
For all that I do and all the gyaan I give, I am a big procrastinator. It’s amazing how much I get done even with that as my Achilles’ Heel! And I cant wait to see how much I get done when I solve that! Oh, man, that would be fabulous!

I would love to start the habit of working out.
I am 43 and I am seeing age not being on my side. I want to change that and ensure that when I am older, I am alive and active.

In fact, Taleb says that if you are above 40 and you are not working on your muscles, you are an idiot. I am one.

6/ Think of a person you truly admire. What qualities do you like about that person?

I admire many people. And the common thread in most of those people is that they create things.

None of my heroes (apart from maybe Warren and Charlie) are value traders or paper pushers. They are creators. Of businesses, things and all that.

To me, the act of creation is larger than anything else. All other things that I value – reliability, empathy, community, giving back, abundance and all that are secondary.

7/ How do you like to relax?

I love to go for walks. I love to watch theatre (not movies). I love staring at the sunset. I love the idea of talking to people – in most cases, it energizes me.

I love to go for drives. I dont have a car at this point in time in life but given an option, I would be on the road all the time.

Or else I love the idea of sleeping. But I want the room to be quiet and cold. In India, it’s tough but that’s where I live and thus. Lately I’ve started to enjoy the concept of spas.

Apart from this, I love to day dream to relax ;P

8/ When was the last time you did something you were afraid of?

I am typically not afraid of things. I look at each thing as a problem to be solved. And I know outcome of that problem may be something that I don’t like. As Bachchan said, mann ko bhaya to achacha, na bhaya to aur bhi achcha.

Oh, and I know that the solution of the problem may be messy.

So, no fear per se. Just preparedness. And the problem-solving mindset.

However, if I were to give an answer, I would say, I am afraid of putting my face on the internet. I dont know if fear is the right emotion but I have held myself back. But lately I have started to let that happen.

9/ What are you most proud of?

I cant think of any one thing that I am proud of.

10/ What are you most afraid of?

Like I said, I am typically not afraid.

Lemme rephrase this question.

What would I be the most disappointed about.
What keeps me up at night.
Etc. etc.

Here’s a list.

I dont want to die with mere “potential”. I dont want to be remembered (see Q 25) but I also dont want to not have seen how it is when you are a wildly successful person.
I am afraid of complacency. I have reached a point in life where am comfortable and often I dont push myself as much as I must.
I am afraid that I will die a lonely, old man who will not have anyone to call his own.
I am afraid that I will not be a “free” man.

11/ If life stopped today, what would you regret not doing?

I would regret that I couldn’t become a wildly successful person.

Apart from that, I want little, seek little and I am mostly able to get a lot of things that I want. And I know that I cant have it all. So am mostly ok.

12/ Who would you like to connect (or reconnect) with? Why?

I would love to reconnect with a lot of people.

For starters, each person who helped me shape up into who I am right now. This includes colleagues from yesteryears, mentors, friends who I’ve forgotten, people who are angry with me, people who I am angry with and all that.
Why? Well, why not?

I would also like to fix relationship with my extended family.
Why? Well, why not?

In terms of new connections, I would love to meet folks who’re building things at the edge of human understanding. At this time, in 2025, these are manufacturing, space, AI, creative tools, longevity etc.

I am not a deeply scientific person and thus I may not do well with folks who do fundamental conversations. I’d rather imagine and build applications on top of enabling technology and rails. For example, I may not know how a LLM functions but I would like to use that AI tool to build new things.

I would also like to connect with people who are great with people. I believe I love working with people and I want to get better at it. And I want to not “study”. Rather, I would learn from others. Remember I said, I want to be a fly on the wall when my heroes work?

13/ What qualities do you admire in others?

In no order…

Hardwork, hustle, ambition, reliability, respectfulness, abundance mindset, long-term thinking,

No, I dont admire creativity per se. For me, ability to build is larger than creativity.

14/ What practical skills do you wish you had?

For starters, I would love to be more disciplined.

Then, I want to learn how to sell.

I would love even more if I could be more persuasive. And I want to be able to predict people’s behaviours by looking at them.

Apart from this, I would love to have the ability to tolerate hot weather. I just cant do when the temperature is more than 24.

15/ Imagine you’re in your 90s. What memories would you like to have? What stories do you want to tell?

I dont want memories.

I dont look at the past. I like the future more than the past. And thus I often dont look back. I do take my lessons and try to not repeat mistakes. But that’s that.

And if at 90, all I do is look back at things, I would have failed.

But if this is a theoretical question, I would say, looking back I would want to see a man who lived a free life, in the way he wanted to, chose things that he wanted to and hung out with people he wanted to. I would want to look back at a man who was active, deliberate, free, passionate, present, resourceful and of service to others.

The stories I would tell will not be of personal conquests or whatever. Rather, of mistakes I made, lessons I learnt, people I met and other such things that may encourage the listeners to follow their heart. I would talk about how freedom is hidden in plain sight and is often the most undervalued asset for us humans.

I would talk about things that I would have seen work for the long-term. Today, I am 43 and I can already see how some time-tested principles have worked for me. I am sure over the next 50 years, there would be more things that would work for me. I would love to aggregate those and talk about those to the world.

16/ What is your favorite book/movie/song? Why?

Favorite songs change with time. But if I have to go back to the time when I was young, I grew up on indipop – Lucky Ali, KK, Dhoom, Silk Route and the likes. Then I moved to English music and I love all the 90s popular pieces – Bryan Adams, Backstreet Boys etc. Then there was a phase when I love Jagjit Singh and all that.

In books, I’ve read a lot. The top would be English, August, Count of Monte Cristo, The Godfather and Mahabharata. And I’ve loved reading Jack Reacher, Sue Grafton, Jeffery Archer. I’ve even read Hindi crime fiction like Surendra Mohan Pathak and Ved Prakash Sharma and others.

In movies, I love Shawshank Redemption, Notting Hill and others. I dont really have a taste in films but I like to see mindless action films like John Wick, Transporter etc. I love sports / coaching films as well. In the recent past, I saw and loved F1. I think I love stories of underdogs and stories that are told well.

Is there a common thread? I am not sure. You find out.

17/ If you could make one change in the world, what would it be?

I would eliminate the concept of religion.

I’ve thought a lot about this and I realise that all challenges that we face today as humanity stem from religion – caste system, hyper-nationalism, cruelty and all that.

18/ What do you love to do for, or give to others?

A lot!

My time and attention (two of the scarcest resources) to start with.

Then, I want to create opportunities for everyone. I live by the Sai Itna Dijiye Quote. I look at myself as a platform for opportunity exchange (heard this phrase first from Gokul).

I want each person I meet to get access to their truest potential. I would love to be a coach and push people. I love the idea of hard work, going all-in and being immersed in the work. I am not a balanced person and that means my philosophy stays in that space. As I grow old, I find that I get more joy and fulfillment when I see others do well.

19/ What excites you?

The idea of doing things excite me.
Even though am old, I am like that kid in the candystore – who likes the idea of doing things.

The chase of the new excites me.
I am excited by the 0 to 1 journey. I want to create new things. I want to give birth to ideas and all that.

People excite me.
I want to be around good people doing things that they want to. Good is subjective. What I like and think of as good may not be good for you. And thats ok.

Things done well excite me.
A well made coffee, a well formatted document, an aligned stack of clothes in an almirah, a shelf painted well. I love when people put in efforts with the intention of doing things well.

Great designs excite me.
While I am not a designer, I love when things are designed well.

20/ What do you wish you did more of?

I wish I got to spend more time with my parents.

I wish I could teach more young people more things.

I wish I could make the world a better place. I would do this by making people realize the foley of chasing ego, the advantages of being kind and the benefits of long-term thinking. I would also want people to realise that life can be abundant AF and there is no reason to kill someone else to get to where you want to be.

I wish I had more shoulders of giants to stand on top of. And I wish my shoulders are broad enough to have all my loved ones to stand on top of.

And finally, wishes are not horses ;P

21/ Pretend money is no object. What would you do?

Mostly what I do today – spend time on things and people and experiences that I love. And this means I would do things that I want to, support projects that I think are interesting, chase experiences and all that.

No I will not retire.

Oh, I will get myself and my loved one a basic level of luxury (not comfort, but luxury). This means a place big enough to not worry about bumping into each other. This means at least a business class flight on each flight they take. This means the means to get from 0 to 1, and after that, they better find their own path.

22/ What area of your life, right now, makes you feel the best? Why?

I am writing this answer on Oct 28, 2025.

At this time I love that there are a few people who’s lives are better because of me. I wish I could do this at scale and makes many many lives better.

Apart from this, here is my wheel of life. Please make your interpretations.

23/ Let’s jump forward a year. What would you like to have achieved in the past year?

One thing. Financial freedom.
This means I would have paid back the loan on my head and I would have enough in the bank to not bother about picking things that I dont want to work on.

If I could have more than one thing, I would ask for better health.
I want to quantify it as ability to run a half marathon in less than 2 hours, do 50 push ups in one set and climb up 25 floors.

24/ What piece of advice would you give to five year old you?

Easy.
Stop being an introvert.

25/ How do you want to be remembered in life?

I dont want to be remembered.

I am a big believer in the idea of Pale Blue Dot. And if the question is about the reputation we carry while we are here, I would say I would want to be known as a person who was around when his friends and family needed him.

Do see this and internalize it…

Thank for reading this.

Do lemme know what you think and please point out gaps in thinking.

PS: I will keep editing these answers as I go along. In case I make an edit at a later date, I will indicate the same.

Phew!
In case you’ve written these about you, please do share.

Similar Pages: About SG, now, now now now, work with SG

Thank you for reading!

PS: In case you want to copy-paste these, the questions are…

What does your ideal day look like?
What did you want to be when you were younger?
Who are you most inspired by? Why?
Who would you love to meet? What would you ask?
What habit would you most like to break? What habit would you most like to start?
Think of a person you truly admire. What qualities do you like about that person?
How do you like to relax?
When was the last time you did something you were afraid of?
What are you most proud of?
What are you most afraid of?
If life stopped today, what would you regret not doing?
Who would you like to connect (or reconnect) with? Why?
What qualities do you admire in others?
What practical skills do you wish you had?
Imagine you’re in your 90s. What memories would you like to have? What stories do you want to tell?
What is your favorite book/movie/song? Why?
If you could make one change in the world, what would it be?
What do you love to do for, or give to others?
What excites you?
What do you wish you did more of?
Pretend money is no object. What would you do?
What area of your life, right now, makes you feel the best? Why?
Let’s jump forward a year. What would you like to have achieved in the past year?
What piece of advice would you give to five year old you?
How do you want to be remembered in life?

Piyush Pandey

Piyush Pandey passed away yesterday.

Truth be told, he was at best a stranger to me. I’ve never met him. I’ve never been in a room with him. And I’ve never been even close to his shadows.

So, the loss of the man is nothing but a piece of news for me. Something that I paused to read, thought for a fleeting second and then I moved onto whatever I was doing.

But I work in advertising. Or may be on the fringes of it, if you will. My first love for a career and life is the business of communications. I call myself a writer. I believe I want to create words that moves mountains, shift cultures and inspire. Piyush was all that. Piyush is all that.

During the day, tributes and stories started to pour in. Some from folks I know well. Some from people that I look up to. And then some from absolute strangers. And impact of Piyush on all those people started to emerge. Piyush may have been a famous person when he was alive. However when his time came, he was even more mushhooor. Each piece I read, each story, each op-ed, each narrative made me want to know the man more. From up close, if it was ever going to be possible.

Each person spoke about what he meant to them. Each story is full of his vigor for life, thunderous laugh, maverick partnerships, ability to forge lasting relationships and… his trademark shirts and his moustache!

Two pieces stood out to me – one by Ogilvy (reproduced below) and the other by Suresh Eriyat – this. These two and all the others expressed Piyush’s passing meant to them. And then I started to reflect on life and things.

I am 43. With almost no large monumental achievements that I can put my finger on and claim as mine. No family apart from my parents (who constantly worry about my wellbeing and life) and my sis (who has her own battles). No assets that I can leave behind for Myra. When its my time, I am sure no one would miss me. The handful of people who’s lives I’ve probably touched will have the same reaction that I had on Piyush’s passing – a fleeting note, an awe, an Om Shanti text on common whatsapp groups and then, moving on. And which is ok. Life doesn’t stop. Shouldn’t stop. Pale Blue Dot and all that. Wait. The point is not that. The point is, Piyush.

Back to Ogilvy’s ode.

When I read Ogilvy’s ode to Piyush, I found myself nodding to each thing they said about him. Read it first…

Waking up early and writing – Check
Front foot pe khelo – Check
Child-like heart – Check
Stood in the front – Check
Relationships – Check
Ek kaam karo – Check

Like I said, I found myself nodding to each thing they wrote about him. I could see myself in each thing that Piyush stood for. Of course, I am not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of who he was. But that’s the greatness of the man and the words. In each line, I saw myself. And I am sure each person reading would’ve seen themselves. And the ones writing? Oh man, I can only imagine the anguish of the folks who worked on that tribute.

Reading about Piyush from all the people made me want to find a way to turn back time, find a way into his cigar room, or the living room or wherever he roared with his laughter or lead with wit. No, not to learn from him — I have my gurus and I am grateful — but to see the man in action. See the man perform. See the man put up a show. See the man marshal his troops. See the man turn ordinary writers into weapons of mass influence.

Thing is, since I could remember — even before BIT or MBA happened to me — I’ve wanted to be an advertising person. The first time I saw that cricketer hit the ball out of the park and I saw Bablu come back home for jalebis, and saw Sachin shill Pepsi, and saw the three Hometrade ads I’ve wanted to make ads.

Life happened and I was thrown into the world of computers. And then I got fired from the first job I got (and I learnt my lesson and it seeded hatred for large companies), I had to get into a business school to find my way around. Life took me to GE Money and yet I sort of found my way back to advertising. First, right in the middle if the industry (with CLA) and then on the periphery (with Gravity) and eventually, as a Jack of all trades (with Rajesh Sir and C4E).

While I worked, little did I know that I was not good. Not even good enough. I am at best a reliable doer, someone who can be called upon when you needed something to be done for sure (and not to win an award or showcase mad genius). And just this skill of being the reliable one has allowed me to survive so far in this business that is competitive, tough, harsh, ever-evolving and seeks excellence.

Through the years, I loved each stint and I was always aware of the genius of Piyush and party. Year after year they would release gorgeous pieces of communication and I would pine for some sort of introduction to Ogilvy. The closest I came to his aura was when Rana Sir showed me around the office. He had walked into those offices at some point. I also know that Rr and Huz worked with his nephew who by himself is a great adman. I’ve shook hands with Rajesh Kejriwal numerous times and I know he would have shook hands with Piyush many a times.

Ok that’s my note about Piyush. I wish I could’ve been Eklavya to him. But I wasn’t. Neither I considered him a guru. Nor am I as good as Eklavya were. Piyush is at best, the guiding light that I looked upto and aspire to be like, if I can.

Shifting the tone of this note.

In the last few days, I have seen and heard about a few people at the end of their time. While I was writing this, I heard Satish “Indravadan Sarabhai” Shah passed away. Angrezo Ke Zamane Ka Jailor passed away a few days ago. A close friend’s co-founder almost died from a heart attack on the Diwali day. Thank God, he’s back home now. The elder-most member in my family (my aunt) is dying. And I am left questioning the very reason why we work so hard and to what end. I am thinking a LOT about how I want to spend my time here. I know that one side I want to make a ding in the universe and on the other, I want to be free. I can feel in my bones the revolt at the thought of being a slave to a routine.

Wait. Even as a free man, I have to work to make ends meet and I would still have to answer to a routine of eat, poop, sleep, walk, write, meet people et al. I will still have to push myself. But at least I would have the agency. I would be free to live where I want to, how I want to and free to choose who I work with, when I work with and what I work on. and most importantly, on my terms. I think absolute freedom is tough to get – we live in super hyperconnected world. But I believe that the world we live in, allows for smaller teams to make large enough dings. Like Piyush did.

I have to say, Piyush did made a ding.

After I saw the impact Piyush has made, I am all the more inspired to do more and push myself harder. And like I said, on my terms. And as a free man.

Wish me luck.

And…

Thank you, Piyush!
As your colleagues and family said, hope the heavens are ready for the force you are.

PS: Also, thanks to Bryan Dont Die and Deepinder recent unveiling of the Continue manifesto, I have started to believe that human lifespans are painfully and wastefully established at about 70. Deepinder is talking about 180. Most futurists believe that any child below the age of 150 has large odds of getting to 150. I hope I get to see 150 and like Piyush, make a ding.