Category: Blog

Wk 27-25 – Weekly Notes

Notes and thoughts from Week 27 of 2025.

Morning!
Of afternoon. Or evening. Or whatever time you read this at.

This week and the next week’s edition will be not as detailed as I would like them to be. I am on the road and may not be able to carve time to reflect on how I spent time. But an edition nonetheless. You know, progress > perfection. So, yay!

So, the H2 of 2025 is here.

This has been one of the most “interesting” years.

Interesting from multiple lenses.
Exciting.
Challenging.
Full of changes.
One of the rare years when I didnt do my regular yearly plans.
But then I went with the flow and learnt a lot.
I even saw a large change in my personality and decision making (you know, from people person to ideas person). I am sure there is more.

While I want to write about this year, today is not the time and here is not the place. Right now I want to publish this weekly note.

Oh, I am listening to this as I write. By Twin Strings and Raghav Chaitanya.

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Ok, lets go!

💭 Highlights, reflections and notes from the past week

PS: As always, these are not in any order.

1/ Mann Ko Bhaya to Accha, Na Bhaya to Aur Bhi Achcha
I saw this first as a status message of Hareesh Sir. And then I read more about it and reaslised that this is by Harivansh Rai Bachchan. Salute to both the men.

Over time I have started to try and internalise this. And I think I am successful to some extent. And it has been one of the most liberating ways to live life. I no longer think about the good or the bad. I think of things without attaching any emotion. Guruji from Vipassana would be proud.

Of course I am yet to build that in to daily practise but I try on a day to day basis. And I am lot more about not attaching the emotion and outcome.

PS: Lol, Mr Garg. See point #9.

Oh, if Marcus was the kinds to write Hindi poetry, he would’ve probably written this.

Any how.

The point is, mann ko bhaya to accha, na bhaya to aur bhi achcha.

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2/ From Chaand Taare to Kutumb
If you’d had met me a few years ago and asked me what my trip in life was, I would have said…

Saari daulat saari taaqat
Saari duniya par hukumat

If you live under the rock, this is from this song.
And if you dont know, in one of the shots in this track, SRK is actually passing by what would eventually become Mannat.

But lately, my want of taaqat and hukumat has changed to…

Sai itna dijiye, jaame kutumb samaay,
main bhookha naa rahoon, sadhu na bhookha jaaye

This is by Kabir.
And this has been the cornerstone of my life and decision making in a while.

This implies that rather than having all of it, I want enough to take care of myself and my village. This also indirectly implies that I will reduce my wants (not needs) and I will try and help my people to do more.

Oh, and this epiphany happened when I was meeting AP. More on our interaction in a bit (point #8). But this is what defines me now.

Make of it what you will.

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3/ Its expensive to be poor
I read this somewhere once that its expensive to be poor and I have now seen this in action. If you are rich, you can “buy” time and use that to do whatever.

Here’s an example – say you have to travel between Mumbai and Delhi. The poor (aka middle class) will probably take the train and invest 15-18 hours for this. If you are better off, say me, you would take a 2-hour flight. You may spend another couple of hours to reach the airport and check-in and all that.

Just because you can afford the flight, you saved 13 hours.

Now, thats where the imagination of most people will end.

Indulge me a bit more.

Imagine you were uber-rich. I am talking SRK level rich. You could take a private plane and save another two hours.

And then if you are even more rich, say Ambani rich, you can question the very reason of travel and call whoever you want to, to, to your place and save all the time.

Now, extrapolate that for everything. Food you eat, healthcare you have access to, people you meet, education you get, opportunties that come to you, access to private deals and everything else.

Get the drift?

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4/ Posture
I’ve realised that I need to fix my posture.

I have this lingering pain in my back all the time. I think I can blame it on sitting hunched over my laptop for like 42 years. I really want to fix this.

So, from today on, I will ensure that my back is ALWAYS stuck to a support structure. Or it is straight. As I write this, my lower back hurts and I have some giving me a backrub!

And as I edit this, my back is hurting but I am resting it against a backrest at a cafe that is blasting AC air on my face at 18 degrees. Wow!

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5/ WSOP
WSOP is on as we speak.

I REALLY want to get the ME Bracelet some day. And I know that I dont have a lot of time left. A, age. And B, AI. I mean its probably a matter of time (unless already) before AI-enabled and coached people come in and with superhuman intelligence start to whoop asses of poker players.

In fact, it would be interesting to see KidPoker take on some AI bots. Has this been tried? Adding to my #todo

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6/ Aadmi Ka Zeher by Srilal Shukla.
It’s after a while that I’ve read a whodunnit.

And I enjoyed it. Buy here.

Looking forward to a Jeffery Archer that I took from Ankit last week.

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7/ How to write your autobiography
As part of learning more about active seniors (for Meru), I’ve been running tiny experiements.

This week I started with a small one – to help active seniors write their autobiographies.

Now, this is tough.

For a simple reason – I have not lived the experiences they have. Plus I know that I am not the most effective communicator. And I know that I have not helped other write an autobiography. Yes I have ghostwritten a few. Yes I’ve written a lot of books. But I have never “taught” anyone to write an autobiography.

So, lets see how that adds up.

But then, this a also new thing that am trying and I am very very excited about it! I’ve had one session so far. Let’s see how the next one goes.

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8/ Akanksha Pandey (AP)
I know of AP for a while now.

I first met her to see if we can work together. At the time we couldnt make it work. But she is one of the smartest young people I know. And I had to stay in touch. And we did.

So, I met her in the last week. And I realised that AP’s great IRL as well! Here are some notes from our meeting…

  1. I asked her to look at “couples” like [Bonnie + Clyde], [Shilpa Shetty +Raj Kundra], [Donna + Harvey] and others. The point? Large things get built when you are with someone for long and have shared madness for things.
  2. The Godfather and his principles of living life – loyalty, frienship, winning people.
  3. 1000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly
  4. Sex and the Cash Theory by Hugh
  5. Kunal Shah’s Forbes interview

I know these links without nuance and context wont be of much use to people reading this but I wanted to share here. And I am sure there’s a lot more but these are what I recall from the top of my head (and from my notes). Maybe some day I will edit this and add more.

But meeting AP has to be one of the highlight of the week so far.

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9/ Respect
This week, two of my fav kids crossed lines.

In two independent places.
At two different times.
Now this is a tough one to write and I will not.
But I want to catalog it here. More on my echochamber.
Also see point #1.

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10/ Deepak Ravindran (DR)
Lemme start with a disclaimer. I dont know DR personally.

However, he’s recently started a new startup (Kirana Pro) and it’s been all over the news. But this post is not about that. This is about how he’s running his personal brand. You just can NOT miss it. The corner of the internet I spend time at, I get to see and hear a lot about him. A lot means, A LOT.

And naturally, like most people I am enamored by and want to get to know, I followed him across socials. And then I reached his WA group where he and his buddies chat with each other.

And, O.M.G.!

The group opened up another dimension in the brain. A lot of chatter there is techbros nerding over the new things. I am unable to understand a lot of things there but the rare things I can fathom, I love it. Each post there is a lesson (to a point that a lot of saves in the photos from this week are from his group). Each chatter there is about building (some are delusional as well, but well…).

Ok, the point is, I need to surround myself with more people like that.

Bas itna hi.

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📷 Some Photos from the week gone by

Here are some photos from week 27.

The one I want to post on this blog is…

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Made me think hard.
To a point that my head hurt.
Or may it did cos I was on a long flight. Lol.

I dont know what my myth is. But I know what my myth is not. And that’s a good place to start. I need to now work towards finding it.

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🈺 The LARGE objective from the week gone by?

Book 2
No action.
I am thinking, should I drop this?

What do you think?
PLEASE let me know.

PS: Dropped 2025 Plan a few weeks ago.

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☑️ What did I get done last week?

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

I may not have a lot to add this week (and the next) but here is a report nonetheless.

At this point, the following things are important to me and these are IN ORDER.

  1. Health
  2. Meru
  3. C4E
  4. Brand SG
  5. People (Family, Friends, Strangers, etc)
  6. Book2
  7. Shauk (Music, Films, Poker etc)

Health. No action. 0.

Meru. Same as last week. Tried to move the needle. But not as much as I would have wanted to. So, a 0.

C4E. No action. 0.
Next week on, I will remove this from this tracker.

Brand SG. No action. 0.

People. No action on this either. I’d say 0.

Book 2. Lol! -1

Shauk. Nothing. So, a 0.

So the overall score is -1 for this week, like it has been for the last 2 weeks.

Trends from the previous weeks: -1, -1, 3, 0, -4, 0, -4, -5, -5, -3, -2, -1
The max I can get is 7 in a week. Let’s see when I get to it.

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📊 The tracker from the last week

This is the tracker for the last week.

All the amber is becuase I am on the road.

The week was better in terms of steps, sleep, food and recovery. But was terrible in terms of mood. Hope the coming week is better.

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📖 Interesting Reads from the last week

No large inputs here. I did read a few things but I dont have the time to update those. I will get back to this section once am back on ground.

In the meantime, the best place to get these updates is via my TIL WA group. It is inspired by Sunanda’s fabulous book, TIL, and on this WhatsApp group, I aim to post VERY VERY VERY frequently. Like MULTIPLE times a day. About things personal (rants, overshares, thoughts etc), what I read, what I want to think about, what I need help on etc. Join here.

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🧠 Reminders from last week

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

I will skip this section this and the next week. I will get back to this in the week of 14th July.

From previous weeks, here are things that I want to remember. And no, this may not be a comprehensive list. In categories…

  1. Long term
    • Professional pool / snooker / poker. No action.
  2. Health
    • Kitchen setup (incomplete)
    • Gym membership (incomplete)
  3. C4E things (Will stop tracking these)
    • C4E Base
    • Design
    • Borderless agency
    • Adding films
  4. Shauk / Personal
    • Use of money to buy time – doing this already.
    • Better dressed – lol
    • Find love – lol!
    • Demand more from life
    • Speak better!
  5. Money (adding this on Jun 29)
    • Passive income

In case you know me, lemme know if I have missed something.

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🥡 So, one thing that defines the past week?

Uncool.

That’s the world I would use for the last week.
Wont talk too much here but it was not the coolest week. The good thing is that this happened after a long long time!

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

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

Oh, and this too shall pass!

PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes. The previous editions are here: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09 (missed), 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (missed), 16, 17 (missed), 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 (missed), 23, 24 (missed), 25, 26

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

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

Wk 26-25 – Weekly Notes

Weekly update from the 26th week of 2025. This has Saurabh Garg’s notes, thoughts, reflections and everything else.

9 AM, Jun 29
Listening to this as I write.

The halfway mark to the year is here. Normally I would do some sort of analysis on how the year was, where am I on my goals and all that. But this time I did not work on the year plan and thus I dont know where am going. I do know a few things – that I was supposed to be a billionaire by end of this year. And I was supposed to have climbed the Mt Everest. And I was supposed to have impacted a billion lives. I am FAR from all three. My networth is negative. I am the unfittest I’ve ever been. And lol on impact.

However if I look at it from other lenses, I think I am ok. In fact I continue to be divinely discontent. I am ok with what I have. And I would love to have a lot more. I am surrounded by family and a few friends who continue to wish me good. I live life on my terms (a lot of it, if not all). I believe I make a meaningful contribution to the ones around me. And I think I’ve made progress as a human being as well. I am still guided by the seven vices but I think I am more aware and I see some action on the right side.

Ok, let’s go.

💭 Highlights, reflections and notes from the past week

PS: As always, these are not in any order.

1/ Meditation
I want to restart with it. There was a time when I could do upto 60 minutes each day. I think it was around COVID when Naval asked folks to do 60 minutes of meditation each day as soon as they woke up. I am not sure. And no, I dont want to go back in the history and check. The point is, I want to build this again. I will start with 10 minutes of Headspace and then see where it goes.

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2/ Justh’s new track
Here. No, I am not a big fan. Unless the track grows on me with time.

PS: It was important to capture it here cos I am a fan and I want to support.

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3/ Saw a play about Manto’s three stories around friendship
I love Manto as a writer. So much so that I even produced a podcast (thanks to Mudit and Anamika for lending their voices). So when I saw this poster, I had to go see it. And am I glad that I saw it. The highlight was the story of Mammad Bhai.

Multiple things happened while I was there.

Here’s a list.

3a/ Made me reflect on my friendships.
I spoke to Vivek about it. And I realised that the root cause of my inability to seek friends is the Heen Bhavana I have deeply embedded in me. I dont know an english equivalent of this. But that defines me. In fact, as I was reflecting on what Vivek told me, I could pin point a time when this Heen Bhavna got stronger. It was a rainy evening where all my friends were hanging out at some place in Powai. I was going through a VERY tough time financially and I wanted to avoid meeting (why spend). But I was emotionally blackmailed into going. The dinner that was to happen at home was moved to a random restaurant and I had to tag along. Lot of stupid alcohol and food was consumed and after paying for the bill, I didnt have money to even travel back home. And I walked for 2 hours. I know this must be life story of a lot of people and I speak from privilege. But this day broke me. And I am still trying to recover from that. So that.

3b/ Saw Naseer Saab in the audience.
Was reminded me the time when I actually sat in his drawing room, trying to make a film with Anshul, Smita and Shikha. Ofc that never panned out. But I do wish I had taken a more proactive role in how I managed things back then.

Also, I was unable to walk upto him and say hi. I know he wouldnt have remembered me – he meets a million people each day and my interactions were very limited and happened a few years ago. The lesson for me is that I ought to have a personal brand that makes a Naseer Saab come walk to me. And no, I am not coming from a place of pride. But from a place of having more opportunities and better experiences. You know, like Naval says, if you are famous, you get invited to better parties.

So that.

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4/ Conversation with Rimjhim
I met Rimjhim as a potential colleague. I want someone to work with me and help me do more. Someone recommended her. We talked. But we realised that we may not be a fit for each other. Nonetheless, I decided that I want to stay in touch with her. And then we decided to do a podcast.

I recorded it yesterday. And I LOVED how she managed that conversation. I wish I could ask questions like that. She REALLY made me think about a lot of things that I would otherwise not think. I am so so glad that I did that chat with her.

Must find more people like that.

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5/ Definition of Good Friends
The last two-three weeks have been tough. Because I’ve had to let go of some people. And in most cases these were friends. And I was unable to explain to myself that if I love them, why would I let them go.

And then I realised that the job of a good friend is to not just mollycoddle people. But show them the mirror, however harsh it may be. And then help them get better. I want to practise radical candor in each of my interactions. And that.

Also, this is far-cry from where I have been in life – that all your mistakes can be forgiven. I want to get to a point where I am an ideas person (and not people person). You know, family over sports team over village.

And yes, I am WIP and it’s important for me to capture this for my people. Afterall, the only people I have are the ones from work.

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6/ Middle of my own storm
Someone sent me this and I was BLOWN by it.

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7/ Reading
Prak would love this 😉

So, I was at Ankit’s place last night.
And he said that he was gonna give his books away.

This is the man who’s got THE BEST taste when it comes to reading and all that. So, if he’s doing a giveaway, he would probably have a great collection to part ways with. I may or may not participate in it but he gave me two Jeffery Archer paperbacks.

Once I was home, I read a chapter of one of those. And I am wanting to go back to it, even though I am writing.

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8/ Abundance with Food as reflection of insecurity
The other day I was talking to someone about why I always order more than needed and I want to always have some stuff to eat at home. That person, lets call them A, told me that it is probably because when I was growing up, I dint have enough food on my plate.

Now, this is factually incorrect. My parents ensured that we had enough food on the plate all the time. I mean, comparatively. We didnt live in luxury but in our middle-class home, there was everything we wanted, just that we had to wait and make choices.

May be A was hinting at my mindset. I’ve grown up wanting things that are out of my reach and all my actions are inspired by that chase.

9/ No Swiggy / Zomato
Staying on food, I have deleted online ordering apps from my phone.

No, not to save money. But to avoid snacking.

I want to make it hard for me to snack. I want to make it hard for me to eat random things at random hours. I will hate it for the first few days but I think I will get to it.

And I want to pick my food from places that I know will do a good job of making it (none comes to mind as I type this). I will make the effort to walk to a place to eat.

And I will work towards getting my own food. No, not cooking but getting someone to help me. Multiple people – Rohilla, Sonam, Ashi have volunteered but I just dont like the idea of a functioning kitchen at my home.

Lets see what I do over the next few days.

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10/ Saurabh Shukla
The number of people who’ve come to me and told me that I look like a fitter version of him is incredible. I hope to meet him some day.

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11/ How to get ahead in life?
This has been a recurring theme of questions that I’ve got from a lot of folks over the last few days. I think the answer is in being reliable, choosing action (over words) and thinking long-term.

I dont know why am posting this here. But came into my head as I was writing this.

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12/ CynLr on WEF
If there’s one highlight of the week, it would be this.

CynLr is a startup based out of Bangalore where they are reimagining what manufacturing could be like in the future. I’ve spent a lot of time working for them. While I dont work with them anymore, I continue to be a cheerleader and supporter. In fact, CynLr continues to be one of the stickers on my laptop.

Gokul and Nikhil are irrational, hardworking, focused and forces of nature. I love them!

So, Gokul had told me YEARS ago that he will be on WEF at some point in time.

And he is now!

Even though I had literally nothing to get them to this place, this feels like a personal victory. There’s nothing more I love than seeing people I care for win.

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13/ Kevin’s ideal end state.
I am in awe of each thing Kevin does. A few months ago he posted about Ideal End State. I read it and I decided to make a document for that. I revisited it and it reminded me why I started what I started. Made more notes. So that.

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14/ Freedom
Enough said.
If there’s one word that I want to stand for, it would be freedom. In conversation with Rimjhim, many words came out – freedom, adventure, curious, people-chaser, movement (harkat) and more.

If I had to pick one thing that would define me, it would be this. Freedom.

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15/ PD’s birthday
If there’s a second highlight of the week, it’s PD’s birthday.

I can never explain my relationship with her but I know she’s an important part of my life and personality.

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16/ Yatin Sangoi‘s show on RD Burman
Saw Yatin’s show. This was the second time I was seeing it. And like the first time I saw it, I was amazed. To a point that I am inspired to help more people build shows of their own. Let’s see when.

But there are many more takeaways. Here’s a list.

16a/ Anil Kapoor, Robin Singh, Saurabh Garg.
In many of the tracks that Yatin showed, there were Anil Kapoor and Jeetendra. Now, when someone makes a list of most successful actors of their times, Anil or Jeetendra would never show up. But they were consistent. Always. In fact, these folks are what they call, mild success.

Same for players like Robin Singh. He would never make it to any list. But he was consistently there. Read this (I wrote this a few months ago). Again, mild success.

Same with me. I will never be on any list. At least from the things that I’ve done so far. But from a lot of metrics, I am a mild success.

And I want to change that. I no longer want to be one. I would do whatever I can to be a wild success.

16b/ Fandom (for RD and others)
Yatin’s entire life seems to be dedicated to taking RD’s work to masses. I met Harshit there. A large part of his life is to take Hindi as a language to more people. Palash has a podcast where he talks about obsessive passion of people and how they take large risks. The Manto play I saw seems to have done by someone who’s passionate about the work of Manto.

The point is, some people get so obsessive about some things that that becomes their raison d etre. And that I think helps them build world class things.

In my case, I dont know what am obsessively passionate about. I am interested in way too many things. I like experimenting. I like the chase of the new. I love exploring. And may be this is why am a mild success at best?

Ok, moving on.

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17/ Saw M for a bit yesterday.
Yay!

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18/ Micro-Drama
I think the rules of filmmaking and storytelling are being rewritten by this new format that seems to have find new audiences. I will explore more on this in the next few days.

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19/ Life Straw
Got myself a Life Straw Go 2. Get your’s here.

Added it to my tools of trade page.

Yeah, am at mid-life crisis where am buying random expensive things. The next thing will probably be an On shoe. And yes, I already have All Birds. Even though I dont wear them.

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📷 Some Photos from the week gone by

Here are some photos from week 26. The one that I would like to plaster on my blog is…

🈺 The LARGE objective from the week gone by?

Book 2
No action.
I havent had the time.

Meru is taking LOT more time than I had anticipated.

PS: Dropped 2025 Plan a few weeks ago.

☑️ What did I get done last week?

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

I may not have a lot to add this week but here is a report nonetheless.

At this point, the following things are important to me (I know too many but…) and these are IN ORDER.

  1. Health
  2. Meru
  3. C4E
  4. Brand SG
  5. People (Family, Friends, Strangers, etc)
  6. Book2
  7. Shauk (Music, Films, Poker etc)

Health. No action. 0.

Meru. Moved the needle a bit. Not too much though. This has been the status for the last few weeks. 0.

C4E. No action. 0.
I think I am ready to remove this from this list. I don’t do anything large here anymore. I think I am ready to hand it over to C and AK as my heirs. On the work front, C and F run the show on the day to day basis. AK is in that liminal state. Let’s see when she decides. But more or less I think I can move on from it. Just that I didnt make it the Wild Success that I wanted it to be.

Brand SG. No action. 0.
I did record a podcast. But that’s too little.
HAVE TO PUT IN A LOT MORE EFFORT HERE.

People. No action on this. I’d say 0.

Book 2. Lol! -1

Shauk. Nothing. So, a 0.

So the overall score is -1 for this week.

Trends from the previous weeks: -1, 3, 0, -4, 0, -4, -5, -5, -3, -2, -1
The max I can get is 7 in a week. Let’s see when I get to it.

📊 The tracker from the last week

This is the tracker for the last week.

Compared to the last 2-3 weeks, I’ve done much better on tracking at least. I need to fix what I eat though.

📖 Interesting Reads from the last week

I have a lot to share TBH but I may not have the time to write about all of those. So, I will get to those in the next week’s update.

The best place to get these updates is via my TIL WA group. It is inspired by Sunanda’s fabulous book, TIL, and on this WhatsApp group, I aim to post VERY VERY VERY frequently. Like MULTIPLE times a day. About things personal (rants, overshares, thoughts etc), what I read, what I want to think about, what I need help on etc. Join here.

So, some links that I want to share…

  1. Chamath’s Annual Letter. Here. The best quote from there is, “Taste is judgment. Discipline is strategy. Stamina is alpha. In a world without free money, survival is the product.”
  2. Mammad Bhai, by Sadat Hasan Manto. Here.
  3. Kevin’s post on Ideal End State. Here. I’ve spoken about this earlier as well. But it’s worth a revisit.
  4. This list of lessons from Tim. Here. The ones that have stayed with me are, “26. People who are always joking are hard to take seriously so they rob themselves of opportunities” and “6. The wealthiest people have a psychopathic sense of urgency.” among others.
  5. This by Seth on using words. Especially in this post-AI world. Thanks, Prad for sharing.
  6. This concept of Levered Beta. Incredible read. In Hindi, we often say, “seat pe rumaal rakhna”. This is the closest equivalent to that.
  7. Mike’s Build. Mike is quickly becoming my favorite Internet person. And while you are at it, read advice.
  8. This NYT piece about one of the things in Grief Tech.

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🧠 Reminders from last week

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

Here are things from the past few weeks that I want to remember. And no, this may not be a comprehensive list. In categories…

  1. Long term
    • Professional pool / snooker / poker. No action.
  2. Health
    • Kitchen setup (incomplete)
    • Gym membership (incomplete)
  3. C4E things (I will at some time stop tracking these things and have C do these)
    • C4E Base
    • Design
    • Borderless agency
    • Adding films
  4. Shauk / Personal
    • Use of money to buy time – doing this already.
    • Better dressed – lol
    • Find love – lol!
    • Demand more from life
    • Speak better!
  5. Money (adding this on Jun 29)
    • Passive income

In case you know me, lemme know if I have missed something.

PS: Adding a section of things that I talked about that I need to do in this post and the last ones…

.

🥡 So, one thing that defines the past week?

Disappeared.
That’s the world I would use for the last week.

The week literally disappeared. I need to be more in touch with reality and all that.

Oh and in the previous weeks, the one-word reviews have been… 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, 09 (missed), 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (missed), 16, 17 (missed), 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 (missed), 23, 24 (missed), 25

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

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

Wk 24-25 – Weekly Notes

Weekly update from the 24th and the 25th week of 2025. This has Saurabh Garg’s notes, thoughts, reflections and everything else.

7 AM, Jun 23

I haven’t written for 2 weeks now (I was busier than expected). And while I dont have a lot of time today to write either, I will do it. I have promises to keep (Hi, AA). I will not talk about how busy I was and all that. I will merely get writing.

Here we go.

💭 Highlights, reflections and notes from the past two weeks

PS: These are not in any order. Specifically because I was all over the place the last two weeks. I haven’t had the time to process things that I was experiencing and living.

PPS: Since I didn’t get to write for the last few days, my thoughts and reflections will suffer from recency effect. A lot of my words are an outcome of what ive been thinking lately.

Let’s go…

A/ Taught some 300 people about Gen AI
It was not the best session in terms of my delivery but I got a reality check that the world out there needs a lot more education that the world of twitter has. In fact, we must encourage each person to get active on twitter and follow the silicon valley types and see where the world is headed. Not from the lens of being scared about it but from the lens of learning and being ready.

Here’s my feedback from the students.

B/ Kabir
Saw this reel on Insta.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by गुलमोहर (@kagazkephoool)

Insane lessons. And insane talent of to dissipate lessons from Kabir. The amount of wisdom from kabir made accessible by this music is fabulous.

At some point in time, I want to commission someone to do such things. In case I am unable to in my life time, I hope one of you (the ones reading) does it.

C/ Grateful that Vivek exists.
I just wish I was not so far behind him in terms of wealth. I would have got to spend more time with him and M, if I werent.

D/ The Flight
Everyone has been talking about the Air India plane crash. Since then I’ve taken two flights – both Air India. And in one of those, there was a very rough patch. So clearly, thanks to the recency effect, been thinking a lot about it. In bullets…

First things first. In the grand scheme of things, we are meaningless. Heart goes out to folks who lost their lives. Even tougher is the lives of the ones left behind. I wish there wasnt so much pain in the world around us.

Second. I am not afraid to die. Just that it would be a shame that I died without doing anything that I had set out to do. Heck, maine to achi achar bhi nahi daala! I have a lot to lose and the thought that I would go randomly, I get sad.

Third. I would’ve taken 500, if not 1000 flights in my life. And I was never the kinds to be scared. But thanks to second above, I am little scared. I was reminded of what a classmate from MDI once told me – while a plane going down is a Black Swan event, the very nature of the event means that it can happen to you and the destruction would be 100%, unlike a road accident where the destruction is not fatal.

Fourth. In the two flights I took in the last week, I was unable to write. I tried to but I failed. I could merely take bullet point notes. I need to fix this cos flights used to be me sacrosanct writing place where I could be in the zone and get a lot thought / written.

Fifth. Maybe I need to work on my attention span? Maybe get back to meditation? Maybe I am unable to write cos I am unable to focus on things?

So that.

E/ Events is a good business
Over the weekend, I was in BKK. For an event thing.

And I was reminded of all the reasons why I love it – there’s no set office, there is freedom of time and place for the most part, there is ample use of common sense and there’s some of the most interesting real life folks with real skils and not just keyboard warriors.

Oh, and it sucks as well – there is no scalability (the largest event agency would be like 500 crores), there is a lot of muck (relationships, under the table conversations etc) and no large impact on the universe per se.

So, its something that I would like to be a part of in some way. But now that I have Meru and some bits of C4E, I may not be able to.

At this time, I am merely cataloging. Oh, wait, events business is a brilliant training ground for life skills. I want EACH of my kids to be spend a year doing events. But then, I dont know where so I find kids who want to build their lives around mine (and then subsequently, I build mine around their’s). So that.

May be I will bring back SoG?

F/ Life without border and passport control
I pine for a life where I dont have to worry about my passport or about visas and all that. But then lately, with all the news around hyper-nationalism and flying horrors, I dont know.

G/ Health and Fitness
I have realised that I dont look great and I anyway don’t dress great. And thus I get judged and a lot of opportunities that ought to come to me, dont. So, I need to work on those. Maybe fitness with help.

Thing is, my looks or clothes never mattered to me. In fact, I looked at it as a giant fuck you to the world. But now I realise that this fuck-you attitude was not the best thing.

So, I will fix it.

PS: Is 42 the wrong age to admit this? Or maybe this is me coming out with my insecurities?

So solution…

I will make fitness my P1. You know, Yoga. I think I can do this. I’ve done it in the past. Then at some point IN THIS MONTH (7 days to go), I will add a better diet (where I prep things myself (I cant seem to find a cook)). And then at some point in the month, I will add a gym or some sport. I dont think I can do gyms yet. I need to pick a sport for sure.

My P2 would be better groomed. You know, more focus on shaving my head, beard etc. Perfumes, accessories etc. Better footwear (no shoes ;))

My P3 would better clothes. This may take forever. But I will try.

H/ Let go of a team member
Not the best feeling to part ways. But had to be done.

Have done in the past as well and no it doesnt get better.

And funny thing is that I will have to part ways with more team members in the next few months.

I/ Work hard, make money and give money
The entire world around me seems to be moved by money. I need to find a way to make a LOT of money. And then use that money to build better lives for everyone around me. And give great money to people that are around me.

I am a capitalist at heart but I love that people chase more things than money.

J/ SG on Mira Murati’s team
C pointed that Mira’s team seems to have a SG. I must gather all these folks ;P

K/ Biography writing for seniors
I am working on a cohort to help active seniors write their biographies. While the idea sounds good on paper, there are inherent challenges with that. I need to solve for those.

L/ Personal Brand
My sense is that world in the future would be run by personal brands. Think Elon. Think Tanmay. Think SG. Three different people. Three different spectrums. Each has a certain influence over things. Each has opportunities in direct proportion to their brand.

I need to work on this.

This has been a theme since I dont know when. I HAVE to accelerate this. I will probably hire someone for this.

On this, I will also put in motion my podcast and content. Just that in the post-AI world, I dont know what is the importance of all the content you put out.

M/ Ask. And the world shall give.
See this from Jim Rohn.

And this from Steve.

N/ Regrets in life
While I was in the flight yesterday, I made a list of things that I regret in life. While more details would go on my notes, here are four folks that I wish I could continue to be with – KG, RG, RN, Parents.

Funny most of my regrets seem to around people. And not around money, achievements and all that.

O/ Make a film
I have decided. I will make a film this year. It would be a short (while I will try, it may not be a full-length), But will do. And this is apart from my book (lol). That I will work on as well. More details in subsequent days.

Oh and all these things need one thing and one thing only – my decision that I will separate people and projects. I know it would require me to be tough and stern with my people but I will do it. Oh, and also marry this with my thing about personal brand (see J above)! And AI!

Wow, so many things seem to be coming together!

P/ Passive income
I HAVE to HAVE mutiple sets of passive incomes. Right now, I only have one source of income – that too needs me to be fairly active. May be a franchisee of something? May be something on rental? What else?

Oh and I need passports of 3 countries and bank accounts in 5.

Q/ Not deep
Lol (first time I heard this, it was from a kid I mentor – she said that no boys are deep – all they do is talk about pizza, games and sex).

So, while I was writing this, I reaslied that am an ordinary person. And while thats ok, makes me question the meaning of these notes. I mean why would you (or someone) read these notes? I dont talk anything deep. I talk about what I want to do, what I fail at and mostly these are reflections.

R/ “ai makes people dumb”, “money makes them lazy”
Everyone has read that research of less than 50 participants where they proclaimed that people that use AI tend to get dumber. No they did not use these words. Dont hold me for words. But try to get the drift.

Warikoo had an interesting take on it. He highlighted two things – AI and UBI.

I will do an episode on this. CC Anshika.

S/ If money werent an object…
Like I said, I was in BKK over the weekend and apart from one presentation for 3 hours, I had all the time in the world to explore. So I went around. And I realised that at different times, I wanted to buy…

Remarkable
AirPods
On Sneakers
Even thought about changing my phone

I realised, I wanted a new toy.
However, I chose to not get.
You know, money.
I wish money werent an object…

T/ Neosapian
Wrote a review of the Neo 1. Here.

Review of NeoSapien’s Neo 1

U/ Films
I saw a few films – dunno why or how. And I dont even remember the names (except Ritual Killer and Bonnie and Clyde that I remember seeing cos it was in the long / boring flight).

V/ Details
I am realising that I am unable to remember names of things but I can remember facts around them. For example, I wanted to write the name of the film I saw but I couldnt remember it. I remembered hunting and Africa. I googled. No response. But then I thought, lemme put the name of the actor. Again, I didnt remember the name of the actor. But I remembered he’s often refered to as the voice of God. And thus I made the connection.

I dont know what to do with this information. Maybe I will put this in some LLM and see what can I do about this.

Phew!
So that!

📷 Some Photos from the week gone by

Here are some photos from week 24.

The one that I would like to plaster on my blog is…

🈺 The LARGE objective from the week gone by?

Book 2
I didnt get time to even think about thinking. The person I was working with seems to have a lot on her plate and thus I am unable to move. No, I am not leaning onto her and blaming her for my inaction but I didnt move on this at all.

PS: Dropped 2025 Plan a few weeks ago.

☑️ What did I get done last two weeks?

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

I may not have a lot to add this week but here is a report nonetheless.

At this point, the following things are important to me (I know too many but…) and these are IN ORDER.

  1. Health
  2. Meru
  3. C4E
  4. Brand SG
  5. People (Family, Friends, Strangers, etc)
  6. Book2
  7. Shauk (Music, Films, Poker etc)

Health. No action. 0.

Meru. Again, like last update, moved the needle a bit. No large updates to be hoenst. 0.

C4E. No action. 0.

Brand SG. No action. HAVE TO PUT IN A LOT MORE EFFORT HERE.

People. No action on this. I’d say 0.

Book 2. Lol! -1

Shauk. Nothing. So, a 0.

So the overall score is -1 for this week. Also, like I said, the last two weeks went in a whirwind.

Trends from the previous weeks: 3, 0, -4, 0, -4, -5, -5, -3, -2, -1
The max I can get is 7 in a week. Let’s see when I get to it.

📊 The tracker from the last week

This is the tracker for the last 2 weeks.

Nothing to write home about. I have failed.

I will rise up again.

PS: I have noticed that each time I am on the road, I miss updating this. And once I am back to ground, I take a few days to get back to speed. And that causes the chaos. May be I need to find a way to do this better.

📖 Interesting Reads from the last week

I have a lot to share TBH but I may not have the time to write about all of those. So, I will get to those in the next week’s update.

The best place to get these updates is via my TIL WA group. It is inspired by Sunanda’s fabulous book, TIL, and on this WhatsApp group, I aim to post VERY VERY VERY frequently. Like MULTIPLE times a day. About things personal (rants, overshares, thoughts etc), what I read, what I want to think about, what I need help on etc. Join here.

So, some links that I want to share…

  1. Ankush Datar on Thin Desires vs Thick Desires. Here. And here.
  2. Pentagon Pizza Index. Here. And their twitter account. Also read, Big Mac Index.
  3. Wrote a review of a note-taking device. Here.
  4. Why you MUST not read. By Kevin. Here.
  5. This NY Times piece talks about Grief Tech. I first heard a version of this on Sahil Bloom’s Twitter.
  6. This video of Boston Dynamics machines at America’s Got Talent
  7. These two resources (a video and the companion presentation) by Vinod Kholsa on Luring the VC.

There are a lot more but I will skip. You know, done is better than best. Progress > perfection.

🧠 Reminders from last week

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

Here are things from the past few weeks that I want to remember. And no, this may not be a comprehensive list. In categories.

  1. Long term
    • Professional pool / snooker / poker. I played poker in bangalore and it was fun. I dint win a lot but I was able to read some players. So that’s cool. Other thing (pool) saw no action.
  2. Health
    • Kitchen setup (incomplete)
    • Gym membership (incomplete)
  3. C4E things (I will stop tracking these things and have C do these)
    • C4E Base
    • Design
    • Borderless agency
    • Adding films
  4. Shauk / Personal
    • Use of money to buy time – doing this already.
    • Better dressed – lol
    • Find love – lol!
    • Demand more from life
    • Speak better!

In case you know me, lemme know if I have missed something.

PS: Adding a section of things that I talked about in THIS post…

  1. Kabir
  2. Film
  3. book 2
  4. Personal Brand
  5. Podcast on AI and UBI (for adulting?)
  6. Meditation
  7. Yoga

Did I miss something?

🥡 So, one thing that defines the past week?

Experience.
That’s the world I would use for the last two weeks.

Oh and in the previous weeks, the one-word reviews have been… 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, 09 (missed), 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (missed), 16, 17 (missed), 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 (missed), 23, 24 (missed)

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

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

Review of NeoSapien’s Neo 1

So, I met Dhananjay (DJ) for the first time at the insistence of Aditya Sir. Aditya had told me that DJ was working on an AI-wearable. Mind you, this was some 6 months ago, before AI became ubiquitous. 

So I was curious!

The first thing that struck me was his fitness. 

He is extremely fit and ripped, and he has long flariy hair, and I was like yaar I wish I could be like that! 

Any how, the second thing, and more pertinent to this post that hit me was the blinking pendant he was wearing around his neck. The curious cat in me asked him, what was it. 

And turns out, it was an early version of Neo. An AI-enabled notetaker that you hang around your neck! Wow! 

At the time, he mentioned that Neo can also track the emotions of the people in the conversations. For example, while talking, if somebody’s sad while talking to you, the notetaker will tell you that the other person was sad. 

Now somebody like me who likes the idea of living in public, and taking notes, and wanting to be a super connector, this seemed like a godsend thing. I could focus on conversations and be fully present in the meetings. I won’t have to carry a notepad, I won’t have to break eye contact, and I will absorb more! I am anyway, a big fan of augmenting human capability with such tools and all. 

So when I finally got access, I had high expectations. And here’s my unbiased, honest review and how I use it. 

USE CASE 1 – THINKING 

1.1/ I use this while I want to talk to myself. 

I go for walks and I don’t carry a notepad etc. 

I merely talk out loud the things that I want to save. Since the device does NOT record the conversation, I also use the voice memo feature on my iPhone to record those. 

USE CASE 2 – IRL MEETINGS 

2.1/ I use this in physical meetings where people are ok with a physical device. 

TBH, till these browser-based based AI-notetakers were not commonplace, it was tough to get consent. Now, all I say is, think of this as my AI notetaker from the browser window, in a physical meeting room.

In those meetings, I can focus on conversations and outcomes and all that. Rather than scribbling furiously in my notes. 

No, I dont use this for online meetings. For that, I use Granola. Ofc, if Neo comes up with a browser extension, I will try it. 

2.2/ Saves me the pain from decoding my handwriting 😀 

2.3/ Once I have those notes, I port those into my Roam. While I do that, I add context. This is where all the magic happens. 

USE CASE 3 – EARLY DRAFTS FOR WHAT I WRITE

3.1/ I also use this to “write” early drafts. 

My best writing happens when I have talked out loud about a concept. And then I let that simmer in my head. And then I vomit out the word salad. And then I don’t edit (lol). 

And with Neo, I talk about loud about what I want to write. And then I use that as my first draft. 

PS: A large part of this very post was “written” by Neo! See raw notes in screenshot. 

WHAT WORKS FOR ME? 

1/ Battery life is GREAT! 
I charge it once every 2 days 

2/ It can gather voice streams even in noisy environments. 
This is great. Because I am at a Starbucks all the time. 
Or I am walking on the noisy roads (Mumbai, you know) 

3/ The notes and summaries are pretty amazing. 
I dont know what engine they use at the backend but it captures pretty much everything! 

WHAT DOESN’T WORK FOR ME

1/ I don’t like the form factor. 
Nothing to do with Neo. Just that I dont like pendants. Even when I do podcasts. I hate to use a clipon mic. 

2/ Haptic Feedback
I want the “click” button to start the device to give me some haptic feedback. 

Right now, it doesnt do anything. I mean it works, but I like some feedback for sure. This is the very reason why I was bearish on touch phones when they first came (really!). 

3/ Audio recordings
I wish the device were like a dictaphone where I could record everything. Often, there is merit in relistening to conversations. Right now I cant access raw recordingts. 

FINAL VERDICT?

I like it. I would love to make this a part of the joining kit of every team member.

If you want a gadget that can become your note-taking copilot, you MUST try it. I want DJ and Neo to succeed. So, I could be biased in my opinions. 

I would encourage you to try it. However, as always, please do your due diligence. I could be biased. 

So, that’s it. In case you do end up buying / using, lemme know and we must chat on use cases.

PS: DISCLAIMERS

1/ I paid for Neo. I paid 9999, cos I was one of the early backers. 
I did not get any freebies or money from DJ for this. 
PS: Price seems to have gone up. 

2/ Here are raw notes from the app after I “talked” to it.

Wk 23-25 – Weekly Notes

Weekly update from weeks 22 and 23. This has Saurabh Garg’s notes, thoughts, reflections and everything else.

Hi!

I am back after a break of a week. I couldnt write. I was on the road. No, I am not beating myself over it (unlike past times). But I am acknowledging that I am not being consistent. I will try harder.

Now with that motivational self, pep-talk, lets get back to business.

The update for the last two weeks.

From the top of my head, a large part of update would be about Bangalore trip, health, personal brand and village. Lets see what else do I write.

💭 Highlights, reflections and notes from the past two weeks

A/ Anurag Sir
I want to start from here. You know, how heroes fall? That! I love the guy. I love his films. I love his storytelling. A large part of my life has been dictated trying to be what he and Vikram Sir have been.

But, the guy’s falling. Hard. I can say a lot but I dont want to. I just want to catalog that I am sad about him falling 🙁

PS: In case I forget in the future, note to self, read about what he said about Netflix launching in India with things apart from Sacred Games.

Staying on films, saw Khosla Ka Ghosla, at an event organised by Balram. Each time I see the film, I am amazed that the film captures Delhi nuances so well that I am inspired to do similar things!

And staying further on films, I really want to be in the films business. I know AI and all is gonna disrupt how this business works (we are already making short films using all the AI tools) but there’s something about visual storytelling that still moves people. I need to be a player in this space. Come on, universe…

B/ Bangalore
Many notes from this one. Lemme write in bullets.

  1. Played poker. Enjoyed it. Must play more. Met some really incredible people on the poker table. Must do more to be around Poker
  2. Realised that my personal brand needs a lot of work. I orgniased a meetup and I was unable to meet a lot of good folks. I HAVE to work on this
  3. Spent time with Sonam and each time I meet her, I want to be able to afford person like her to work with me (either at C4E or at Meru)
  4. Met a couple of really interesting folks (you know, the VC, startup kinds). I realised I enjoy meeting these people. I had this VERY strong urge to move to Bangalore, just for these connections. But I realised that I am chasing vanity and I would do well staying away, keeping my head down and building.
  5. Saw collective-thinking in action at a couple of places. A new fancy coffee shop has opening in Bangalore. I try to not go to these fancy places. And while I was not keen on going, I was taken there. By folks who apparantly “boycott” these places. Plus everyone famous at Bangalore seems to be there as well. It’s like how socialites want to flock the fancy places? No, I will not rant about it. Merely saying.

Ok this is it?
I thought I would have a lot to say about this trip to Bangalore. I clearly do not.

C/ Counter Strike
Recorded a video where I talked about how I am inspired by Counter Strike and how each thing their echos how I have structed C4E. In case you want to see, it’s here.

D/ Life Manual for the your 30s
On someone’s request, I wrote this manual where I talked about what . You may read this here.

The Life Manual for your 30s

On this note, please give me prompts that you want me to write on. I work the best when triggered!

E/ Build a new format to track what I am working on.
Each few days I have something new that I track. This time I have copied this from what I saw on screens of my new team at Meru. I’ve been at it for a few days now. Let’s see how long this lasts.

F/ FOXO
Got myself a FOXO subscription. This is the most expensive thing EVER that I’ve got for myself. Prior to this, the most expenisve thing was sgElectra.

So far the only tangible thing I know is that I can hold a plank for a minute and I am a diabetic. Oh, thrown in a gym, I can do 10 pushups. Plus my balance seems to be good and calcium in my bones seem to be ok as well. So, apart from my diabetes, most things are ok. I need to figure why and how do I have bad skin and less stamina. I need to work on my lower back and improve my posture. Let’s see what more I discover.

The other related thing is that I read this thread about Ray Kurzweil and one of the thing he says is that we will probably live forever. He says that “death will be optional” and there are three things he talks about – a, science seems to have learnt the secret of aging, companies like Neuralink seem to have found success in Brain Computer Interfaces and then the digital twins are already around (thanks to FOXO).

So, if we can live for the next few decades, we can be immortal. This is the frontier that no one knows (except Ashwatthama or may be Trivedi :D). Let’s see.

PS: I am an investor in FOXO. And C4E does some work for FOXO.

G/ Getting the AI FOMO
On a day to day basis, I have this HUGE AI FOMO. I have written about this in the past. And its all over my twitter. I think the only way to go about this is by actually doing this. I think the only way to do this is to carve time (now that I have agreed that I wont find anyone to work with me and support me). And I need to probably cut down on a lot of other things.

H/ Broke “H” on my laptop’s keyboard.
I tried to fix C’s laptop’s keyboard. I had fun. I was bored. On a whim, pried open the H on my keyboard and now I can’t fix it!

Grrr…

I/ Recorded an episode of The Optimist’s Manifesto Podcast with Subendhu (of FOXO).
He’s had a stellar life and has such a wide range of experiences that I want to be him! Spoke to him for two hours. I need to build a life where I have similar richness of stories!

J/ Jayant Mundhra
One of the conversations in the last two weeks was with Jayant. He’s an incredible writer and over the last 2 years, has built a community of about 100K folks that read general purpose advice from him. While I dont about each person I meet, Jayant is special. He’s doing EXACTLY what I want to. And he’s doing a GREAT job at it. And he’s consistent with it. If I could be a shade consistent of him, I would be elsewhere in life!

He also told me about Zero1 network, again something I want to be able to build. But unlike the Kamaths I dont have a lot of FCF. Maybe I will build a corpus as I go along? Let’s see.

K/ KP got hitched!
This means Pooja ka bachcha is growing up.
Poo saas ban gayi ;P

L/ High-Performance Org
One of the latest lessons from Hareesh Sir has been that I need to be a little more strict with my people. The idea is to build a high-performance organization that delivers on the promise to the stakeholders.

This is similar to the riff about idea people and people people from the last update. In fact this is something that I lack in my life.

I am way too kind when I work with people and I need to learn balance. I dont want to create weak people. May be that’s what I had done with other businesses? That in my unwavering support, did I create weak orgs there?

Lot to think!

M/ Mountain Goat
Thanks to J, discovered a new retaurant in Lokhandwala. Mountain Goat. They serve Wai Wai Sadeko. I think I will go there a lot (went there on May 28th and havent gone back, lol) if my sugar doesnt spike.

So this is it from the last 2 weeks. Lemme know what is interesting and what is not. And what would you like to see more.

📷 Some Photos from the week gone by

Here are some photos from week 22 and 23. A lot to be honest.

The one that I would like to plaster on my blog is…

🈺 The LARGE objective from the week gone by?

Book 2
I didnt get time to even think about thinking. The person I was working with seems to have a lot on her plate and thus I am unable to move. No, I am not leaning onto her and blaming her for my inaction but I didnt move on this at all.

PS: Dropped 2025 Plan a few weeks ago.

☑️ What did I get done last two weeks?

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

At this point, the following things are important to me (I know too many but…) and these are IN ORDER.

  1. Health
  2. Meru
  3. C4E
  4. Brand SG
  5. People (Family, Friends, Strangers, etc)
  6. Book2
  7. Shauk (Music, Films, Poker etc)

Health. Got FOXO membership. Now I have a CGM (for a few days) that tells me how I recat to food and all. I am more aware. No action. No done. So a 0.

Meru. Was an ok week. Moved the needle. But still far from where I’d like to be. Thus, a 0.

C4E. No action. 0.

Brand SG. No action. The trip to Bangalore told me that I remain an insignificant person in the large scheme of things. I need to get more active. I want to give a -1 but one a day to day basis, in my world, I get by ok. So, a 0.

People. No action on this. I’d say 0.

Book 2. Lol! -1

Shauk. No large things. Bangalore trip, FOXO, Poker. So, a 0.

So the overall score is -1 for this week.

Trends from the previous weeks: 3, 0, -4, 0, -4, -5, -5, -3, -2, -1
The max I can get is 7 in a week. Let’s see when I get to it.

📊 The tracker from the last week

This is the tracker for the last 2 weeks.

 

I really need to pull my socks on this. I cant be missing.

PS: I have noticed that each time I am on the road, I miss updating this. And once I am back to ground, I take a few days to get back to speed. And that causes the chaos. May be I need to find a way to do this better.

📖 Interesting Reads from the last week

Some links that I want to share…

  1. Rahul on Obvious – here
  2. Mary Meeker’s report on AI – here. Do not miss this.
  3. Derek O Brian was in a flight that got damaged in the hail. In this video, he talks about his near death experience.
  4. On “choice”, from David Ogilvy. Here. Thanks to Pradx for sharing this.
  5. From the top person at Snapchat – how to build companies – here.
  6. V told me about Navagunjara (no I did not know about this even though I claim to be a fan of Mahabharata)
  7. This is a great list of superpowerful maxims about life. From founders. The ones I love are as follows…
    • 1. Money comes naturally as a result of service.
    • 4. Be a professional opportunist.
    • 7. You don’t need to be a genius; you just need to collect more information.
    • 12. Mute the world, build your own.
    • 17. Make yourself easy to interface with.
    • 18. Relationships run the world.
    • 20. Quality of your life is the direct result of the quality of your decisions.
    • 23. Problems are opportunities in work clothes.
    • 31. Actions express priorities.
    • 32. The public praises people for what they practice in private.
    • 36. Business is problems; the best companies are problem-solving machines.
    • 40. Always more audacious.
    • 44. Making mistakes is the privilege of the active.
    • 46. Incentives rule everything around you.
    • 50. Intensity is the price of excellence.
    • 51. You can’t save souls in an empty church.
    • 61. Imitation precedes creation.
    • 63. Optimism is a moral duty.
    • 69. Repeat, repeat, repeat; volume and consistency win.
    • 72. The hard way is the right way.
    • 73. Be intolerant of slowness.
    • 74. Hire a professional critic.
    • 79. “Action solves everything.”
    • 88. Avoid boring people.
    • 90. All good things in life come from compounding.
    • 93. Have pride in creation, not consumption

PS: Are these useful? Do these help in any way? I read a LOT more than what I share here but these are what I think people I know must read. Skewed towards startups, hard work, deliberate living etc etc.

🧠 Reminders from last week

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

Here are things from the past few weeks that I want to remember. And no, this may not be a comprehensive list. In categories.

  1. Long term
    • Professional pool / snooker / poker. I played poker in bangalore and it was fun. I dint win a lot but I was able to read some players. So that’s cool. Other thing (pool) saw no action.
  2. Health
    • Kitchen setup (incomplete)
    • Gym membership (incomplete)
  3. C4E things (I will stop tracking these things and have C do these)
    • C4E Base
    • Design
    • Borderless agency
    • Adding films
  4. Shauk / Personal
    • Use of money to buy time – doing this already.
    • Better dressed – lol
    • Find love – lol!
    • Demand more from life
    • Speak better!

In case you know me, lemme know if I have missed something.

🥡 So, one thing that defines the past week?

Grind.
That’s the world I would use for the last two weeks.

Oh and in the previous weeks, the one-word reviews have been… 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, 09 (missed), 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (missed), 16, 17 (missed), 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 (missed)

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

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

The Life Manual for your 30s

If you are entering your 30s, this guide may come in handy.

I shared a link in one of the WA Groups I run (you can find a list of all groups I run here) and Neha asked me…

how would you write one for folks entering their 30s 🌿

I knew I had a lot to say, and when I asked for more details, she told me to write about “Relationships- with body, mind, spirit; pursuits and money; people.”

I understood this as 3 things. 

  1. Relationships 
  2. Pursuits and money. I will call this career. 
  3. People. 

I feel I am qualified to talk about the last two, and the next few paras would be about that. However, before you read, a few disclaimers. 

1/ I started writing this on a flight. Lol.
I don’t know why this is a disclaimer. 
And then I worked on this in the lobby of a cheap hotel. 
And then I was on a flight when I wrote this. 

2/ My advice would have worked for me if I were to relive my life.
You know, my kind of mindset, my kind of upbringing, my kind of emotions and all that. This is not general purpose advice. Most of what I said will not be applicable to most folks. Please take everything with a pinch of salt. 

3/ I am biased.

4/ Do your own diligence before you take action.
My advice is typically not for people who want to take it easy. I am indexed on hard work, harsh opinions and moving ahead in life. I want you to take action and do more. So, that bias will reflect in what I write. 

5/ This may sound like a rant from an old person.
Which it probably is. Even I am probably not aware. 

6/ I have nothing new to report that you already do not know.
Just that stories and examples from my life would be unique. And you need to find meaning and inspiration from those stories. 

So let’s start.

If you think your 20s went by fast, 30s would be faster.
And 30s would be more challenging.
At least it was for me. 

The world would expect you to “handle” adult things (like marriage, homes, children, careers). With maturity.

You would see your friends zoom past very fast. In my case, I saw ALL my friends rise through the corporate ladder faster than Bolt goes thru those 100 meters and earn all the goodies that come alongside (cars, houses, weddings, kids, access to lounges, business class travel, foreign holidays etc) with scary consistency. World does reward boredom. I on the other hand was stuck in some funk, and there were so many times when I knew I couldnt go dinnering with my friends because I cant afford the restaurants they go to.

And while the two things above happen, you would start seeing your fitness levels fade (unless you are working on it already). Fitness in terms of body, mind and soul. Body – you probably aren’t sleeping enough. Mind – you probably have stopped learning long ago. Soul – you probably are playing jumping jacks between relationships. See Appendix A.

Oh, and if you are entering your 30s in this day and age, you would be staring at irrelevance, thanks to AI and harder-working, younger people who are probably at the peak of their hunger. Thankfully, you don’t need to worry about older folks like me. My ilk is obsolete. Even this gyaan I am giving you can be articulated far better by an AI tool. 

And no, all’s not bad. Here’s the good part.

You are at a place where people will start taking you seriously. You are no longer a “kid” who’s only daydreaming and fucking around to find out. You are an adult who has probably “thought through” things, and you know what you want to be working on. 

You would also have some friends, acquaintances and well-wishers who’ve known you for a few years now. You would have earned some social currency for sure, and you hopefully have built some sort of safety net (in terms of savings). These connections, social currency and bank balance will come in handy when you want to do things. PS: In the subsequent part, I talk about how to build these two. 

You also would have some clarity on how you want to spend your time here and where you want to live. On where to live, see my biased take in annexure B. 

Life’s a gift, and we ought to make the most of it. Like Naval says, the journey is all we have and the attention is all we can give. So you need to figure out what journey gives you the most rasa and who do you want to gift your attention to. In my case, I was a foolish drifter till COVID struck and I was a slave to the vagaries of life. I went where life took me. When I was clueless, I followed the herd. When I didn’t know better, I would default to drifting. 

Now I try to live a more deliberate life – I choose who I want to meet, who I want to work with, what I do, when I do and where I live. I also know nothing is in my control and Pale Blue Dot and all, and this plane I am on can drop from the sky (it did not), and all my gyaan will have no consequence. Except that I would have seen one of the most gorgeous sunrises on the right hand side. Gorgeous enough for me to die with a smile on my face. 

Oh, and I am ok to limit my wants.
Here’s an example. I want to live in a certain building in a certain part of Mumbai. I know I can’t afford the rent of that place, let alone owning it. So, instead of me getting mindfucked about it, I choose to use that as an inspiration. I look at it each day (I make sure I see it everyday) and I resolve to work harder. And no, I don’t spoil my day-to-day work (my attention) by craving for it, but I use that as a goal that I want to get to someday. If you think I’ve given up, no I haven’t. I remain one of the most ambitious people I know, but I also am more aware that I need to enjoy this journey and give all my being to it. 

Now, after the meandering, here are my ACTUAL thoughts. These are not in any order. 

1/ Avoid vanity like the plague. 

This is the number 1 shift that folks need to make when they transition from 20s to 30s. 

Most folks I know are stuck in the vanity trap. I want you to get out of it. Na samman ka moh, na apman ka bhey. Go do Vipassana. Go read Aurelius. Meditations is a good place to start. Go practice detachment. Do whatever, but do not do it in the chase of getting recognition, rewards and all that. Do not work for the spotlight. Do not chase famous people. In fact, do not work to be famous. Do work that delivers value and if that makes you famous, enjoy the fame. 

No, this does not mean you don’t let the world acknowledge your work. In fact, it’s amazing to get rewards and it’s great to see your loved ones see your success. It’s also amazing to see greater access when you are famous. Truth be told, fame has its own advantages. 

But don’t make it the only metric. Let that be the by-product of your work. 

2/ Ready. Fire. Aim. 

Take action. 
Thinking is good. 
Processing is better. 
But taking action is best. 

One of my closest people defers all actions till they’ve internalised information, read thru opinion and thought thru things. In my opinion, by the time they take action, it’s often too late. But their deferring of action probably serves them well. However, I believe in action.

Get these three words tattooed on your forehead – Life rewards action.

So that you can see it everyday. And others can too. And no, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. 

Thing is, you didn’t come here cos someone was “thinking” about getting married or someone was “reading” about how to have babies or someone was “waiting” for the perfect partner. You came here cos your parents took action.

This laptop that I am writing on was created cos thousands of engineers took action.

This flight was comfortable because many people took action.

This post is happening cos I am taking action.

The prompt for this post came in cos a young lady took action. 

What action would you take?

3/ Stop with activism. Start with creation. 

No, standing for nature and human rights is not bad. 
But you are standing. Not creating. 

No, sharing social media posts about the atrocities of rulers is not a bad thing. 
But that’s sharing. Not creating. 

No, participating in boycotts is not a bad thing. 
Wait, it’s actually bad. 

Ignore this. 

So, us humans are designed to create.
If you create, you are engaged.
If you are engaged, your passionate fire rages from inside out, and lights up the world around you.
And that light, that gift is all we have! 

Oh and I read somewhere that we find meaning in creation. Think of the most fulfilled and most engaged people (I dont believe in happiness) and you would see that they are obsessed with creating or with their creation. A parent who dotes on their child, a filmmaker who cant stop talking about their film, a teacher who’s meaning comes from creating younger minds.

My meaning comes from sharing what I know and seeing others use it. I am a gardener who’s meaning is from tending to the garden and not from the wait of the fruits of the trees.

And while you are on creation, two things…

3.1/ Be less cynical.
Enough said.

3.2/ Stop hating capitalists. 
I’ve seen a lot of folks in their late 20s and early 30s hate capitalists. I don’t know too much about capitalists but like most things, most people of any type are bad. But some are some good. You need to pick the good ones, lessons from them and then move on. 

4/ Grass is greener where you water it. 

You can choose to live slow. 
But then stay slow. 

You can choose to live fast. 
But then don’t crave for slow. 

Balance is a myth. 
It’s a capitalist’s and a politician’s scam to keep you on the treadmill. You can’t have the cake and eat it. 

Pick one side and stay there. 
Now that you are in your 30s, you better pick a side. And take action. 

In my case, I love both the sunrise and the sunset. But I cant have both. One will require me to wake up early and the other will require me to stay up till late. I had to make a choice. I made one.

Another one. I want to live in the epicenters of action. And yet I want to live in the mountains. I know I have to choose one. So, instead of craving for the magnanimity of the mountains, I have made peace with living in a concrete jungle.

One more. I want to do things that impact billions of lives. What I do today impacts handful of people. And God knows that I want to work on things that impact large things. And despite that I dont beat myself over the gap between where I want to be and where I am.

Here’s a quesiton. What is your patch of grass that needs to be watered to make greener?

5/ Zubaan Ki Keemat. 

You need to work hard to have a zubaan that has some keemat. 

Rajesh Sir, one of my many gurus, is so punctual that I question the watch if he’s not on time. I’ve tried to learn this from him and each action I take, I try to do it in a way that it establishes that I am a reliable person who’s words carry weight.

If I’ve said something, that would happen, come hell or highwater.

Of course I am not perfect. I am often inconsistent. But I am aware of this and I am working on it. Also, if I am inconsistent, I am with myself. When I am with others, I do whatever I can to be consistent.

For example, if I tell someone that I am meeting them at 6, I ensure that am there at 6 but I’ve told myself that I will do 10 pushups and I dont do those.

Make a list of all times when you were inconsistent and then see how it impacts your reputation and reliability and social currency and gravitas. And you would have the answer.

6/ Reputation

Your reputation should be built from the time you hit your 18. Or 21. Or when you pass out of college. Sooner you start, the better. If you havent worked on this deliberatey, it’s time to start now. Your 30s are an even more important time to build a reputation. 

In fact, all we have is our reputation.

In your 30s, you can no longer appear to be a fickle person. You can’t be vibing thru your 30s. You will be entrusted with large things. In fact, you must WANT to be entrusted with larger things. You’ve worked hard in your 20s to build a life and a skill. This is the time you want to apply and scale and create impact.

And often these opportuniies are gatekept behind the heavy, closed doors fortified by the strongest locks that have only one key – your reputation. In fact, you walk into a room decades after your reputation has made itself comfortable in it.

Work on that.  

7/ Health

If I could change one thing about how I’ve lived thru my 20s and 30s, I would work hard to be healthier.

Ironic that I am in the worst shape of my life and I know that the road is a tough one from here on and yet I refuse to do anything about it.

Wait. Lemme go do 5 pushups and come back.
Back.
Could do only 4

So, I want each person who’s transitioning from their 20s to 30s to focus on their health. In fact, if you can, make health your biggest spends (not clothes, not fashion, not eating out, but health). I have started to. I recently made the most expensive purchase of my life – a membership at Foxo. I can see myself making more spends in the similar space. In fact, my work will probably index highly on health. I am encouraging all my friends and family to make more investments on health.

PS: Super inspired by Vivek who ensures that he’s physically active all the time.

8/ Place faith in people 

People create magic
You are people
You create.
You have magic. 

And while you do, work with others to do so. 

Find a few young folks that you can mentor. 
While you do that, learn from their exuberance and experimentation. And try to create things with them.

Find a few older folks that you can submit to.
On submission, see this tweet by Tushar Sir.
While you submit, try to see why they do what they do. Learn from their experience and stories.

I’ve had a engaging time here only because I was lucky to be surrounded by people 20 years younger and 20 years older. See SoG.

Ok that.
Phew.

This is it for the time being.
In case you have a thought, please let me know 🙂 

Annexure A

I’ve seen way too many people fall by the side when they get into a romantic / sexual relationship. While it’s an important part of growing up, in your 30s, life stakes are higher and you better not be trapped by just carnal pleasures.

If you have to, make your partner your strength. 

Annexure B

Here’s my biased take – if you do NOT live in some hub of sorts (Mumbai, Bangalore etc) and still believe in remote work propaganda, you need to accept that you will be left behind. 

Having said that, C4E is fully remote, and folks live at places like Nasik and Goa. But the folks who live at these places have accepted that they want to take it easy, and that’s a choice. You need to know what choice to make. 

On where to live, do read this piece by Paul Graham – Cities and Ambition

Annexure C: Additional Reads

I will keep updating this as and when I think of more things.

  1. Man’s Search For Meaning
  2. Shawshank Redemption

Lemme know what you think. Share this with whoever you think can find value. All the best!

Wk 21-25 – Weekly Notes

Notes, thoughts, reflections and everything else from Week 21 of 2025.

May 24
3:4p PM, Jamjar
Updated at 8 AM, May 26th at DN Nagar.

The week gone by was a super fast one. Naman and Vishal were around and that meant I was lot more busy with them. Reinforced the belief that you can either work or manage life. I mean, am sure there are people that manage homes and lives and all that. But I know I can’t. So that.

Ok enough of prelude. Let’s get going.

Let’s go!

💭 Highlights, reflections and notes from the week.

A/ Self-Image
Lemme start with the biggest, the deepest thing in my head and heart: my self-image.

Context – I was talking to somebody last week and I realized that I think that I am doing the worst in my friend and social circle. In terms of money, life, work, societal goals etc etc.

And this means that my self-image is really really bad. And like all problems that I need to solve, I need to work on it.

Now I don’t know how to do it but I want to make a note in this weekly update. And I want to reflect on that during the coming week. Let’s see how I do that.

B/ Photo on the internet
Continuing on the self-image thing, it is one of the large reasons why I didnt put my photo on the internet.

But, I now have many photos on the internet. On places like Linkedin and Twitter. And people are commenting left, right and centre. And that’s not cool. And I need to fix it. So that.

And no, I am not linking to those. Go find out!

B.1/ Personal brand
HIGH TIME I WORK ON MY DISTRIBUTION AND PERSONAL BRAND. COME ON AK! And AK, Happy birthday!

C/ C4E People
My people are stronger than I had imagined them to be. For context, at C4E, we have a tough client and I was of the opinion that we must let go of that client. Not worth the effort. But my team said they will manage. And they seem to be managing. So, yay!

D/ Push ups
I talked about pushups last week. I am glad to report that I continued for a few days. I’ve missed it over the last 2-3 days but I am mostly been thinking about it. So that’s cool.

I will eventually get to a point where I can do 100 push-ups in one go. Adding this to yet another life goal. Lol!

E/ Google IO / io
I saw the keynotes from Google IO. Loved that I am almost at the peak of my life at this time and I get to live and do great things.

I also saw the announcement by Sam and Jony about Open AI and io. And I want to scream in the void. There’s so much to do in life and we are fighting over religion. Sigh.

Thing is, when I saw the video, epiphany dawned onto me that they are actually talking about building things that will impact the way the world lives and works. Lemme give an example. When Apple made the iPhone with a touchscreen, I am sure they weren’t the first ones to make a phone with a touchscreen. But they definitely were the ones to show people what they wanted and marketed that well. To a point that people started to demand that. And other companies had to innovate to stay relevant. And that pursuit of relevance made these companies chase innovation and that chase of innovation gave a larger mass actual access to a better life.

Same thing with Tesla. Tesla wasn’t the first one to make electric cars but the marketing and communication around it made the entire world open up to the ideas of electric cars. And that forced every other car manufacturer to chase it. And that made the dream the reality.

So, that is the kind of impact that you need to have rather than doing delivery of groceries in 10 minutes. You build something that shifts how people live and operate. And then you talk about it. And then you enable. That’s something I want to work on!

Oh, and while I do that, I want to make money. To be able to do more things!

Makes sense?

F/ Mr Beast at a Billion Dollars
This seems to have not got its due because of all the other news from the last week (AI, Cannes etc). The fact that one-person from a non-celebrity, non-sports background is a billionaire is a remarkable thing. This gives me a lot of hope!

G/ Madhushala by Harivansh Rai Bachcchan
One of my favorite poems of all times. I dont know why am talking about them here but I listen to these often.

मेरे शव पर वह रोये, हो जिसके आंसू में हाला
आह भरे वो, जो हो सुरिभत मदिरा पी कर मतवाला,
दे मुझको वो कान्धा जिनके पग मद डगमग होते हों
और जलूं उस ठौर जहां पर कभी रही हो मधुशाला।।८३।

और चिता पर जाये उंढेला पात्र न घ्रित का, पर प्याला
कंठ बंधे अंगूर लता में मध्य न जल हो, पर हाला,
प्राण प्रिये यदि श्राध करो तुम मेरा तो ऐसे करना
पीने वालों को बुलवा कऱ खुलवा देना मधुशाला।।८४।

Also, related, see, these lines from Zakir. I dont want no one to come when I die (I want to die alone – caretakers of my will, please take note) but these lines ring home.

H/ Cheerleader of action
I was talking to someone the other day and I happened to mention that I am the biggest cheerleader of action. Lemme elaborate.

So there are people say they will do things and they’ve been saying it for 100 years. And then there are some people who actually do things. They move forward. Even if its an inch at a time.

I have this solid belief that I ought to support the ones who actually do things.

Often you would find people who fake and all that. But their actions show their true intent. You know, words > action and if you have to make a mistake, I love folks who err on the side of action.

Oh, this also correlates to that adage – “God helps those who help themselves”.

This tenet seems to have percolated in each thing I do and each action I’ve taken. I want to mention Roohi here. The kid has the tenacity of a warrior. She is taking action all the time!

Phew!

I/ Issac John of Ivory
Got connected to Issac John. He’s one of the founders at Ivory. The chat with him was one of the most hearywarming and interesting ever. I wish I am like him when I grow up.

J/ Baarish is here!
Yay!

K/ Khosla Ka Ghosla (and films)
Lemme talk about this in a tad more detail.

In the week gone by, I spent some time thinking about the medium of films. And I realised that we need to be a player in that.

Plus, I saw Khoslsa Ka Ghosla on Saturday at Balram‘s Secret Cinema Screenings. Revisited the ride of emotions that I get each time I see it. Made me reflect on a lot of things. Here are some…

Watching films is a communal experience that I am not sure I get the value of. In fact, I dont get the value of watching anything when you are in a group. No films. No sports. Nothing. And I know I am wrong. Because nations have been built, battles have been fought, planets have been conquered on the back these communal experiences. People meet ideas as these experience. People meet people. And most importantly, people meet inspiration. And these experience, people and inspiration makes people create magic. 

Coming to me, I am not fan of these. Simply because I am not the consuming kinds. Not passively. I want to be an active player in the dance of the universe around me. I want to not just have the front row seat, but actually build that seat! 

Ok, I am getting into the rant zone. Will skip.

Oh, I did meet Balram to talk about films and all that. Was a very very interesting meeting. Let’s see where it goes. Wish I was like him! I wont say more here.

L/ Saw a Working Man, A Jason Statham Film.
I love him!
I ended up seeing 2 films in the week!
Must fix this.

M/ Mario
Been watching Mario run videos on YT. And its the most therapeutic thing ever. Here is one for your viewing pleasure.

So that was from the week!
Phew!

📷 Some Photos from the week gone by

Here are some photos from week 21.

I quite like some of the photos that have some lessons. I wish I could upload those here.

And no, this does not have my photos 😉

🈺 The LARGE objective from the week gone by? And the next week!

Book 2
No update. Again, please stay patient. I shall get back to this soon.

PS: Dropped 2025 Plan a few weeks ago.

☑️ What did I get done this week?

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

At this point, the following things are important to me (I know too many but…) and these are IN ORDER.

  1. Health
  2. Meru
  3. C4E
  4. Brand SG
  5. People (Family, Friends, Strangers, etc)
  6. Book2
  7. Shauk (Music, Films, Poker etc)

Health. Didnt sleep well most of this week. Ate a lot of food that I shouldnt (not calling it Kachra, thanks J). Did a few pushups but that was that. A solid -1. Lol!

On this, addendum. When people realise that I am not well (when they see my tweets etc), they reach out to ask me how am doing. And I dont know how to reply to them. It gets awkward. Maybe going forward, I will not update my health conversations on public forums?

Meru. Was an ok week. Met a few people. Moved the needle. But still far from where I’d like to be. A 0.

C4E. Better than the last week. Cash flow remains a problem. This output for Foxo is kickass. I dont want to say -1. And I dont want to say +1. So a 0.

Brand SG. No action on this either. But some action. So a 0.

People. No action on this. I’d say 0.

Book 2. Lol!
-1

Shauk. Saw a couple of films. Met some new people. Not the best. But will have it 0.

So the overall score is -3 for this week.

Trends from the previous weeks: 0, -4, 0, -4, -5, -5, -3, -2, -1
The max I can get is 7 in a week. Let’s see when I get to it.

📊 The tracker from the last week

Looked at all the days I’ve missed 🙁

Must fix.

📖 Interesting Reads from the last week

I didnt read as much during the week. But I used my downtime to get some reading done. Here are some…

  1. Pritesh Jain’s Blog (on Punit’s Recommendation)
  2. This post by Balram
  3. PG’s new essay on good writing
  4. This tweet from Dharmesh Ba.
  5. This tweet from Hemant about taste, instinct and risks. Do read.
  6. Rick Rubin on The Way of Code. Probably the most impactful thing I read in the last week. This deserves a long discussion. I dont know when.
  7. This essay about Sarvam.

🧠 Reminders from last week

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

Here are things from the past few weeks that I want to remember. And no, this may not be a comprehensive list. In categories.

  1. Long term
    • Professional pool / snooker / poker – no action. I dont think this would see any action anytime soon.
  2. Health
    • Kitchen setup (incomplete)
    • Gym membership (incomplete)
  3. C4E things (I will stop tracking these things and have C do these)
    • C4E Base
    • Design
    • Borderless agency
    • Adding films
  4. Shauk / Personal
    • Use of money to buy time – doing this already.
    • Better dressed – lol
    • Find love – lol!
    • Demand more from life
    • Speak better!

In case you know me, lemme know if I have missed something.

🥡 So, one thing that defines the past week?

Busy for nothing.
I was busy for nothing. I had family over and thus I was busy for nothing specific.

Oh and in the previous weeks, the one-word reviews have been… 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, 09 (missed), 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (missed), 16, 17 (missed), 18, 19, 20

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

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

PPPPPS: I “wrote” some part of this post using voice to text. Can yout spot what part?

Wk 20-25 – Weekly Notes

Notes, thoughts, reflections and everything else from Week 20 of 2025.

Adding additional content (Saurabh Garg) for SEO ;P

May 18
6:34 AM

I started writing this yesterday at a Starbucks and then life happened and I moved along. And then I am back in the morning today to get this done. Oh, and I am listening to this as I write this.

Let’s go!

💭 Highlights, reflections and notes from the week.

A/ TDL Accountabiltiy Group
I have joined a WA group of some folks who post their daily todo list. And then at the end of the day, check on things they’ve done. I am starting it today. Made my list. And let’s see where it goes.

Here’s the list from day 1…

B/ Lessons from Hareesh Tibrewala
I will make a seperate page on this, tbh. I get to learn so much from him that I curse myself for not being with him sooner.

Here are some lessons from this week alone…

  1. Any team member, how so ever bad their sitaution be, if they dont contrinbute to the team, they are better removed. Of course you must have empathy and support and everything else. But you need to think team first. This also echos with the idea people vs people people thing that I read elsewhere. Also, see point C.
  2. Ask for accountability. As a leader of a team, my only job is to ask for accountabilility. Everything else follows from there on. All you need to is ask “what” and “why” and enable your people to deliver on those.
  3. Stop sharam. He asked us to focus on the outcome and leave behind the sharam and all that. This also coupled with this video from Gary Vee. Must be more shameless when seeking work. In fact this is one of those earliest things that Suvi taught me – never ask for work from friends and family. And I will have to unlearn it. I will have to learn the skill to seek work. One life, man!

C/ Idea People vs People People
This is the biggest lesson from the week gone by. And thanks to Thej for sharing this link. While the context and meaning is tad different in this piece, I am taking away something else altoghter. Which is as follows.

I know that the world is a tansient place. This too shall pass. And I know that in grand scheme of things, all pursuits are purposeless and with our lifespans in double-digits, whatever we may do, as a collective, will all not amount to much. You know, Pale Blue Dot.

At the same time, I also know that the journey is all we have (thanks, Naval). I thus try to invest all my time, attention and energy in to being present in the phase of journey I am in.

Wait, I am rambled.

The point is, I can either work towards caring for people or for caring for ideas. All my life, I have cared for people, at the risk of reputation, work, money etc. However after I read the post, I have made this mental switch where I will focus on ideas. No, I will not stop caring for people. But I will become a lot more ideas oriented.

D/ Start with Hi
This is the greatest life hack in the world.

All the things you ever want and ever seek are on the other side of a simple hi. If you make a goal to say hi to 10 strnagers everyday, you would be unbeatable. Reminds me of this talk by Jia Jiang.

Thanks to AD for this.

E/ Reflections from a Life Coaching Call
A person from MDI is taking up coaching as a profession. She wanted to complete her hours and to help her, I spoke to her.

While I spoke, a lot of things came out. I am listing those here.

  1. I am in flux. A lot is changing about me – work, age, emotions etc etc
  2. Deep down, I have become a stoic. Mostly. I still have a long way to go.
  3. I am not motivated by money or anything. But by access.
  4. In life, most things happen in tandem. If I am doing well at one part of life, I am doing ok at most parts.

F/ 15504 Steps
I made a bet that I will average 12K steps per day in 2025. As of today (day 137), I have averaged about 7500 steps per day. And if I have to get to an average of 12K, I need to do 15504 everyday for the rest of 228 days of the year.

Looks tough. But I know that we would hit the baarish mausam soon and I am hopeful that would help.

G/ I need a faster laptop
Even though this is a “new” machine (I use a M1 that got for a colleague and I took it from her when she moved on), it has started to give me trouble.

H/ Toughest thing first
I was talking to C abotu something yesterday. I told her that if you have a task list, start with the toughest one (not the longest one). The one that you are dreading the most. Do it. And the dopamine you get from that, take it to the second toughest. And so on and so forth.

I/ 5 pushups
Inspired by Shruti, I did 5 pushups today! If I can do this for a week, I will get into the habit. Someone inspire me!

In fact, I will stay on this thread. This week, I was talking to Mihir about how we need to change our identity as that of a “healthy person” and then build a life around it. And then I reaslied that it may be easier said than done.

I am gonna make tiny changes in the way I operate. And that means I will not eat anything crappy and I will walk (lol) and I will be more disciplined with food and I…

Lol!

J/ Parallels between C4E and CS
Yesterday, I recorded a solocast and I drew parallels between CS and C4E. Ambition, Aim, Resources, Team, Strategy, Execution and all that. And I realisesd that sports team, armies, event teams etc etc can become very effective tools to deliver lessons to people.

K/ Excuse as a roadblock 
One of the biggest lessons I “gave” out to NG and VM is that they need to stop hiding behind an excuse.

Heres the back story…

I gave them a small project to work on, and when they were working on it, they came back to me saying they didn’t have the footage for that product. They told me this after 3 days, and it took me 3 days to know that the project is not moving forward.

Essentially, they were hiding behind an excuse to get their work done. Which is not something that we can live with because we are a small company. In life, I think we could either have excuses or progress.

L/ C4E – Past.
While wandering thru Roam, was looking at my notes and spotted this email I wrote to a friend in 2017 about how I look at C4E as a business. As of today, 8, 9 years have since passed and nothing seems to have changed. Except that we are no longer an events agency. And that’s a good thing and a bad thing! Anyhow, in case you want to read, ask for access. 

M/ Here are other things that dont fall in any category.

  1. I am still looking for someone to join me at Meru. See this post. And this one.
  2. The time has come for the kids to go back. I hope they learnt a few things while they were here.
  3. I want to start some mini-IPs that are clones of Sofar Sounds, TED talks, My Next Guest etc.
  4. I am mindfucked with all the garmi all around me and I dont know what do about it.
  5. I see the importance of having a large group of friends – at work and elsewhere. I’ve been shy about it and I want to get good at it. If you are reading this, how do you make new friends? Especially when you are in early 40s.
  6. I want to get memberships at all exclusive and boujee places like Soho, MCA, Quorum etc. I dont know if I will even go to these places but I want to have the option of going!
  7. Made a tiny investment (~1 lakh) in a friend’s startup. Its a tiny number but this is my attempt to show my confidence in the friend.

So that was from the week!
Phew!

📷 Some Photos from the week gone by

Here are some photos from the week 20.

I thought I had clicked a lot more. But clearly I was wrong.

🈺 The LARGE objective from the week gone by? And the next week!

2025 Plan and Book 2

I have dropped the plan.

On book2, despite multiple attempts, I’ve not been able to make any progress. And no, I dont want to let go of that. If you are reading this, please stay patient. Let’s see when I am back.

☑️ What did I get done this week?

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

At this point, the following things are important to me (I know too many but…) and these are IN ORDER.

  1. Health
  2. Meru
  3. C4E
  4. Brand SG
  5. People (Family, Friends, Strangers, etc)
  6. Book2
  7. Shauk (Music, Films, Poker etc)

Health. I’d say I would give myself a 0. I didnt work out but I was mindful of what I ate. The week saw me struggle with garmi but I think I was ok more or less.
So, 0.

Meru. Not so good week. I moved things but I am not happy with the progress. Two critical tasks that I had to do – website and hiring – are open. And that means this was a step back. I will give myself a -1.
So, a -1.

C4E. No action from me. In fact, I saw the team struggling in my absence. C is doing what she can but we are not moving. So another -1.
So, a -1

Brand SG. No action on this either. But some action. So a 0.
0.

People. No action on this. Last week I had a lot of friends and family. This week nothing.
So, a 1

Book 2. Sigh!
-1

Shauk. 0 action. And thus a -1.
So, -1

So the overall score is 0 for this week.

Trends from the previous weeks: -4, 0, -4, -5, -5, -3, -2, -1
The max I can get is 7 in a week. Let’s see when I get to it.

📊 The tracker from the last week

Tracked most days! So that’s a win. Here’s the tracker…

Lemme know what you see.

📖 Interesting Reads from the last week

I spent a lot of time reading and reflecting. In fact, I would say that this was a good week when it comes to reading. Here are some pieces…

  1. Utsav on Taste. Link.
  2. Vivek and Molly on People over Ideas.
  3. This conversation between Jony Ive and Collision.
  4. Seth on systems.
  5. The “other” Saurabh Garg on How to Start a Startup.
  6. This post on X that talks about how Qatar happened to become what it has become.
  7. Someone compiled Kunal Shah’s content. Here’s the list. Since this is a compilation, this will not attract as much attention as a scarce piece would. Go figure why!
  8. This thread (old but worth it’s weight).

I had thought I would have more than 8 things to share!

🧠 Reminders from last week

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

Here are things from the past few weeks that I want to remember. And no, this may not be a comprehensive list. In categories.

  1. Long term
    • Professional pool / snooker / poker – no action.
  2. Health
    • Kitchen setup (incomplete)
    • Gym membership (incomplete)
  3. C4E things (I will stop tracking these things and have C do these)
    • C4E Base
    • Design
    • Borderless agency
    • Adding films
  4. Shauk / Personal
    • Use of money to buy time – on this!
    • Better dressed – lol
    • Find love – lol!
    • Demand more from life
    • Speak better!

In case you know me, lemme know if I have missed something.

🥡 So, one thing that defines the past week?

Regular.
It was a regular week with regular work and regular things and regular inputs and outputs.

Oh and in the previous weeks, it’s been 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, 09 (missed), 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (missed), 16, 17 (missed), 18, 19

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

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

Wk 19-25 – Weekly Notes

Notes, thoughts and reflections from the 19th week of 2025.

5:40 AM, May the 13th.
Tuesday. This is that weekly review that never went out.

If not for AA. Thanks, AA. I am grateful that I have folks like here that push me towards consistency.

Thing is, like most weeks, I started writing this on a Saturday, I wrote some and then I thought I would write the rest on a Sunday. And then I had to spend the day with someone, solving their crisis and Sunday went in a jiffy. I then pushed this for a Monday morning. But then that never happened. Cos Monday Monday’d with a million calls.

But here I am.
With the review.
Lets see where we go.

💭 Highlights, reflections and notes from the week.

1/ Looking for an EA / Helper / Business Analyst / Whatever you may want to call it.
At Meru, I am looking for someone to work very closely with me and make things happen. At C4E, many people have played that role – from SJ2 to SJ to CM to AK to Bri and many more in the middle. Each of these people has hopefully learnt a lot from me. In exchange, I paid them whatever I could. And then I took their help in getting things done.

At Meru, I need someone like that. I would like to run faster and thus I need this person. If you know someone who’s ok with an 8 lakh kind of CTC, is in Mumbai and is willing to wrk with me closely, please recommend.

Do read this post as well.

PS: While UTMs are great for marketers, I hate them!

2/ The India-Pakistan War
I wish I had more time to write on this. But I have to write this…

In one line, despite WHATEVER happens, am not on the side of war. Or on the side of nationalist boundaries. I know a lot of close friends and connections are cheering and rooting for military action that India took. I know there are rational reasons for that. I know we shouldn’t be aggressed up on. I know innocent lives were lost and they have to be avenged. I know I am a great fan of Mahabharata, that literally is about the greatest war of all times.

I also know that I am not the greatest fan of MK and yet I love his lesson on non-violence.

And yet I am not for war.

I wish I had the words to talk about why the war is a bad idea for everyone, everything. I wish more folks exercised restraint. I wish there was dialogue.

I would park this by sharing this.

3/ Kids in Mumbai
NG and VM are here for a few days. Krishna was here for a couple of days. And I am trying to spend time with them. And as a result, I am wasting time. I am being irregular with my updates. I am spending more time outdoors. I am not doing these reviews. I am scrambling at the last minute to get things done.

I need to learn how to manage time better.

The other good thing that am loving is that I have two young boys willing to listen to me. Wait, I have an idea! How about I give them my letters and have them discuss?

Point aside, I need to find a way to become better with my time.

3.1/ Hosted a Mini CSS
While people were / are here, AK hosted an evening full of music and conversations.

I have two videos from there. I am not uploading them here. But I am willing to share with whoever asks. Here’s the link.

4/ Voice Training
I talked about how I want to be better spoken. I chatted with Riya. And now, I have got Sonu Sir to give me some homework. And it’s similar to what Riya told me. And I know that I wont be able to do it. Sigh!

Apart from this, I saw a DastanGoi performance by Sikander Khan. It was good and could’ve been better. I am super inspired to do more to support more artists.

5/ Got Paras Chopra’s Book
Yet to read it fully but love his work and I am excited that he’s poured his ideas in a book. Also see this deck.

If you point out three mistakes in this post, I will gift you a copy ;P

6/ “The world was made by people who gave a shit”
I dont know where I read this first (I suspect, some tweet by Toby) but I have been thinking a lot about this. At work. At personal life. At everything else. I really want to be the person who gives a shit.

Contrast this to how we are trained and taught at India. Jugaad. Chalta hai. Need to fix this!

Next time you see me saying “koi baat nahi”, please tell me about it and I will fix it.

7/ Antler Next 100
Like I spoke last week, Antler released their Next 100 report. We at C4E got together and chatted on it. Lots of lessons for me. Need to convert those into action. AK, if you are reading this – do your thing.

8/ AI Experiments
I have been thinking if I should go do somethings with AI by myself. In the last few years I have not done anything by myself. I have only got things done. Which has served me well, TBH. I learnt the art of delegating, I groomed some folks and overall we are at a net positive.

However with AI, I have this FOMO like I had with Crypto and Web 3. So, I want to give in and do something by myself. Just that I dont know if I have the time to do this. I mean there are more urgent battles to fight – Meru, C4E. And there are other Shauqs (of book2, poker, pool, films etc.).

Or may be I can take one of the battles and use AI to ship something?

TBH, I dont know what I would do. Let’s see.

9/ Brain Games
I’ve been playing Peak, Lumosity and Elevate lately.

I dont know if these make a difference to anyone’s life but I do play these. I like the idea of challenging myself.

I used to play these long ago and it’s interesting to see that I am not doing as well as I did 3-4 years ago. Maybe I will get used to those games and become better? Or maybe these games actually work? Who knows!

Anyone has any experience here?

10/ Clean My Notes
I take a lot of notes. And in the last 2-3 weeks I have not organized those. I need to work on that. So I will do a time block and do that. #sgtodo

So that was from the week!
Phew!

📷 Some Photos from the week gone by

Here are some photos from the week gone by.

I loved that I was at the beach almost everyday this past week!

🈺 The LARGE objective from the week gone by? And the next week!

2025 Plan and Book 2

Both haven’t happened. I will drop the 2025 plan.

On book 2, I have hit a random roadblock. I will unclog it. You will hear about the next steps on the update for Week 20.

☑️ What did I get done this week?

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

At this point, the following things are important to me (I know too many but…) and these are IN ORDER.

  1. Health
  2. Meru
  3. C4E
  4. Brand SG
  5. People (Family, Friends, Strangers, etc)
  6. Book2
  7. Shauk (Music, Films, Poker etc)

Health. Last week was a tad better. I ate better. I still need to go to a skin doctor and the Foxo thing. But I was better. I will give myself a 0.
So, 0 there.

Meru. Good week. My co-founder was traveling and I had the baton. I think we moved the needle on most things. So that’s cool. A 0, tbh. I will give a 1 when we see progress.
So, a 1.

C4E. Some action. Again, I dont want to track this. Letting C handle the kitchen.
So, a 0.

Brand SG. AK has been releasing some of our conversations. I am sure it’s helping in some way. So, this is not really -1 this week. And no, it’s not even a +1 either. So, 0.
0.

People. I think +1. I was surrounded by friends and strangers and love and inspiration and all that.
So, a 1

Book 2. No action. For almost a month now!
-1

Shauk. Apart from mini CSS, no action on this. I didnt play pool, I didnt play poker. I didnt travel. Etc etc.
So, -1

So the overall score is 0 for this week.

Trends from the previous weeks: -4, -5, -5, -3, -2, -1
The max I can get is 7 in a week. Let’s see when I get to it.

📊 The tracker from the last week

I havent been filling the tracker properly.

Nevertheless, here’s it.

Lemme know what you see.

📖 Interesting Reads from the last week

I didn’t have a lot of time to read or reflect in the last week. But of the few things I read, here are some links…

  1. Paras Chopra’s slide deck. Link
  2. Shaan VP on Taste. Link. Staying on taste, I have bookmarked this by Utsav but yet to read. Taste has infact become a recurring conversation in my head.
  3. Shaan VP on Creativity. Link
  4. AK on her graduation. Link

I know I should read more, reflect more and write more!

🧠 Reminders from last week

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

Here are things from the past few weeks that I want to remember. And no, this may not be a comprehensive list. In categories.

  1. Long term
    • Professional pool / snooker / poker – no action.
  2. Health
    • Kitchen setup (incomplete)
    • Gym membership (incomplete)
  3. C4E things (I will stop tracking these things and have C do these)
    • C4E Base
    • Design
    • Borderless agency
  4. Shauk / Personal
    • Better dressed – lol
    • Use of money to buy time – on this!
    • Find love – lol!
    • Demand more from life
    • Adding this – speak better!

In case you know me, lemme know if I have missed something.

🥡 So, one thing that defines the past week?

Slack.
I am taking it easy. I need to do more. I need to remind myself that the day I dont work, I dont eat that day. Need someone or something to push me more to make me work harder and smarter. I am merely leaning on my people and I know they are working for themselves and at best, for us. But not for me. So I need to move my ass.

Come on, universe.

Oh and in the previous weeks, it’s been Getting back to action. 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, 09 (missed), 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (missed), 16, 17 (missed), 18

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

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

PPPPS: I had almost skipped this. But thanks to AA, I wrote this. I am glad. I need more cheerleaders like her in my life. Will try and find them!

Wk 18-25 – Weekly Notes

Notes, thoughts and reflections from the 18th week of 2025.

9:38 AM,
May 3,
Starbucks, Versova

I am back to my spot at Starbucks. Most days I get this, cos I come at 8 AM. Listening to this as I write this. The one before this was this.

So, lets get going with it.

Before anything, a couple of things.

After I wrote the 16th week note, some people (notably, Pavithra) mentioned that they like that version compared to the structured one that I’ve been writing over the last few weeks.

Second, I want to retain the review. As much is this note for the world, it’s for me as well. So that.

So, this week on, I will do the unfiltered, stream of conscious thoughts first and then the review. Lemme know what you think.

💭 Highlights, reflections and notes from the week.

A/ Travel
Each time I go out to travel, I sort of get derailed. This is the reason why I decided that I will not travel at whims this year.

However, the moh of meeting M got the better of me (btw, it was her birthday on the 2nd). And even though I was with her for a week or so, after the trip, I have gone rogue. I am not working as much. I am not eating well. I am not keeping a schedule. I am not tracking things as well.

But then, I love being on the road.

So, I will have to find a way to manage work and travel. In fact as we go along and Meru picks speed, time will become even more critical. And that means I will have to find a balance.

Lets see how I do this.

B/ Snooker / Pool
The biggest epiphany of the week gone by was that I realized I could still play a sport at professional level. I just need to find a way and structure it.

For the uninitiated, one of the oldest secret dreams of mine has to been to play some sport at a professional level. And the other, win the WSOP ME.

So this epiphany gives me a hope that I could get to both those! Just that I wont be able to pick this up for some years, to be honest. At this time, the priority is something else. But I will keep this “dream” alive and get back to it.

Oh, reminds me – my Everest dream and billion dollars dream. Sigh!

C/ Course on Camera
I finally recorded a course on camera. For Meru.

I don’t like it, to be honest. I hate seeing myself on camera or on a screen. And I hate that you charge to give the gift of your knowledge.

But I know its important. And needed. And it will help people. Plus its for a larger cause. So that.

And now that I have broken my course virginity, I need to get better at it. I even reached out to Riya to help me better with my voice. She told that I will have to invest 30 odd minutes everyday. I know it will be tough. I will anyway try and get better at it.

If you’ve seen me on camera, please do give me feedback on how I can improve.

D/ Diet Coke!
I restarted with Diet Coke. And, I LOVE IT!

I had some Coke Zero at BKK but I didnt like it at all. This one, I love!

Since I restarted, I am averaging more than 4 a day. I know its a lot. I will bring it down to more acceptable levels. Let’s see when and how.

PS: This is temporary. I will quit it again. On June 1. Marking on my calendar.

E/ Weekly chat with my people
Instituted a weekly chat thing with my people where I will try and be a more active participant in their lives.

For me, most of these people are work people. I tried to do this with friends (stole this idea from Hareesh Sir) but none of my friends showed any interest.

PS: I know that most people like solid boundaries between work and personal life. I dont. And I know some of my people at work may want these boundaries. And I am ok.

F/ Shilpa Desai
Met Shilpa for a brunch.
And realized that I need to invest as much as I can in finding more incredible people like her that I can be around.

The intent with these is to learn from them.

While a meeting may not give me deep insights about work and life and all that, the way they conduct themselves teaches a lot. For example, Shilpa is ALWAYS ahead of time. She doesnt touch her phone when she’s with anyone. She doesnt take notes per se but she remember things.

So that. If I ever get to work on Party of 9, I will want her on the first one.

G/ SO
Made some progress on this.
Early days.
Lets see where this goes.

H/ Twitter
Ever since I took it “pro” only, my frequency of tweets has gone down.

Not a good thing. Twitter has been my number 1 expression medium and goto place for a long time now. I’ve met some of my closest friends there (Hello, Krishna)! And I dont like that my usage of it has reduced.

I will try and fix it.

Thing is, its tough for me to filter out my stream of thoughts. And thus when I publish on twitter now, am thinking about what to write. And by the time, I’ve thought of it, the moment is gone!

I/ Language
I have promised Seema (from Starbucks) that I will work on improving my language.

Blame it on my background in events and growing up in Jamna Paar, I use very rough language and I use a lot of cuss words and I want to change that. No, no one minds in this day and age. But I want to practice self-control.

The promise is that I will only use that language that I can use in front of my parents.

Next time you see me use coarse language, please point out.

J/ Water Fast for 48 hours
I am writing this on a Saturday. My plan is to only have water, coffee or Diet Coke today and tomorrow. Or maybe Kombucha. Let’s see how this goes.

Update from Sunday. I couldn’t do this on Saturday. Will try on Sunday (today). It’s 8:35 AM and I am yet to eat anything. I am sipping on to coffee with butter.

K/ Naptick
This is the labour of love of two people who I REALLY care for.
V is one.
The other is in stealth.

I’ve known about this since the idea came into being. And now they seem to be ready to ship to the world. And that’s incredible! Love when people I love do great things!

PS: On this, C4E was an early partner to the team. A large part of work was done by Pavithra and team at CoLab.

L/ Read Antler’s Next 100 Report
Got a lot of ideas.
Made my people read it.
Got them to spot ideas.
Will jam with them and see how it can help them.

M/ House
I think I am done with the current place I live at. Multiple reasons. The biggest one being unreasonable neighbors. My landlord is brilliant but the neighbors, meh!

I need to find a new one.
And I need to also figure the money situation for that. So that.

Related: I have some stress on the money front. The thing is, for the last 10 years, I have not been able to get out of this funk. And I dont know what to do. I will not lie here, it does take a toll. However I think I am lucky that I can manage. As Vanita says, I am a survivor. More on private notes.

N/ The Psychology of Human Misjudgment
This talk by Charlie is among the best that I’ve ever seen.

I want to initiate a project C4E has rolled out a project where we invite someone to build this into a video (using AI tools) that is palatable for young people, in India.

C posted about this on linkedIn.
Any of you wants to take a shot?

O/ C4E started a new project with AD
AD and I have been partners at Podium. And when we decided that we want to not continue with it, we parted ways.

Ofc, we remained friends. If nothing, the friendship grew stronger!

So, when he came to me a few days ago seeking help for a project around personal branding, I had to jump in! Put him in touch with C and FV for it. Hope it works out!

That’s about it from the week.

📷 Some Photos from the week gone by

Here are some photos from the week gone by.

Lemme know which ones do you like.

🈺 The LARGE objective from the week gone by? And the next week!

2025 Plan and Book 2

Both seemed to have been derailed.

And I concede. I accept that I will probably skip plan for 2025.

I will however restart book2.
I will use Miro and a wall of my house to get it done.
Next week, you will see some action.
If you don’t, PLEASE hold me accountable.
cc Pradeep 😀

☑️ What did I get done this week?

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

At this point, the following things are important to me (I know too many but…) and these are IN ORDER.

  1. Health
  2. Meru
  3. C4E
  4. Brand SG
  5. People (Family, Friends, Strangers, etc)
  6. Book2
  7. Shauk (Music, Films, Poker etc)

Health. It has been a terrible few days with health. I will fix it from here on. Today’s fast could be the starting point.
So, -1 there.

Meru. Made some good progress, to be honest. I am not entirely happy but I like where we are. So thats good. However I will still give myself a 0.
So, a 0.

C4E. No action. In fact, I may stop tracking this altogether in a few weeks.
So, a 0.

Brand SG. No action on this either. I did record some podcasts with AK, but I am nowhere close to where I want to be. So, I will continue to be harsh on myself and give myself a -1.
-1.

People. I am tempted to give myself a +1 for choosing M and fam over work and other things. But I dont want to be “kissi ke itne pass” that I forget others. I can also give another +1 for burying an old hatchet. But again, I will be harsh.
So, a 0

Book 2. No action. For almost a month now. 🙁
-1

Shauk. No large action here either.
So, -1

So the overall score is -4 for this week.

Trends from the previous weeks: -5, -5, -3, -2, -1
The max I can get is 7 in a week. Let’s see when I get to it.

📊 The tracker from the last week

I havent been filling the tracker.
I got back to it properly on 1 May.
It wont have a lot but here’s a screenshot.

Please tell me what you notice.

Oh, I’ve made it private.
Why?
Well, I have started to add more context to it that I may not want to share in public. If you still want access to it, please let me know.

📖 Interesting Reads from the last week

I didn’t have a lot of time to read or reflect in the last week. So I will skip this.

🧠 Reminders from last week

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

Here are things from the past few weeks that I want to remember. And no, this may not be a comprehensive list. In categories.

  1. Long term
    • Professional pool / snooker / poker
  2. Health
    • Kitchen setup (incomplete)
    • Gym membership (incomplete)
  3. C4E things (I will stop tracking these things and have C do these)
    • C4E Base
    • Design
    • Borderless agency
  4. Shauk / Personal
    • Better dressed
    • Use of money to buy time
    • Find love
    • Demand more from life

In case you know me, lemme know if I have missed something.

🥡 So, one thing that defines the past week?

Getting back to action.

Like I said, each time I travel, I go down the slope of inaction. I am trying to get back to action.

In the previous weeks, it’s been Busyness, Action, Survive, Looking Up, Survival, Taste, Community, Respect, Money, People.

—

Phew!
I missed last week and it’s good to have written this.
Lemme know what you think.
See you around.

Oh, and this too shall pass!

PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes. The previous editions are here: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09 (missed), 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (missed), 16, 17 (missed)