Category: Weekly Notes

Wk 04-26 โ€“ Weekly Notes

Notes, thoughts, ideas, links and some photos from week 4, 2026.

7:41 AM, Tiruvannamalai

New Week.
New City.
And I love it!

This week, I was in Ahmedabad, Mumbai and then Chennai. And now here. Loved it. It’s good and bad.

Good – I got so many new experiences, new sights and new smells. You know, something shifts your internal chemistry when you have new experiences touch your soul.

Bad – The routine gets screwed. I sleep on unfamiliar beds, eat things that you dont want to eat, dont have a table to write on (I am writing this lying on the bed) and I am unable to work out. I can only imagine how the traveling salesmen, athletes, celebrities manage their fitness!

Ok, ranting. Lemme get to the weekly notes.

๐Ÿ’ญ Highlights, reflections, updates, notes and thoughts from Week 4, 2026

These are not in any order. And like last wee, I will try to include as many photos as I can.

1/ Ramana Maharishi

I am at Tiruvannamalai to visit Sri Ramanasramam, the Ashram of Ramana Maharishi.

I am not a religious person. Neither am I spiritual to be honest. I am indifferent. I am probably that Nihilist Penguin in human shape. Lol.

Anyhow, the visit has been worth it.

Especially cos it needed the grind to reach here (a flight to Chennai, a 4-hour road trip that became 8-hours long (thanks to a rally by Modi Ji) and the hunt for a place in the large town. If you get things easy, you dont respect those ;P

The entrance to the Ashram.

And some bouts of clarity that struck me.

No, I am definitely not the illuminated one. Never was. May get to that some day. But now that I’ve spent a day or two here, I did get some thoughts. For starters, I am a LOT more aware of the constant bombardment that we subject ourselves to. That I subject myself to.

While I was in the ashram, I didn’t use the phone and it was painful for the first few minutes. And then the silence engulfed me. And even when it did, there was this revolt from my system. I found myself reaching to my phone more than once, tbh.

I found myself thinking about how you can invest your time enquiring about who you are and what’s the purpose of life and all that. Or you can run the rat race (do see this). Or how you can discharge your duties and while you do that, you are helpful to people, the world and thus, in exchange, to yourself. And maybe that’s there is to life.

Truth be told, I’ve known this for a long time (that I need to be useful and be of help to people and that my salvation is in helping others get to their respective salvation). Each spiritual or inward experience brings that to surface. The only addition that seems to be happening lately is the move towards the oneness. I am far from it, especially because of actions and thoughts of so many people seem so… stupid.

Ok moving on.

One striking thing that I noticed about the Ashram was that there was no conversation about religion at all. While the leaning is clearly towards Hinduism (I could be wrong), there were no overt showcase of religion.

The most important thing I noticed is that simplicity with which he lived his life. They’ve preserved two rooms where Ramana Maharishi seemed to have lived, died and held meetings. And the rooms were tiny and sparse. An astute builder would have sold that much space as a cosy 1 BHK but we are talking about a guy who commandeers thousands (if not lakhs) seekers. And yet he lived in place with no opulence. Room barely large enough to do even yoga, white bedsheets and literally no furnishing. Made me wonder why do people chase opulence of palaces and kingdoms.

Reminded of that couplet by Mehshar Afridi. He says,

“Rehta Hai Sirf Ek Hi Kamre Mai Aadmi, Uska Guroor Rehta Hai Baki Makaan Mai!”

And no, this is not to be confused with Minimalism or hoarding. This is more from the space of needing little. You may or may have large wants. I’ve been there – want a lot, hoarded a lot, reduced those. And now I am an advocate of Optimalism – things that you need to live a good life. This includes, limited number of clothes, comfortable bed, cool bedroom, air purifier (while in india lol) and a Starbucks ;p

Lol!

Only I could have compared Starbucks and Sri Ramanasramam in one note. On the mid-wit curve, I am either the illuminated one. Or I am stupid. You decide. And lemme know.

The midwit curve.

So, to end this part, if I were to talk about who am I, these things come to the top of mind…

  • Medium thru which things happen. In words of Gokul, a medium of opportunity exchange.
  • Cheerleader of action.
  • Enable others to get to their salvation.
  • Be of service to the world around me. In words of Scott Adams, be useful.

And like most lists and things, this is WIP.

Ok. Moving on.

.

2/ Sleep

Lets move to worldly things like sleep and all that.

My sleep has been all over the place this month. Many reasons. The big one is of course all the travel. And the minor one is all the distractions. And I want to fix it. I can control the distractions for sure – other things will need some thinking.

I have realised that with age, unless I get my sleep, I am unable to function well. And on top of that, with lesser time at hand, I want to optimize the time that I am up. And thus means that I need to get more from my sleep.

You see how this is a vicious circle?

.

3/ Constant Simulation

Marrying 1 and 2 above, I am acutely aware of this constant simulation that I have subjected my mind to. I mean there is not a second in my day when I am not jumping from one thing to another. And that’s NOT cool at all. I can’t be of service to the world (or my loved ones) if I am unable to get deep into things.

So I need to find a solution.

I can start with the modern-day boon and bane. The mobile phone. I will fix my life.

Guess what made Beeple famous?

So, over the next 21 days (habit formation and all that), lemme try to fix this. And while I am at it, I will also try to add some more good habits.

So, I will be off SM (unless work), eat only Lal Babu’s food (if I am in Mumbai) and average 15K steps per day. And if I can do these three, without an exception, I will reward myself with a trip to Singapore in March.

Off SM means I will delete apps from phone (use only on laptop and that too ONLY when I am in a Starbucks). I will not actively post (unless someone asks me to open it). I will use my YT lives and these weekly updates as a way to share what I am upto.

Eat Lal Babu’s food means the things that are cooked in my kitchen by Lal Babu. If I am travelling, I will see what I will find to eat.

Steps is easy. Wherever I go.

To be honest, I was unable to stay off social media cos I thought that I will miss out on something important. I mean look at how fast the world is moving! But then, fuck the FOMO. I am sure the Village will keep me abreast with what I need to know. And news important enough for me to know, will reach me!

Oh, and this starts the day I land in Mumbai. Lol!

.

4/ Making Health my identity

Marrying the three above, I think I will make health my identity. Lemme explain.

A person like Virat Kohli is paid to play well. The largest ingredient in that is to be fit – physically and mentally. An actor like Ranbir Sing is paid to look good. The largest ingredient is perceived beauty. A corporate leader is paid to make great decisions. A large part of that is low cognitive load and thus they are offered comforts.

I am not an athlete, not an actor and not a corporate leader. In fact, I refuse to let my identity come from the work I do. However if I dont want my body to fail my brain, I need to keep the body well.

If I were to look at my work, I am probably paid to think and connect. Connect people, dots, things. And get things done. And I do all this with a lot of enthusiasm, effort and emotion.

Now, if I could do the same effort with same three Es, for my health, I would get fitter. So that.

Side Note: I saw a reflection of me in a mirror while I am here (in a tee and pants) and I dont like how I look. And this, I want to change.

PS: Credits to this book that I am reading.

.

5/ Chennai

I have loved my time in Chennai this trip. There was less traffic (probably because long weekend), great weather (needed AC but I could walk on the roads) and great people (Aashik, Nikhil, Aditya, Shravan etc). And there was enough things to do. There’s something about relaxed, no-agenda meetups

Also reminds me that I must travel more often (lol).

Red hearts pro max!

Oh, this is a photo from a random traffic signal in Chennai. I am told that all these red signals have red hearts. Lol.

.

6/ Nagarathna Memorial Grant is now open

The annual Grant is now open.

In Thej’s words, “I am creating a yearly โ‚น1,00,0001 micro-grant to support something meaningful. Grant is named after my mother โ€“ Nagarathna. The reason for grant could be anything as long its meaningful to you and people around. Though I prefer free and open source or creative commons projects, Itโ€™s not a must. Itโ€™s a no strings attached grant.”

I am a fan of Thej’s work and I support his grant. In fact, I instituted SoG Grant after I learnt about microgrants from NMG. I encourage you to apply and share word.

.

7/ Notes from flight to Chennai (AI 2780)

It’s no secret that I take notes when I am in flights, I take notes (this time I saw parts of a a movie as well and I must see more films as well and make more films) and here are some redacted, snippets from the flight.

  1. I need a main quest that gives meaning to life. I think running a business is not a quest. While its creating and keeps me happy and engaged and all that, its not a big one. Think of the quests that Dr Peterson talks about. Think of a “provider” for a family.
  2. I love being in flights. They allow me to think hard and deep about things. Need to make more such caves.
  3. I realised that I dont work harder cos I have it easy. On paper, I have a business that throws enough cash at me to keep happy and maybe this is a problem? I dont talk about this often. Must do.
  4. I am not even an petty thief!
  5. What do I focus on this year – yet to find out. I have options – events, defi, Helio.
  6. Live a life where I work hard, get paid well and I pay people well. Sanket told me this first. So that.

.

8/ Films

Staying on the notes, I think I must make movies!

I dont know why I keep coming back to it. There was a time when I was convinced that I wanted to make movies. I chased that dream. Made some moves. Failed. And now that I am back to thinking of the next steps, I find myself wanting to do movies! And even though I know that AI will screw this business, I am still keen on doing that.

This seems to be the constant itch that I cant seem to get away from. As a child, I had wanted to make ad films, then I wrote a book, then some short films and then I have been all over the place. I must either scratch the itch (make films and get over with it) or I must bury the hatchet!

.

9/ WordPress vs Substack

Substack seems to be evolving into a CMS and an ecosystem. It seems to be evolving into a blogger / Medium. Compared to wordpress, I think Substack offers a lot of advantages and I am almost on the fence about moving my words to Substack.

I typically want to own my content and words and all that and while on Substack as well, the words would be mine, I am still on the fence about it. The ones who’ve moved, what do you think?

Any other learned opinions?

.

10/ Misc things from this week

Here are some thing that I want to capture but not necessarily talk about in great length.

  1. This speech is kickass. Do see. It talks about The Power of the Powerless. One of the best texts I’ve ever read in a long long time.
  2. This group of musicians, Patiala Mehfil, has my heart. Each time I see a great music act, I want to get into that business.
  3. This campaign by Plum is KICKASS. I wrote about it here. If you are a marketer, please take note.
  4. DD held their Darbar in Chennai. OFC, I didn’t attend it but a win for someone from the village.

Guess this is it.

I dont have a lot of reads, link etc this week (travel, you see). Maybe more next week.

.

๐Ÿˆบ Photos from Week 4

Here are some.

Over the next weeks, I will retire this. Takes a lot of time and gives no ROI. Plus I now include pics in the commentary section. Lets see.

.

๐Ÿˆบ Trackers from Week 4

At some point in time, I will have detailed trackers to show. But for the time being the small numbers that I have tracked are…

  • Average Steps -9047. I want this to be 15K over the next 20 days or so.
  • Pickle Sessions – 1. I want this to be 3 over the next few days. I also want to upgrade to Paddle one of these days.
  • YT Live Sessions – 4. Missed for the 22nd, 24th and 25th. Will miss 26th as well unless i do it from the car, en route to Chennai. Let’s see.

What is missing?
Well, sleep, workout, yoga sessions, food, emotions, habits, money and more.

.

๐Ÿˆบ Action on LARGE objectives for the year

In this section, I will capture my progress on large objectives for the year. In 2026, I plan to do the following three thingsโ€ฆ

  1. Book2
  2. Human Flag Pole
  3. Save a million dollars

No action last week either. Jan is almost over and I have not moved an inch on this! Also, last week I mentioned that if I am gonna be moving around this year, how do I keep consistent towards the goals. I dont know the answer. Will think.

.

โ˜‘๏ธ So, what did I get done last week? And what will I do next week?

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

I will get back on this in the next update. This year, I want to track the followingโ€ฆ

  1. Health. I will work on sleep, food and movement.
  2. C4E / Work. I want to shortlist some idea that I want to work on.
  3. Brand SG / Distribution
  4. People (Family, Friends, Strangers, etc)
  5. Book2. I want to start with this.
  6. Shauk (Music, Films, Poker etc)

.

๐Ÿƒ๐Ÿปโ€โ™‚๏ธโ€โžก๏ธ Health

I added Health as a key section last year. I read somewhere that you need 4 things to live long โ€“ sleep, exercise, diet and community. I will track all four. And then some more variables that I feel are important to me. Letโ€™s see what comes out.

Like the last one, no action. Give me a few weeks.

.

๐Ÿง  Reminders from last week

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

Again, need a few weeks

Like the last two, I will get back on this in the next few updates.

.

๐Ÿฅก So, one thing that defines the past week?

Downtime.

The other words for this year have been: Journey.

โ€”
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. Previous editions:

  • 2026: 1, 2, 3,

PPS: Please do point typos.

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

PPPPS: This is the first โ€œupdateโ€ of the year and thus a lot of this is incomplete. Allow me one or two weeks to get settled. And, on this one, do lemme know what you think of the new format.

Wk 03-26 – Weekly Notes

Notes, thoughts, observations and updates from Week 3 of 2026.

Morning!
The first update of 2026 is here!

This one comes from a Starbucks (where else) at Ahmedabad. Am here to meet Krishna and this is my 3rd trip / city in this year already (the other ones were Pune and Delhi (+Gurgaon + Noida)). The 4th trip is to Chennai next week. And I love it. I missed being on the road.

As I look back to 2025, I am wondering, how did I even agree to be bound to one place? Dont get me wrong. I am all for routines and discipline and all that but I know that us humans were not supposed to settle down. If my memory serves me right, it was agriculture that tamed us (I think I read this in one of Harari’s books) and while settling has had its advantages, its the voyagers and scouts and road warriors who’ve show us the way.

In fact, in our life time, there are people who’re showing us that adventurers push the “human race forward“. From the guy who jumped from Stratosphere (for Red Bull) to the ones who’ve taken rockets to space (Hi, Elon!) and lived at ISS to the ones who didn’t make it — each of these people paved the way for us as a race. The ones who are tethered to a place, eating popcorn and paddling convenience in 10 mins must be grateful to these folks.

Listen to this as you read this…

“push the human race forward”

Ok, I can rant for hours on this. But let’s move on.

So, this year on, I plan to be lot more consistent. Lol. However if the 15 days of 2026 are to go by anything, I have an uphill task. And at least as of today, I am committed.

Ok, again. Ranting. Lemme get to the weekly notes.

๐Ÿ’ญ Highlights, reflections, updates, notes and thoughts from Week 3, 2026

So, this is the first one of the year and I want to try a different format.

I will talk about what I learnt and what I thought and all that. And I will use cues from all the things I’ve consumed and saved (you know, photos, quotes, links, notes). This of this as me talking to myself.

Lets go!

1/ Nirula’s
Here’s a pick from the OG Niruala’s outlet in Delhi. Saw it on this trip.

the OG Nirula’s outlet in Delhi

Growing up, the HCF was such a rage that I would save for it. I was reminded that they used to run an offer where any kid who got about 85 would get a free sunday or an ice-cream and I remember my sis getting those for free all the time (she was the studious kinds and did well at school).

.

2/ Habit Stacking Cards
These cards come from Shardul and Good Habits Club. Such a simple idea. And such a powerful one.

In case you wish to order these, ask me!

PS: A lot of work on HelioCoach will happen from the foundations of these stacking cards.

.

3/ The console from an event.
Nothing much to say here but I love these messy things like the console. And if you notice, the mess at the back of the screen – the wall that separates the dreamers from the doers.

From an event console

If I had my way, I would only do events. Blame it on Suvi, Anna and Gravity!

.

4/ Sacrifice vs Desire
I saw this on instagram probably and I was so moved that I couldnt sit still. All my life I’ve seen so many people want so many things and give so little towards that it hurt my head and heart. I didn’t have the words to tell them how to give more to get more. And then I saw this and I was, WOAH!

What are you sacrificing?

And in fact, I’ve lived all my life with the sacrifice first lens (not that I have a lot to show for that and it has served me well – after all, I live an almost “free” life (this year I plan to be more kind on myself)). I wish I could tell more people that they need to do more to get more.

Oh, and in case you are unable to sacrifice a lot, tame your desire!

.

5/ Lesson in Persistence
This comes from Insta as well (I love insta for visual cues) and reinforces another thought that I believe in – stay at it. Keep digging. Find meaning in adventures and pursuits and even in suffering.

How many reps did you do to get to your goal?

No, I am not justifying suffering.

All I am saying is that the journey and the highways and the speedbumps that come along the way make the journey exciting and worth it. When you see the scenery change as you go forth, you start to travel deeper inside. There is a reason that despite all the air travel, roadtrips are alluring.

.

6/ Unreasonable People
One of my recurring tropes and inspiration has been this category of people that we call unreasonable people. These are the people who dont settle for an answer. They are the ones who are persistent, sacrifice all they have and like I paraphrased in the beginning, push the human race.

Who’s the most unreasonable person you know?

In fact, one of my goals is to find more unreasonable people and become friends with them.

.

7/ “Jo beet gayi so baat gayi”
Harivansh Rai Bachchan wrote this poem – Jo beet gayi so baat gayi. Vipassana taught me the concept of Anicca. Both these loosely teach that what’s happened has happened and you need to move on.

Of course you are human and it’s tough to move on. And my biggest fear of life is that I will die alone. Each person who I care for, supported, took care of will desert me at some point in time. And this is not an unfounded notion. I have had friends, business partners, lovers and people from every other deep relationship walk out on me.

At first, I was angry, confused and sore. I went thru the stages of grief. Luckily, I came out ok on the other side.

But now as I start to age and start to hit the mid-life crisis and all that, I have lot more acceptance. In fact, more than mere acceptance, my first reaction when someone moves on is, “I am so happy for you”.

And thus when I saw this cartoon, I felt seen!

I am indeed so happy for each person who moves on!

So that.

.

8/ Dan Koe
I’ve been reading thing from Dan Koe and oh man, WHAT A GUY!

My primary medium of discovery is his X – @TheDanKoe. Some of the pieces I’ve read and been thinking on are articulation (something that I saw Dr Peterson talk about as well), fix life in one day and on multiple interests. Each of these are what I would love to stand for. Each of these are what I want to talk about. Each of these are what I want to find an answer to!

I invite you to read more about him.

.

9/ Scott Adams
One of these days, I woke up with the news of Scott Adams passing away. And no, I was not really moved about it but I do remember waking up to a same news about Steve as well (in 2015). Here’s my post after I learnt of Steve’s passing.

Anyhow, the point is, Scott published a final letter on X and he ended it up with two words.

Be Useful.

These two words have been the mantra of life for a long time now. And I think I want to double down on this. I want to be of service to many more people, and at a large scale. And I want to do this while I put myself first, make money, take care of my village and yet build with an abundant mindset.

.

10/ WA
I’ve officially lost control of my WA. There are way too many texts and way too many messages. I dont think I will ever be able to get back to people in time. And I apologize for that in advance. I will have to publish this multiple times on the internet.

.

Other, misc updates.

These are not in any order.

1/ My eyes are getting weak.
I can feel nausea, headache and blurry vision when I see at the screen for long. I will get some checkup done.

2/ “There is no them”
I am not the spiritual kinds but I do know that all of us are “one”. I am not very articulate about it but I will work on this as we go along. Oh, next week, am visiting Ramana Maharshi’s ashram.

3/ YT Live is on!
I go live each day around 815 and talk about whatever is at the top of my head. I want to do this everyday but I am unable to. Also, I want to do this at 8 but logistics prevent me from that!

You may see it here.

4/ Insta stories are live!
See this where I want to upload a picture each day. So far I’ve missed a few and I will try to not miss many.

5/ Little flunky, small time thief
There was a distinct time when I felt like a small-time paddler. CB would be sad at me. I remember him saying, “I am not much of a petty thief, either I want the entire world or nothing”. So I need to up my ante here.

.

๐Ÿˆบ Action on LARGE objectives for the year

In this section, I will capture my progress on large objectives for the year. In 2026, I plan to do the following three things…

  1. Book2
  2. Human Flag Pole
  3. Save a million dollars

I am most confident about book 2. Dr Hitakshi tells me that flag pole will take 2 years of sorts. The million dollars one, I am not sure yet. Lets see.

So, as a status update, I will give myself a zilch. In the last 15 days, I have taken absolutely zero action. The next week will also be a tough one. I am on the road. Maybe the last week is when I will show real traction. I also need to think that if this year is going to be full of travel and all that, how do I plan to stay consistent and focussed. #sgtoThink

.

โ˜‘๏ธ So, what did I get done last week? And what will I do next week?

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

I will get back on this in the next update (for the next week) but this year, I want to track the following…

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

In the coming week, I want to do the following…

  1. Start with book 2
  2. Start with serious fitness things (lol)
  3. Shortlist some idea that I want to invest time and money on.

.

๐Ÿƒ๐Ÿปโ€โ™‚๏ธโ€โžก๏ธ Health

I added Health as a key section last year. I read somewhere that you need 4 things to live long โ€“ sleep, exercise, diet and community. I will track all four. And then some more variables that I feel are important to me. Letโ€™s see what comes out.

Like the last one, I will get back on this in the next update (for the next week).

.

๐Ÿง  Reminders from last week

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

Like the last two, I will get back on this in the next update (for the next week).

.

๐Ÿฅก So, one thing that defines the past week?

Journey.

Triggered by the trips that I’ve taken this year. And more importantly, the inward one.

โ€”
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.

PPS: Please do point typos.

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

PPPPS: This is the first “update” of the year and thus a lot of this is incomplete. Allow me one or two weeks to get settled. And, on this one, do lemme know what you think of the new format.

Wk 51-25 โ€“ Weekly Notes

6 PM, 21 Dec 2025
Starbucks, Versova

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

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

Let’s go.

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

Music from Lootera

Ok, lets go…

๐Ÿ’ญ Highlights, reflections, updates and notes

As always, these are not in any order.

A/ Ayesha at Filmfare OTT

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

๐Ÿ™‚

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

Love when my people do well.

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

B/ Lal Babu

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

Today was his day 1.

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

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

C/ Unseen (the Deepinder Goyal biography)

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

Among the things that am taking away are…

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

D/ Hareesh Tibrewala

I met Hareesh Sir after a while.

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

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

E/ Pickle Ball

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

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

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

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

F/ Misc things

In no order…

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

Guess this is it for the week.

See you next week. Till then, peace!

โ€”
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:ย 01,ย 02,ย 03,ย 04,ย 05,ย 06,ย 07,ย 08ย 10,ย 11,ย 12,ย 13,ย 14,ย 16,ย 18,ย 19,ย 20,ย 21,ย 23,ย 25,ย 26,ย 27,ย 28,ย 29,ย 30,ย 31,ย 32,ย 33,ย 34,ย 35,ย 36,ย 37,ย 38,ย 39,ย 40,ย 42,ย 44,ย 46,ย 47

Iโ€™ve missed the following weeks: 9, 15, 17, 22, 24, 41, 43, 45, 48, 49

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

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

Wk 50-25 – Weekly Notes

Notes from Week 50 of 2025

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

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

Since then, a couple of things happened.

A, I had to travel on two consecutive weekends.

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

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

This “worth a lot” is subjective.

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

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

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

So that.

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

And with that, we come to the review!

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

๐Ÿ’ญ Highlights, reflections, updates and notes

As always, these are not in any order.

1/ #in2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I will place more tangibles around it.

2/ Unseen (the Deepinder Goyal biography)

I am reading Unseen these days.

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

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

3/ Free man…

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

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

– Red, The Shawshank Redemption

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

Source: Unknown.

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

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

4/ Ananta Quest

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

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

I really want to do more of this.

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

5/ Docu on theatre

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

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

N/ Misc things that am wondering on…

In no order.

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

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

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

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

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

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

6/ This tweet. I am copy pasting text.

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

Made me think.

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

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

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

PPS: This series of posts is inspired byย Thejย and hisย weekly notes.

The previous editions: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42,ย 44,ย 46, 47

Iโ€™ve missed the following weeks: 9, 15, 17, 22, 24, 41, 43, 45, 48, 49

Wk 47-25 – Weekly Notes

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

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

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

.

๐Ÿ’ญ Highlights, reflections, updates and notes from the past two weeks

And no, these are not in any order.

1/ Year Compass

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

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

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

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

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

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

2/ No Coffee

See this tweet.

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

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

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

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

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

3/ Death bed

See this tweet.

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

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

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

So that.

4/ Warikoo’s Team’s Salary

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

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

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

5/ Magic of IRL meetings and Power of Handshakes

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

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

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

6/ Nath Saab

For context on him, read this.

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

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

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

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

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

So, that.

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

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

7/ Inevitable future

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

Some themes I see emerging…

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

I am sure there are many that I am missing.

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

Give me thoughts?
Ask me questions?

8/ Urban Poverty of Time

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

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

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

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

9/ On saying yes!

See this tweet.

I have lived a life of โ€œalways yesโ€ till I was 40. And my excuse was lack of focus. And undiagnosed ADHD. This served me ok โ€“ I learnt a lot. But in societal measures, this didnt serve me well.

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

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

10/ Harada Method

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

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

The point?

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

.

Ok enough!

.

๐Ÿ“ท Some Photos from the week gone by

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

.

๐Ÿˆบ LARGE objective from the week gone by?

I had two large things when I started this year. Book 2 and a yearly plan (that Iโ€™ve been writing for a long time. This year I couldnโ€™t). And I just added health a few weeks ago.

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

.

โ˜‘๏ธ So, what did I get done last week?

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

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

.

๐Ÿ“Š The tracker from the last week

Here’s the tracker. Publishing this after a while. Took a lot of effort ๐Ÿ˜€

What do you see?

.

๐Ÿƒ๐Ÿปโ€โ™‚๏ธโ€โžก๏ธ Health

I am not publishing this at this time.

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

.

๐Ÿ“– Interesting Reads / Views

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

.

๐Ÿง  Reminders from last week

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

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

.

๐Ÿฅก So, one thing that defines the past week?

Blur.

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

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

This week was not

โ€”
Phew!
Lemme know what you think.
See you around.

Oh, and this too shall pass!

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

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

Iโ€™ve missed the following weeks: 9, 15, 17, 22, 24, 41, 43, 45

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

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

Wk 46-25 – Weekly Notes

Updates from the weeks 45 and 46.

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

Its been two weeks since I’ve written this.

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

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

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

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

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

Ok, enough. Lets get started.

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

.

๐Ÿ’ญ Highlights, reflections, updates and notes from the past two weeks

And no, these are not in any order.

1/ Mahabharata

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2/ Kindness and Politeness

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

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

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

Case in point, Riya.

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

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

I will do better.

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

3/ Health

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

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

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

Lemme make my case here.

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

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

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

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

NOT AT ALL!

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

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

Ok, moving on.

BRB, ordering a pizza for myself.

4/ Naval on Curating People

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

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

On each, I found myself nodding vigorously.

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

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

What say?

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

5/ Smart and yet poor

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

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

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

Lemme try to decode.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Third thought is using money to please others.

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

Fourth thought is Survival. And not growth.

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

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

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

I’ve chosen the later.

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

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

Sixth is my philosophizing.

Lemme start with a quote by SRK.

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

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

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

6/ Punit Pania and Vishwas Sharma

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

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

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

.

๐Ÿ“ท Some Photos from the week gone by

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

.

๐Ÿˆบ LARGE objective from the week gone by?

I had two large things when I started this year. Book 2 and a yearly plan (that Iโ€™ve been writing for a long time. This year I couldnโ€™t). And I just added health a few weeks ago.

I dont have an update for the last two weeks.

.

โ˜‘๏ธ So, what did I get done last week?

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

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

.

๐Ÿ“Š The tracker from the last week

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

.

๐Ÿƒ๐Ÿปโ€โ™‚๏ธโ€โžก๏ธ Health

Like the tracker, I am not publishing this either. Theย food log, myย daily health log channelย continue to be active.

.

๐Ÿ“– Interesting Reads / Views

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

1/ This yearโ€™s Year Compass is here.

https://yearcompass.com

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

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

Pro Tip: Download the Digital-A4 version, take two sets of printouts and work with a pen and paper (not iPad / Comp). And on the first, write everything. And on the second refine. And use the second one as your report card for 2025 and then the roadmap for 2026.

Good luck!

2/ On saying yes!

See this tweet.

I have lived a life of โ€œalways yesโ€ till I was 40. And my excuse was lack of focus. And undiagnosed ADHD. This served me ok – I learnt a lot. But in societal measures, this didnt serve me well.

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

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

3/ Harada Method

See this tweet.

.

๐Ÿง  Reminders from last week

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

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

.

๐Ÿฅก So, one thing that defines the past two weeks?

Sad.

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

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

This week was not

โ€”
Phew!
Lemme know what you think.
See you around.

Oh, and this too shall pass!

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

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

Iโ€™ve missed the following weeks: 9, 15, 17, 22, 24, 41, 43, 45

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

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

Wk 44-25 โ€“ Weekly Notes

Updates from Weeks 43 and 44 of 2025.

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

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

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

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

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

.

Brings me to the next part of this post.

๐Ÿ’ญ Highlights, reflections and notes from the past week

And no, these are not in any order.

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

.

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

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

.

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

.

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

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

.

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

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

.

f/ sgMahabharata is at 39 posts!
w00t!

.

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

.

๐Ÿ“ท Some Photos from the week gone by

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

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

.

๐Ÿˆบ LARGE objective from the week gone by?

I had two large things when I started this year. Book 2 and a yearly plan (that Iโ€™ve been writing for a long time. This year I couldnโ€™t). And I just added health a few weeks ago.

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

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

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

.

โ˜‘๏ธ So, what did I get done last week?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Book 2. Nothing. -1.

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

So the overall score for the week is 0!

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

Brings me to the tracker of the week…

.

๐Ÿ“Š The tracker from the last week

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

.

๐Ÿƒ๐Ÿปโ€โ™‚๏ธโ€โžก๏ธ Health

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

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

.

๐Ÿ“– Interesting Reads / Views

Quite a few. Here we go.

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

1/ From Collabfund

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

โ€œI found in my career that if you take pride in the little jobs, people will think you worthy of the bigger jobs.โ€

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

Unfortunately, I didnโ€™t appreciate this lesson enough early in my career. As an example, after graduating from business school, I thought I could come right in and impart my newly found wisdom, when I should have been a better listener and executed the mundane tasks with as much vigor as the more interesting ones.

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

โ€œJust focus on doing the best you can with those two reps. Make them as perfect as you possibly can. Then focus on the next two, and the next two, and the next two.โ€

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

2/ From the markers of Hey

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

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

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

3/ From the founder of Replit

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

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

The one that I cant seem to wrap my head around is โ€œlocking inโ€. And I am not sure where I am on the โ€œplaying by the rulesโ€. I am from India and to make things work, we often have to be flexible on rules and ethics.

4/ Alexโ€™s three-month marketing plan

This post by Alex is INCREDIBLE!

My takeaways areโ€ฆ

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

Also listed these here. Ask for access.

5/ Julian Cole on Strategy

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

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

6/ Rahul Mathurโ€™s breakdown of Meesho

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

In this thread, he breaksdown Meeshoโ€™s IPO. For me, the highlights and lessons areโ€ฆ

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

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

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

7/ โ€œThis is new to meโ€

On this tweet, saw this lineโ€ฆ

Instead of โ€œIโ€™m bad at thisโ€. Say โ€œThis is new for meโ€. This gives your brain the space to learn instead of shut down. This is neuroplasticity in real time.

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

8/ How to engineer luck

This post talks about how to engineer luck.

Now, luck is one of the favorite topics and while I didnt learn anything new from the post, it was interesting to read from somoene elseโ€™s lens. Some lines that Iโ€™ve highlighted areโ€ฆ

A/ Unscheduled calls. Iโ€™ve started to make these lately. Not sure

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

B/ Luck Razorโ€ฆ

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

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

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

D/ Give!

Give aggressively, give early, give without permission.

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

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

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

This is a feel-good post for Sunday.

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

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

10/ Chat GPT on Longevity

This post on insta has some thoughts on longevity.

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

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

While on longevity, do read this piece from Lenny Sanโ€™s newsletter.

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

I knew this intuitively but then I got reading.

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

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

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

12/ India against India

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

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

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

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

13/ Creative Slop

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

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

14/ Conceptual stories vs Perceptual Stories

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

15/ Notes on India

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

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

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

โ€ฆ

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

16/ Jack and Jane of trades

In this tweet, the writer claims,

โ€œSpecialize or dieโ€ made sense in 1995. In 2025, itโ€™s a death sentence. The future belongs to generalists, and the proof is in Systems Theory.โ€

Do read the thread.

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

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

Once you are โ€œfreeโ€ you are unable to find yourself fitting into any structures and you find ways to get back the call of the wild.

I can 100% resonate to this ๐Ÿ™‚

18/ This post by Ankit Sawant on Cleartrip

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

19/ On people

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

20/ On running

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

I didnโ€™t want my id to overcome my superego

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

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

See this link.

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

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

22/ Social Capital Balance Sheet

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

Two large takeaways for me

  • 1/ โ€œYour ability to affect the world, to bring things into being, to convince people to work with you, work for you, and for investors to invest with you is based deeply in your reputation. And if you donโ€™t care what people think about you, you will necessarily accomplish less, work with fewer people, raise less money.โ€
  • 2/ โ€œHumility is the delta between performance and egoโ€

๐Ÿง  Reminders from last week

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

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

.

๐Ÿฅก So, one thing that defines the past week?

Getting back in action.

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

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

โ€”
Phew!
Lemme know what you think.
See you around.

Oh, and this too shall pass!

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

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

Iโ€™ve missed the following weeks: 9, 15, 17, 22, 24, 41, 43

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

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

Wk 42-25 โ€“ Weekly Notes

Updates from Week 41 and 42 of 2025.

5:30 PM. Oct 18, 2025, Starbucks, Versova.
6:40 AM. Oct 19, 2025, Mumbai Airport.
6:30 PM. Oct 19, 2025, Home (DG).

So, I am back to writing these notes after a week.

The last two weeks have not been the best and I a lot of it was things that I couldnt control. The good part is that I was travelling and I was reading (I read Morgan Housel’s new book; more on that later). And thus I was ok.

I think there’s a lot to unpack today. So, lets get going.

.

๐Ÿ’ญ Highlights, reflections and notes from the past week

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

A/ Most thanked person in Oscar Acceptance Speeches
I was talking to AD and someone else and I happened to mention that one of the lifegoals is to impact lives of so many people at such large level that I get to compete with Steven.

For context, Steven Spielberg is THE most thanked person at the Oscars.

Spielberg is THE most thanked person in Oscar acceptance speeches.

I would love to be in this club some day! I mean can you imagine the effort and the hard work it would’ve taken for a Steven to have these many people in gratitude?

Oh, and apart from just this, I would like to be in the acknowledgements page of books and biographies. So far, I am in a few and I would want to have chapters dedicated in there. And no, the point is not a shot at legacy or immortality, but at enabling more people do more.

And this reminds me of another tweet that I saw…

Tweets from MJS’ handle delete and thus had to take a screenshot.

Peter Keating anyone? SoG?

.

B/ Postcard Club.
Another idea from Thej that I am stealing.
Read his post here.

The premise is simple. I will send postcards, with stamps and all that to folks who opt-in to receive it. And at some point in time, I would invite other folks to send postcards to more people. And then we shall see where it goes.

Here are the first two postcards I sent.

From a restaurant in Goa.

In case you want to be a part of this club, DM me. And disclaimer – like most things that I think a lot about, there are no guarantees that I will do this.

.

C/ Morgan Housel’s Art of Spending Money
Read this book over the last few days.

Way too many notes.
Underlined a large part of the book.

A lot of what I read, I knew that already but there was a lot of reaffirmation and at times that’s the value of what you read. And since a lot of words were clustered together in the book and I was in the thinking zone, the reading was even more impactful. I think thats the point of reading books. Dense content about one topic. And reinforcement of the same via multiple examples and stories and chapters.

I think I will write an entire post on this, assuming I get time. I even did a YT live today. Not so happy but I did it and here it is.

On the live, at the peak, I 6 people joining in. At some point, I want to have a lot more people listening in. Not because I crave for an audience but because I want a platform large enough for me to have a large impact in life.

.

D/ 43
The other day, someone asked they wanted to create a meetup of young people. And I commented on it and said, if 43-year olds are allowed and young at heart are welcome I would love to be in.

Right after I posted this, I feel awkward and weird and sad. It sucked that I am having to justify that age is a number. I think it’s about time I accept that I am a never-was.

So that!

.

E/ AI Film Festival
Some kids are doing this AI Film Festival in Mumbai.
And wow.
Many emotions.
Here’s a list.

  • We had the same idea at C4E but we couldn’t do it. This is nothing but a slap on the face. I need to build a stronger muscle for action. Plus I need to inspire my people to do more. And do so faster. And ensure that we followup on action. And I want to encourage them to think larger. Each thing we start, we start with a small vision. I encourage that. And I want to change it.
  • I love the fact that AI is democratizing otherwise gatekept industries. Of course incumbents will catch up and bring things back to the mud but some new folks will arrive, shine and make hay!
  • My bachpan ka want of making films resurfaced. I made attempts with Red Carbon. But I was unable to sustain the partnership. I was very very hopeful when we did the tnks trailer. But I was unable to inspire my people to actually do. Maybe I should start taking matters and things in my own hands and being a pesky boss?
  • Glad that someone is doing it. Even better that young people. More power to them and other young folks. I am so very often reminded that so many young people are so fearless and so action oriented and so resourceful that I am often left ashamed and gawking at their greatness. Must surround myself with more young people.

.

F/ Updated the Vision Board
Here.
Not open for public access.
Made update in the Wheel of Life and while I did that, I realised that this is the tiniest I’ve been in my life!

Here’s the template that you may want to use to fill yours.

Saw this first on a Tony Robbins video

.

G/ Made a list of Regrets in life. Here.
This is WIP at this time.
Will evolve this as I go along.

The idea is that I want to live an open life and I want to not hide anything about myself from anyone at anytime. And this must include the goods and the bads, and the highs and the lows, the wins and the losses and everything in the middle.

.

H/ Theatre
One of the things I really enjoy in life, is, to indulge in theatre. You know, live performances.

While I love the feeling sitting face to face with the performers, I dont understand why the theatre artists invest their time and energy in theatre. Each ticket is like 200 bucks and even on great days, you hardly get some 100 people in the audience. So, a crew of 10 will make like 20K per show. And if they were to divide all the money between them (not even the expenses), they would get like 2K per day. And it’s pittance!

I dont get why people so this.

I asked some of my friends. And the answers weren’t very convincing. There are two plausible ones.

Someone mentioned that its the pitstop needed to get to Bollywood. But even in that, the possibility of a great outcome is like negligible. The returns are way too asymmetric to be logical about it!

Someone else mentioned that its the way of life and the purest artwork there is. Again, I am not convinced about that. I am sure there are other means to feel alive?

Neither is convincing enough to me. Any clues?

.

I/ Focus
One of these days, on my way back from Starbucks, I was walking with C and we were reflecting about life and all.

I popped a question.

If I were to look at 100 of the most successful people in the world and we listed top 5 traits that they had, at the most I will get a list of 500 traits and if there is a perfect overlap of traits, I would have 5 traits only.

I asked some LLMs about and this is what they had to say. So, lets say there are 20 traits that are shared by a lot of successful people.

Here is a list I made (a combination of what I learnt from AI and from my intuition).

I can say with a large certainty, that the list of traits would have things like hard work, ambition, focus, creativity, persuasion, discipline, growth mindset, perseverance, people skills, confidence, self-belief, humility and all that. 

And then I said to myself, I seem to have almost ALL of these and yet I am not even a mild success. I even tweeted about it.

I could make a mental nod against each thing and I could demonstrate actions and all against each. Except one.

Focus.

I’ve been told since I was child that I am way too all over the place and I need to focus. And I have strongly objected to any sort of focus ever. I have laughed at people who’ve told me to focus. I have even blamed it on my undetected ADHD.

And maybe, just maybe, I will focus on focus!

Lol!

So, may be, I will focus and see what I would achieve if I did one thing for one year.

PS: The effort on Meru has been as focussed as they come – I have not thought about anything else since late last year. While it is not yet any close to success but thanks to HT, MK, KP, VS and others, I am certain that it would be LARGE!

Bonus: Here’s my library of quotes around focus.

Bonus 2: Here’s a list of my values, as suggested by friends and others.

Bonus 3: Another tweet from a D2C founder.

.

J/ Self Cringe
Riya has been working hard to help me build distribution. And its incredible how much effort that young girl is putting! I am beyond inspired! Yet another case of young people doing superhuman things that make you wide eyed!

The only trouble is, I get cringed out each time I see myself.

For starters, I don’t like to see my face. And then a deeper reason – I’ve not done anything large or substantial to be able to give gyaan to people. Plus I am making tall promises to “teach” people to do more. I am not sure if this is correct!

.

K/ Mahabharata Series has crossed 25 posts
A few days ago, I promised that I will write a post a day on linkedin. And I thought it would be a good idea to write about management lesson from Mahabharata. It would kill many birds.

Some are…

  • I would get to explore Mahabharata as a subject. I love it and this will force me to carve time to read more, discuss more and think more.
  • I will get the daily writing Riyaaz.
  • I will get to build my distribution on linkedin – something that I’ve thought a lot about.
  • I will meet more people via this.

And somehow, I’ve been very very consistent with it. Yesterday I posted the 26th update. This link has all posts.

But, the series is not performing well. I have not seen a bumper jump in my followers. There are hardly any comments or shares. I havent made new connections.

Maybe I need to accept that I dont write well?

.

L/ SG’s Patrons. AKA LifeIPO
I’ve been thinking about Patrons and 1000 True Fans. And I think I am ready to take the experiment to the next stage. See this tweet.

A few weeks ago, I asked for 1000 bucks a month, in exchange of gratitude. I got two subscribers (Prak and Shruti). Now I want to offer a 1% of my life for 10 lakhs. You pay me 10 lakhs to get one share of my life (there are a total of 100 shares outstanding) and you get 1% of my time here on (you must use it yearly) and 1% of my future earnings and assets. Imagine if I become a billionaire, your 1% could be worth 10 million.

Think of this as any startup raising money. You have an idea. You peg that idea to a value. Then you add execution risk on top of it. And then you invest in the idea. That!

I am yet to get into specifics (risks, reputation, relationships, liquidity, legality etc) but I am warming up to the idea.

What do you think?

.

M/ Grok’s interpretation of my content
I asked Gork to analyse my recent tweets. This is what it had to say.

I love how we can use these tools to spot patterns. Over the next few days I want to use more tools to discover more about me. At some point in time I want to explore the possibility of having my second brain uploaded on the internet and then analyse data from there on.

.

N/ Goa
I was in Goa almost after a year. This time around, I spent more time going out to the temples, local beaches, eating at vegetarian restaurants, and all that. I didnt do any of my regular things. And that made me realise a few things. Here’s a list.

  • I love modern conveniences and comforts. And this means I would want to be at places that have reliable connectivity, fast internet, public transport, high-trust economy and a density of great talent.
  • I am not a naturist. I do not get excited by beaches or greens or mountains or anything like that. If need be, I would like to be in not so extreme weathers.
  • I love vibrance around me. So, I can not be at a place that is secluded.
  • I am an early bird. I love places that are open early. Once Mumbai starts 24X7 operations, I will find cafes that are open at 430 AM and make them into my havens.

As I start to think about where I want to live, these things are at the top of my head!

.

O/ Fear of Flying
I would have taken at least 500 flights in life, if not 1000. And I’ve taken them in all sorts of planes (including helicopters) for all sorts of durations (from 30 minutes to 14 hours) and since 2005 (I think my first flight was from Del to Blr, though I am not sure). And I’ve experienced all kinds of turbulence and even air pockets. Though I’ve never had oxygen masks deployed and I have never been on slides.

And I have not been afraid ever. In fact, I would find excuses to get onto flights to give people hugs!

However, lately, I am afraid to fly. What if the plane goes down? I know the odds of that are a one in a million or whatever but when that one occurrence happens, the loss is 100%!

I am afraid that if that happens, it would be such a colossal waste of life and a stupid way to go! I anyway have mixed feelings towards the concept of death (I know its important but I dont get the reason why we spend so much time and effort and energy to learn things and then when the times comes to capitalise on it and be of service to the world, your time is almost up).

Ok, I digressed. The point is, I have this thing deep in the pit of my stomach or conscious or whatever each time I have to fly. And this is a new feeling! And no, I don’t enjoy this. I have wanted to live my life free of fear. And in chase of excitement and adventure. This fear bit is not core to my identity! And I need to work on it and change it.

PS: I am writing this from a comfortable, business class seat of a fairly new Air India plane and from my seat I saw that there are three pilots in the cockpit – all three fit and alert and had their spines straight, including the lady who’s the captain on this flight. So, I am hopefully safe on this one!

.

I had imagined I would have a lot more to write. But clearly I dont.

.

๐Ÿ“ท Some Photos from the week gone by

Some photos that I took and saved in the last two weeks are here. And if I had to pick one, I would say, this would be it…

I was in Goa and sent this postcard to AK and C. Will start a postcard club soon!

Show me some of your photos?

.

๐Ÿˆบ LARGE objective from the week gone by?

I had two large things when I started this year. Book 2 and a yearly plan (that Iโ€™ve been writing for a long time. This year I couldnโ€™t). And I just added health a few weeks ago.

Book 2 โ€“ There was no movement.
Nothing to report.

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

Health โ€“ I have made small changes in how I eat and what I eat. I am also walking more. I did some 5 pushups a couple of days. I now take stairs. Small steps. Nothing large. But I remain committed. I will ensure that come November, I am a gym and I am running.

PS: I track my health updates here, in case.

.

โ˜‘๏ธ So, what did I get done last week?

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

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

Health. Was a bad one. All over the place. Not just the physical health but also mental health. So, a -1.

Meru. Incredible progress. LOVE the hard work being put in by all the people. I wish I knew this team earlier. Most days I am left in awe of all that we do, despite everything. Oh, still no launch. And thus a 0.

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

Brand SG. Riya has been shipping consistently. I am not sure I like how things are going out. I would let that continue till end of this month. And then take a call. I would give this a +1. Only because of Riya.

People. No action on this. 0.

Book 2. Nothing. -1.

Shauk. No action. No time. But not beating myself over it. So, 0.

So the overall score for the week is -1

Few weeks ago, I had decided that I want to get a positive score each week. I had to organise my life but I havent been able to. I will try in the coming week. Will report once I do.

.

๐Ÿ“Š The tracker from the last week

Here is the tracker for the last two weeksโ€ฆ

Tracker from weeks 41 and 42

The last two weeks have been tough. And I have fallen off the radar. I am not keeping up on what I am eating, neither am I being good when it comes to tracking. I am on the road next week as well. And I expect similar all-over-the-place-ness.

.

๐Ÿƒ๐Ÿปโ€โ™‚๏ธโ€โžก๏ธ Health

I added Health as a key section some days ago. I am still discovering what to cover here. Letโ€™s see how it goes.

I read somewhere that you need 4 things to live long โ€“ sleep, exercise, diet and community. I will track all four. And then some more variables that I feel are important to me. Letโ€™s see what comes out. Also, I log a few things at these links โ€“ food log, my daily health log channel.

This week, I am skipping reporting on this as for the last two weeks, this has been all over the place.

Will get back to this after the Diwali week.

.

๐Ÿ“– Interesting Reads / Views

Since this is for two weeks, I have a LOT of links to share. I am thinking how to fit all these here and make things useful. Lemme try.

And no, not in any order.

1/ This is an incredible read. Titled, “Taylor Swift, Sora, and Slop vs. Substance”, I dont want to give you a TLDR on this one (hint, it talks of Taste as well). Touches many interesting facets.

2/ This piece from Finshots talks about how and why Rakesh Gangwal chose to step away from Indigo. Must read how people still stand for principles in this day and age. While on this, also read this piece on the friendship of the two founders.

3/ Harnidh is soon evolving into my favorite Internet writer. She wrote about PR-FAQ. Incredible read. Here.

4/ This piece about Prashant Kishore tells me that he charges 11 crores for 2 hours. I refuse to believe that he added that much value! 

5/ This document talks about maxims from Kunal Shah. Which is your favorite?

6/ One of the BEST investigative reads that I’ve read in a while. I think I would love to build something GFM once I get to a point when I have enough. Do read.

7/ This piece from New Yorker talks about how all of us have started to think the same. Prak would love this piece. This is also the reason why all apps seems to look similar (have you noticed those purple websites?) and there is this insane use of em-dashes?

8/ Kevin Kelly, in yet another incredible essay makes a very convincing argument on why he wants AI to read his books. Read here.

9/ Kuldeep (or KD, as he is known all over the internet) wrote about the history of Whatsapp. Incredible read. He writes so well that I want to get him to quit everything and and just write! Another bonus read from him is this.

10/ This ad by Apple caught my eye. To a point that I want to embed this here.

11/ This hierarchy of “traits” of a top-performer is incredible. Do see.

12/ This piece about impatience and sense of urgency. I’ve read so much about this that I dont know how to not work at speed. And yet…

13/ Each thing from Ashutosh Rana, I dig! In this video, he talks about what made him do things that he did. I wish I had more folks who would listen to me. And I need to find a way to meet more young people.

There was a time when I would get a lot of people write into me. Lately that flow has died. And I need to restart that. Somehow.

Do see this.

14/ This piece by the creator of Oatmeal about AI and Art. Very very interesting read. He says, “consuming AI art is like eating styrofoam”. He goes onto make a lot of more convincing arguments about how and why AI is good or bad.

15/ If you are young, in your 20s, this piece of advice by the CEO of Palantir is incredible. Read here.

He says,

Iโ€™ve never met someone successful who had a great social life at 20. If thatโ€™s what you want, thatโ€™s great. But youโ€™re not going to be successful, and donโ€™t blame anyone else.

I cant say I agree to this (who am I to agree – I am not successful)

16/ This intro of Steve. Uff. Here.

17/ This post about what makes YC, YC.
For all the hate it gets, I love that they’ve been able to institutionalize starting up. I would love to go thru it. I mean I may not be able to anymore, age is not on my side. But I love them and their impact.

18/ This piece by Karthik about the public outcry from the founder of LuluLemon (Chip Wilson) about how that company has lost direction is a must read.

19/ I’ve been thinking a lot about Punit Pania and his work. Saw this insta reel and had to share.

Phew!

I am left wondering, what is the point of all these links. I get like three people to read these. Unless I find a way to internalise these. No?

.

๐Ÿง  Reminders from last week

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

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

.

๐Ÿฅก So, one thing that defines the past week?

Unsettling.

There is no other word that I would use for the two weeks gone by. Close people have quit on me, I have fallen off the grid, I am not taking notes, not reflecting on life and things, money seems to be a problem, fitness is a problem. I mean, each thing that I can think of seems to be not working for me!

I hope I am back in black soon.

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

โ€”
Phew!
Lemme know what you think.
See you around.

Oh, and this too shall pass!

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

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

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

PPS: Please do point typos.
Grammarly is not working with WordPress and I donโ€™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 40-25 – Weekly Notes

Updates from Week 40, 2025

Monday, Oct the 6th.

I am late by a day.

And here’s an important note. I will not publish this for the 41st week. I am on the road and I dont want to open my computer. Let’s see how that experiment goes.

Ok, coming to the 40th. It was a fast week. I dont have a lot of distinct memories or even notes. They are sparse.

Oh, since I was a lot in traffic and in mindless work, I discovered and rediscovered a lot of music. Here are some shares. This band and fabulous singer. Doobey. So Good to Me. Rani. In fact I will feature Rani here.

.

๐Ÿ’ญ Highlights, reflections and notes from the past week

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

A/ Lessons from Rana Sir
I met Rana Sir for a walk at Carter’s Road. While Carter’s is like Mumbai’s favorite hangout place and you see more fancy people than you see actual walker, Rana Sir, Chandni and I did walk.

And oh man, what a revelation. The guy’s a genius. I cant stop thanking my stars that I have him as a mentor. Here’s a page from my first and only book.

Page 282, The Nidhi Kapoor Story

And no, I am not making those lessons public, just as yet.

.

B/ Bumping into people from Internet
In the last week, I bumped into two people who know me from Internet. Both these people have NOTHING in common with me (no common friends, no alma mater, no Starbucks, nothing), except we met on Internet. Via a thing them and I caused (I made some WA groups, they left some comments).

Not that I care for fame or something but these serendipitous connections make life worth living! Must strive for more!

.

C/ Theatre
I’ve been DYING to see some life theatre performance for a while. And I havent been able to. I open bookmyshow everyday and I try to see what’s playing near me. And then I try and make plans around it. And then some work creeps up on me.

Come on, universe.

PS: If all goes well, on the 11th, I will attend something. Let’s see.

.

D/ Cleaned and organised my life.
Since I moved on from C4E, I’ve not had someone to work with me. This means I dont have anyone to tell me what to on, who to push, follow up for me, give me file locations, jam with me and all that. And I was seeing the impact of that on my work. I was strruggling to even find my bearings.

So one of those days, I slept early and woke up at like 530 or something. And then I organised my life. Wait, not life. But work things. This means, I made a bookmarks bar where I listed all things that I am working on, cleaned tags in Roam, made my TDL and then some more.

As a test, I challenged AK to ask me pull a file that she was working on. And I could!

So, thats’s a big win for the week.

.

E/ Jaane wale ko kaun rok saka hai
In the last week, two of the people I really care for told me that their number 2s are moving on. In one case, one even committed an act that is inexplicable.

I know people move on. I’ve had many folks move on. And even though I want to forget and forgive and understand, its a deep gash that I cant seem to find an answer to. Anyhow. The point is, people go. I am lucky that I’ve experienced this and thus when someone moves on, now it doesnt surprise me. Neither I am hurt. I have accepted the reality. Marcus would be proud of me.

However, it was tough to explain to both these folks. In both cases, my friends literally gave a part of their lives to the ones who’ve moved on. And the first emotion that they had was of surprise.

“How could he?”, “What did I do wrong that he had to do this?” and similar.

I had to explain to that often it’s not you or what you’re building. Just that the paths diverge. See the chart below.

Source: Unknown

This chart is an oversimplification of relationships but I think it works well.

You think and believe that what you’re building is the life of a parent or a dog but it’s actually a friend with benefit. And instead of being harsh on yourself about lack of judgement about identifying people, you ought to move on and try and find the next person who could stay with you.

I just hope more people learn this lesson, earlier in life. And yes, I am cruel to wish this upon you.

.

F/ Hormozi on Mental Toughness
Alex has done GREAT service to humankind by making this video. I’ve communicated this to many people in many ways but I never had one reference point to it.

If there’s one thing you see this week, make sure it’s this.

PS: Dont be thrown off by the words you see on thumbnails. I’ve seen some very scary thumbnails for this video. Am sure some A/B testing is happening there.

Also, I am a big big fan of his work. Alex is what I would have wanted to be. Runs his life the way he wants to, eats well, works out and supports others.

.

G/ Monumentum is taking shape
Some of my people are building this new thing. I am very excited for them. More about this in the next few days.

.

H/ Financial Stress
Financial stress has reached its peak. I found myself scrambling to find avenues to take loans. I thought about revolving credit cards, taking a personal loan, asking for it from a friend (who will take it as an OD from his bank and give me).

No, I dont need solutions from anyone here. This is my battle and I will fight it. I just want to capture it here.

Oh, and the lesson from this bit is to get more money wise and fix my relationship with money. I need to be lot more open and upfront about it and stop leaving it on the table. At this time, I pay for convenience and to avoid tough conversations. I must build the resilience to not hate money.

I also wrote last week that I will start charging for my counsel, even if it’s token. I’ve not been able to bring myself to do that.

Any how. Let’s see where I end up.

.

I/ Mahabharata
I have been writing one lesson a day from Mahabharata on Linkedin. It’s a brilliant exercise. I love it! It makes me read some part of Mahabharata, makes me read its interpretations, makes me connect to some thread from my life and then I write.

AK’s told me that what I write is not giving. I understand. I am trying to tweak it for the medium and the readers. And that’s ok. I ought to experiment. Maybe I will get a post written from AI and see how it performs. Actually good idea, lemme fire it!

I just prompted chatGPT.

Lets see what comes out of it.

The only trouble is, I don’t want to add to AI Slop and do things for the sake of doing those. Let’s experiment and see where it goes.

My chatGPT library ๐Ÿ˜€

.

J/ Goa
I am in Goa this weekend for 2-3 days. I’ve not been to Goa in a while. While I am not looking forward to Goa as a place but I am doing this with my parents and thus.

.

K/ SOTY
C4E is building a Student of The Year thingy. This has been one of my longest standing ideas. I was never able to execute this. I am glad that folks feel the importance of the same in my absence.

I am excited!

.

L/ Notes from Apple in China
I’ve been reading the book for a while note. Each chapter is a treasure trove of knowledge and information and lessons. Just from yesterday’s reading, I am inspired to go deeper into storytelling, negotiations, sales and more.

I will write a longish post on this sometime. Let’s see when.

.

M/ Sit in the Mud
I met a few people last week and one of them told me that she’s not been able to sleep for two days because of something that happened at her work place. Then I met another friend and he was also in that overthinking loop. And this is when I realised that even though folks have friends and families and all that, deep down, everyone is alone. And I really wish I could help fix those things.

At least to these people, I told them that they can reach out to me when they need inputs or counsel. They MUST not think that I am busy. I am never busy for my people. And even if they think they are bothering me, just say SOS and I will be there. I want to experience how it is to sit in the mud with you.

See this…

Simon’s piece on sitting in the mud

.

N/ Zone of Genius?
Read this.

I think I know where my zone of genius would be. At the intersection of ideas, connections, people, meaning.

This dawned upon me yesterday when I spent the day talking to people. For Meru, I did a session for some folks on writing. Then gave gyaan to some kids. Then helped someone else build his personal board of directors. And then walked with someone else. To a point that I was exhausted and wanted nothing but sleep.

I was in the moment, in the flow. Didnt know where time went.

And that’s probably where I want to be in life.

I am not sure how the money bit works on this. But may be I will explore this.

.

O/ Focus
It’s no secret that I am the most unfocussed person there ever is. While I can club each thing I do into an umbrella (enabling people), it comes across as an excuse, even to myself, tbh.

So, I’ve been thinking about focus for a while. And what would it take to get that in my life. the very thought of this makes my entire being revolt. Why would I make my life into a unidimensional one when I can be free and explore?

I dont have answers. But I am thinking on this. May be I will pose this to my braintrust.

.

๐Ÿ“ท Some Photos from the week gone by

Here are some photos that I took and saved in the last week. Here.

The cover would be thisโ€ฆ

Features all the things I love – Books, Starbucks (not coffee), stationary and mornings.

.

Lemme know which one do you like the most. And do share some of your photos with me!

.

๐Ÿˆบ LARGE objective from the week gone by?

I had two large things when I started this year. Book 2 and a yearly plan (that Iโ€™ve been writing for a long time. This year I couldnโ€™t). And I just added health a few weeks ago.

Book 2 โ€“ There was no movement.
Nothing to report.

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

Health โ€“ I am thinking about this all the time but I havent been able to act upon it. From what I track, I am eating in moderation but neither my weight, nor my energy is getting fixed. Sigh!
PS: I track my health updates here, in case.

.

โ˜‘๏ธ So, what did I get done last week?

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

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

Health. Not too many good things to report. I now try to”cook” one meal at home. This means I boil water, dump Saffola oats and each. Or I boil eggs. I am not walking. I am not even working out. I will put this on 0.

Meru. Making progress. Again, I can’t talk about it out loud. Will talk more when I ship. Oh, I did take a session on writing auto-biographies. A 0.

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

Brand SG. No large things to report, apart from the fact that Riya has been consistent. I’ve realised that each thing I do or work on, once I have someone supporting me, things tend to move!

People. No action on this.
Iโ€™d say 0.

Book 2. Nothing.
So, -1

Shauk. No action.
No time.
a 0.

So the overall score for the week is -1

Last week I had decided that I want to get a positive score each week. And this means I need to organise my life better to ensure that I ship this positive score.

Will report once I do.

.

๐Ÿ“Š The tracker from the last week

Here is the tracker for the week gone byโ€ฆ

What trends do you see?

I seeโ€ฆ

  1. Fewer greens
  2. Terrible recovery
  3. Ok on food

What do you see?

๐Ÿƒ๐Ÿปโ€โ™‚๏ธโ€โžก๏ธ Health

I added Health as a key section some days ago. I am still discovering what to cover here. Letโ€™s see how it goes.

I read somewhere that you need 4 things to live long โ€“ sleep, exercise, diet and community. I will track all four. And then some more variables that I feel are important to me. Letโ€™s see what comes out. Also, I log a few things at these links โ€“ food log, my daily health log channel.

1/ Sleep
Sleep was all over the place. I am aware. I will work on this.

2/ Exercise
No action. I dont know what to do about this ๐Ÿ™

3/ Diet
I track each thing I eat on myย food log.
I’ve not been able to fix this but I have reduced what I eat. See this…

4/ Community
No large movement on this.

5/ REDACTED
This was being tracked till the last week. I have stopped this from this week onward.

6/ Movement
No action.

7/ Meditation
No action.

Overall, the last week on health front was not good. Again, despite all this tracking, no action ๐Ÿ™

.

๐Ÿ“– Interesting Reads / Views from the last week

Not too many but here are some interesting onesโ€ฆ

1/ Baby naming gets you 30K USD! Here.

2/ This piece by Samarth on GLP-1. Incredible read.

3/ Did you know that Linktree is a billion dollar business. Read here.

4/ The difference between Great Britain, UK and Britain and all that. Link.

5/ Oh, I am readingย this bookย these days. Painfully slow cos time. But a riveting read!

.

๐Ÿง  Reminders from last week

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

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

.

๐Ÿฅก So, one thing that defines the past week?

Regular.

I am running out of emotions to capture things. I need to be a lot more nuanced on this. Let’s see what that is.

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

โ€”
Phew!
Lemme know what you think.
See you around.

Oh, and this too shall pass!

PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes. The previous editions are here: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09 (missed), 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (missed), 16, 17 (missed), 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 (missed), 23, 24 (missed), 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39

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

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

Wk 39-25 – Weekly Notes

Notes, thoughts, highlights and other things from the week 39 of 2025.

Sunday the 28th.
Starbucks, Versova.

The week gone by was hard and long. For starters, I turned 43. And I am sad about it. Many reasons.

  • A, I was to be rich and famous and powerful by 42. I am not.
  • B, I dont think I’ve done enough to celebrate another year around the sun.
  • C, While I am not in the legacy game, I definitely am in the experience game. And with each passing year, my ability to access grand things goes down.
  • D, I realize that on a realistic timeline, my ability to do things goes down with each passing day. You know, age. I look like I am 50. I can feel the tiredness in my bones. Most days I wake up with a sore back. I cant seem to see very well. The skin is breaking from more places. Even Dr H mentioned that she’s unable to understand why things aren’t happening. I dont know either.

So that.

Ok, wait.
I dont want to make this into a pity party.
Lemme change the narrative.

So, I love when I am with people. I love how I think that life has great things to offer to us. I know deep inside that life is essentially a mirror – if shows you what you want to see. So, we shall move on. Oh, I am changing the format of this weekly update. Let’s see if you can spot it.

The song of the week is this cover of Aint No Sunshine by CAPTAIN OG and Shotaro Miyamoto.

Ok, let’s go!

๐Ÿ’ญ Highlights, reflections and notes from the past week

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

A/ I met Arun Sir and Hareesh Sir for a Meru review and got a whack on the side of the head about money.
In that, I realised that I need to make friends with people with money. I think I’ve always shunned money as a bastard thing. But I need to start loving it. And not be overwhelmed with it. I’ve always operated like I was the richest person in the world and never got into money conversations. Between time and money, I’ve always picked time. When in conflict, I’ve left money on the table for others to pick up so that I can walk away with some peace.

I think I will change that.

More on this as I think more. #sgtothink

.

B/ Take token for everything.
Staying on A, each time someone has come to me for help, I’ve extended my support and help to them at no cost. And in fact, often at my expense (of time, energy, money etc). But I think I will change this from now on. I will ask for a tiny token (or Re 1) before extending any help. I must work on building a “seek help from SG” page where I list these things.

No, I am not taking the decision just yet. This is very intrinsic to me – the want to help the underdog and have more people do more.

My argument has been that if I take ANY money, even if its 1 rupee, it becomes a transaction and then I have a performance pressure. And knowing myself (perpetual underachiever feels), I will not be able to do justice! Plus once someone pays me, it becomes a transaction and it’s never ending!

On the other side, if I dont do a transaction, then I am not obligated. And that relieves me of the responsibility of the outcome. But then I become that consultant breed that I loathe from the bottom of my heart!

Any how. I will think on this and decide it over the next few days. #sgtodo

.

C/ The third lesson from the meeting is that I must make check lists. I anyway do this but I want to be able to do this at a GRANULAR level. And then I should be able to get even a machine to execute things.

I’ve lived my life in a freewheeling manner but now as I am older and have lesser time to get things done, I will lean onto this. I will re-read the Checklist Manifesto.

Also, I think, this is a lesson I need to give to folks at C4E. If there’s a checklist structure and a scrum master to run and list priorities I think life would get better. I know C4E is built on top of self accountability but this could be a good driver. Again, not my place to recommend or push things at C4E. I would let them decide. I can only leave a note to them.

.

D/ This linkedin note on creative folks, from Prak is fabulous.
She says something that I’ve always known but I never knew how to write. About the creative folks, she says,

What happens when you take this type and put them within the same tiny rooms and dull walls day in and day out?

They lose that perspective. They lose their voice. That freshness and creativity? It dies a slow death, like a plant kept away from the sun.

Touch grass is not just a fad for us, it’s a way of building the things, creating in the best way possible.

We make space for epiphanies, to enter flow zones of brilliant work, to find sparks of magic in the world outside walls, both physical and metaphorical.

Creative folks bring their whole self to office, not just “a skill”.

I knew of this all the time but I could never find the words to articulate it.

Thanks, Prak.

.

E/ This piece makes an argument that warmer counties are poorer. If there is one thing that you read today, read this.
I am convinced that once I move to a colder place, I will be better off.

In fact I was thinking today only – what holds me to Mumbai. Some years ago it would have been friends and SO. But the only friend I cared for in life is no longer in India. And SO, well, lol. So, maybe its the trigger to move to a colder place? But then, Indian passport ๐Ÿ™

But, in spirit of action and seeing something that I always knew on paper, why cant I make my way to a colder country?

.

F/ This text by the other Vembu is brilliant.
More than the hyper-national conversations, I like how they’ve chosen to play the long-game. Ofc its easy to talk about things after you’ve succeeded. I am a sore old man. I played the long-game all my life and look where it left me. And despite that soreness and my bias, I encourage everyone to play the long game.

Also, the podcast I was gonna do with Riya’s help was gonna be called The Long Game. I will have to find a new name. I dont want to encroach upon someone else’s work even though I am a rounding off error in their scheme of things.

Oh, see this video of Steve introducing about podcasting.

.

G/ Mahabharata
Today is the 6th day when I am writing a post on my linkedin where am talking about a lesson from Mahabharata. They are on my linkedin. Do see those.

.

H/ Ashutosh Rana and Rashmirathi
You have to see this, unless already.

Ok, this is it.

.

I/ Music and mehfils
I am seeing Shotaro Miyamoto on loop and the urge to build mehfils is getting stronger by the day. I really really really need to dig this shit up. See this exasperated note!

There was a time when I was doing this with CSS. We kept it just right – friends, music, camaraderie but I wasn’t able to continue with it. You know, life happened. And then with time it withered away. I so want to get back in those rooms. You know, Sofar, Tiny Desk (by NPR), even Coke Studio but done in an intimate setting!

.

J/ Focus
Saw this tweet and wondered, if the missing ingredient from my life and success is focus. I’ve never been the kinds to stick to one thing. But maybe this is the thing that I need to do? With Meru, at least I am trying to do one thing. Let’s see if it bears fruit.

.

K/ Mental Health 101
From whatever little I know, I’ve been able to distill that your happiness is the gap between your expectation and reality. By corollary, it’s also the gap between efforts and returns. And thus the old-age advice on not attaching to outcomes serves well.

So that!

.

This is it for this week. More next week.

๐Ÿ“ท Some Photos from the week gone by

Here are some photos that I took and saved in the last week. Here.

The cover would be this…

.

Lemme know which one do you like the most. And do share some of your photos with me!

.

๐Ÿˆบ LARGE objective from the week gone by?

I had two large things when I started this year. Book 2 and a yearly plan (that Iโ€™ve been writing for a long time. This year I couldnโ€™t). And I just added health a few weeks ago.

Book 2 โ€“ There was no movement.
Nothing to report.

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

Health โ€“ Was ok health wise but not doing very well with food and all. So a -1. PS: I track my health updates here, in case.

.

โ˜‘๏ธ So, what did I get done last week?

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

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

Health. This has fallen off the grid completely. The rigor with which I worked on this is gone. I need to restart. Am taking off Monday and Tuesday to only fix this. So, 0.

Meru. Great progress but not something that I can talk about on this blog. But till we ship, I will give myself a 0.

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

Brand SG. Riya has started to share things on ToL. You may check it out here and here. Early days. But some action finally. Thanks to Riya, a +1!

People. No action on this.
Iโ€™d say 0.

Book 2. Nothing.
So, -1

Shauk. No action.
No time.
And I am not losing sleep over it. So a 0.

So the overall score for the week is 0

I need to now ensure that I get a + every week. And that means I will break things into tiny chunks and manage those.

Watch me.

๐Ÿ“Š The tracker from the last week

Here is the tracker for the week gone by…

.

What trends do you see?

I seeโ€ฆ

  1. Consistent unhappiness.
  2. Bad food.
  3. Sleeping late.

What do you see?

๐Ÿƒ๐Ÿปโ€โ™‚๏ธโ€โžก๏ธ Health

I added Health as a key section some days ago. I am still discovering what to cover here. Letโ€™s see how it goes.

I read somewhere that you need 4 things to live long โ€“ sleep, exercise, diet and community. I will track all four. And then some more variables that I feel are important to me. Letโ€™s see what comes out. Also, I log a few things at these links โ€“ food log, my daily health log channel.

1/ Sleep
I slept ok, but later than what I would’ve wanted.

2/ Exercise
No action. Despite my 100% intentions.

3/ Diet
I track each thing I eat on my food log.
Was terrible.
I am just not able to solve this.
: (

4/ Community
No large movement on this.

5/ REDACTED
This was being tracked till the last week. I have stopped this from this week onward.

6/ Movement
No action.

: (

7/ Meditation
No action.

Overall, the last week on health front has not been the best. I am thinking why am I even tracking this if week after week, all I have is inconsistent outcomes?

๐Ÿ“– Interesting Reads / Views from the last week

Here are some…

.

1/ This post from Sam Parr. About how to live a good life.

2/ This X thread about Osho is very interesting. I am not too well read about his life and work but this was a good 101.

3/ This Linkedin broetry has great advice for young people. I love these parts the most…

1. ๐—˜๐˜…๐—ฝ๐—น๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ ๐—บ๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฎ๐—ป ๐—˜๐˜…๐—ฝ๐—น๐—ผ๐—ถ๐˜: Regular readers know the Explore vs Exploit framework. In situations of repeated decision making, you can either ๐˜Œ๐˜น๐˜ฑ๐˜ญ๐˜ฐ๐˜ณ๐˜ฆ (try a new thing), or ๐˜Œ๐˜น๐˜ฑ๐˜ญ๐˜ฐ๐˜ช๐˜ต (stick with what you know works). In building a career, the early years should be dedicated to Exploit. Try as many things as you can. The time to Exploit your skills / experience will come later. For now, experiment!

5. ๐—•๐˜‚๐—ถ๐—น๐—ฑ ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ฒ๐—ฝ ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ๐—น๐—ฎ๐˜๐—ถ๐—ผ๐—ป๐˜€๐—ต๐—ถ๐—ฝ๐˜€. My closest friends today are from only two cohorts – college mates, and friends from the earliest days of my working life. Cherish these early years. They offer you deep friendships, lasting mentors.

6. ๐—ง๐—ฎ๐—ธ๐—ฒ ๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ ๐—ผ๐—ณ ๐˜†๐—ผ๐˜‚๐—ฟ ๐—ต๐—ฒ๐—ฎ๐—น๐˜๐—ต. Eating out every day, too much drinking, long nights at work, travel, no exercise. Think your body can take punishment and still endure? Maybe. But it’ll thank you later if you took better care of it.

.

4/ This post on the Taste and Talent gap is worth it’s weight in gold. Do read it?

.

5/ This X thread on success is great. From this, I love these…

  • you should be able to sleep on floor, no matter how rich you become
  • dilute stakes at peak to use the money at extreme lows and stay afloat
  • business is an emotional ride and very bumpy, be prepared
  • if you can move to Dubai or US make some money quickly then expand in India
  • always have 36 months of money for family security

.

6/ Shaan VP on how to be rich. This is a 20-odd minute video. Must see for everyone.

.

This is it for the week. Oh, I am reading this book these days. Painfully slow cos time. But a riveting read!

๐Ÿง  Reminders from last week

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

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

.

๐Ÿฅก So, one thing that defines the past week?

Grind.

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

โ€”
Phew!
Lemme know what you think.
See you around.

Oh, and this too shall pass!

PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes. The previous editions are here: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09 (missed), 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (missed), 16, 17 (missed), 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 (missed), 23, 24 (missed), 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38

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

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