Wk 24-25 – Weekly Notes

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

7 AM, Jun 23

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

Here we go.


💭 Highlights, reflections and notes from the past two weeks

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

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

Let’s go…

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

Here’s my feedback from the students.

B/ Kabir
Saw this reel on Insta.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by गुलमोहर (@kagazkephoool)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So that.

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

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

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

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

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

May be I will bring back SoG?

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

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

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

So, I will fix it.

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

So solution…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I need to work on this.

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

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

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

And this from Steve.

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

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

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

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

Wow, so many things seem to be coming together!

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

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

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

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

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

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

I will do an episode on this. CC Anshika.

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

Remarkable
AirPods
On Sneakers
Even thought about changing my phone

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

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

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

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

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

Phew!
So that!


📷 Some Photos from the week gone by

Here are some photos from week 24.

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


🈺 The LARGE objective from the week gone by?

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

PS: Dropped 2025 Plan a few weeks ago.


☑️ What did I get done last two weeks?

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

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

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

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

Health. No action. 0.

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

C4E. No action. 0.

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

People. No action on this. I’d say 0.

Book 2. Lol! -1

Shauk. Nothing. So, a 0.

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

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


📊 The tracker from the last week

This is the tracker for the last 2 weeks.

Nothing to write home about. I have failed.

I will rise up again.

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


📖 Interesting Reads from the last week

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

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

So, some links that I want to share…

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

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


🧠 Reminders from last week

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

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

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

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

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

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

Did I miss something?


🥡 So, one thing that defines the past week?

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

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


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

Oh, and this too shall pass!

PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes. The previous editions are here: 0102030405060708, 09 (missed), 1011121314, 15 (missed), 16, 17 (missed), 18192021, 22 (missed), 23, 24 (missed)

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

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

Wk 02-25 – Weekly Notes

Notes from Week 2 of 2025. I talk about things I did, things I learnt and things I am thinking about.

9 AM, 12 Jan.
Blue Tokai Oshiwara (yeah, not Starbucks :))

So, week 2 is over.

It took its time to come and pass by. Like most other weeks (and months and years and all that), this was a blur as well. I don’t know when one day ended and the other began. I have the same routine – wake up, take 3 steps to my table, put on my morning track list, reply to emails, get ready, get to Starbucks, make calls, eat, sleep, repeat. And in between, find distraction on Instagram (which has become a serious addiction and I need to fix it) and daydream.

I have an idea. Each time I open Instagram, I will do 3 pushups.
Let’s see. Will keep a track.

So, in this entire madness, the only good part is that I don’t have to worry much about money (no I am not financially free but I have an ongoing business that on most days does ok; these days however it’s not doing that well as I would want it to).

The other good part is that I am mostly ok in the head, apart from the days when I have to travel. I think I am blessed.

Ok, this is becoming a blog by itself. Lemme get to the notes, reports, reflections and all that from the week gone by.

Lemme start with what I thought I would do this week. And my report on the same.

I said I would work on the startup and work on my 2025 plan.

I am glad to report that I made progress on the first one.

And nothing on the second one. However, once I publish this, I plan to spend the rest of the day planning for 2025.

So we are ok on this count.

The tracker from the week that went by.

I thought (and decided) that I would live in public and track some metrics thru the year. Here’s a screenshot from the week that went by.

While this tracking is helpful, here are my takeaways.

  • I don’t have discipline when it comes to food. I need to work harder on it.
  • I haven’t been able to slot workouts or exercise into my routine. From how things are, I think I can try for an evening session. My mornings are way too important for me to do anything. So lets see if I can make an action on that.
  • I can’t really make any correlation between what I eat, how much I walk and my emotions. The last two have been bad. I don’t know why. And because they’ve been bad, I can see that I’ve been eating more than I typically do.

On the tracker, VG has made a public motion of no-confidence. I no longer want to argue or fight. Each time I have wagered against him, I’ve lost. But I will try my best to keep this going. If I’ve done it for 10 days, there’s no reason why I can’t do this for 364 more.

Time shall tell.

Oh, here’s an ask.
If you see me missing these updates, please remind me and force me to update this. I need to gun for consistency in each thing I do.

May be Consistency would be the word of the year for me?

Things at the top of my head

1/ I said no to an opportunity to travel to Noida.
If I had gone, I would’ve probably built some business connections. But I want C to take on the lead. And I want to not travel and focus on health.

2/ Should I offer this?

3/ I am deleting food delivery apps from my phone.
Let me see if I can live without it. The only thing I will miss is the instant delivery of groceries. But lemme try and be more planned about it. I anyway don’t care about being wasteful. I’ll report next week.

4/ Twitter threads
In my pursuit to grow my distribution, I am working with someone to help me write Twitter threads. The first one they’ve sent has come out nice. Let’s see how that grows.

Some photos from the week gone by

I am starting this new thing where I hope I get to share some of my “masterpieces”. Here are some…

You may see this link in case you are unable to spot it.

What didn’t go well?

1/ Lost a classmate
Last night I got to know that one of the 150 odd people I went to MDI has passed away. Unlike a lot of others, I am immune to it. I know that as I grow older, I need to grow up. But I am unable to make sense of loss. These are the times when I question the existence of good and the usefulness of all the things around us.

But I also know that life is beautiful and I love to live and whatever time we have, we ought to make the most of it. So that.

I hope the family finds peace.

2/ People didn’t join me
I reported last time that I am working on a startup that I am very excited about. And now it has reached a place where I am trying to build a team. All my life I have prepared for a Mahabharata and it seems to be upon me. And all the allies nad friends and alliances I forged had to come in handy at this time.

But not one of them did.

So many thoughts and lessons in there. The biggest one? I need to rethink and redo my take on my ability to be with people. I often say that I am a great scout and I can read people well. This experience is teaching me that I am anything but that.

I’ve written more about this here.
There’s more but that’s for my notes.

What went well for me? for C4E? for my village?

1/ I wrote Twitter threads every day (except one day)!
Woot!
If I can get this consistent with things in life, I will change the world.
You may see those here.

2/ Sent handwritten notes to some people on New Year
I am not sure if I covered this in last week’s update. I am too lazy to go check.
Yet to send some.
Will send today.
I like the idea of doing such things for people I love.

What did I learn / realised / discovered etc etc?

1/ At C4E, we need to get more efficient.
While we are and will remain a culture-first company, we don’t operate from a place of urgency. The principles of ‘Ready, Fire, Aim’ are not practised. And that’s not cool at all.

2/ Twitter is a goldmine when I comes to people
With all the brouhaha around Elon and his antics, I’ve made some incredible connections with Twitter. In the past week, I met Anand, Saurabh, Rohan, Amul, Advik (Advik was the highlight) and many more people. Need to amp my twitter presence. Any ideas anyone?

3/ Graeful that Astha exists.
While am in general grateful about a lot of people, this week’s highlight would be a chat with Astha on Jan 08.

4/ I published these lessons from this TED talk by Anurag Kashyap.
Each of these lessons is worth chasing.

5/ Amul taught me about branding, identity and more.
If you are a curious soul, you MUST follow Amul.

6/ I need to work hard on the AI stuff.
the world around us is changing fast and I feel I am missing the bus by staying on the sidelines. While the world is already talking about AGI and other things, I can’t even tell people a difference between AI or Intelligence!

So, need to get my act together on it.

7/ I’d love to be around a Bonnie.
Imagine the rest.

Ok, coming to what I look forward in the next week?

This assumes that I will have finished my #in2025 document by end of the day today 😀

1/ Build a business case for a project that I am undertaking.
This is the part of the startup I am building (I mentioned it last week).

2/ #dateSG document.
Where I want to list things that people must know if they want to date me. Assuming they want to. assuming I want to (with all the action happening around me). But then I have discovered that in my life, if one thing does well, other things fall in place. And if one thing gets fucked up, everything else does!

3/ The 2024 Review Letter
Again, this depends on my ability to write the 2025 letter. From the look of things, I’ll block next Sunday and work on this. Let’s see how it goes.


That’s about it!

Honestly, as I end this, I think I could’ve written lot more but I am trying to manage my time well. I’ve been on it for two hours now and I don’t want to invest more time. I’d rather do more things. May be the next week’s update is better.

Oh, here are the previous editions: Wk 01

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