Wk 03-25 – Weekly Notes

Notes from Week 3 of 2025. I talk about things I did, things I learnt and things I am thinking about.


9:05. 19 Jan.
Starbucks, Versova

The week gone by was long. Busy. Hard. To the point that Poo called to check in if I were ok. Two other friends wrote in to check if I was okay. I will talk more about this shortly. But lemme follow the format that I sort of discovered last week.

What I was supposed to do in the week gone by. And my report on the same.

1/ I said I will work on my 2025 plan.
I failed at it. The year is upon me and how. And I didn’t even think about it. This means that the review letter is also delayed.

2/ I said each time I open insta, I will do three push-ups.
No, I didn’t do push-ups when I opened insta. So I failed on this.
I will implement this from today. And keep a track. Will add it to my tracker.

3/ I said that I would delete food delivery apps.
I did for a couple of days.
But then, installed it again.
Convenience is a tough trap to get out of.

4/ I had to write the #dateSG doc.
I didn’t.
I won’t call this a fail cos this is not high on priority.

The tracker from the week that went by.

The tracker from the week gone by is attached.

I am glad to report that I have tracked almost all things. No, I didn’t really get any better. But tracking is an important first step. And yay to self for that. #win

You can see that I had a rough one.
But now, we seem to be doing ok.

Some realizations...

1/ For a one-person house I run and with my kind of lifestyle, I spend a lot of money. I need to check my spends.

2/ My day emotions are off the charts. I need to do something about it.

3/ I am consuming a lot of coffee. What’s not on this is that I don’t have coffee after 12. But, this much is not good. I will try and stop.

Ok, moving on.

Photos from the week

This week was bad.
Couldnt take too many. Here’s a link, in case.
Will get back to this next week.

Highlights from the week gone by…

This is a little different from what I did last week. Let’s see which one sticks.

1/ Made it to Thej’s weekly notes.
In fact these weekly notes are inspired by Thej’s. And this is the second thing that I have taken away from him. The other being SoG Grant. A good reminder that I need to move the needle on that.

2/ Spent time with Manish.
I am grateful that he takes the time to coach C and me. I don’t know what I’ve done to get kindness from so many people. I can only promise myself that when I have something going for me, I will pay it forward.

3/ Warikoo revealed his earnings from the year gone by.
The highlight was this part. I quote…

From Jan-Dec 2024 we earned Rs. 48.22L (USD 56K) in affiliate income. 100% of the affiliate we have earned (and will earn in the future) goes towards the education of kids who cannot afford it.

It is a simple process. Students email me, we ask for their student ID, college details, Aadhaar and a link to pay the school/college directly. And we make the transfer.

Last year, we contributed 43L towards the education of 104 kids and since existence we have contributed nearly 1.7Cr (USD $200K) towards the education of 397 kids.

I will do something similar.
I will channel a source of my income towards this. May be for SoG Grant. I don’t know yet. I will think on this.

4/ AK’s thought about C4E Culture.
She pointed out that when we get new people at C4E, they don’t get time to ramp up. And that needs to change. No person will ever go back from C4E with a sore experience.

Oh, while am on AK, the girl has made 7 posts so far. I think she will get her AirPods Pro Max at this rate.

5/ I am learning a lot about myself with this new startup.
Some things worth noting are…

  • On this one, I am not the captain. I am merely one of the charioteers at Mahabharata. And its good to see that am able to navigate it well.
  • I thought since there are heavy weights, I would not be able to speak. But I surprised myself with my actions. I was not sure I had it in me to speak in a room like that. I did. And I made eloquent conversations. Humbling and proud. And a #win.

6/ I want to be well-known (and not famous)
I wrote about this on my Twitter today. And I found a good articulation. That I want to have the respect of the ones that I respect. And this respect must give me access to any room that I want to get into. Simple.

I will repeat what I wrote today morning. I’ve been the kinds to always shy away from spotlight. I have wanted to be a kingmaker (not the king). I want to have a band (and not a solo act). I want to help run a village (and not be the mukhiya). I want to be a Krishna (and not Arjuna).

But I do want to be a famous Krishna. I also mentioned that I want to be on the thank you page of 1000 books, 100 Oscar speeches and more. I really want to be the person that offers shoulders to giants.

I don’t know how I will get to it. But this realisation is interesting to have. May be this is what growing up is?

Oh, as part of this, I will build the ability to do small talk with people.

7/ I failed to deliver something simple to a senior that I look up to. At the same time, in a review of C4E, our board member mentioned that we are in a poor place at C4E.

These were the large reasons why I was so fucked in the head the whole week.

I will ofc try and fix but I didn’t like that I failed so bad.

I want to note that I didnt let the heat come to my team. If I could just not overreact and eat random crap, I would have handled the crisis well. I need to work on self-control.

8/ At C4E, we are going to be more process-oriented.
Again, this is a thing that I’ve known for a long time and I’ve always stayed away from. Gokul taught me in detail. And I ignored. Manish reinforced this when we met him in December. And I ignored. But now I am learning that both of them were right all along.

Ok.
That.
Moving on.

One large takeaway from the week?

I think I have discovered the word for 2025.

Consistency.

Everything else that I need or want is on the other side of just one thing. Consistency. All the magic – compounding including – happens on the other side of consistency. Wish I had learnt this earlier.

I am going to embrace it.
I’ve even added this to the Knock on C4E’s door. See if you can spot it.

I know I know.
People have opinions and thoughts about YOLO and FOMO and how you ought to experience life and all that. But I think there is merit in being consistent and living a life built on top of discipline, long-term thinking, small actions, and consistency!


I guess this is about it.

As I close this, I am thinking, how is this weekly note different from the daily journal that I am writing on twitter? Maybe with time, I will publish more than these streams of consciousness? Maybe with time, I will have these two evolve into separate things – one to talk about things on a day-to-day basis and the other from a helicopter lens where things are a little more broad and large? Let’s see.

Ok, I have a long day ahead.
A lot to be done.
Gotta go.
See you around.

Oh, here are the previous editions: Wk 01, Wk 02

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

Consistency vs Intensity

I write about my struggles with consistency. And I write about my ability to work with intensity.

Here’s a razor (I know what a razor is, thanks to a brilliant ebook by S – she has made it available for pay-what-you-like here) – As you know more, you know more about more things that you dont know anything about, let alone more.

Like a few nights ago, I was standing outside a hotel lobby waiting for an event setup to happen (ISTG I love this business of events and I wish I could do large format, large scale setups that need hundreds of people) and I realised (epiphany happened!) that I dont like to do things. And I have never liked it, ever since I was a child. More on this in subnote 1.

But then, I realised, I like to manage things. And managing things essentially means I need to manage the egos and fears and desires of the people whom I work with. And thankfully I am at a place in life where I dont have to “do” things no more. I can get by merely managing! And I think I am good when it comes to understanding people and all that. Let’s park this as A. We would come back to it.

The other thing that I’ve known for a while is that I am unable to do things that need a day-to-day grind and consistency. Things like writing every day (even though I wrote and published for 100-odd days straight while in lockdown), working out every day, running social media pages, staying on top of accounts and numbers (my father at the age of 68 can tell me outstanding balances of scores of suppliers that we work with at C4E and I have a hard time remembering how many people do I work with!) and other things that require consistent, daily grind.

I have really tried hard to maintain streaks and do things on a regular day-to-day basis, and yet, I have failed. I can blame it on my formative years at an events agency where most work was strictly on a project basis and once you were on a project, you could forget everything – you know marathons and sprints? And thus you didn’t have to work on things that needed daily rhythm / cadence. And after a project was over, you had so much downtime that I could write a damn book! Let’s call this B.

Now, if I club A and B (my inability to do things and my inability to do things on a day-to-day basis), I am staring at a very bleak future! I mean, the world nature rewards consistent work over long periods. Intensity gets you only so far. It’s consistent small efforts that compound into an avalanche of magnanimous results!

The funny thing is, I am aware of this. And yet I have not been able to stay consistent. I know I am getting old and health-wise it’s only downhill from here on and yet I don’t work out. I know that to grow my business and reach my ambition, I need to work on my personal brand and yet I refuse to create content every day. I know that I need to see my team do well and yet I am not consistent with my training.

In fact, I’ve gathered an entire folder of images that extol the virtues of consistency over intensity. And yet I am unable to move my ass on it. Here –

So yea. Despite the awareness that I need to over-index on consistency, I am unable to be consistent. Of course, I continue to be very good when it comes to being intensive about work and life and all that!

On consistency, I have tried everything – keeping trackers (that look like minefields with gaping holes in those), making large bets (that I’ve been losing since I was a child), taking help from accountability buddies (that have grown frustrated with me and have abandoned me), calendaring things (that I plainly skip) and what not.

And yet I haven’t been able to do this!

And there are some people that I know that are so good at showing up EVERYday that they are on 1000s of days of streaks of performing tasks. In this TED talk by Duolingo founder, I found that there are 3 million people that have a streak of more than 365 days!

3. MILLION.
365. Days.

Let that sink in.

EACH DAY of the year, some rain, shine, hail, storm, they have done their bit on Duolingo. An app.

WOW! And how!

So yeah that. My struggles with consistency.

Over and out.

PS: Subnote 1
While editing this piece, another epiphany happened.
That on my personal brand, I was doing it all wrong – I was talking about marketing, writing, startups and all that. However, that is not who I am! I am a tinkerer, a mover of things, an experimenter, a trier and all that. I like to do things – often without agendas and thus I need to create / share content about these trials and all that (rather than marketing). More on this in a few days. Meanwhile, over and out 🙂

Marathon vs Sprint

If you need to build a deliberate life, you need to know which of the two (consistency or intensity) drives you. I try and find out about myself.

When you run, you can do it in two different ways. Both may seem similar but they differ widely. These are Marathons and Sprints.

Of course, both need passion, training, instinct, and superhuman effort. And while the things you need in the two (the technique and the methods and the skills and all that) may differ from each other, both demand you to put in the hours and the practice.

To illustrate the two, I will lean onto the two GOATS of running – Kipchoge and Bolt – to make a great example. Both of them need teams – probably more so in Kipchoge’s case (pacers etc.) – but they are individual personification of achievement of a team.

Marathons

The man who has become synonymous with marathons is Kipchoge. While each of his achievements needs a tome of its own, the most incredible feat is his sub-2-hour marathon.

Marathons need tiny steps and consistent progress over a very very long period of space and time. And because it’s repetitive work over and over again, these get boring.

The keywords are consistent, drudgery, long-term, and boring. And in one word, marathons require consistency.

Sprints

The GOAT of sprints is Usain Bolt. If you want an idea of his greatness, see this.

Unlike a marathon, a sprint needs a burst of energy that you typically expect from a rocket ship. It starts with a big bang, requires you to give all you’ve got, and you have to last till you tide over the finish line. In the case of a rocket, the momentum takes it ahead. In the case of a runner, they end their sprint after a few hundred meters. You blink and you may miss it. It exhilarates the runner (and the audience) and is over before you know it.

The keywords are fast, energetic, and exhilarating. In one word, sprints require intensity.

So, why talk of Marathons and Sprints?

Well, in life and in work, you can operate as a marathoner or a sprinter.

You could build the marathon muscle that will help you work for at least the next 10 years – you know, perseverance, patience, long-term thinking, politeness, relationships, delayed gratification, tiny successes, and all that.

Or you could develop the sprint ability to live each day like it’s your last. Things like high-risk-taking ability, love for games of odds, acceptance of impending doom in the wake of failure, a tinge of irrationality, and all that.

Most people I know of who’ve been able to build a great life for themselves and others around them have been marathoners kinds. Yes, there are a few who’ve taken the fast road to riches but then they are few and far between.

And if you are like me (an ordinary person with average chances), your odds of success would become far far better. I mean look at me. I’ve been on it since at least 2014 now. So 10 years. And I still don’t know where I’d end up.

However, like most advice on the internet, there is no one size fits all. While the idea of being a marathoner is true in general, there are two exceptions.

A/ Are you driven by (and built for) intensity? Or consistency? There is no easy way to find this out. Look at what you’ve enjoyed in the past – Short bursts of focused work or long spells of meandering? Ability to obsess deeply over a problem for a long time or quick fix solutions that are fast and easy? The ambition of making an impact over a large parcel of humanity or living the life of a free person on a beach?

B/ Does the work you do need intensity or consistency? For example, if you are in the business of films, you could give one superhit and then do nothing. And come back after a few years. In your lifetime you would probably make 20 films. No, I do not mean you would not work on your craft while you are not making films. It means that you will immerse yourself in a piece of work and forget about everything else. Any “project” business would require intensity – you know, website design, art, books etc.

On the other hand, if your work is to operate a cinema hall, you need to open the hall every day and sweep it and place the new films and sell tickets and all that. The only way to make it big there is to continue working for years and scale the cinema hall into a chain of screens.

These two questions would help you figure out where you want to be and how you want to live. And once you know what you are suited for, I think creating a deliberate life around that should not be tough.

No?

PS: This is not one of my best posts. But I had to post.

PPS: While I was writing this, I realized that I need to find work that allows me to get into medium-term sprints (say 6 months) and then allows me to switch off for the next 6 months. I think it boils down to consistency. Look at Ankit – mad respect for his consistency. I don’t even deserve to mention his and my names in the same sentence!

Of course, I don’t have it in me to be consistent but I can be patient AF. And maybe that could be a place where I could live at? You know, regular sprints for a long time!

What do you think?