Tag: Diet Coke

Wk 18-25 – Weekly Notes

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

9:38 AM,
May 3,
Starbucks, Versova

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

So, lets get going with it.

Before anything, a couple of things.

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

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

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

💭 Highlights, reflections and notes from the week.

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

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

But then, I love being on the road.

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

Lets see how I do this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The intent with these is to learn from them.

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

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

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

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

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

I will try and fix it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s about it from the week.

📷 Some Photos from the week gone by

Here are some photos from the week gone by.

Lemme know which ones do you like.

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

2025 Plan and Book 2

Both seemed to have been derailed.

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

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

☑️ What did I get done this week?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So the overall score is -4 for this week.

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

📊 The tracker from the last week

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

Please tell me what you notice.

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

📖 Interesting Reads from the last week

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

🧠 Reminders from last week

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

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

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

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

🥡 So, one thing that defines the past week?

Getting back to action.

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

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

—

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

Oh, and this too shall pass!

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

140421 – Morning Pages

A ranty post on the mindfuckery imposed by the lockdown. In case you read, please excuse the expletives.

7:02 AM. Andheri.
Been up for a few minutes. Had a fitful sleep. Guess it’s all the food that I’ve had yesterday. 4 full meals! Will try to fast today. Let’s see.

So they announced the curfew in the whole of Maharashtra. Plus no deliveries after 8 PM. So basically, I am fucked. I can hit the road today but I don’t know where to go. Goa is an option but the cases there are on a different trajectory. Plus irrespective of what people say, it’s impossible to get things done there (no phone / internet). Also, I am thinking if I have to get affected by COVID (of course I will try hard to not get the virus), I want to be at a place that has better medical facilities and I have a better shot at not dying! From what friends tell me, the scene in Goa is scarier than what it is at other places (cases, medical staff, general carefulness of people, etc). So that.

One thing is for sure. If I am stuck for these 15 days in Mumbai, at this place, I will have to find something that allows me to stay sane. I don’t know what that could be. Meditation? Some sort of home workout (this place does not have enough to spread a yoga mat – not sure how would the workout happen)? Keto? Ideas anyone?

The other thing I am worried about is all the time I would waste cleaning the house. I know I am not cooking but the metro construction across the road spews a lot of dust and particle material in my house. There’s a thin layer on top of literally everything. I will be forced to put in a lot of time just with dusting.

Sigh.
The fuck is happening.
And yes, I am one of those people in the favour of the lockdown. But not in the favour of not allowing me to walk on the road. Damn this powerlessness sucks.

Ok. Deep breath. Deep breath. I will find a way. And too dark. Wont delete.

First things first. I will restart meditation from today. I will restart OMAD. I will be religious about these things. Meditation right after I wake up, once I have opened the windows and all. I will sleep by 10, come what may. I will try and wake up at 5. 7 hours of sleep is good for me.

Lol. I sound like a desperate man.
Lemme change tracks. Lemme talk of three things that I am grateful for.

A. I walked 10K steps yesterday. I could’ve walked more. But I just took a rick and came back home. I did 15K the day before. Today, I will get about 20K for sure. Before the lockdown shit at 8 PM.

Walking is not important but what I do while I am walking is. I spoke to a couple of friends and helped them with what they are thinking about – one wanting tips on marketing. Another wanted inputs on how to do better.

Grateful that people seek my counsel.

B. I have money in the bank for the first time since mid-2019. I mean I still have a big debt that I need to repay but I am finally not worried where would I get the rent from. Or where would I get the money required for paying my people. Even though the cards are still maxed and I am merely rolling them over, I know that I have enough inflow to roll those over.

I am grateful for these opportunities that have come my way; that, in turn, has allowed me to get to this stability. This feeling is very very liberating. To a point that I am probably sleeping better.

I just need to augment this.

C. For all the cribbing and ranting and hate that I have for this house that I live in, I am sincerely grateful that I have a roof over my head. I may have complaints about the lack of space, I am grateful that I don’t have to share this with anyone. I may not be able to remove all the furniture, I am grateful that I have found some space to put my writing table and work on that.

So that’s that.

What else? Yeah! I am going to get started on Diet Coke. I havent had it more than 30 days. It’s time I get back to it. For a month or so. And then I will quit again. Help me decide?

Help me decide!

So yeah, this is it. No book2 today. I have a lot of work. To end the post, here’s streaks…

  • Morning Pages / Meditations – 122
  • #aPicADay – 103
  • 10K steps a day –2
  • OMAD – 0
  • #noCoffee – 35
  • #noCoke – 35
  • 10 mins of meditation – 0
  • #book2 – 0
  • Killer Boogie – 0

020121 – Morning Pages

On the 2nd day of 2021, I talk about how I spent the first day of 2020 and how I am guilty of enjoying a film like Coolie No. 1.

02 Jan, 0705 hrs.

I had a brilliant start to the new year. Here’s how.

  • I could say no to very tempting offers to a, munch onto crispy brown fries at a fancy restaurant. And b, at the same place, I could say no to an ice-cold Diet Coke that was sweating with dew. Mmmm. Merely talking about it is making me want to grab one. But I did not.
  • I found 60 bucks at a garage! This is after a while that I have found money lying on the road. I consider that each rupee I find like that is worth a crore at some point in time. So, I am worth 60 crores already! Yay!
  • Met a friend (remember the restaurant I talked about above? there) and talked about the Goa magazine I have been thinking about. He may come on board as a partner. So Yay!
  • Was at FabIndia and saw this amazing notepad at a compelling price at a great discount. The regular Saurabh would have bought it but I resisted the temptation and did not.
  • Worked on the #in2021 plan for a bit. Still not done with it, but happy about the progress am making with it. Will share soon.
  • Started posting #aPicADay on Insta with this shot from Anjuna. Got 35 likes. Which is about 0.5%. With 800 followers, this should be at 80-100 (~1-1.5%). May be it will increase as we go along? And in case it does not, I will merely do it for the joy of doing and not for the thrill of seeking numbers.
  • At a cafe, I saw this young boy taking some amazing shots with an iPhone. Talked to him about Dil Haare‘s video that I want to make. He sounded interested. He’s gone MIA since ;P The larger point is that there are so many talented people but there’s no way for them to collaborate with others. Is this a problem worth solving?
  • Read some. The next part of Julia Cameron’s book. Realized my limitations as an artist and an enabler. Let’s see what I do to fix it.
  • Stayed away from the phone for a large part of the day. Decided to not chase time syncs (Instagram, Twitter, etc) and only use them when I want to. Could resist those for a large part. Yay!

So yeah. There’s luck, new beginnings, restraint, and overall general hopefulness. Couldn’t have asked for a better start. What about you? How was it for you?

Today looks busy as well. With things that I want to work on. Cheers to that. I have meetings from 10:30 on. I may also get to meet an interesting artist with Nupura towards the evening if all goes well. I of course need to complete the #in2021 plan before that. Maybe squeeze in a walk, if I can. Lol, who am I kidding?

Ok, what else?

Yeah! I have to talk about this and get judged. So, I don’t watch a lot of movies, and for an aspiring filmmaker, this is of course not done. My to-watch list is a mile long and even if I take three lifetimes, I would probably still not get to finish the list. The most recent one that I have been dying to see is AK vs AK. But I haven’t had the time. Or the inclination, maybe. But, I have been seeing Coolie No. 1 (the new one with Varun Dhawan in the lead role) intermittently. I kid you not, I am enjoying it! To a point that I find myself thinking about it. I am about an hour into it and like most such films that give you the guilty-pleasure, I don’t want it to get over! I have a shitty data connection here at Goa and yet I try to stream the film!

Lol. Goa does funny things to people 😀

Oh, I will also start work on book2 today. For the umpteenth time. Let’s see how this shot at chasing immortality goes. I am often left marveling at how optimistic I could be about things and how thick-skinned I could be about my folly! I mean if I was talking to myself, I would tell myself that book2 is an elaborate facade you’ve created to tell yourself that you amount to something. There is no substance to it. And I would tell myself to stop fooling myself and move on.

But then, I want to tell stories and I like the idea of being able to talk to people and uncover what moves them and then get inspired to explore more. And nothing better than to write books! And thus!

Anyhow, this is a rant for a different time, different day. Time to get on with the day and get some work done!

Over and out.