Gokul NA Archives

Wk 06-25 – Weekly Notes

Notes from Week 6 of 2025.

10:25 AM
Starbucks, Versova
Let’s see how long do I take on this. I’ve started a Forest timer. Let’s see.
Update: Made numerous calls in the middle. Publishing this at 14:06 PM

So, this is my favorite time of the week. Where I am by myself. And I sort of journal what’s happening in my head. I do a recap of the week. I dump all that I need to get out of my system. Call it flushing. Some things make it to the blog. Some dont (the ones that dont, get to my Roam). The thing that I am most careful of is that I dont delve in the past. and I dont want to worry about the future. I am present. Thinking. Cataloging. Actioning. Just the act of sitting at one place and writing and publishing is nice. In fact, I often think that if I could just write and pay my bills, I will do that. But then, that’s alternate reality. I need to act on whats up today!

Oh, I am listening to this as I write.

Here are sections (I want to change this but I will do so at some other day)…

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

A/ 2025 plan.
This has been open for like 2 months now. I met Neha last night and she mentioned that she’s been seeing make these plans for 3 years and no action. I am still poor, fat and all that. Vivek says the same.

But…

I remain a thick skinned person. This is my yearly ritual and I will not trade this for anything. So, at some point, I will get to this. Parking as sgp1 and todo.

The tracker from the week that went by.

Here’s the tracker from the last week.

I ate a lot. I walked some. I spent a lot. More or less the emotions were in control. My streak of daily updates is good too (I’ve moved those to @altsg). I had a REALLY bad day couple of days when someone shat on C4E on a public platform. But now that I look at this chart, apart from that one red and yellow window, I was mostly ok.

This is surprising. There’s a disconnect. My daily twitter posts reflect otherwise. May be I need to write my posts better? Or maybe I need to capture things better. Will be more mindful in this week.

In fact, J said that for someone who claims to be a Stoic, I am moved a lot by my emotions. She’s not wrong. Must be more mindful.

If you see this, please tell me what you see that I am missing?

Photos from the week

Here are some photos from the week gone by.

Oh, btw, I tried to find a way to embed Google Photos into WordPress. I found a plugin as well. But I was too incompetent to get it to work for me. IF you know wordpress well, would you want to do this for me?

Interesting Reads

Adding this section from this week on. The intention is to capture what left an impact on it. And have my people read these and debate.

Triangle of Talent by Shaan VP. FUCKING EYE OPENING.
Derek Sivers on How to Spark a Movement. I see this often.
Imperfection by Dharmesh Shah. Loved loved loved it.
This presentation by Paras Chopra where he makes a case about why India needs to build our own AI Model. I have my disagreements but he is the man in the arena. Also, Paras is inviting people to work with him to build those models. Some of you may want to apply. Going by his reputation, he will ensure that it reaches fruition.
This piece on Atoms and Bits.

There are more links and things that I read. I share those on this group. In case.

And this brings me to highlights, reflections and notes from the week.

I will lean onto my Roam and Daily updates for this.

In no order…

A/ C4E – a LOT happened at C4E in the last week.
And here’s a quick summary.

Reputation. I dont care about mine. I may live or die. But C4E is a village and I will not have ANYONE call us a scam or a fraud. I am ok to not meet your expectations or whatever. But I am not a scam. I will work harder than anyone else you may find. You know, more chappal than anyone else. But I am NOT a scam. The sad part was that apart from me, I dont see anyone else at C4E care for the reputation! I wrote more on my daily update here.
Premium Pricing. I will restructure C4E to only charge a premium pricing. I may die hungry but I will not work for anything that I am not comfortable with.
People Ops. I will ensure that we treat people better. We are mostly good but I want to take it up a notch. We HAVE to be the best when it comes to people.

B/ Health
I am at that age now there I am seeing multiple health issues. I have something wrong with my heart and I need to see more docs for that. Skin seems to be breaking out. My back hurts perpetually. I really need to fix my hernia. I need spects. I can go on and on.

I need to work on this. And I will. Starting today, I am changing my identity to that of a healthy man. I will do each thing that you expect a healthy person to do. Including working out.

And this will be more important as I go along with the startup that I am working on!

C/ Farheen
Spoke to this lady. She’s all of 23 and WOW. My gut says that she will do a lot in life and go far. But let’s see. She offers social media marketing, SEO and allied services. If you are on a lookout, you may consider chatting wiht her

D/ Dubey Ji at Marine Drive
Just yesterday, I was at Marine Drive and I did what I do each time I am there. Get a massage. And of course got talking to the masseuse. And he told me about this person – Dubey Ji. Apparanty, he’s the guru of most of the masseuses on the Marine Drive. The important part is that Dubey Ji is now retired and each of his shagirds give him a tiny sum each day! I would love to be that where all my kids are doing well and I am merely living vicariously thru them!

E/ I got a new phone.
And I dont feel any emotions towards it. It was important to capture. As a young person, each time I got a new phone, I made an event out of it. I realised that it was no longer the case.

F/ AKs website is up after a month!
So cool! The world needs more of her. Here’s the link – akforthevibe.com

G/ C and Krishna
If I were to make a list of people who believe in SG, Krishna and C will probably top the list. And I have been unkind to both of them over this week. And I need to fix it.

But…

I don’t know how. I know both of them will read this post and both of them will say, “its ok”.

H/ Took a loan
I had decided that I will not take a loan again. But this month I had to. And by the looks of it, I will need to take another one. I dont know when this cycle will end. Let’s see.

I/ The AI Fomo
I talked about it last week too. And its getting all the more real. TBH, since last week, I have made some progress. I am more aware. I have read more. But I still dont have enough to give me comfort. I need to find that.

J/ Worth Living For
Prof Kavi Arya mentioned this in a conversation. He said something on these lines… “Most people tend to think about things that they want to die for but this approach was refreshing – what are you willing to live for?”

This opened by eyes like nothing else had!
I am willing to live for a lot of things. And no, these things don’t mean leisure or pleasure.

K/ Other things that I want to capture but I may not spill too many words on those.

Updated my Work With Me Page. After I got the inspiration from Hardik Pandya’s page.
Gokul NA. Each time I speak with him, I am inspired to do more with my life. I REALLY wish I could drop everything and work FOR him. He’s a rare person that I want to work FOR. And not WITH.
May get to work as a marketer on a project at IIT Bombay. I am not getting paid a lot but I would like to get the experience of being at IIT often. Maybe know more students and all? Oh, on my previous visit to IIT, I bumped into Mayank Pareek! Talk of serendipity!
Films business. I HAVE to do something about it. I will have to restart from scratch now that I am out of TRS but I will do it.
I have a crush on a 51-year-old!
I’ve been missing Steve Jobs.
Made some tough calls that I was avoiding for a while. Some more tough calls need to be made. Will do those in the coming week.
Met Arun Kedia for a coffee. One of the best meetings in a long long time. More notes in my Roam.

Ok that.
Phew

One large takeaway from the week?

In one word?
Money.

Last week, it was People.
This week, its money.
I don’t want to write more here (context is on my Roam). In case someone wants to know more, you know where to find me.

PS: Reminds of KWAN – love, respect, community AND the dollars too!

PPS: Now that I am on films and trailers, I saw this and it brought a lump to my throat. Happens each time. And then I saw this.

Ok!
This is it!
Lemme know what you think.
Gotta go.
See you around.

Oh, here are the previous editions: Wk 01, Wk 02, Wk 03, 04, 05

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

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.