Growing Up Archives

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 🙂

Untitled 31 Mar 2023

No context post with no specific intent. Just practising my typing.

It’s 6 AM on a Friday. And the regular crowd shuffles in.

Today is the last day of the financial year and as someone that has built a life surrounded by work, I think this is a time to pause and reflect on how the year gone by was. And what would I want to do in the next.

PS: This is an exercise that I would typically want to do at the end of the calendar year (and I do – I make lofty goals (see this) and then I miss those by a large margin) but since the last few months have been like a whirlwind, I just did not get the time to sit, pause, think, reflect, act. So I am merely doing this after three months!

Wait. The post is not about the year gone by. Or the plan for the future. It’s about what I plan to do right now as I let my mind wander and I type out those wanderings.

Lets see what I end up writing. I will write for exactly 45 mins. It’s 6:10 now. And I will stop at 6:55 or post that.

1/ Oil pulling is not that bad.

I recently started with it. I am not a regular but as soon as I wake up, most days I wake up, pee, rinse my mouth and pull oil. I dont know why it’s called pulling cos all you do is take a spoonful of oil and swirl it around your mouth and then spit it out.

No, it’s not as yucky as it sounds.

Plus I’ve had bad teeth (I can’t eat from the right side of my jaw – cavities) and I dont like to go to the doctor. So, I am trying these desi nuskhas.

So that.

2/ Piano Man

Billy Joel’s masterpiece continues to be the track that I really wish I had written.

3/ Personal Branding

More I talk to people, more I think I need to help people build their personal brands. Heck, I want to build mine first.

While I know the tenets (I wrote this guide to personal branding before it was even a word), the inputs, I dont know what causes someone’s brand to blow up or not. I mean I’ve been doing everything that I would recommend to others (posting consistently, adding value, picking a niche (I have stayed away from this for the longest but I am now tending towards a few things), taking help from ghostwriters and all that).

But I haven’t been able to scale mine. Not sure how I would scale it for others.

Thoughts?

4/ Money / Financial duress

It’s payday and today is the first time when I would miss paying my people on time. I haven’t been able to because all my money is locked in some stupid project and I dont know what to do about it. I mean I will get it back sometime in May but it will make me miss the payments.

So, sad.

5/ WordPress

I need to find a way to get someone really cool that knows how to do magic on WordPress. I do have a friend that does my WordPress things for me but he’s no magician. He’s good. He gets things done. But he’s not someone that I could just say, “kar de” and magic happens.

In a creative business, you need to be able to write well, design well, code well (not a facebook kind of webapp but basic, simple pages) and communicate well. I think I’ve been able to achieve all these but code.

Writing I can do. I have C for that. Prak. Others. I am lucky that I can communicate fairly ok. With design, TBH, luckily I have been able to manage it with Canva, V, AK (please subscribe to her newsletter), some freelancers and others. But with code, I dont know.

Any help? Tips?

6/ Growing up

The other day I met a new friend who’s also a client. Let’s call him Z. So Z sees me at work and in life in general. And I’d like to believe that he knows me well.

The other day, he told me a few things that have literally shaken me. Lemme make a list of those. In no order.

Significant other – the world knows I dont have one significant other. I have close friends, business partners and my team. Z said that at the age of 40, it’s cool to be a vagabond and all that but as I grow old and I am no longer surrounded by people that I care for (they will have their own life eventually), I will not know what to do.
Entrepreneurship – ever since I can remember, I have wanted to blow my trumpet and row my boat (preferably a yacht and if not that, then a dinghy for sure). I think I’ve been doing that since 2014 now. Plus, freedom is the number 1 value I chase (thanks Ankesh for helping me reach this expression). Now, Z tells me that he does not see an entrepreneur in me. And I take his words seriously. He is after all a man who knows how to spot people!
Grooming – everyone knows my lack of attention and focus on how I dress and how I look. I remain unkept. I refuse to wear shoes. I am bad to a point that security often doesn’t let me into my own building complex! Z is of the opinion that I must be better.

He called me, “The most unorganised organised person in the world” and I think I agree. I need to remove this un-organization from life.

Anyhow.

The point is, in his eyes, at the age of 40, I am a failure. And while I may feel like that deep inside but I may not want to agree. I have been able to reach a point in life where I find enough work and money to survive. I am at a place where I choose how I spend my days. And while it may not be creating a far-reaching impact anywhere, I think I am at a great place in my head.

7/ Calendaring

I have 6 calendars that I manage on a day-to-day basis. And I am unable to manage all of those. There is no app that I can do a two-way sync with. Especially when they are on different platforms (Gsuite and Microsoft Teams). Any tips for that?

8/ Startup

I really really really really really… infinite times want to do and experience something that scales. To a billion people at least. If not more. You know, think Facebook. 4 BILLION people use it. Think Paytm. Almost a billion users. Think mobile phones. 4 billion. Modi. 1.4 billion. SRK. More than 1.4 billion. I can go on!

I have to have to have to think of something like that. I have no clue what it’s going to be. But I need to find something. I have been in this stage since I was a child. This discovery. I need to find a problem statement and move on.

And no, I dont want to do this because I will make money while I do that. I want to do this to be able to experience what it is like to manage that many people with that kind of width and move an entire company in one direction. I want to chase that experience of uncertainty, I want to know what it is like to lose sleep over lives of so many people. I want to know the bliss that you probably get once you’ve made that dent!

Come on, universe! Can you NOT see my desperation? And hunger? And the pain at the inability to do this? 🙁

—

Oh, its 6:55 and I think I’ve run out of steam.
Plus I need to get ready and get going.
More later.
Dunno when.

Over and out.

40 things for the 40s

A list of 40 things that I would like to do in my 40s.

So, I ~~am turning~~ turned 40 this year and here is a list of things that I will do in my 40s.

By this age, I was supposed to be financially free and contribute to making a dent in this world. I am of course very very far from any of those goals that I had for myself, I do believe that I have a deeper appreciation for life and work and other things. And in this decade, since I am not sure if I am getting closer to dent, I will for sure do things that I have always wanted to!

And thus, here is a list of things that I will do in the next decade. In no order (but bifurcated into sections)…

PS: I know some of the following are goals, some are systems, some are one-time activities and some are all.

Health

Eat better. This is not a tangible or measurable goal but I want to make a conscious effort. So I will use shortcuts. I will eat natural, organic, and unprocessed food. I will eat fewer carbs. I will not eat anything that may not be edible at room temperature (no ice-creams). I will be mindful of what and how I eat.
Fix Hernia. Get operated upon if required.
Run 10 full marathons. Each in under 5 hours.
Do the Killer Boogie in 3 mins.
Get 6-pack abs.
Take a shot at Everest. My deadline to do this is Jan 1, 2026. Also, after I went to the base camp last year, I am on the fence about even trying. But let’s see. And if not Everest, do a serious amateur hike every year. The experience is very very humbling and one must do treks often.
Make sleep a priority. As I grow older, I am unable to function if I haven’t had good sleep the previous night. I will be 8 hours in bed without devices. No screen. Not even TV. 8 might be overkill. The point is, I dont want to be tired when I wake up. And if that means I need to say no to work and say no to money opportunities, I will say no. Sleep will become a priority.

Family / Friends / Relationships

Make parents a priority. Move them to the same city as I. I know I plan to be a nomad per se and it may not pan out but I will try.
Make parents travel to one new place EVERY year. And do this in relative comfort and luxury. I mean I may not be able to fly them in business class but I will not put them in a bad taxi. And thus I need money. For the money, I dont have an upper limit per se but it has to be at least 5 lakhs a year. And most important, accompany them as much as possible.
Find love. I am not sure if I am capable of being loved – I am way too rational when it comes to real life (and a dreamer on the other end when it comes to work). And I say this with all sincerity.

Work

Stop active work. This means I will not be responsible for day-to-day operations.
Teach a full-time course.
Prevent my mornings from others at all costs. See this.
Become very very active with #BrandSG. To a point that before I walk into a room, people know who I am. As part of this, I will make a brand manifesto that will have tenets that are dear to me (say, Zubaan Ki Keemat).
I will NOT rent my time! Thanks, Naval!

Money / Wealth

I will become financially free. This means that I will have enough that I dont need to worry about money and yet I can support everyone around me. You know, “Saain itna dijiye, jaame kutumb samaay, main bhookha naa rahoon, sadhu na bhookha jaaye“. Some people call it FU Money (I mean not really, but the same zone). Right now, the number is 10 crores. Each year that I dont get to this, I will add 25% inflation. And once I get to it, from there on, become a billionaire. And then the richest man in the world. I know that this pursuit of THE richest may not bear fruit. But I want to try. And get there.
Get a membership at MCA. I challenge that I’ve been on since 2019.

Yeah! That’s all I want. Not more. Not less.

Impact / Contribution / Spirituality

Teach writing to 100 people a year. And in 10 years, 1000 people.
Get mentioned in thank you of 100 books. Right now, the number is 2 or 3.
Get mentioned in the Oscar acceptance speech 100 times. Right now, the most thanked person at the Oscars is Spielberg (some 42 times).
Expand SoG network (and alumni) into a million young people. Right now, we are in the low two digits. I have no clue how to do this. But I want to make this my life’s work.
Build SoG Grant into a gateway for young people to explore their interests. And expand the network of recipients to a thousand people!
Build LHV into a substantial venture investment vehicle.
Take C4E or one of our ideas to a point where our impact reaches a few million people. So far we are in the hundreds. PS: I like how I talk about C4E as a collective already. #win
Each year, do at least 10 days of no-connection to existing people kind of trip (Vipassana, gumnaam sheher me anjaan insaan, treks etc.)
Become a pillar of support to people around me. This will happen if I am able to do all the ones I’ve listed above.

Hobbies

Play a musical instrument on a stage with more than 1000 people in the audience. I got myself a Uke. VG gifted me a guitar long ago. Krishna got me a Uke as well. So despite all these divine interventions, I’ve not been able to get to it. Let’s see what happens this time.
Travel to 100+ countries. So far I’ve done 40 odd. This seems like an easy one to do!
Move to a different country and live there for a few years. This I want to do within the next 2 years. #in2025
Publish at least 3 books. Lol!
Make 1 feature film. This one looks the most plausible.
Get a WSOP bracelet.

Social

Get to know 10 billionaires on a first-name basis. Right now I know none.
Be more active on social media and chase vanity metrics. 100K on Twitter, 100K on Instagram and 100K on YT. Or any other platform that is large at the time.

Misc

Get consistent. Do EVERYthing I say I will do. This will be HARD!
Move to an iPad and quit using a laptop. This should be easy!
Ensure that people that have put their faith in me get closer to their life goals. This is what I want to live for!
Release 100 Youtube videos where I am talking to random people that I want to talk to. So, for example, I should release a YT conversation with my favourite musician.

So that!

And as I end this, here are some footnotes…

This is NOT a comprehensive list. As of 24 Sep, these are 38. I need to figure out 2 more.
This is an add-on to my #lifeGoals lists. They are here (bucket list, wish list, lifeGoals).
More notes are on this Doc. I will try and update the progress there.
This post has been inspired by this.
And, as always, open to inputs, feedback, thoughts and more! You know where to reach me.

Thank you!
And wish me luck!

220121 – Morning Pages

Yesterday, a friend told me that he suspects I grew up with some sort of trauma. Here’s what I think.

7:27 AM

This is fairly late by my standards and even though I am typing this away to glory, I think I am still groggy. No, I am not drunk per s but I slept fairly late. I was out with some friends and while they were drinking, I was just chatting with them. And while I did that, I realized my ineptness with conversations.

The other thing I am inept is getting fit. I had decided yesterday that I would not eat for 36 hours. I could only manage 18. This is far less than my personal best of this year. And when I ate yesterday, I had samosas, chips, chocolates, burgers and what all. Oh, and Diet Coke. Kuch nahi hoga mera. I don’t know why but I was hungry. I think when I get anxious, I get hungry?

Of course, the anxiousness is probably because the Internet continues to remain out of reach. The only solution that I have found is to get a place in my name and get broadband connections. And then hope AF that it works. But then, knowing my luck, well…

Oh, the other interesting thing that happened yesterday is that while chatting with people that I spoke about above, one of them mentioned that he feels I have some sort of childhood trauma that affects the way I am. The way I am = scatterbrain, easily distracted, interested in multiple things et al.

Lemme think out loud and write. Living in public and all. I think I have been the way I am since I can remember. Even as a child I think I was like this! I may have some sort of ADD / ADHD but again, not sure.

No, there is no trauma for sure. I had a reasonably ok childhood. I can’t remember too many times when I was unhappy. As a family, we had limited money when I was growing up (may be the ambition to have Ataah Daulat stems from that?) but my parents never let my sis and I feel that we didn’t have enough. It is now that I realize that we didn’t have enough. They ensured that we got whatever we wanted. They put us in the best school they could afford. As a family we were, we are tight-knit. We talked (and continue to talk) often and conversations were (are) about most things that an average Indian family has.

In terms of negative experiences, I can recall, some would be…

One time I lost a quiz and a friend and I sat on the roof of the school and sulked about it. I would be in the 3rd or 4th standard.
One time I was to participate in an extempore competition and I had crammed my speech. And when I faced the mic, I forgot and couldn’t go beyond a line or so. I remember crying and a teacher petting me. This is probably in the 6th or 7th standard.

That’s about all the negative ones I can think of. Funny all these were in school.

I did try to think about happy moments as well and I don’t really have any that are distinctively happy. But I do have a lot of memories from my childhood where I am enjoying how I’ve spent my time. From playing cricket in the park next to my house to renting out comics during the summers to the day-to-day rigmarole of growing up in Delhi.

So trauma, not sure.

But the person that told me this can’t be wrong either. He’s seen the world more than I and definitely knows more than me. Lemme ask my folks when I speak with them today.

Oh, the other lesson that am taking away from yesterday is that if you in the hospitality business, you have better odds of knowing people. At least in the community, you are in – where you live, the kind of people you attract. I need to think about it. As I figure out work and all, I will use this as a variable. Maybe start a coffee shop, live in a house, and make it a BnB. But it has to have a component where I get to meet interesting people.

I guess that’s about it for today’s morning pages.

Oh, this one was written on the new M1. I think I am getting used to the keyboard and once I am in Mumbai for a few days (and have access to a stable, fast internet connection), I will make the shift to this one. And last two days I’ve been using Jagjit Singh concerts as background music as I work. And I am mesmerised by the talent the dude had. The world missed something when he passed away. #note2self. Must do something that makes thr world miss when you are gone!

And before I move on, here’s a billboard that I saw yesterday and this one spoke to me like nothing else has ever.

So that’s about it for the day.

Thanks to this thinking about trauma, I think on today’s #freewriting about #book2, I will write about the origin story of one of the characters. Let’s see which one. Here we go…

As a child, all Ankit wanted was his father’s validation and he had everything but that. Unlike other kids. They had their fathers take them fishing and gutting the best catch, throw em in the sea and then teach swimming, take them to the tintos and show the art of extracting the most from what they sold. Ankit was left buried in agony because Siddh was buried in his books. Ankit couldn’t understand the aloofness that his father displayed. Siddh couldn’t communicate to Ankit yet for he had to discover his nature and prove himself worthy to be a Paul and carry the lineage. Even though Siddh could see in the charts that Ankit is probably where the lineage of Pauls would end, he did not want to fix it. If it’s written in the stars, who was Siddh to try and stop it? All he hoped is that Ankit will not bring down the world with him. Siddh thus was in a tougher spot than Ankit was in. Siddh had to suffer the pain of staying away from his only son and go through the anguish of seeing him grow up into a monster that he could do nothing to stop.

Ankit would often pick on kids that he thought were the happiest. One summer when he was all of 14, he tied Joseph, the local swimming champion behind his jeep and dragged him through the beach. Joseph broke his ligaments in calves and wrists and broke his back and never set foot in the water again. No, neither Joseph nor his family complained. Ankit had promptly paid a visit to them and threatened them of worse consequences. At another time he got his flunkies to block roads to prevent Soni, the girl that was to lead their school’s contingent at the Intruz from reaching the Panchayat office where they were holding auditions. They did wait for her. But for how long?

These were not hidden from Siddh. He had his way of knowing. But he knew he could do nothing. If he reprimanded Ankit, it would make matters worse. If he ignored, at least the boy will have his way and may be, just may be, exhaust the quota of cruelty written in his books. Oh, and Siddh knew that his agony and anguish was not permanent. It was going to end soon. The books told him that. And he even knew how it would end. How Ankit would end. By running over his very own father, the family home, and the books that have never been wrong and yet controlled everything that moved in the world!

***

So, that’s it for the day. I quite enjoyed this one.

Have a few things lined up today. See you guys on the other side.