19 Oct 202620 Oct 2026
Singapore.
Haan ji good morning! good etm!
This weeks update comes in a new avatar. Because while I was writing, I realised that I invest a lot of time in formatting. And the world we live in, the AI enabled one, we dont really need formatting and structure. We can lean onto AI for that.
So, here’s an experimental one.
Oh, here’s the track of the week.
1/ Singapore Stories
I am in SG this week and unlike other times when I am a mere tourist for a few days (or I have agenda), this time I am living like a local. With a friend.
And here are some unfiltered observations.
a. There are a very few coffee shops with charging points. And that means I cant sit at a place for too long (the laptop I have runs out in like 4 hours). And this means that my work productivity is taking a hit. And this means that my general happiness levels are low. And that means I am not a great company.
I dont know how to fix this. I mean I know that my general happiness and wellbeing is in always being on the intellectual treadmill. And wihout a laptop, I am unable to be on one. I tried with an ipad and a phone and it didnt cut.
So, yeah. The city’s not made for remote workers. Like me. Unless I choose to get myself an office space. But then I dont want to have one specific location that I go to.
b. People in Singapore love to queue up. Which is a good thing. After all, large-scale functioning societies must have some sort of order.
But then there’s me. Who’s spent all his life avoiding queues. If I see a traffic light doing a countdown from 7 seconds to 0 and I am just 10 steps away from it, I will not run to catch it. If I see a bus that I need to catch pulling away, I will give up on it. If I am chasing a member of opposite gender for romantic interests, if they act pricy, I distract myself with some Taarak Mehta.
The other day, my niece queued up for 30 minutes to get a frozen yogurt. I dont get the sense. I refuse to believe that it could taste so good that I invest 30 minutes of my life in it. Take Benne for example. Long queues. But not my jam. Never been to one, even though they are growing like mushrooms.
So, this lot of order, lot of queues is nice but not for me.
In fact, I’d say that Singapore feels like a school for adults. People are easy going. Shorts are ok. No one bothers you. There’s safety, order, cleanliness, structure and all that. Like a good school. And a fab campus with gardens, pools etc. Made for adults. Not for me.
PS: I was also finally able to articulate that I want to live away from India but I will never be a Non-Indian. I wont be able to cut ice with non Indians. Some people have the charm to do that. Not me.
So, the business to think of would be to serve Indians around the world.
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2/ The last 1000 things
I saw this on X while I was doomscrolling yesterday (sad in the head about how I am holed in a room without a Starbucks / coworking space to go to).
And then I read it and I realised that this 1000 is a great thing to look upto.
And as soon as I read this, I got up from the bed and walked to this coffee shop to write this.
Inspired by this, I will start today for a SG of three years from hence.
I tried to be the coolest 30-year-old and failed. I then tried to be the coolest 35-year-old and failed again. At 40, I wasnt the coolest 40-year-old. I will be 45 soon and unless something superhuman happens, I wont be the coolest.
But if I start today, I would have the shot at being the coolest 50-year-old. And let’s gun for that.
PS: Life goes past very very fast. If you are young and reading this, please know that days are long and decades are short.
3/ The world around me
The worlds burning – literally.
I dont track news at a lot of places but the limited ones that come to my feed (Paris, Riyadh, CJP in large part of india, St Petersberg, Kolkata, Thailand et al), all seem to be going thru some sort of crisis. And then there are places in Africa and South American and deep in Europe that I dont even know about that seem to have their own crisis.
I dont know what’s the problem of this world!
There are days when I think hard and I want to fix the world and there are days when I think I should stick to my lane and fix my house first and not think about others.
4/ Hiring
All of us know that I am trying to hire people at C4E. And I am failing at it. From my this week’s experiments, I want to talk about three things.
a. I wanted to hire a quasi-CEO, sort of partner to myself to help with C4E.
I met many and almost shortlisted one. Got him to meet my people. And then we couldnt get him on board. We are way too married to our cult (not culture) that we have a had time accepting more people in our fold.
b. I have been trying to look for a SEO person to manage a client and I’ve failed at it. Please help!
c. I tried to help a friend person out of goodwill and we couldnt come to agree to terms.
And then he talked to me in an impolite tone and manner. And then I lost it. I am done with him. And done with offering myself up with with needless kindness. I want to help people and want to make this world into a utopian, good place but I think I need to reconsider it.
Not just him but a social media butterfly asked me to help her with some random RT and all that. And I lost it when I was told that I am creating “drama” and “not on paid roster” and all that. I must write a note on how (and why) my words are not for sale. And how I will judge each person that participates in this engineered virality. And how I need to be shameless about marketing. In fact, this deserves another section of its own.
Or wait. Maybe am getting to Andropause.
5/ Marketing Self
One of the most important lessons of this year has to be that I need to learn how to accept compliments. And market myself.
Thank to Dr H, I am ok with accepting compliments. But I am still far from my ability to market myself. In fact, tweets after tweets last few days made me realise my mistake.
Here are some…
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Now, I come from that school of thought that if I am worth 10, I need to say that it’s 1. And then the world around me operates in “make it till you fake it” and if they are worth 10, they say 100.
So I am surrounded by folks who toot their horn each time they get up from their bed and all that. And I am the kinds who would not talk about it even if I won a Nobel / Oscar / whatever is the epitome of recognition.
I know, I know. I need balance. I need to own my wins and acknowledge my losses. But I am unable to talk about myself with words that at even a hint of hyperbole.
I dont know the solution on this.
I think, if I am able to abstract my work from my personality, I should be ok. Lets see.
6/ AI and Cognitive Intensity
Read this on twitter.
From what I can understand and comprehend this tweet, to be able to operate AI with its 100% power, you need to have a the ability of handling large cognitive loads. You may not be busier just in terms of time but also in terms of how much brain you need to use. Since I’ve gone Max on AI, I can feel that my brain has expanded a 100 times, if not more. I have way too many threads and way too many ideas in my head that I am unable to sit still.
In fact, I think this is the place where a generalist and the multitasker may do well. Where you can switch context fast. And deep work is done in partnership with AI.
Wait.
Before I shill my generalist brain, I have a tiny comment.
I know that as a society it would make us go back eons. I mean unless there were folks willing to be on the edge and do more than what life offered, we would still be in caves. Plus the value of doing 10000 dedicated reps to build your muscle for something will be even more. I mean we have these millions of people who cant write one line to save their line or express themselves. Even for their anger and anguish, they need to lean on to AI. And if you told them to make a coherent argument for or against a notion, you would see them struggle.
Coming back. If you are able to keep many things in your head and context switch and lean on to AI for doing things, you could actually have a great life.
Brings me to the next point. Great life.
7/ What makes for a great life?
I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes a great life. Especially at 44 when I dont have a lot to show for how I’ve lived.
To think of a great life, you could look at it from following lenses (and each in isolation).
a. There are these worldly things that you could want to own, you know, cars, houses, crypto assets, reputation, distribution and all that. And each time I think of that, I am reminded of Pale Blue Dot. And then I think about things that the likes of Steve and Elon do. You know, mad scientists? Again, deep down, I am probably not there. While I am ambitious person and want to make a dent and help the world become better and all that, I dont think I have that streak of madness in me.
b. Then there could be a thing about a great family, friends and community. You know, the one that you build (and not inherit) with deliberate effort. That you provide for. That provides for you. That allows you to be you.
No, I dont have a family per se. I dont have a lot of friends either. I do have many acquaintances and many communities. So I think am better here than work.
c. There’s talks about a great life where you have some meaning and purpose. I do have one. And no its not very differentiated from what others may have. And that’s ok. While we are unique as individuals, the uniqueness ends at that.
In terms of my purpose, I aspire to be that person who helps you see more and do more. And I am around when you’re in a soup. I know this is not really Ikigai material but I am ok there. In fact I often pay from my pocket and time bank to help others.
In terms of work, what I do doesnt add a lot to anyone to be honest. Except giving me the freedom of time. For example, I am reasonably free. I control a large part of my time. I am able to do a lot of experiments that need me to be available and invest effort, money and time. And I can do those with a reasonable degree of freedom, choice and agency.
d. Then a great life could be about your ability to chase you interests, hobbies and passions. As a person, I am not particularly passionate about a lot of things. I dont care for food, travel, events, experiences and all that. But I am passionate about people. I love when I see people create magic. I love when am able to push them out of comfort zone. On this one, I think am good. I’ve had many people who’s life got just a tiny bit better because I was in it.
Apart from these 4, the other things that we generally think about when we want to talk about a great life is health, money and faith (religion). Funnily in my case, when I was reading about great life, these three things didnt even cross my mind.
Lemme write a line about each.
- Health. I am not doing well in this one. I am diabetic. I have inflammatory diseases. Hernia. And more. I need to probably work on this to be able to have a great life.
- Faith / Religion. I grew up a Hindu and a lot of my lessons and mental composition come from Mahabharata and Ramayana. Plus I grew up in Delhi and a lot of my thinking is as Indian as it comes. And despite this, I dont identify with any religion anymore.
- Money. Lol. This is the grease that moves the world. I am of a firm belief that having money may not give you happiness but lack of it will 100% make you unhappy. In my case, not one of my conversations is about money. Maybe because I’ve assumed that I will get when I want it?
Ok, this became an exercise in soul searching. Felt ok after I did this. I don’t like it that am not large or whatever but I am otherwise mostly ok in how I live.
Phew.
Ok, so I seem to have an ok life. I’ve may be even had a micro-win at it. But there’s one thing I’ve failed with. And that too something that I hold close to my heart.
Marketing.
8/ My failure as a marketer
So, I am on a 100-day sprint to write 100 posts (one each day) on linkedin. And today’s day 4. Over the last 3 days my words have been seen by like 20 people. And I am sure 15 of those, I know them already.
I am told that my content is tough to read (I dont agree but numbers dont agree with me). I am told that I dont cause any controversy (I dont want to do it for sake of creating controversy). I am told that my words are shit (I was always told that I wrote well, despite my grammar snafu).
But my attempt at marketing myself dont seem to work.
In fact, I am thinking that I am a failure with this entire distribution lead modern marketing. I can see what seems to be working (mid things by celebesque people wanting to shill things for affiliate links) but I cant seem to get to do those things by myself. Neither do I have the energy to DM people and ask them to post about me. And I definitely will not want to put my fam and friends on the internet in hopes of getting some clicks.
So that.
9/ Failed to get to 5K AED
Another failure is my attempts at getting to 5K AED from Dubai.
One of my large goals was to get to 5K AED before 15th Oct. I did make some attempts but I was unable to move the outcome.
In fact, this has been a recurring theme this year. Since I decided to get back to active work, I’ve chased many ideas but I havent been able to put my finger onto one and do it. I havent been able to spot such a large opportunity that I am excited to my bones about it.
I dont know a solution to this. I’ve tried everything. Coaches, OKRs, Claude artefacts as TDLs, accountability buddies and all that. And nothing has worked. I have to find a solution to this for sure.
10/ The Focus for October
This is one of the few sections am retaining.
We are on the last-third of Oct and I have these three tasks.
- Book 2. I picked the fragments of what I call book2. I will work on it over the next few days. I will work on this in a sprint this week. Let’s see where we reach.
- A portfolio of bets. Stop forcing one focus. No action. But thanks to Claude and WonderKid, I’ve done a lot. In fact, I may take a more active interest in Yellow. While I may not understand women’s health but I do know about business.
- 40 pushups in one go. I am pretty confident on this one. I am at 20. I plan to do 25 tomorrow. Let’s see.
So, this is it.
Lemme know what you think of this new format.
PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes.
Previous editions from 2026 are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 (missed these three), 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 (missed), 26, 27, 28, 29 (missed these three), 30, 31, 32, 33 (missed), 34, 35 (missed), 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 (missed these three), 41
PPS: Please do point typos and gaps in thinking.