Here are notes from week 12 of 2025.
I am in Delhi. And unlike other Delhi trips, I was mostly homebound. I didn’t step out as much as I do on other trips. I did meet a few people. I went for a walk with Kunal. And then some. But more or less I was home.
Oh, and I took easy this week. I didnt invest too much time or effort in trying to meet people. I have this new found policy – I will match the effort you make to be around me. In case I REALLY need you, want you etc, I will make extra effort. But more often than not I’ve realised that I don’t need to go out of my way. For example, this person – I call her THE ABSOLUTE BEST hire for C4E that we will never be able to hire – I’ve been trying to meet her for 6 months. And each time I am in Delhi, she’s one of the first people I text. And each time, something or the other happens at her end and we dont meet. This time, I decided to not bother. I know my loss but ek nahi to koi aur sahi. I can’t spend my life waiting for one person to show up. And thus I am gonna choose people who choose me. Simple.
PS: Am I wrong? PLEASE do let me know.
And with that rant, moving onto the review.
🈺 The LARGE objective from the week gone by? And the next week!
I was to work on the 2025 plan and Book 2.
I didnt make any progress on either. No, I didnt not think about them – just that the laziness of being in Delhi and lot of action on the work front had the better of me.
And no, I am not giving up on either. I will revisit these at some time. Book 2 is easy. Thanks to Bri and Claude, I am ok on that. I spend enough time talking about it, thinking about it that I am confident that it would happen this year. I wanted to push the first draft by end of Mar. That may still happen if I can find time once I am back in Bom. If not that, then by 15th April for sure.
On the 2025 plan, I am not so confident. But I will make it happen eventually.
Moving on…
☑️ 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.
- Health
- Meru
- C4E
- Brand SG
- People (Family, Friends, Strangers, etc)
- Book2
- Shauk (Music, Films, Poker etc)
Health – I was home for the large part of the week. And that means I ate home cooked food. I still feel bloated and I get sleepy right after I eat but at least my sleep is better. Once I am back in Mumbai (on Monday), I will work towards building my kitchen. I am also gonna invest in health (gym etc). I wrote about it last week. I just need to action it. So yay!
I will give myself a 0 on this.
Meru – Regular work. Some products are close to seeing the MVP ready stage. We are moving with hiring. And some more action.
I will give myself a 0 on this.
C4E – Nothing much. Actually -1 on this. Reasons beyond this blog.
So -1
Brand SG – Nothing on this either.
Again, -1.
People – I loved the people I met while I was in Delhi. Plus thanks to Meru, I am meeting more people.
So, +1 on this.
Book 2 – Didnt write as much but I did move the needle.
However, I will give myself a 0.
Shauk – Nothing on this. The list of open projects is long – Madhushala, Aakanksha, Network School (:(), Poker, Optimist Manifesto and many many more.
Another -1
So the overall score is -3 for this week.
Trends from the pevious weeks: -2, -1
The max I can get is 7 in a week. Let’s see when I get to it.
Added this to my tracker too.
📊 The tracker from the last week
I love all the green on sleep hours and recovery.
I think the two of these things are good because I am eating better. Even though I am walking less than average, I am still ok. Guess its the food.
The other highlight is that I am unable to track money when I am home. Even though, this Delhi trip I stepped out far less than I would normally do, I did spend money and yet I didnt track it.
My emotions have been suprisingly in check. For all the hatred that I give to delhi, I am amazed that the things I track are actually, on track!
📷 Some Photos from the week gone by
Here are some photos from the week gone by.
Not too many. I told ya that whne I am in Delhi, my productivity goes for a toss.
Do lemme know which one you thought was the best.
📖 Interesting Reads from the last week
Not too many. Just one. Even though I have nothing, I dont want to remove this section.
- The Techno-Optimist Manifesto. Here.
- Self promotion – Wrote this. Also, updated the contact page.
💭 Highlights, reflections and notes from the week.
Here are some from this week.
A/ Ayush (from Notice)
Met Ayush. He’s the founder of Notice. He’s 24 and WHAT A GUY! I wish I had his brains and talent at that age. I want to do something with him. I dont know what. But parking it here.
B/ SoG 2025
I met a few bright people while I was in Delhi. I plan to bind them in a group or something. And I want to call it SoG 2025.
Unlike other SoG cohorts, I am trying this one to have “older” folks (people who are ~25) and push each of those to make 10X than what they make right now. For example, if I could help Ayush scale Notice 10X? Assuming, he’d want to work with me.
To be honest, I am little out of my depth here but what’s the point of life if we don’t try?
This is in continuation to what I wrote last week about how I want to spend my time and money here.
Coming back.
I made a post on twitter / linkedin asking people to nominate themselves. I’ve got a few replies. Let’s see what I do with it.
Oh, and if you are reading this and you have folks to recommend, please lemme know. I really can make a LOT of difference to lives of people.
C/ What did you get done in last week?
Since the Elon tweet and now with Meru, I am learning an incredible lesson. That things need to move week on week. And they need to be tangible. And we need to be high-agency AF.
And thus I am implementing this across my life. And I will implement this across all the things I do. If you are not high-agency, I dont want you around me. Simple.
D/ Ek Aur Panna
I decided to write off one more friend from my life. I wont talk more about it here but I am unable to operate when I am not treated with kindness. And this is when I’ve invested time, energy and effort into helping you build you life. Pavithra taught my recently that I shouldnt look at things in terms of a transaction but I dont want to be in rooms where I am not respected.
I will choose to be kind, polite, supportive and all that but if you cant treat me well, you could be whoever, I am out.
Also, I need to think – if I am the one who’s writing off people at this speed, will I ever have friends and family left when I am old?
Also, if you are reading this, is this my Ego at play? Help please!
E/ Home
I have made a decision that each month I will come home for a week.
It will mess with work and health and money and all that but I will. In fact, I will book tickets in advance (I cant book them right now – haath thoda tang hai) but I will book these. Till I have enough money to get my parents to move to Mumbai.
F/ Founder Brand
Met this young founder who thinks that building a founder brand will sell his products. I had to tell him to not ape others blindly. While founder brand is an important thing, it can’t be THE only thing! May be I will record a podcast on this. CC AK. Idea for the next episode.
G/ The head in the ass behaviour of someone I respect
Again, related to D above, yet another gent seems to have gotten so big that he’s got his head up his backside. This one is from MDI and is a self-appointed leader of a random group. I dont know what happens to people when they grow big!
Also, my decision on D above, is it because I have my head in my ass?
H/ SG Helps on Marketing
Thanks to this tweet, a couple of people filled in the form. And I spoke to one of those. And again, I was blown by the talent of that person. I think I have stumbled on to something interesting with it. Must find a way to scale it.
I / Dubai
I seem to have trained the algo on Insta on Dubai.
And I know that at least for the foreseeable future, Dubai is not happening. So I need to retrain my algo. Having said that, I want C to continue to focus on building C4E to be a borderless business (even though the world we live in seems to closing with each passing day). Dunno what she wants. I will not push her and let things take their course.
J/ C4E…
…is closing the year with a flat line compared to last year (no growth, no degrowth) in terms of topline and profits.
Not a good news. I was supposed to do 40 crores of topline this year. TBH, we would have been 2X last year if not for the bad last few months.
Again, on this, I want Chandni to write an annual report for all our stakeholders. Again, her wish if she wants to.
K/ Workshop on Taste.
Manas would’ve taken the workshop on Saturday. I was unable to attend (cos am in Delhi). Hope people would have had fun!
To be honest, I am not sure if I like that I am missing all these bombs that we are planting at C4E. I do these becuase I like to do things but if I am not there, then what? But I jknow that I need to focus on buliding Meru to be able to have more.
Sigh!
L/ Other things that I want to capture but I may not spill too many words…
- Lesson on tipping from HT. I will ensure that I will tip EACH place I am at. I know I dont have enough but I will ensure that whatever I have gets distributed well.
- Wall of Portfolios is an incredible idea that I wish I had built! I will reach out to each person on that wall and try to make friends.
- Booked a wrong flight. I typically don’t make mistakes with these things but I did. And thus this needs to be captured.
- Worked from a McD for three days last week. My soul is crying. 😀
- Had Wai Wai Sadako at Yeti. Loved it. Been in love with it since I went to EBC.
- Met friends from childhood – Monu, Kunal. I wish I could live around them. But life has happened. I was reading something that says more than 95% people still live in / around the same pincode where they were born!
🧠 Reminders from last week
I am adding this section. To capture things that I want to not forget. I will copy paste these week on week and track updates.
Here are things from the past weeks that I want to remember. And no, this may not be a comprehensive list. In categories.
- Health
- Kitchen setup
- Gym membership
- C4E
- C4E Base
- Design
- Borderless agency / Upwork
- Shauk / Personal
- Poker
- Better dressed SG
- Use of money / time
- 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?
Survive.
No large, deep thoughts. Just plain old being.
In the previous weeks, it’s been Looking Up, Survival, Taste, Community, Respect, Money, People.
—
Ok!
This is it for the week gone by. Late by a day. But it’s here. Yay!
Lemme know what you think.
See you around.
PPS: 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