Tag: Personal

The Chest Discomfort Drama

So the last few days I have had some weird pain in my chest on the left side. Now this could be something to do with the heart, or lungs, or muscles, or even gas, if nothing else. And since I’ve been reading a lot about health, sleep, longevity and all that, I am of course concerned. And unlike the Hernia that I have come to accept as a feature of my body and live with (I bear the pain most of the day), I am worried about this one. 

Before you get alarmed, I am going for a check-up. And apart from the pain in my chest and shoulders, I don’t have any other symptoms (I have none of these that are typical of cardiac unrest –  shortness of breath, sweating, dizziness, nausea, anxiety, indigestion etc). And I have been sleeping well, at least my whoop data tells me that. In my books, well means 6+ hours of restful sleep on average in the last few days. 

So, any search on the internet about anything to do with discomfort in the chest will convince you that you are getting a heart attack and you are dying from it. And even if it’s a false alarm, I don’t want to die right now. I mean I am not afraid per se of death. I know it’s an inevitable destination and in the words of Steve, “Death is very likely the single best invention of Life”. Again in his words, “It clears out the old to make way for the new.” And I’ve seen this in action. However, I have a lot to do at this point. All this “lot to do” may be subjective, meaningless etc etc in the large scheme of things (I can be a nihilist at times) but to me, at this point in time in life, they matter. And I am willing to kill for those. Well, at least live for those. Plus, I run a village right now and the village may not be able to survive without me. I know I am giving myself too much importance but that is where it is. It may not even survive with me at the helm but at least I would’ve tried and I wouldn’t be an armchair activist. 

So, while my aversion to organised medical institutions is well-known, I’ve got myself an expensive appointment with a doctor who looks fit, at least from his photos (Thanks Naval for the tip). And I am hoping that he will be unlike other doctors. If this one doesn’t turn out to be good, I’ll chat with someone else. And then maybe one more. And then hang my boots. Oh, I do have Ashi, a friend and a doctor who I trust. 

The thing is, as I age, I need to find someone in the medical fraternity to look for me. I don’t trust the way doctors work – pumping you with medicines. I’d rather trust a person like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk to help me navigate my health. They would of course be capitalist as fuck and make a lot of money off me but I trust them to do the right thing for the customer.  

Anyhow, I digressed. 
Coming back to the point.
So I have this random pain. 
Unlike I’ve ever had. 

And it’s been persistent for a few days and has increased in frequency and intensity and area.

And I need to thus figure out what’s wrong with me. And since I don’t know what’s wrong, I have speculated on the worst-case scenario and on the best-case scenario. And while I did that, I tried to detach myself from my thoughts and I tried to observe myself with a third-party, equanimous lens. 

And here’s what I found. 

A/ I saw a middle-aged man relook at his will. 

B/ I saw a man scared of the inevitable. 
I could see that one night the man was afraid to even fall asleep. What if he didn’t wake up the next morning? In a flurry of texts, I shared a lot of hidden fears on Twitter. Go find what night was that, if you are curious. 

C/ I saw a man in denial about how he lives his life.
You know, as a modern-day hippie, refusing to fit in.

I saw this man circle through the stages of grief. I learnt from AD and ND that when in adversity, you could rather be a problem-solver and go over these stages fast. Some people never get over it. AD got over his latest grief in like 1 hour. ND takes a day. This man took 4 days. 

In his case, there was more confusion than anything else. But now he’s accepted it and is in a solution mode. 

D/ I saw a lazy man who would make all the excuses he could to avoid going to a doctor. One time he made an online appointment and waited for the doctor to confirm. Then he made an appointment and cancelled. And today, as he writes this, he will finally go! Unless the laziness gets the better of him during the day. 

E/ I also saw the man go over his latest health reports (last check-up in Mar 2024) and try to make sense of those. Till at least 30th of Mar 2024, apart from some inflammations and a high HbA1c, most markers were in place. Even the LDL and HDL were in permissible limits. So, I am not sure if you can fuck your heart health so bad in 5 months. See the confusion? And if I have, I have. And we shall find a solution.

F/ At no point I had an existential crisis per se. 
I was worried and all that but I didn’t really lose sleep. I think I am blessed in that department. I sleep well. At least my whoop tells me that. So that’s one saving grace. As I write this, the previous night’s data says that I got 6+ hours of sleep (which I think is good for someone like me) and out of that I had 4+ hours of restorative sleep! 

Post edit – I was indeed worried one night. I did mention it in point B.

Post edit 2 – as I edit this, I haven’t slept well last night. 

G/ The man is at jo hoga dekha jaaega stage and not worried. 
He took a pragmatic look at things and decided that in the case of the inevitable, he would put affairs in order (means find money for ageing parents, close things at work, disappear from the internet) and accept the inevitable. And accept that some mysteries in life can never be solved.

H/ Finally, I saw an old man, who refuses to grow up and act his age. 

Ok, the man’s taking a break and is on his way to see a doctor. In a grand ceremony of sorts, he handed his computer (essentially his life’s possessions) to his trustworthy lieutenant and walked into the hospital. 

POST VISIT 

The man saw a doctor. 
He shared his lifestyle, data, history etc. 
He chose the heart doctor that looked the fittest. 
He got some consultation. 
He got his BP done twice (once it was 150-90 and then it was 130-90). 
He got an ECG done. 
He even tried to sell an health-tech idea to the doc 😀

The eventual recommendation from the doc was that there’s nothing to worry about and to rule out things, we can do more tests. So the man is in the process of doing those tests. 

Oh, the doctor also mentioned that this could also be a result of anxiety. And here was this man – thinking that all was well with him in the head department! 

So anyhow. 
Very anti-climatic. 
Much ado about nothing. 
Or maybe there is something to worry about. 
Time shall tell. 

But in all, this was a very interesting, harrowing last 14 days. 
I hope I sleep well tonight. 
Post-edit – I did not. 
Oh, by the way, I am gonna call this my rebirth and I am gonna take care of my village and my people. 
Come on, universe. 

Oh, in case someone wants to see my ECG report, lemme know.

42 things I’ve learnt in my 42 years

Note: I started writing this list 2 years ago but never got around to finishing it. Today I will.

Yesterday, Nikhila asked me, “What would you do if you were 21 again & knew everything you know today?“

I thought it was a great prompt to get thinking and writing about two things – what do I know today. And what would I do if I were 21 again.

So, let’s go.

A/ What do I know today?

AKA, 42 things I wish to tell a younger version of self.

What do I know today? Well, I have to admit. Not a lot. In fact more I know, the more I realize that there are more things that I do not know.

But then I started to write this list a couple of years ago and since today I’ve decided that I will get this done. Thanks, V for this 6 AM writing gift.

Oh, here are a few disclaimers before I start…

A/ Do read this in continuation to the list of things that I want to do in my 40s.

B/ On this list, I will only put in things that I have experienced firsthand. No gyaan but things that have happened to me. Or not happened to me. I dont want this to be fluff.

I mean I will not say, “eat more protein”. I know it’s a universal truth but I haven’t experienced the advantages of eating more protein and thus I can’t talk about it.

So, here is a list. In no order.

  1. Compounding is the 8th wonder of the world. Don’t know who said this. But it’s true. I’ve seen it in my life. Put everything on compounding treadmill.
  2. Time is limited. This is the single most important thing you have. Spend money to earn time. Never rent your time out. Find opportunities where your time is spent on meaningful things like lunches, conversations, etc.
  3. Dont hop from one thing to another. Never be in that zone of trying to find the next greener pasture. The grass is green on the side you choose to water it. Longer you water it, better it would be. Let it compound. Read point 1.
  4. Learn to spot energy vampires and energy boosters. Eliminate the vamps. Invest in boosters.
  5. Actions > Words.
  6. If you make a promise, you better keep it. Try to become consistent. I suck at this. I am trying hard. I don’t know if I would succeed.
  7. Some time ago, Sheba helped me discover the word that drives me. Movement. For a friend, it’s fearless. For someone else, it’s money. Find your word. Invest your entire being into it. Also, see this.
  8. The ability to do something in public is one of the most underrated ones. You could choose your vocation – write / design / dance / write / speak / make fun of people / cry / do your make up / share your travels etc. So, build in public. And talk about it on the internet. Learn from AK.
  9. Sleep well. Invest in your sleep. Do not make excuses about parties, work, networking, etc. Oh, while you may believe you are a “night person”, there is nothing more magical than waking up before the sun and seeing the sun shower the world with warmth. Of course, you may be a night owl. And that’s ok. You’re missing on it ;P
  10. Keep your back straight and rest will follow.
  11. Family > Friends. Family is what is imposed on you. Friends is what you choose. And you must choose carefully. These two (family and friends) will dictate how happy, how engaged, how inspired you live a life. I have been extremely lucky in this department.
  12. Think long-term. Everything I have today has come to me because I’ve operated from a time horizon of infinity. See 1 again.
  13. Know that you are an Average Joe. You are a midwit at best. I know of myself as the greatest gift to humankind and yet I know that I am an average. All the thing that dreams are made of – dating a supermodel, winning a jackpot, building a billion-dollar company – happens to people on the edges. I am not on the edge. Am bang in the middle of the middle. And thus I need to work hard. And I want to work at things that have the highest probability of success for an average person.
  14. Give each person you love one rupee and one brick. This is a maxim from baniya community and it translates into giving your people work and room. More on this someday. I am yet to do this as a process but I’ve been at it.
  15. Other people’s opinions don’t amount to much. They will not come to save you when you are drowning. Except when it affects your public reputation or brand.
  16. Build your personal brand. This is one of the biggest lessons ever and one of the things I wish I had known sooner. I’d go as far as to say, chase vanity numbers – 100K on Twitter, 1M on Instagram etc.
  17. See Pale Blue Dot every week.
  18. Practice delayed gratification. This is an easy muscle to build. Each time you are tempted to do something, take a 48-hour break!
  19. Read Naval. And implement what he says. While we are on reading, read Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus. This is a good starting point.
  20. There is no substitute for hard work. If two roads diverged in the woods and you want to want on the one that makes all the difference, take the harder one.
  21. Always operate from the humility of being a student. I know tons of young and younger folks who know that they know it all. And I am sure they do. And I see them as miserable humans. I don’t want to be that.
  22. Invest in relationships. All kinds. Romantic, friendly, professional, etc. I’ve been a great beneficiary of these investments. Apart from the love department, I’ve been lucky in all others. And let them compound. See point 1.
  23. Breathe. Meditate. Pause. Reflect.
  24. Assume that you are all alone. On the darkest nights and toughest battles, I’ve found myself by myself. No friends. No lovers (my lovers were the first ones to desert me). No one. Apart from my parents and my sis. I’ve had enough of troughs to now know that I need to learn how to operate as a lone warrior.
  25. Get a nice house to live in. When I say nice, I don’t mean you get Antilla. You need to get a room for yourself that no one can enter without your permission. Make it your abode. I have always overpaid for houses and I think the large investment is worth it. Oh, I still dont own one. I still live in a rented apartment.
  26. Fuck the FOMO.
  27. Take notes.
  28. Learn how to read people. Most people are guided by the same tiny set of things – appreciation, respect, vanity, greed, fear etc. Spot who’s guided by what and then operate from there on.
  29. Make friends with support staff. Invest in their stories, lives etc. Think of your Barista at a Starbucks. Think of your security guard, your domestic help etc. Know their names. Know their whys. Talk to them. More than a polite and transactional thank you when they serve you well, get to know them. These tiny things make life worth living.
  30. Make friends with people that you have an age gap of 10, 20, 30, even more. My closest confidante today is a 23-year-old. I seek advice from a 60-year-old advertising professional. I built SoG as a means to stay connected to young folks. I built party of 9 to find more people to learn from.
  31. Learn cold approach. I suck at this but I am learning. Read about PuAs. I should give myself a target of cold approaching 5 people every day.
  32. Ready. Fire. Aim.
  33. No, I don’t understand those maxims about direction and speed where they say that its important to go in the right direction (rather than going fast). If I knew the direction, I would run with speed. But like most folks, the direction is often not clear. I still dont know what I want to do in life. I dont have a mission. I dont know why I work hard. I do so because I dont know anything else. So, I operate with directionless speed. No, dont follow this advice 😀
  34. Go easy on wokeness. While inclusion is important, it has lately become a cog in the propaganda machinery and young folks dont know how to see through it. An easy way out is to be aware of woke conversations but do not attach your identity to those. Even if you feel strongly about those.
  35. Empathy is important. But not to the point that you can’t function.
  36. Build the muscle to take hard calls. Asking someone to fuck off because they are rude to you is easy. But letting go of a colleague who’s working hard and is committed and is loyal and you can’t see them improving is hard.
  37. The word “passion” is an over-abused one. You are not passionate about anything. You are merely seeing success in that thing. While you are on passion, read this by Giibran.
  38. Incentives have superpowers. If you want to know what drives who, try to see what incentives are in place. In fact, read everything by Charlie Munger.
  39. Learn how to not take a no. Again, I am trying to build this muscle. I think Dhirubhai used to say, “mujhe na sunnay ki aadat nahi hai“. Not sure. But I love the line.
  40. Ask yourself often, what is that you are willing to give up to get what you want. I first heard this from Ajeet Sir. I’ve given all and more to be at this place. And no, this is not enough. I wish I could have more. And no, I don’t mean it from a lens of a complaining old man but from that of someone who’s divinely discontent.
  41. All advice, all lists, all lessons, all things I know are an outcome of my own life. Most of these will not make sense to you. Most of these will not bear fruit. Most of these will be laughed upon. Like all general-purpose advice, take these 42 with a fistful of salt. Also see the last line of this post.
  42. This is THE most important thing I know and thus I kept it for last – “this too shall pass“

Phew!

I am sure there are more. Adding those in appendix below. But these 42 came to me at this time – 8:30 AM, 27 Sep 2024.

Onto what would I do today if I were 21 and knew everything that I listed above.

Oh, before the next section, if you’d like to subscribe to updates from me, please add your email below. Promise no spam 🙂

B/ What would I do today if I were 21?

This is a tough one to answer.

For the simple reason that folks may read this as a manipulative piece (I want to get a lot of young folks to work with me) and my number 1 advice would be to work with the 42-year version of me!

I mean it. Whoever is reading this, if what I’ve written makes sense, come work with me.

But I want to be fair to Nikhila. And I know she will not want to work with me. So, if I were to discard my number 1 advice, here’s some more things that I could do if I were 21…

1/ Reconsider your decision to not work with me. No one else will give you a long leash, opportunities, respect. Ask C. Lol!

2/ You can have only three parts of life – career, personal life, and social life. Each activity in life can easily be clubbed into one of the three. And here’s the thing I would want the 21-year version of me to do.

Choose one of the three.
One. Not two.
Not one and a half.

You will live a very unfulfilled life if you pick more than one of these. And yeah, I probably will get canceled. And I know there are people who manage to do all three. But then, I am an average Joe. See point 13 above.

3/ Submit yourself to a guru for 5 years. Think of this as the next education you’re getting after your college. You HAVE to be there for 5 years. And you will come out of the other side without a paper to certify. But you would probably have scars from skirmishes that you would recount with pride when you are old!

PS: I’ve not submitted myself to anyone but if I could, I would.

4/ Work in an events agency for five years. The exposure I got while I was at Gravity remains the most impactful in my life. It was helped by the fact that I was close to the founder (may be find work where you work with the founder), I was often in ambiguous places (build my muscle), unknown territory, and had a very long leash! So, may be not events but find a place that gives you all these things.

5/ Build in public. Something, anything. Even if it’s a doodle a day. Allow serendipity to happen. And while you do that, build your personal brand.

6/ See thing I know #17. Every week.

7/ Make a list of things you want from life. Make a list of things you are willing to give up to get what you want. See thing I know #40.

I guess this is it.
Do read the disclaimers.
Hope you get what you want from life.
May you live long and prosper.

As always, please point flaws in my thinking. Apart from typos ;P

Oh, and please share this with others and help me find more folks that I can work alongside and learn from!

Appendix: Additional things I know

I will keep adding to this list. I like the idea that this page would evolve into things I know. I will also strike out things that are no longer relevant.

27 Sep 2024

  1. It’s ok to have typos. No one cares. I know this piece has many!
  2. Attention to detail is a great skill to have but in case you dont have it, it’s okay.
  3. Excellence is overrated. In fact, this should make it to the list of top 42. But I dont know which one to remove.

28 Sep 2024

  1. Some people read the early draft and a couple of them mentioned that they’d like to read about anecdotes / stories behind each of these things and lessons. Maybe I will write a separate post. But at this time I don’t feel the need to write those.

More as they come.

Thanks to Nikhil, Ahona, Pradeep, Chandni and others for sharing feedback on an early draft. Thanks to Nikhila for the prompt. And Vaishnavi for the writing hour gift!

The last line

I read this fascinating list by Kevin D where he’s talking about his 50 lessons as he turned 50. His 43rd point is, “43. Only take advice from people who embody the traits you want to have. Talk is cheap—emulate those who have DONE it. (Especially important here on X where charlatans run rampant.)”. Emphasis mine.

So, please take this advice with that disclaimer 🙂

I’ve failed.

So I’ve failed. 

Lemme elaborate on this clickbaity headline. And this is about C4E – one of my life’s works.

Here’s some context.

I started C4E sometime in 2015 or 2016. Thanks to the generosity of Rajesh Sir at VISCOMM, I got off to a great start. But I couldn’t keep up the momentum. Things went along like you would expect them to at a startup. Just that we weren’t a startup per se – we were more of a regular business.

And then in COVID, I had to sort of pause. And with the help of Parijat and Pooja, C4E took rebirth in 2020. Both Ps continue to be well-wishers and tethered to us. In Poo’s case, she continues to have the option of being the founder alongside me. As I say often, her chappals occupy the highest throne at C4E.

So, with time, I have grown up and my thinking has evolved. And the world around us changed. And I have seen people change. And from wanting to be the richest man in the world, I’ve started to think a lot more about delivering insane impact, while being the richest man in the world. And from wanting to build a well-oiled machinery, I have pivoted to the want of building an org that is more human than anything else.

Human in my book means – empathetic, soft-spoken, polite, fair, “nice” and all that. Plus, at C4E, each human must (in the order I’ve written below)…

  1. have the respect (as a human) of everyone in the ecosystem. We are ok to let go of clients, people, things if we don’t spot respect. And respect goes beyond general niceness and politeness. And respect needs to be earned and not commanded or demanded.
  2. offer this respect to everyone else. And respect is in action (and not in words). And it’s in tiny things. For example, every email unanswered reeks of disrespect. Every time we leave someone on “seen” and not respond, it’s disrespect. Even if they are wrong. Each time we promise we’ll do something and we don’t that’s disrespect. Not showing up 2 minutes before the appointed time is disrespectful. I can go on for hours on this but I am sure you get the gist.
  3. have the freedom of their time to a reasonable extent (if not 100%).
  4. get fair and timely compensation for the time and energy they put in. Please note I am not indexed on competitive, world-class, market rates etc. I am indexed on fair and timely.
  5. have the opportunity to find a balance (of work and play) in their lives. It’s only them who get to decide what is work or what is play. And C4E must enable that. I’d go a layer deeper and say that their work at C4E must give them a sense of identity and pride. In my case, all of it is work. In the case of some of my colleagues, work is not even a part of their identity.
  6. come with the intent to put in honest, hard work that enables them to “earn” money, respect, the freedom of time and the opportunity to find the balance harmony in their lives. We are a smart bunch and we spot when people try to fool us. And we assume that the world out there is smart as well and they can spot when we try to fool them.
  7. have the drive to grow by doing more and the willingness to contribute to the growth of others. If not of the entire world, then of C4E Village. If not that, then at least the colleagues at C4E. If we don’t grow, we are dead.

PS: I am sure there would be more things that I want people at C4E to have, but these come to my mind as I write this. I will continue to update this.

PPS: I know that people don’t have an inherent awareness of many of the above. As the leader of the pack (I still get uncomfortable calling myself a leader), thus, it’s my job to train, educate, upskill, push, nudge, support, and encourage my people to become the best version of themselves.

And yes, even though I want my people to get all the things in the list above, we must acknowledge and know that we are a business at the end of the day. And as a business, we need to make money. And a lot of that hopefully. Money keeps the machinery running well. I need to pay people fairly and on time. I need money to enable a lot of things that we do at C4E. I need money to pay for my Starbucks!

Of course, we owe it to our shareholders (largely Pooja, myself and some others), mentors, clients, villagers, friends and others. In that order.

But we owe the most to our people. More than shareholders or mentors. It’s our people that make us who we are. The very foundation of C4E is people and the list that I shared above is a non-negotiable. I am lucky and grateful that people at C4E have chosen to invest their most important asset in C4E – time!

And if I am unable to offer my people all the things that I’ve listed above, I would consider myself a failure.

And this brings me to the clickbaity headline.

I’ve failed.

No, I will not go into details of why I’ve failed and what was the point of fault that triggered these thoughts. That stuff goes on my echoChamber. What goes here is acknowledgement that I’ve failed to offer the things that I’ve listed above.

In my head, I have failed to the point that while showering today a few days ago, I decided that I would shut the business on 31 Mar 2025. I thought that I would give my team, my clients and everyone a 7-month notice. I thought of scenarios after that and decided that I would do nothing for a while (may be a year) and drift around. May be reset life at the fabled age of 42!

But then I told myself the following…

It’s my raita. It’s my village. And I can’t take the easy way out. I can’t quit till I’ve reached where I want to reach (please don’t ask me what is this ‘where I want to reach’ – I have a fuzzy picture of me floating in gold like Uncle Scrooge would). And, most important, if not me, who? Reminds of this quote I read yesterday…

It says,

“Look at your habits: Are they the product of innumerable little cowardices and lazinesses…or of your courage and inventive reason?”

And poof! All doubt was gone. All the lingering feeling was gone. I had failed. But I shall rise. At least I will try to. And thus, ladies and gents, we continue to march on. And do whatever it takes to bring my house to order.

Watch me.

PS: While editing this, I realised, I could’ve very well titled this post The C4E Manifesto. Or the C4E values. Or even the C4E promise.

27 Aug 2024 – Morning Pages

I’ll start with a Silicon Valley cliche. There are decades when nothing happens and there are weeks where decades happen. 

Yesterday was a day when I think decades happened to me. And I probably aged by a decade. Apart from my echoChamber, I want to capture it on a public forum as well.

Here we go.

Oh, before I talk in detail and get into specifics, play this and let it play in the background as you read this.

Eddie – Guaranteed

Ok, now that you have the baritone of Eddie talking about how you ought to live life, I can talk.

I will talk about 5 things.

A/ Feedback from a senior agency person

Met a senior person from the agency business. I told him about my plans to take C4E in the big league and start pitching for projects at the intersection of modern marketing, digital, strategy and others. And compete with the likes of Ogilvy and others.

He snubbed me.

He told me and C that what we do is crap and he has no confidence in us being able to deliver large things. 

Which is ok.
May be fair.
But then on deeper introspection, I realised that maybe, just maybe he doesn’t understand what am trying to build. Lemme try to articulate again.

I want to build the world’s largest, richest, most impactful business. I want to play at scale. I want to move humanity and make us thrive, live better and all that. I want the workplace to be respectful, kind, hardworking, aciton-first and more. But…

But…

But I dont want to do this on the back of broken souls. I dont want to tramp over others. I dont want to make it toxic.

Now, when I hear things like, “make 200 calls, get 50 meetings, and convert 10 businesses”, I think, it’s a piece of fabulous advice for folks who want to use people as replaceable objects. But not me. I want to give a safe, kind space to everyone to find their bliss and get paid well while they do that. In such a business, we need people to be self-motivated, high-agency and respectful towards work. After all, for most of us who are not artists, we have to find meaning in what we do.

The thing is, if we are lucky, we’d have something to lean on that fills our soul. Some people find it in art. Some in sports. Some in code. Some like me, in business. Some dont find it at all. And it is in those cases that you have to latch onto something and make it yours.

When I see a younger colleague getting disrespected by saying “without disrespecting your age or experience”, I dont want to run that in the first place. If you have to add a disclaimer before you speak, it’s better to not speak.

When I am told that my work won’t cut it, I want to hear more. But about how I can make it better, not a rant on how it’s bad. I want to be pointed at flaws and not be told that we can’t do it.

So that.

Ok. Over this one. 4 more to go.

B/ I let go of one more person from my life.

I have this friend. Her father says a brilliant thing – he says, “is insaan ka panna faad diya“.

Lemme try and explain. Imagine our life is a notebook. Each person in our life is a page. And you can add as many pages in that notebook (once you meet new people). And then the page can extend to any length (depending on your relationship with them). And like any well-used journal or notepad, it can extend in all directions.

However, once you sort of break your relationship with someone (say, someone moves away from your life, someone does something uncool etc etc) you tear their page from your notebook. And then that’s that. You stop bothering about them. They become a stranger. You operate from a place of indifference. You are kind to the world, you are kind to them. You wish them success but you shall not partake in that. If they need help, you are not proactive. You let them come to you. So on and so forth.

He of course has a far deeper reason and philosophy. What I wrote is mine.

And yesterday, I tore one more page off my book. I wish the individual all the luck. I continue to love but I am no longer invested.

So that.

Oh, before you move forward, you may want to see this tweet.

C/ “15 lakh karte ho, 3 gaya, 12 bacha, 4 ek aur hai, 8 bacha. Band kar do“

Last evening, I was talking to a very close friend. The kind whose words mean the world to me.

While talking about something, C4E came up and I told him that I’ve lost a client. He said, “15 lakh karte ho, 3 gaya, 12 bacha, 4 ek aur client hai jo kabhi bhi chala jaaega, 8 bacha. Band kar do“

And it hurt.
Like a bitch.
It was probably meant to hurt.
It didn’t hurt this bad when the love of my life walked out of my life.

I think this made me realise that am probably very emotional about my work and this thing that I’ve created.

I was so fucked in the head that I couldn’t sleep well because of this. Kept thinking, tossing and turning in the bed. But then Whoop tells me I had 53% recovery with about 6 hours of sleep. I know that it was not good at all. Makes me even question the efficacy of a Whoop. And as a professional sleeper, both these things (not being able to sleep well and Whoop being unable to catch my sleep) are not cool.

Coming back.

So, it hurt. And I can either let it continue to hurt me. Or I can fix it. And no points for guessing what I would do. And I need help. Hands and heads. Lend me? And point me to others who I can take help from?

And to start with, I will shut everything that distracts me and I will work hard on taking C4E to an unbreakable place.

D/ Case of online bullying

Someone close to me was bullied online. And since this person was close to me and it was unprovoked bullying, I was angry. As fuck. If the bully were around me when I got to know about it, I would have probably caused hurt.

But am glad the dude lives in Noida.

In a mad rush of blood to my brain, I decided to seek retribution. To be honest, this is not like me. I dont do things like that on impulse. I think and act.

But, I wrote to the CEO of the company he works with (to make the company aware of the kind of people they’ve hired) and the college the bully went to (to check on his records and hopefully get some action). Made a LinkedIn post. Sent DMs. Considered filing a cyber crime case (but the portal was too complicated to have my complaint go thru and I did not try again).

But then I realised, an eye for an eye will make the world blind.

And thanks to Jagdish’s Bruno, I realised that anger is not the place to operate from (but bravery is). And I anyway know that empathy is a good place to be at.

Probably the boy is troubled. So I have decided to let the person go with a stern warning. Hope it fixes him. I will deliver that today. And I will of course close the loop with all the people that I wrote to.

E/ Hurt by someone close

This is the last one from this long rant.

I love a lot of people. To the point that it’s tough to manage egos and all that of all those people. I really go out of the way to make them comfortable, liked, respected, taken care of etc etc. To the best of my ability. Often at the cost of hurting myself. And with little expectation. You know, like Danveer Karna.

I just think there’s so much fuckery in the world. If I could be that island of sanity in their lives, why not?

And despite all these attempts to make someone feel good about life and all, I probably am unable to do enough to keep them engaged and happy.

So that.

Ok am done writing.
Like I said, I aged 10 years in one day.
And I am taking my lessons away.

In the end, so much of what I do, and how I do is about people. And then like life has taught me, EVERYone leaves. See this tweet. It makes me wonder if I were a fool to have taken this path.

I have seen friends, partners, colleagues, and even lovers leave me. And I may not admit it too many times but it sucks to be walking alone and sleep on an empty bed and not having anyone to look after you when you fall. Like I said, I give more than I can and often at great consequence to self. And yet people go. Leave me alone. And I am left wondering where did I go wrong.

Anyhow.

Wait.

Oh, I know there’s their side of the story as well and I know they had reasons for moving on. So I can’t blame them. Just that since everyone moves on en masse, there must be something wrong that am on to. And that’s what I need to discover and find. If you know me, help me. Point out flaws in my thinking.

Chalo, over an out.
From a decade older SG 😀

Untitled – 19 Jun 2024

An untitled rant about things that are clouding my head.

Morning ladies and gents. Here are the things that I want to catalogue on the 19th of Jun 2024. This is a brain dump of all that I’ve been thinking about over the last few days.

1/Rain is here in Mumbai 🙂

Love it!

I know there is muck and stink and all that but I am ok as long as I can go home and shower. I think it’s my most favourite season. While it’s still hot and muggy, the shower sort of cleans you from within. Like a shower for the soul!

If I had my way I would get wet each time it rains. Someday I would have a house with a terrace and I’d just lie down while the rain gods belt me with their amrit and prasad.

I know a lot of folks I know dont like rains and it’s ok. I also tend to not like it when the aircraft shakes likes a mixer in the monsoons. But then its a small price to pay for the gorgeousness of baarish 🙂

Here’s an exhibit.

2/ Am taking a backseat from day-to-day operations at C4E.

Something that I’ve wanted to do for long.

Not because I want to retire but because I want to be able to do more with my time. I want to expand us beyond the borders of India and build more things for the entire village. I also want to take a shot at building a unicornable idea. Right now, C4E does not look like one.

I tried to go offline and pass on the baton a few years ago and when I did that (I went to EBC) and I lost 66% of my business.

Fast forward to 2024. In C, I have identified a fairly able person. Plus I’ve trained over the last two years. And we’ve set things in motion.

We are experimenting till Sep of 2024 and then we’ll see where it goes.

I just need to figure if she would stay with me for the long haul. My experience of having people stay with me is not the greatest. And since it’s just not one person that has moved on, it has to be me at fault. So that.

Also, my insecurity with “my” people has sort of resurfaced with this decision. I thought I had made peace with people moving on. But now I know I haven’t been able to. And I dont know what to do to settle this. I dont know how people find people that would stay together for lifetimes. I dont know how to get used to see people drift away from your life. I dont understand how people you decided to build your life with are no longer in your life. There are times when I still think about all those folks that have moved on. While I need to have happy memories, I tend to get not so pleasant ones as well. And now that I have put this ball in motion, am mindfucked half the times, thinking about when (not if) when C moves. Ok, clarification (realised this while editing). It’s not about her. It’s about me and in my inability to hold people together. Plus this is a recency thing. I realised that less than a month ago that one of my super-long-term friends moved on without telling me. And I am yet to come to terms with that. So that.

Anyhow. We’d come to it when we come to it. For now, the transition is in place.

3/ Lost sight of 40 crores target.

For context, I had decided that in this financial year, I would do a topline of 40 crores. And Q1 is almost over and we are not even at 40 lakhs. I’ve lost sight of the goal 🙁

I can justify this by saying that am building the base for the next phase of growth. After all, we have processes for most things, we have documented a lot of things, there’s a transition happening at C4E. There is no need for me to be involved in large decisions. Etc etc.

But the hard cold fact remains that we are VERY VERY far from 40. Heck, the way we are going, even doing last year’s 4 looks tough!

And no, I am not worried or anything. I am putting this on record. And no, there’s no pressure on anyone from my team to do more than what they want to. Just that we need to be aware of this and then at some point act on it. And since the transition is underway, it’s C’s problem now ;P

4/ Being unhealthy.

I dont know what to do about it. Despite being a diabetic, I haven’t moved a muscle on things. I dont know what to do. Thing is, apart from this health thing, I am NOT lazy at all. And even when I see my energy waning, I am not inspired to do more. Just today I walked 1000 steps and I was puffling like I had run a marathon!

I even have my why to live and yet I am not willing to work on my how or what. As an aware, intelligent, smart and all that man, I know this is not the right thing if I have to do more in life.

But I am unable to fix it. Maybe I will pick some sport. Maybe yoga. Maybe I will finally join a gym, my hernia be damned. Or dance. I really really would like to have a chiseled physique like Jason Statham’s. Sigh.

Oh, I am munching on snacks as I write this!

And this is it. No, no intervention is needed. This is my public journal of thoughts and ideas. I am ok. As ok as I can be. Thank you for indulging me ;P

Untitled – May the 4th be with you

Unfiltered stream of thoughts from a morning on a weekend (and some more days beyond the weekend)

I mostly start my posts with, “I dont know what to write.”

And then I dump my thoughts. And then something catches my fancy. And then I take that thread from the spool and start to work on it. Right now as I write this (I dont know when I’d publish this), I am sitting on the 47th floor of a high-rise in Manila, staring down to a mostly flat country, some high-rises in the distance, a bay beyond and then the ocean. It’s making me feel a lot of things.

Some are…

1/ I would like to live in luxury.
Right now I live in a tiny 1BHK that I find great by Mumbai standards. When I step out to friends’ houses and other places where my travels take me, I realise that there’s so much more about life that I dont know about. There’s so much more that I could experience. And I want to chase that – abundance, experiences, the novelty of the unknown, the thrill of access, the joy of community, the pleasure of enabling others and more.

2/ I like my mornings.
It’s 8 AM and I am listening to music and being busy with nothing specific (I checked email, read news et al). I could rather shut this and journal. Or meditate. To be honest, this post am writing is like a journal only. Just that this is a tad filtered compared to what I would write on my Roam. May be I will get back to a pen-paper journal? I dont know if I can do that well cos I know I dont like the idea of carrying a notepad. I dont know if my handwriting anymore. Let’s see.

I am writing another part of this at 7 AM, on the 8th May. Again, loving this feeling of being by myself and writing whatever is clouding my head. This blog has really come to become my echochamber and closest confidante.

3/ Am restless.
I dont know what to do with my life. For a change am ok with money. I just need to figure out cash flow management but apart from that am ok. I am rising up Maslow’s pyramid and I am finding it tough to navigate that. I’ve been working with a coach and even that is not enough.

There’s this tussle between the want and the need.

Want of a better life. Need to maintain what I have.

Want of growing 100X. Need of paying the bills.

Want of providing better for everyone. Need of ensuring they are paid on time.

On one side, am inspired to quit it all and go back to the safe havens of a job. On the other when I see my people do what they did yesterday (on the 3rd May), I am inspired to keep the village going. It’s through adding meaning to their lives that I find meaning in mine!

Part of this and the part beyond this is being written on the 5th May. But I like the cliched title a lot and I dont want to change it 🙂

4/ I was talking to VG about things in general and he asked me 5 people that I ?talk to outside of work. I realised I had none. Each connection, each relationship, each minute of mine is spent with (or thinking about) people from work.

Overshare but each of my deep relationships has been with someone around my work. So that. Now, I dont know if this is a good thing or bad. I know already that my life is fairly unidimensional where all I think about is work and nothing else. I’ve tried to find distractions in the past, including getting addicted to cheap dopamine – TV, Cricket, Films etc but for some reason, I feel very very guilty when I am merely vegetating. I am guilty of even getting into the MAFA (Mistaking Activity For Action) trap where sitting on a computer becomes “action” for me and I justify that.

So that.

Oh, in terms of people beyond work, I try hard to meet new people at each opportunity I get. I like the idea of being well-connected. I try and build as many loose connections as I can. On my last trip to Bangalore (some days ago), even though I was there for a day, I tried to meet new folks. And I did meet some. Of course, most of those folks won’t remember me after that night but I’d like to believe that at least one of those would stay in touch and at some point be of use to the village. I use the word use with mindfulness. I dont see people as objects. Just that I want to invest each morsel of energy in building the village. The two events from the night of the 3rd May (P3 and DD) and the messages from my people and stories of strangers have reaffirmed my belief in what I am working on. Just that at this time I am neither unable to explain that to people, nor I am able to find a revenue model for that. But then I think it will come to me with time.

Coming back. I dont have anyone that I talk to out of work. This may be a bad thing. This may be a good thing. But this is how it is. Do you have a way out?

5/ Health has been a recurring theme in my conversations.
And my inability to act on that front. And I know that I can’t be consistent with anything ever. I call this my inability to run a marathon. I know I need to not hide behind this excuse and do more but I am unable to.

Once I am back in Bom (which is Tuesday), I plan to drop everything and make health my priority. I’ve made such promises in the past. To myself. And to others. And to people that I dont want to disappoint. And yet I haven’t been able to act on it. I even have a “why” to be fit – live as long and do more – and yet I am not acting on it.

As I write this, it’s Wednesday the 8th. I slept at 10ish last night and I got 7 hours. Whoop tells me that my HRV is alarmingly low. I need to find a solution for that. I need to add some workouts to my life – I will do that. On the flight back home, I made an entire list of things and changes that I would make. No, this is not the first time I’ve made such lists. But this time I hope am able to implement this. The biggest thing I would do is get a coach to help me out – if nothing else I will get into some sort of routine. I need to figure money though, to pay for one. Know any “cheap” coaches that will come home?

6/ Attention deficit is a problem.
I was trying to read a book while I was on the break and I realised that I couldn’t focus on it beyond 2 minutes. And I’ve been a voracious reader all my life. To a point that I would read 100-odd pages a day. And I would read it all – fiction, non-fiction, anything. Now, I can’t do even 100 seconds. I am so used to multitasking, solving problems, and enjoying easy dopamine hits that I am losing my ability to focus. I need to solve for this.

Also, I was telling a friend the other day that I take 2 hours to get in the flow.

I need to work on it. I can’t take that long. Since I got the Whoop, I am realising that my sleep is not optimal at all. I remember that during lockdown I tried Naval’s 60X60 challenges (60 minutes of meditation first 60 minutes of the day) and I did manage a lot of days. I think I will get back to meditation. Luckily I still journal a lot – in public and in private – and that helps. This is a journal.

So, along with health, I will fix this bit too. Attention deficit I mean. I will make this the second priority. Health being the first one. I need to design my life around it. Right now, my life is optimised for work. So that.

7/ My mornings are sacred.
I do all sorts of things in the morning – work, emails, chatter from the previous night and all that. Even the thought of using my mornings for anything that is not work, I cringe. If I get on the workout bandwagon in the mornings, all my work would suffer. I need to maybe wake up earlier than ever? If I can be up at 430, I can wrap all my work by 7ish and then I can hit the gym or whatever? But then that means I will need to sleep by 9 PM. I think I can manage 9 if I can be disciplined. But then work, socialising, et al? Ok, this is a problem that needs to be solved. I will put my head to it and do it.

8/ Coming to the end of line in life.
In electronics retail, they have this concept of End of Line where once a product hits the peak, they stop working on it. The last few pieces are sold at rock-bottom prices and crazy discounts.

I think I have reached EOL in life. This means that my age, I can only take one more shot at greatness. In the next 5 years, life as I know it would change – at a personal level, on the health front – and others. So I can only do things over the next 2. So, things need to be done today and now. And I need to run faster. And I need to push more. I sat with AK and CM yesterday and gave them this spiel – that the two of them are my best shot at greatness. I would live a grand life vicariously – through theirs. I may never become a Sachin but with these two kids, I can become Ramakant for sure. And that probably would be the highest I would reach. This is a far cry from how I’ve lived all my life. I mean I’ve known since I was a kid that am a gift and I would be the richest man in the world. Today I realise that I probably would not even be the richest in the rundown building that I have rent a tiny house. And to be honest, this acceptance of a failed life is not a good thing. But…

But we persist. We continue to dream. Against all odds. Against age. Hoping that someday we would have enough. We would have abundance. And then we would hopefully make it to at least the top 1%, if not THE top.

So that.

Ok this is it. I shall publish this or else this would become an infinitely long blogpost with no end.

More later!

Untitled – 13 April 2024

A short note to help clear my head and get out of a funk.

It’s no secret that my life revolves around work.

It’s no secret that I dont have anything going for me in life apart from work.

If I were to look at the wheel of life (I filled it in 10 minutes ago), my life is, well, not lifing.

See the image below.

The Wheel of Life for Saurabh Garg on 13 April 2024

Now for context, compare it with what it was in 2018.

Do you see the change?

And this not-lifing has been a lot more visible of late. At least to me.

There have been far too many days with no action, with a lot of conduct unbecoming a C4E member, with a lot of mistakes by myself and the people around me, with a lot of random events that you dont otherwise expect a Saurabh Garg to be a part of. And with many more.

And the worst part is, I dont have control over any of those. And when I dont have an illusion of control (see footnote 1) over my life, I get in a funk. Right now, all the spokes of life are not spoking. Each is in disarray. And I dont know what to do about it. Worse is I dont know who to share things with. No, I dont need a life partner. I dont need a business partner. I dont even need a stranger that I can chat with to get the load off my head (FN 2). I just dont have anyone to share this with. Except this blog.

Thing is, for a large part of my work life I’ve operated as the man with the hammer of “if it’s a problem, go find a solution”.

I am used to looking at each thing as a problem and then working hard to find a solution to that problem. I know that life is unfair and you often get dealt a raw hand. When I am the one on the receiving end, I dont cry about it (see FN 3). I may rant about it but I dont lose my shit. And this solution-first mindset has been helpful. To a point that I’ve often survived. Vanita calls me a survivor. I would like to call myself a cockroach – I never die. I mean I will die at some point in time physically but I will not die before my actual death.

But this time, I am unable to find a solution. I dont know what to do. I dont know what to do anything on.

In terms of a 2×2 (am learning this from Hemant), here’s one…

Please excuse my handwriting.

So, if I struggling with a problem that has a known solution, I can easily solve for it. If it’s an unknown problem with a known solution, that is insight/epiphany etc.

If it’s a known problem with an unknown solution, I will have to be innovative about it. But if it’s an unknown problem and the solution is unknown as well, I dunno what to do.

And that is my problem at this time. I dont know what is wrong. And I don’t know what to do about it. I am doing all the things that I would generally do in the regular course of life. And because these are regular life things, they’re optimised. And thus there shouldn’t be any problems at all. But there are. And I dont know where are they stemming from. Wait. I don’t even know what the problem is. If I had known, I would’ve fixed it. It just that life isn’t living!

Ok, I am going in loops. I dont have an answer. I dont know when I’d find one. So that. Lemme end this misery and the misery of a post. With a track that I often listen to when am in funks like this one…

Over and out.

And no, no pity-party calls please.

Footnotes

  1. The keyword is – illusion. No one knows what life holds for you. No one can have control over it. However you can have an illusion of control – you know, you could say you can manage your time the way you want to. You can meet the kind of people you want to. Et al. So I have this illusion of control over life.
  2. I use this blog as my partner and I share my life with it. Unlike people who typically have one person for dumping all facets of their life, I have different people for different things. For work, I lean on Poo. For fam things, it’s either my sis or VG. For health, it’s Ashi. For others, there are people.
  3. When I was younger, I used to crib a lot, and rant a lot. To the point that people would not even talk to me. I’ve worked hard to fix that!

Waking up on the left side of the bed

Thanks to a sleep tracker, I realise that I probably need to fix my relationship status. Read on.

I recently got myself a Whoop. It has been telling me that I sleep about 5 hours and thus I need more. Last night I decided that the world be damned, I will sleep at 10. And I woke up at 6ish. So a solid 8 hours. As per it, I slept for 7 hours and 39 minutes (compared to about an average of 5-6 hours).

See this chart…

Now, logic says I should’ve woke up fresh, ready to take on the world and conquer it all.

But no, I feel the same like I do on most days. Groggy. Slowly. I can feel various parts of the body start cranking and come to life. I can feel various parts of the body complain about various kinds of pain and moan with various kinds of discomfort.

I want to justify that my body has been scarred in various battles over the years but clearly, that is not the case. It’s at best scarred with all the food I’ve gobbled over the years while shaping the couches and beds around houses that I’ve lived at.

I dont feel any more refreshed, any more rested, any more changed that I do on other days. In fact, something different happened. I woke up with the feeling that I should’ve woken* up next to someone.

And I need to address this feeling.
For numerous reasons.

One, I haven’t felt like this in a while.

My last stable, serious, relationship was a couple of months before COVID put us in a lockdown. 4 years ago**. And over the last four years, I’ve got used to having the entire bed by myself. I can’t recall when was the last time in the last four years when I felt like waking up next to someone. So this is new.

Two, I had always imagined that I am the kind that would be a lone nut. My eccentricity and life choices would make me an unsuitable man for anyone sane. The odds of finding someone who’ll accept my shenanigans is like zero. And all my life I have trained myself to operate as a one-person army. I mean I neither feel the need for having someone around me and if I do feel that on rare days (like today), I quickly remind myself that all modern relationships are built on the bedrock of convenience and comfort and capital and these things are often easy to screw up. In my case, I saw one of my serious relationships go south because I didn’t have money. So, when I feel the need to wake up next to someone, this means that I am not fully trained and I need to do more work in my head.

Three, lately, I’ve been flirting rather seriously with a friend. The kinds where am actually thinking about what to text her and how to make her smile. The kinds where I anticipate her replies and make decision trees in my head on how the conversation would flow. And no, I haven’t done that in a while. Thus, maybe all those conversations and thoughts about being with someone have switched on those neurons and receptors that signal affection. And this need to have someone on the right side of the bed could be an outcome of that.

This third one is easy to solve, to be honest. I know that these conversations are temporary and the road leads to a dead end. I am way too invested in her life and I know that my eccentricity (see point 2) would lead to jeopardy.

Four, I am used to living a certain way and doing things in a certain manner. These things may count as eccentric (again point 2) but these could also be dismissed as negotiable behaviours. For example, I dont want a kitchen in my home. I want AC at 22. I want music playing all the time in the house. While a potential occupant of the right side of the bed may dismiss these as “cute” behaviour, over time, these start to become points of contention and then a pillow magically appears between the line of control on the bed. And then it’s all downhill from thereon.

So that.

I am sure there are more reasons. But I do have this feeling and I need to find a solution. And I dont know how to solve it.

I will see if the feeling persists and lingers on. If it does, I will find a way to solve it. If it doesn’t, I can continue to use the right side of the bed to store my laptop, iPad, phone, book and all that.

Time shall tell.

With this, over and out. Thanks for reading my bedtime and bedside stories.

*Repeat. Woken up next to. Not slept with.
** I have had a few conversations where I thought they would evolve into relationships but they did not.

Untitled – 4/5 Mar

A long rant. Please ignore if you get triggered easily.

Feel like talking to someone. Have no one. And thus this blog. I started writing this last night at Starbucks. And then I got interrupted. And then I slept. And then I feel in that weird loosie thingy. I hate to be unwell. Anyhow. Let’s dive in.

1/ No Pity Party

After you read this (whoever you are), please do not reach out and text me. I will talk about a few things that may seem to be like a call for help. This is not one.

2/ Music

I was at the beach today (on the 4th). I dont know why but I somehow remembered these lines, “aise bhole ban kar hai baithe, jaise koi baat nahi“.

I tried my best to hum these like a human being must. But I was unable to. I sounded like a cat screeching a steel plate. That to be honest is not important. Important is that I realised that I love this song. And since I’ve been listening to this track on a loop.

Here. Listen in.

The other day I told someone that if there’s one thing I’d like to change about myself, it would be my inability to sing well. I would love to learn. Not sure if I have the time. So that.

3/ Friends turning into strangers

Lately, yet another very very very close friend has turned into a stranger. This one hurts a lot cos with this one I had imagined that I would be with till my time comes and I walk into the jungle. It clearly wasn’t meant to be.

Like all other times, I’ve taken my lessons and moved on. The biggest one of those is to not get attached. And lean on Epictetus and Aurelius at these times.

To be honest, I don’t know why I am unable to keep my friendships for long. I do all that you need to do to nurture friendships – often giving in more than I must. And yet at the end of the day, I find myself by myself. I can never forget COVID-19. Not one friend stood by me. If not for the steadfast support of my parents and the kindness of strangers, I wouldn’t know what I would do. I probably wouldn’t be here.

Each time a friend walks away, I console myself that the world has about 8 billion strangers and if I’ve survived for so long, I would stay afloat for a few more years. And all I need is a few more. I am old.

Plus each time I start feeling bad about not having enough friends, I start to look around for folks that I could be a stranger and a shoulder to. The satisfaction that I get out of helping others who are often left with no other option is unparalleled. I think that’s what my raison d etre is – offer a shoulder.

No, I am not depressed. Or even sad. I am merely recording my emotions. And in public. I would not add a judgment to the emotion. Guruji taught us that. I must go for another 10-day session. Maybe in September. Let’s see.

4/ Work

A lot is up at work. Like a LOT. In caps and bold. I can’t even begin to list it here. Ok, lemme try. I mean why would I bring it up if I dont want to talk about it. Here’s a list.

A. Hiring – I need to get some many folks at C4E. And I can’t find them. Here are the reasons – there are in order…

  • my inability to pay a lot of money (fuck you, startups) – I can only pay so much and everyone wants to be paid the moon and a Mercedes. I wish I had the ability to pay.
  • my ability to “teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea”. The work we do may sound small on a day-to-day basis but how we do it and where we want to be is a large large thing. And I am unable to communicate and thus I am unable to rally people to be around me.
  • lack of culture fit – we are big on culture and it is really tough to find people that fit into our scheme of things and we fit into their scheme of things. Unless we fit like hand and glove, we don’t want. I’ve made hiring mistakes in the past. And I dont want to make those again. So I often go slow on this.
  • work ethics mismatch – most people in this day and age do not want to work hard anymore. Most. Hard. And I respect their choice. Just that I dont think I can do what I want to do around people that are not willing to work hard. I know that I am average. And that means I need to work hard. And if I have people that dont work harder than me, I will have some discord with them at some point. And that means I need to find people who are willing to work hard. If not harder than me, then as much. And such people are rare. At least they are rare in my network.
  • ambiguity – we are very non-conventional. And that means that whoever wants to be around us needs to live in the ambiguous structure that we are. And this is something that not a lot of people are comfortable with. So that.

There are more reasons. But I hope you get the drift.

B. Growth – I am of firm belief that stasis is death. And that means we need to grow. And we need to grow like I want us to grow – in a sustainable manner, in a controlled manner (not like cancer), in a manner that allows each of us to thrive, go beyond our abilities, learn, get better etc etc. And I am finding that expecting such a growth is tough. So that.

Tough because we are construed as slow. We are construed as non-aggresive. We are constured as easy going. Perception. Sigh.

This also means that I need to amplify my efforts with BD. And I suck at that. I simply do not know how to get new business. I dont call people on the phone.

C. Services – Right now we offer social media marketing, content, brand strategy and other allied services. All these are services. And that means there’s no objective metric to evaluate what we’ve done. And this means that my people are often thinking about work even after work hours. And I dont like this. And I want to change this. And I dont know how to.

D. Higher value work – I want to move to a place like Singapore or Dubai where am able to charge more per hour. And I dont know how to do that.

So yeah, these. There are more things that I worry a lot about. Let’s see where I find a solution.

5/ Challenge of Consistency

I’ve known this for a while that I am designed for a life where I work on short, high-intesity projects that require short bursts of work. Short could be up to 3 months. Anything longer, I know I am not the right person. Thankfully at work, we now have people who thrive on doing the same thing over and over again and we are ok. If not for them, I would have been a ruin by now.

Even on other things like health, I can get started but I lose track often. Funnily am very disciplined and I would have bet a lot of money that a disciplined person is consistent. But I am not. I can say no to alcohol, cigarettes and other such sinful temptations. But I dont know why I give up when it comes to health. Wait. Health is the next bullet point. Lemme talk about consistency in general. I started yoga and I stopped after a few days. I started writing everyday but I stopped. I quit coke and then I got back to it. I did not touch coffee for a while and then I got back to it. I even fold my bedsheets and make my bed each day as soon as I wake up!

Thing is, I tell the world and all my kids that to get to something, you need to lose something. If I want to get fitter, I need to lose this inconsistency. If I want to be a published author, I need to lose the procrastination habit.

Naval says that you need to judge a fitness trainer by their own physique. If I want to be an inspirational business person, I have to be more effective and I have to be better. I even know my why — live till 120 at least, help others around me, go further — and yet I am unable to get consistent. I dont know what to do about. Get a coach?

At work, thankfully I have a team that works on day to day things. And I am eliminating things that need me everyday. So that should be ok, I hope!

6/ Health

The last few weeks have been tough. They continue to be. When I thought I was ok (last evening), I got an upset stomach yet again. The ankle has been acting up lately, to a point that I cant even walk properly. The lower back is fucked – this I know can get fixed if I fix my posture. The hernia has flared up. NAFLD is visible all of my neck, elbows, ankles, waist and all that. The finger remains broken. Anyhow.

The point is to not describe my car-wreck of a body. The point is, I am probably at a point in life where I am staring at a one-way door to ruin. If I dont start acting now, I will not be able to live thrive for long.

And I know that for health, all I need to do is eat right, do some workout and sleep well. I sleep well to be honest. If I can find a solution to food, I will be ok. Just that with all the travel I am unable to. All my life I have avoided getting a cook (cos the mess that food makes) but I am now willing to hire one. I have started to ask around for that. Let’s see when I find a solution.

I think this is it.

Oh, one more thing…

Like I said in the beginning, if you read this, I dont want any sympathy or whatever. I am over most of the things listed here in. I had to let out of my system and I am ok now that I have written here.

More later!

The February Hits (and Misses)

A few things that I am not happy about and helpless about. Mostly a rant. Read at peril.

If you’ve been reading this blog, you would have noticed two not-so-happy posts back to back. Today I have a few things to talk about that may not be happy either.

Read on.

One. Whatsapp.

For some random reason, yesterday I got logged out of WA and I haven’t been able to log in since. I’ve read all support things, mailed Meta, and tried all hacks – including deleting, installing, taking the sim out, switching devices etc etc. And yet nothing works. I dont know what to do.

While I find an answer, am mindfucked that all my work has come to a stop. I can NOT even tell people that I am not available. I can NOT access links / files. My effervescent notes are stuck in the limbo. Thank God I moved to Apple Notes and Roam last time my data got wiped.

Oh, that reminds me, this is the second time I have lost access to my WA account. Last time around I was angry and pissed that I lost all chats and photos and all that. This time, I am ok with that. Just that my work lives on WA and I feel handicapped and helpless. I wish I had the power to know someone like Mark and get him to rest my account from the server.

So am mindeffed cos my work is pending. And I dont know what to do about it.

Two. Asking People to Leave.

This is the first time since I started working that I will have to ask people to leave on my own. And it’s not a nice feeling at all. I’ve always believed in building the village and the collective and this is anything but that.

In the past people have moved away from me while working – some at their own accord, some I’ve had to ask to leave. In one instance, there was this misunderstanding that I couldn’t solve and we had to part ways. In any case, it was never about my inability to pay.

This time, it is. Despite me doing ok with work and money, I am unable to pay for the people that I’ve hired. No, it’s not about overstaffing – just that at C4E, we hire for projects and once a project ends, we need to part ways. So that. In most cases I’ve been ok to let go of people once project ends.

This time, I feel bad cos I’ve worked really closely with these people for almost a year and I’ve come to like them as my own. Plus each of these is hardworking, dedicated and committed. And am having to let go of these folks cos of money. Double damn.

I keep getting these shockers but I am unable to do anything about these. I dont know when I’d wake up. Funny that I wrote a few days only that I dont know when this bubble would get burst.

So I am sad that I have to take this call. And I dont know what to do about this.

Three. Work. Future.

All I do in life is work. And since we are close to starting the next financial year, I was planning for what I would do in the next year and how I would go 10X from where I am right now.

While doing that, I realised that unless I do something large and drastic, the way we’ve been going, we are staring at ruin. Not that we are not good, just that the world is changing very fast and there’s way too much unpredictability around us. Surviving itself is a problem. And I am thinking of 10X-ing from here. So that.

Plus, I’ve never had to plan things – I was always at a tiny scale and things would come to me easily. Now we are larger than I’ve ever been (while we remain tiny in the grand scheme of things) and this means that the ship needs to be a lot more stable. And I am finding it hard to imagine how to do that.

I know I will do ok. I know we will do ok. But I need to work harder than I’ve ever worked. I would’ve if not for my gut. Read the next point.

Four. Gut.

Remember I said that my guts are apparently made of steel?

Well, they aren’t gutting.

It’s been more than 10 days now and I am still running between my desk and the loo. If I show some strength and resolve and go to a Starbucks or a meeting, I run back home faster than PT Usha!

And each time I get to the loo, the walk back is more laboursome and tiring. And I am left thinking if I should even make an attempt to get up the next time. And then I think I’d just stop eating. Let me spew out everything that I have in me. I’ve done almost 3 days of fasting in the past. There’s no reason I can’t do this time. May be starting tonight. Let’s see.

Oh, I refuse to go see a doc. I am hoping I will be better in a few days. been 10. Should take another there or four. Let’s see.

To be honest I am ok with it. Just that work is suffering. Same as the WhatsApp snafu. I dont think of anything more than that lol. I really need to get a life. Any tips?

Five. My failure to be a good shishya.

One of THE most important mentors I have ever had seems to be angry at me. To the point that he’s not even keen on talking to me. I know I’ve fucked up. And I’ve said sorry. And I will never ever repeat the mistake. But I think I’ve broken the relationship to a point that it’s beyond repair.

Like a mature adult, I went to him to apologise face to face. But I dont think it’s working out. So that. Like a mirror, it’s broken. I can put it together but I will always see a crack 🙁

So that. It was important enough to capture here on the blog.

So yeah. These five things.

The whole of 2024 and February specifically seems to be jinxed at so many levels. I need to find a way to fix this. Any pandits around?