Tag: Podcast

Wk 31-26 – Weekly Note

Notes and reflections from Week 31 of 2026.

2 Aug 2026.
Seema’s Starbucks.
I’ve been coming here everyday for the last week or so. Some normality has come back to life. I think as much as I like being a nomad, I also like the idea of being tethered at one place and living a boring life of routine. Talk of weirdness. Lol!

PS: Pradeep asked me what do I mean by “fix life”. This normality of having a routine is a component in fix life.

Ok, so a lot to talk about.
Took much action over the last few days and I feel like dumping things somewhere. I mean I am dumping those onto my Roam and notes and all that but I still want to capture those.

Lessgo…

Oh, the song of the week is this.

.

Highlights, reflections, updates, notes and thoughts from the week gone by.

1/ A month in Dubai

I’ve decided that I will go live in Dubai for the month of Sep. It’s my 2131231th attempt to go build a life outside India. Let’s see if I am able to make it work this time.

While I am there for this tiny window, I will see if I can shift my personality to live in a place like Dubai where people expect everything to be polished and all that. Like I said, I am not sure and I will never find out till I actually do the hard thing.

Oh, and more than just the shift, I need to also think what I can apply myself to. Agency, AI transformation, 66MGRoad, Yellow, Writing, Or anything else. And if nothing else, a podcast 😀

PS: While editing this, Claude told me to build a clone of FlexingIt for Dubai market. Lol, so many ideas. So less time. Such easy desk execution now. What does a man do!

PPS: As I write this, there are news that the conflict is escalating and that means all my investments and plans will go down the drain. I remain an optimistic and I hope we would find some resolution soon.

PPPS: As I edit this, there are talks of de-escalation. Optimism Pro Max.

.

2/ The August Plan

While September is Dubai (and thus things around there), here’s my plan for August…

  1. Work more on WeAreC4E.com. Make it into a lead magnet for event piece for C4E.
  2. I am thinking of shipping the CRM tool to the world. I find value in it. Let’s see if others will find value as well. So, I will make a landing page and will try to give demo to people and sell them a subscription. In case you want to buy, am selling it for $99 a year.
  3. Make Book 2 shippable. It’s almost ready. Just that I need to make a pass thru it.
  4. Operate in Eco Mode. And as a part of that, use cash as much as I can (against digital payments). Unless absolutely necessary. I want to add friction to the money spending thing.

I will add more as they come.

.

3/ Udipt and Himanshu

On 66MGRoad, these two boys are helping me move things. And I’ve been proven very wrong by these guys at a lot of places. I want to make a list but I think that is beyond this blog. At this time, I merely want to acknowledge and document that I was wrong.

Also they taught me the value of doing things with Brute Force. And reminding me of PG’s do things thats dont scale.

Thank you, boys.

.

4/ Eco Mode

I have activated Eco Mode in life.

This meant that I’ve cut EACH expense that is not required. This means, I have expensive memberships and I will downgrade on things where am paying to get special access (you know, lounges, clubs etc). I am also more mindful and I am eating at home. And I am increasingly tempering my spends at Starbucks. Irony, I am sipping onto a 400 bucks coffee while I write this.

Among these, the one that hurt the most was cancelling AMEX. Couple of reasons TBH.

A, I spend about 75K on it per year, just to get access to the card. I can get Claude for that much ;P. The add ons they offer dont really add a lot. I dont think I’ve used any of their additional services. I will find out ;P

B, Over time the service had really degraded. Like one time I didnt have my card on me and they denied me access to their otherwise empty lounge.

I know it will be tough to get this again. But I had to get it as an ego thing. I got it. And they were not able to offer me enough value to retain them when the times turn bad for me. Compare this to Claude. I am thinking of getting an even higher tier than that 200 USD Max!

Oh, this is true for people and relationships too. I’ve often see myself getting cut when I stop offering value. In fact, I’ve been cut even when I was valuable. Lol!

PS: like I said above, I will use as much cash as I can in all of August, to know and see how am I spending.

.

5/ Previous Weekly Reviews

I dont know why but I was seeing older posts on these weekly reiews.

And I realized that they were more layered, nuanced and revealed more about my thinking and were not merely reporting. I think since I got busier I started to cut corners. Starting with this one, I will get back to more verbose, more long-form notes where I talk about a lot more than mere reports.

Lemme know what you think.

.

6/ Ideal End State

I met Dr H this week. She asked me what do I really want from life and in life. And while elaborating on it, she asked me if it was a lavish home, people, money, power or something else. And when she further elaborated it, I realised it was something VERY similar to Kevin’s Ideal End State.

Made me think.

And here’s my articulation of how I want my life to be. PS: Note 2 self – my more private ideal end state document is here.

My answer will always start from the Kabir couplet.

Sai itna dijiye, jaame kutumb samaay,
main bhookha naa rahoon, sadhu na bhookha jaaye

And if I were to tangibalise it, I would say,

  1. Enough to not think about spending money. I anyway don’t splurge. I spend on mid-level comforts (business class travel etc). I think I would glad if this number is in high three-digit USD millions.
  2. Enough to support friends, family and acquaintances with things that they need. Need. Not want.
  3. Live without needless drama. In a place that gives me AC (or is cold without AC). I dont know what this location could be.
  4. Some work that allows me to travel the world and meet people. And with time, people who are at the top of their games. I remember Chamath or someone mentioned that the world is run by 150 people. I dont want to run the world would but I would love to know some of those.
  5. Support and be a patron to people who’re pushing the baton with art, music, entertainment, films etc.

Of course there is more. The private link above has a longer list.

What do YOU really want?
What’s your ideal end state?

PS: An argument against this ideal end state is that I want to enjoy the journey and not work towards a destination. And while I do things that take me close to my ideal end state, I want to continue to optimise for day to day joy.

.

7/ Lessons from HelioCoach

I’ve never talked about this our loud but here I am.

For context, I pulled together a team of friends and well-wishers and built a consumer mobile app for supplementation compliance. You may see it at heliocoach.com.

Of course the market is crowded but I thought I could find a place and build a business. We wanted to get just about a few hundred dollars each month and that would have made us enough to keep the team going. You know, Ramen money!

We did each thing that all the startup gurus say — content, ebook, influencers, founder branding etc etc. And yet we were unable to make any dent anywhere.

Of course, I take it in the stride. And I did get something from it.

Here’s a list…

  1. Aarya
  2. Confidence that any app can be made using Claude. I am using that confidence to build 66MGRoad now. And Chandni and Aarya are now building Yellow.
  3. Lessons on importance of distribution. This has been on my radar for like decades but I havent moved my ass on it.
  4. Awareness that I am unable to push people I love. As the originator of idea and “leader” of the team that was working on this idea, I take all the blame for the non-success of the app. And I learnt that unless I push, I wont be able to take things far. This is something that Nakul also mentioned. That unless you are a gunda in your team, you wont be able to move things forward.

.

8/ Nims. And Mt Everest

The mountains took Nimsdai away. I am sad about it and my thoughts are with his family. This tweet from Barsha expresses the agony and anguish that I feel in words far better than me.

Also, lemme talk about something else here. Lemme make this about me.

When I was young (around 2013 or 14), I read somewhere that years are long and decades are short. And at that time I made a promise to myself and the world. That I will do three things – make a billion dollars, impact a billion lives and climb Mt Everest. And I will take 10 years to do that. This 10-year deadline expired on Jan 1, 2026. And ofc, I didnt do any of these three. While I am hopeful that I will do the first two, I’ve given up on Mt Everest.

Many reasons. Lemme try to articulate.

a/ I dont have it in me. It’s plain simple acceptance of defeat and humbling down that comes with it.

b/ I did go to the Everest base camp (in 2021) and I sort of understood that it’s not for me and thus worth the effort. This could be my justification-brain talking here but a shot at Everest would have taken me a few years of all-in training and a lot of money. I know there are serious hobbyists who’ve done it. But I am not like them. I am easily distracted and have way too many interests to go all-in into one of those.

So, I gave up.

Mind you – this could be my defeat talking. So read with that bias please.

c/ I realised that Everest was a bragging conversation more than anything else. I come from Delhi and Haryana and like most people from there, I love to talk. And this means that I would have spoken it out loud in some conversation. So, that!

.

9/ Rant on Reading

I grew up with comic books and novels (my father used to read potboilers from Surendra Mohan Pathak and all) and then once I went to MBA, I got to read more. And with time reading habits evolved. Till the last few years. When my reading habits changed.

I stopped reading books unless they were recommended by a lot of people I respect.

Most of my reading then became blogs, newsletters and all that. And then that stopped too. Not because there was so much to read but because I found “better” way to read. By seeing videos, talking to people and tinkering and all that. And for my use case, this works well. So I never picked books again.

Plus I’ve been distracted a lot. I have immense respect for people who’re able to do things while battling personal things. I can either keep the kitchen running for myself. Or I can think deep about things. Lately i’ve become acquainted with a young woman, Drishti. She does brilliant work at work and for her personal projects. I dont know how she gets the time. Or find the energy. Or may be its easy once you have a job that gives you a fixed fee for a fixed time you rent there. There are times when I regret my decision to not take a job and use my non work time to meander. But then I think about how we as humans weren’t really supposed to take jobs and all that. It’s just a construct to keep the fire burning.

Ok am rambling. Moving on.

PS: This means that my reading list and the TIL group that I run is dying a slow death. I am just glad that Pradeep keeps me posted on important things around the internet!

.

10/ Claude

While I was doing an edit pass, I realised that I hadnt talked baout Claude. And I must! After all, thats where I spend a lot of my time and attention. I have nothing specific to write this week. My tokens got Maxxed on a Tuesday or something (reset happens on Thursday) and I felt like one arm has been taken away from me 🙁

And since it came back on a Thursday, am back on it with a vengeance! Yay!

.

📷 Photos from the week gone by

Available on request :D.

But I have to place this here.

.

📈 Trackers…

Here are one.

Love that there’s good recovery (I suspect Whoop is misfiring), green on emotions and about 6-7 hours of sleep on an average.

Also notice the pushups row. I do sets of 5 thru the day. Aim is to get to 100 pushups in a day (through the day) and then grow sets to 10 and then more.

.

✅ Action on LARGE objectives for the year

In 2026, I plan to do three things.

  • Book2
  • Human Flag Pole
  • Save a million dollars

Book2 / Caravan Serai.
No movement this week. I will pick this in August.

Human Flag Pole.
I’ve started with push-ups. Its nothing tbh but some action for sure.

Save a million dollars.
No action to report.

📌 So, what did I get done last few weeks? And what will I do next week?

This is a one-line report on progress I made on various things that are important to me. I will only talk about things that I got done. Shipped. Not WIP.

So, this year, I want to track the following…

  1. Health. Sleep, food, movement. Bad. Many weeks running.
  2. C4E / Work. Pick a thing to apply myself to. Reworked on C4E website. Added some content. Made some progress on 66MGR.
  3. Brand SG / Distribution. No action TBH.
  4. People. No action.
  5. Book2. Nothing this week.
  6. Shauk. Again, nothing.

.

🏃‍➡️ Health

No large actions apart from eating first meal post 12, taking supplements on time (Just popped the Vit D 60000 IU tab), some pushups. Which is a LOT tbh, compared to what I am typically on.

.

⏲️ Reminders from last few days

Thanks to Claude and sgTasks, I dont forget things. However like most things that you stop thinking about, often they become blind spots and you dont even think about those. And I’ve found that thinking about things in the liminal often gives you great clarity.

So, I shall write those here in a list.

  1. Fix my linkedin
  2. Get a better CA for C4E
  3. Fix the voice guide on my AI tools
  4. 66MGR Ops things
  5. Close edits on wearec4e.com

Eventually this list will get longer. But at least it’s a start.

.

🗓️ So, one thing that defines the past week?

Routine.

The other words for this year have been: Getting Back, Freedom, People, Motion, Show, Flow, Excitement, Embarrassment, Blur, Whiling, Movement, Activity, Regular, Easy, Journey, Downtime, Same, Drift.

So that.
Over and out.
Until next Friday.
SG

Oh, and this too shall pass.

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

PPS: Please do point typos.

PPPS: In case you see me being inconsistent in anything – work, writing, reviews etc, PLEASE do point out.

100621 – Morning Pages

Quick post on a lazy day about things at the top of my head. Lot of transactional stuff. You may skip reading this.

8:58. Woke up a few minutes ago. Slept at I think 1 or so but I did have an Americano at around 8 last night. Guess that’s why I had a fitful night. So on with today’s post. Like yesterday, I will try to not context switch. The music is set. I made a list of what I want to write about. I don’t have a lot of time – I know I am late today and I need to start the day and all that but I don’t have any pressing engagements today so I can take it easy. I may even go to a Starbucks. I did not enjoy, to be honest, that I worked from the home house last night.

Here we go. Will use bullets…

A. So, I restarted on an old project yesterday where I am helping a senior from the IT industry with his biography. It is very very interesting and exciting and I really enjoy the grind when I work on it. In fact, in life, if I can get more projects like that, I would be really happy. Of course, this means that the next few days weeks would be crazy but that’s ok. It’s the kind of craziness that I like 🙂

B. Saw this video yesterday where someone has summarised James Clear’s Atomic Habits. One of the things that stayed with me is Warren Buffett’s advice on the 5/25 rule. In one line, it says that you must make a list of 25 of your long-term goals and focus on the top 5 and put the other 20 in the do NOT do / focus list. I think I must make such a list soon! I also have a fairly limited number of years left and I am craving for some success and all that. Must think about this over the next few days. So that.

C. I plan to get back to life and the world from today on. I am of course out there and working and all that but I have kept a low profile. As low as someone like me possibly can. I mean I am off Twitter, Insta, and all that. I know that I need to be out there and working and all that and it’s important for both personal and professional growth. Most of my opportunities have come to me just because I was on these platforms constantly. And I know that the doors I open today get me opportunities after literally decades!

D. I am also recording a podcast after a few weeks today. Let’s see how it goes. I can’t say I am fully prepared but I enjoy talking to people and podcasts are an important step towards that.

E. LHV is finding it tough. More on this some other day.

F. Thanks to the rain and all that yesterday, the second meal of the day did not arrive at all. I could’ve not had food after that but all the coffee I had made me jittery and I had to order something to get over. Ordered myself a Peanut Butter Mousse. Dying with guilt. There’s no way I’ll lose weight or climb Mt. Everest. I clearly can’t work out. The arm is still shaky after the vaccine last Saturday, so no Yoga. I can’t control what I eat. Grrrr…

Ok, I plan to try and fast today. At least not order anything for as long as I can control. Let’s see how it goes.

G. I am lagging on Write Your First Novel. I plan to take it up today. I am late on Mare’s review. I started the post but I couldn’t find the inspiration, even though I really want to do it. I think I must clearly slot these into weekends or after work hours. As life gets busier, I need to find a way to get more strict with time. I mean I am as strict as they come but I need to go another step now. I must not not do a single thing that is not on my calendar and if I miss something, I miss it. I will not try to fit it in during the day.

So that’s about it for day. Kaafi transactional details but that’s what is on the top of my head.

Wait. While writing this, an epiphany happened. None of these talk about my work as a marketer. And that means a good thing and a bad thing. Good in the sense that work to me is a problem to be solved, a thing to be done, a transaction that I dont care about. Bad in the sense that if I dont write about it, people I work with dont know about it and thus I remain away from opportunities. I mean I know that what I do is not really a long-term thing that I want to do. I’d rather build something that scales and impacts the world but the path to that seems to be missing. I think I am not even sure if I will ever be on that path – I am way too old and the world is way too complex now. Ok, I am getting in the rant zone. Lemme stay away from that.

Here’s the streaks.

  • Morning Pages / Meditations – 179
  • #aPicADay – 0
  • 10K steps a day – 0
  • OMAD – 0
  • #noCoffee – 0
  • #noCoke – 91
  • 10 mins of meditation – 0
  • #book2 – 0
  • Killer Boogie – 0
  • Surya Namaskar – 0

The Marketing Connect Meetups

If you are a marketer in India, here’s a networking opportunity that you can NOT miss. Come meet other marketers like you with this curated, 1v1, networking opportunity.

Lemme tell you a secret.

I am a podcast host. Really.

I am.

In fact, I am the host of The Marketing Connect Podcast where in the first season, I have spoken to some of the finest marketers in the country. Via these conversations, I try to learn from their journeys and what it takes to succeed in the day and age that we live in! I am not sure if that has helped the listeners but I have learned a lot. Just that I hate my voice and thus I have not really marketed the marketing podcast. Well, the mystery of life 😀

So, one of the reasons I started this podcast, was to meet interesting people.

My thesis was that if I wrote into seniors from the industry and asked for a meeting, they may or may not respond to me. But if I told them that I have a podcast, they would respond faster / better.

And they did!

I was able to reach marketers from more than 15 companies like Pidilite, Burger King, Eros, Magicbricks, FBB, and more. Each interaction was for good two-three hours and I could ask them questions about their lives, career trajectory, mistakes, learnings, and more. I don’t think I would’ve ever been able to get into such candid chats with people if it were not on a podcast.

Of course, the downside is that each conversation required hours and hours of prep (research on the guest, editing, and general operational things).

Ok. Wait. Lemme digress for a bit…

Hello, Lunchclub.ai

I recently got introduced to this website, lunchclub where they match me with “interesting” professionals and invite us to get into 1v1, quick, short video calls with each other. Think of speed “dating” for professional conversations.

In the last 2 weeks, I have had 3-4 calls and the quality of people I’ve met has been superb. Most of these people I met were like me – explorers, tinkerers, generalists, Jacks (and Janes) of all trades, and others of the ilk. And since these calls are 1 on 1, I could open up about things that I would probably not on a public chat.

So, it works well.

And it is quite similar to podcasting – just that the people I meet are strangers (so there is that excitement and tentativeness when I meet them) and there is no background research required (so, I need to invest less time).

This is when the light bulb went off in my head!

Hello, Marketing Connect Meetups!

So, what if I marry the podcast (that I hate to market) and some tenets from lunchclub (that I love)? And create a matchmaking opportunity for marketers?

To attend these meetups, you have to be a marketer. You could be on the client-side or the agency-side. Or you could be a freelance consultant (like me). But you have to be in the marketing space!

So, Marketing Connect Meetups is an opportunity to meet other marketers!

Sounds cool?

Here’s how this would work. Simple steps.

  1. I invite you to fill this Google Form. And no, I will NOT spam you.
  2. Once you’ve filled in, each weekend, I will curate matches (manually!!) and make introductions. I will send emails to you guys and invite you to meet each other.
  3. You guys then move me to BCC and plan and schedule a meet / call.
  4. What happens post that call? Well, up to you. May be you’d work together, maybe you’d pick brains, maybe you’d teach others something that you. are passionate about! The possibilities are endless.
  5. Give me feedback! Simple!

Simple. Right?

Oh, here are some ground rules.

  1. Safety first! Like any other matchmaking platform, we would get all sorts of people and it would be tough to filter the kind of people we’d get. So, please do stay safe. Although these meetups are planned in a professional setting and we have the Linkedin handles of each attendee, you never know.
  2. Respect trumps everything. Respect is not just about how you speak to people but also about how you conduct yourself, and how you respect the other person. For example, if you have set up a particular time for the call, you better show up on time! I hope you get the drift.

And here are some disclaimers.

  1. I am merely giving you an opportunity to meet others that you would other. Please do know that I can not control how these meetings would turn out for you.
  2. This is an experiment. I don’t know how this would pan out but I would love to have this become a way to meet new people.

In the end, I don’t know if this will work or not. Or if this will appeal to other marketers. But I do think that this “variation” of lunchclub is worth giving a shot. It is yet another itch that I want to scratch.

And here I am, with it. Lemme know what you think.

Oh, and this is part of the 30 posts in 30 days project. This was Day 4. Other posts are at 3010, 3110, 0111.