Tag: Thejesh GN

Wk 03-25 – Weekly Notes

Notes from Week 3 of 2025. I talk about things I did, things I learnt and things I am thinking about.


9:05. 19 Jan.
Starbucks, Versova

The week gone by was long. Busy. Hard. To the point that Poo called to check in if I were ok. Two other friends wrote in to check if I was okay. I will talk more about this shortly. But lemme follow the format that I sort of discovered last week.

What I was supposed to do in the week gone by. And my report on the same.

1/ I said I will work on my 2025 plan.
I failed at it. The year is upon me and how. And I didn’t even think about it. This means that the review letter is also delayed.

2/ I said each time I open insta, I will do three push-ups.
No, I didn’t do push-ups when I opened insta. So I failed on this.
I will implement this from today. And keep a track. Will add it to my tracker.

3/ I said that I would delete food delivery apps.
I did for a couple of days.
But then, installed it again.
Convenience is a tough trap to get out of.

4/ I had to write the #dateSG doc.
I didn’t.
I won’t call this a fail cos this is not high on priority.

The tracker from the week that went by.

The tracker from the week gone by is attached.

I am glad to report that I have tracked almost all things. No, I didn’t really get any better. But tracking is an important first step. And yay to self for that. #win

You can see that I had a rough one.
But now, we seem to be doing ok.

Some realizations...

1/ For a one-person house I run and with my kind of lifestyle, I spend a lot of money. I need to check my spends.

2/ My day emotions are off the charts. I need to do something about it.

3/ I am consuming a lot of coffee. What’s not on this is that I don’t have coffee after 12. But, this much is not good. I will try and stop.

Ok, moving on.

Photos from the week

This week was bad.
Couldnt take too many. Here’s a link, in case.
Will get back to this next week.

Highlights from the week gone by…

This is a little different from what I did last week. Let’s see which one sticks.

1/ Made it to Thej’s weekly notes.
In fact these weekly notes are inspired by Thej’s. And this is the second thing that I have taken away from him. The other being SoG Grant. A good reminder that I need to move the needle on that.

2/ Spent time with Manish.
I am grateful that he takes the time to coach C and me. I don’t know what I’ve done to get kindness from so many people. I can only promise myself that when I have something going for me, I will pay it forward.

3/ Warikoo revealed his earnings from the year gone by.
The highlight was this part. I quote…

From Jan-Dec 2024 we earned Rs. 48.22L (USD 56K) in affiliate income. 100% of the affiliate we have earned (and will earn in the future) goes towards the education of kids who cannot afford it.

It is a simple process. Students email me, we ask for their student ID, college details, Aadhaar and a link to pay the school/college directly. And we make the transfer.

Last year, we contributed 43L towards the education of 104 kids and since existence we have contributed nearly 1.7Cr (USD $200K) towards the education of 397 kids.

I will do something similar.
I will channel a source of my income towards this. May be for SoG Grant. I don’t know yet. I will think on this.

4/ AK’s thought about C4E Culture.
She pointed out that when we get new people at C4E, they don’t get time to ramp up. And that needs to change. No person will ever go back from C4E with a sore experience.

Oh, while am on AK, the girl has made 7 posts so far. I think she will get her AirPods Pro Max at this rate.

5/ I am learning a lot about myself with this new startup.
Some things worth noting are…

  • On this one, I am not the captain. I am merely one of the charioteers at Mahabharata. And its good to see that am able to navigate it well.
  • I thought since there are heavy weights, I would not be able to speak. But I surprised myself with my actions. I was not sure I had it in me to speak in a room like that. I did. And I made eloquent conversations. Humbling and proud. And a #win.

6/ I want to be well-known (and not famous)
I wrote about this on my Twitter today. And I found a good articulation. That I want to have the respect of the ones that I respect. And this respect must give me access to any room that I want to get into. Simple.

I will repeat what I wrote today morning. I’ve been the kinds to always shy away from spotlight. I have wanted to be a kingmaker (not the king). I want to have a band (and not a solo act). I want to help run a village (and not be the mukhiya). I want to be a Krishna (and not Arjuna).

But I do want to be a famous Krishna. I also mentioned that I want to be on the thank you page of 1000 books, 100 Oscar speeches and more. I really want to be the person that offers shoulders to giants.

I don’t know how I will get to it. But this realisation is interesting to have. May be this is what growing up is?

Oh, as part of this, I will build the ability to do small talk with people.

7/ I failed to deliver something simple to a senior that I look up to. At the same time, in a review of C4E, our board member mentioned that we are in a poor place at C4E.

These were the large reasons why I was so fucked in the head the whole week.

I will ofc try and fix but I didn’t like that I failed so bad.

I want to note that I didnt let the heat come to my team. If I could just not overreact and eat random crap, I would have handled the crisis well. I need to work on self-control.

8/ At C4E, we are going to be more process-oriented.
Again, this is a thing that I’ve known for a long time and I’ve always stayed away from. Gokul taught me in detail. And I ignored. Manish reinforced this when we met him in December. And I ignored. But now I am learning that both of them were right all along.

Ok.
That.
Moving on.

One large takeaway from the week?

I think I have discovered the word for 2025.

Consistency.

Everything else that I need or want is on the other side of just one thing. Consistency. All the magic – compounding including – happens on the other side of consistency. Wish I had learnt this earlier.

I am going to embrace it.
I’ve even added this to the Knock on C4E’s door. See if you can spot it.

I know I know.
People have opinions and thoughts about YOLO and FOMO and how you ought to experience life and all that. But I think there is merit in being consistent and living a life built on top of discipline, long-term thinking, small actions, and consistency!

I guess this is about it.

As I close this, I am thinking, how is this weekly note different from the daily journal that I am writing on twitter? Maybe with time, I will publish more than these streams of consciousness? Maybe with time, I will have these two evolve into separate things – one to talk about things on a day-to-day basis and the other from a helicopter lens where things are a little more broad and large? Let’s see.

Ok, I have a long day ahead.
A lot to be done.
Gotta go.
See you around.

Oh, here are the previous editions: Wk 01, Wk 02

PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes.

Wk 01-25 – Weekly Notes

Inspired by Thej and his weekly notes, am starting this weekend, a series of weekly notes. I plan to do this every week and I plan to capture what I’ve done in the week gone by. I have earmarked two hours every Sunday for this on my calendar and once something goes my calendar, well…

Welcome to Weekly Notes!

Snce this is the first time I am doing this, I dont have a structure yet but I hope with time I will evolve. I did write a lot of morning pages back in the day and I did arrive at some structure.

And now, first things first.
Why am I doing this?

Well, many reasons.
Here’s a no-filter, stream-of-consciousness list.

  1. I love writing
  2. I haven’t been writing as much as I want to. To blame is work, travel, life, and in general fuckery
  3. I want to be internet famous. This means I need to be known by more people. Dont ask me why I want to be internet famous. But I want to be. And I dont know any other way to do so apart from writing.
  4. This is like therapy to me. Most people in my age need someone to talk to and unlike others, I don’t have any one. So I use my writing as my therapist.
  5. I love the idea of living a “quantified self” life and while I am not a nerd about it, I like to track what am thinking, what am doing etc etc. Writing morning pages, journals etc has been helpful in the past. I can go back to this date and see what I was thinking! In fact, I have public blogposts going back to Jan 2004!

So that.

Ok, coming to notes from the week.

This was the first week of 2025 and I think I’ve had a good start. I’ve largely been consistent. Keyword is largely. I want to be 100%. I want to be like the JILA clock. Always on time. Always doing what it’s supposed to do. I have a long way to go on that.

What did I learn / realised / discovered etc etc?

In one line, a lot!
Too much to capture but I will try.

A/ Someone said that the world is a malleable place.
This gets reinforced each time I see someone make things happen. In this case, the startup I am trying to build, the oldest member there pushes us more than I thought anyone else could!

If he can, why can’t I?

B/ I love the idea of giving gifts to people.
I dont know what need of mine am I trying to fulfil with this. Often these are the gifts that I can’t afford even for myself. But that’s ok.

C/ I realised that dressing well can actually pay off.
I dont know how to find better dresses. But let’s see. Oh, this realisation came to me after I saw a post from Anthony Bourdain about linen shirts and leather jackets. I didn’t save it and thus I can’t find it.

D/ I need to stop the ‘Garg NGO‘ – my offer for help for free.
While I dont want to charge anyone anything that they cant afford, I need to be more protective and mindful of my time and offer help to only those who deserve.

E/ I am not the only one who finds Taleb uncool.
He recently got in a spat with Bryan Johnson and Bryan is not wrong. And yeah, this is important cos Taleb has blocked me on Twitter.

F/ Respect needs to be earned and not demanded.
Can’t get into specifics but it’s on my Roam. Ask me if you know me 😀

What went well for me? for C4E? for my village?

In general am a tad harsh on myself.
So this part would mostly be empty.

A/ I am working on a new startup.
And things are moving fast on that. We may annouce it to be the world as early as end of Jan.

I have known one of the co-founders for almost 10 years now. He’s someone I’ve worked for and is someone I’d like to work for me. Plus, one of the investors is part of the unofficial board of C4E. C needs to decide if she wants him on the official board.

Once this takes shape and we announce, I will officially hand over the C4E baton to C. I had thought I would retire with C4E on my epitaph. But as life would have it, never say never 🙂

B/ I have started to live in public.
Here’s a tracker I fill in most days. So far, I’ve NOT missed a single day. I am also updating this thread, in case. I think I will get someone to put this on LinkedIn as well. Let’s see.

C/ I got paid by a client AFTER 6 months!
One of my clients had not paid me in over 6 months. They finally paid me. This has helped me pay back part of the loan that I had to take to run my business. The ambition now is to get to a point where I am able to pay back all the loan.

What didn’t go well?

A lot.
Like I said, am a tad harsh on myself.
So read with that lens.

A/ Nothing on #in2025
I haven’t had the time to write my 2025 goals (this includes my review of the past year) and to me this is a BIG BIG loss.

I am very very big on planning my life and time and all that – been doing this for a while. And I want to do this asap. So may in the coming week.

If you are bored, you may want to read my #in2024 goals.

B/ I wasted time on conversing about cricket
The last few days, the chatter about cricket was maddening (India vs Australia ofc). Even though I have blocked the words from all the places I hang out at, the chatter was so pervasive and palpable that I gave in.

The worst part is that I dont even follow the game and I dont know the names of more than 5 players. And yet, I engaged in meaningless watching of cricket. Must exercise more control and restraint.

C/ No workout etc etc
I had decided that I will work out (at least do yoga) but it’s been 5 days and I have not done shit about it.

The only saving grace is that I am eating in moderation. Today, as I write this, I feel bloated for some reason but otherwise, last few days I’ve been ok.

D/ I dont like to wear pants 😀
Even though I’ve said above that I would like to be better dressed, I’ve realised that I dont like garmi. At this point, I am ok but in a few weeks, I will need to find a solution for that.

E/ One of the C4E Villagers quit
While this shouldn’t affect me, I am affected to a point that it has made to this list. One of the people who I wanted to work with for the rest of my life chose to walk out. And while I should be ok about it, I am not. I want to give each of my people a life that they have to think VERY hard before moving on from. So when someone leaves me, I feel bad and sad and I get into a spiral that is tough to get out of. In fact it was so bad that on Saturday, I merely vegetated for like 3 hours!

PS: After I published this, some people pointed flaws in my thinking. I am grateful for that. I will change!

Ok, coming to what I look forward in the next week

Two things.

A/ The biggest thing for the next week would be work on the aforementioned startup. And succession planning for C4E, if it comes to that.

B/ I will also try and make time to write my #in2025 piece. I’ve started on it but it’s nowhere close to where I want it to be.

I think these two things are all for the next week.

Also, to be honest, more often than not, I dont really have any large attachments to any outcomes or anything like that.

If you’d like to get these in your mailbox directly, please subscribe here…

I think this is it for the week.
Lemme know what you think!
Over and out.

The SoG Grant (draft)

SoG Grant – a no strings attached grant to individuals to pursue a creative project of their liking.

This is the first draft of this. Publishing to seek feedback from people. Please do let me know what you think. I aim to release this around the end of Jan 2023 Feb 2024.

TLDR: I am committing Rs. 100K a year of my money to create a microgrant for people who may need money to pursue any project of their liking. Read more for more details.

Hello! Lemme talk about some themes that have shaped me and my life.

A. This couplet by Kabir.
I don’t know when or where I read this first, but this couplet resonates with me like nothing else has ever. Here it goes…

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

Attributed to the poet Kabir, though I am not sure.

This translates loosely into, “Oh, Lord, give me enough to take care of my family. Enough that I don’t sleep hungry and yet have enough left to support others that may ask me for it.”

B. Giants, their shoulders, and their kindness.
All my life, I have benefitted immensely from the kindness, generosity, and shoulders of strangers and giants. Whatever little I know or whatever tiny I have has come to me because I was a beneficiary of an unexpected gift. Each time, some chance brought me close to strangers and they were unnaturally kind to support me and literally changed the trajectory of life altogether. From my admission into MDI to my first real “education” with Raj at CLA; to the startup with Kunal; to Suvi’s blind faith in me; to the mad dream that we had at 5X5; to Social Wavelength’s risky bet on me; to Rajesh Sir’s support for C4E and me, each “career” move happened because these literal strangers trusted me and allowed me to make mistakes. I was on a long leash and I could learn all that I wanted to. and countless others that have helped me do things.

Even in terms of people that sort of mentored me (the list is a mile long and if I were to make that in public, this post would run in hundreds of pages), they did so without expecting anything in return. They were truly the giants that gave me their shoulders to stand on and look farther. The following quote, again I dont know by who describes me the best…

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”

More about it here.

It essentially means that giants (and strangers) who have achieved a lot more than me have allowed me to learn from their experiences and build my life on top of their work.

Isn’t this what life is all about?
Arent all great innovations not built on top of what others have done prior? That.

C. I stumbled on this post from Thejesh where he has created a “no strings attached” microgrant in memory of his mother.
The idea is fairly simple. He created a tiny corpus from his savings to create opportunities for people that are little less lucky than him. He says, “I am creating a yearly $1000₹80,000 ₹1,00,000 micro-grant to support something meaningful. Grant is named after my mother – Nagarathna. The reason for grant could be anything as long its meaningful to you and people around. Though I prefer free and open source or creative commons projects, It’s not a must. It’s a no strings attached grant.”

This inspired me AF.

I have always thought about giving back paying it forward, even though my own house has never been in order. All the “projects” I created as C4E partnerships were attempts at paying it forward. However, since I know that that model is essentially broken, I need to find an alternative to continuing to pay forward. Thejesh’s post comes at the right time. And thus, the SoG Grant!

So, combining A, B and C, presenting The SoG Grant!

Hello, SoG Grant!

Inspired by Thejesh and others who have created microgrants (see this on Github), I hereby create The SoG Grant.

What is The SoG Grant?
SoG Grant is an attempt to pay it forward by supporting the ones who are less fortunate than I.

What is the corpus of this grant?
I will start with a total corpus of Rs. 100K from my personal savings.

If I get more people to back this up, I will add on top of this. If you want to help me grow this basket, lemme know.

Update (4 Apr 2021): Krishna from Tezi.app has agreed to add another 20K to the corpus. He wants to support people building for SMEs in India.

So, as of now, it’s Rs. 120K per year. This could be given to one person or split among at most three.

Who can apply for this? Who is eligible?
I really really want this grant to help people that need it. I am not sure how I would validate the financial status but I will find a way as I go along.

No, it will NOT be easy for you to get this grant. I will make the selection process extremely difficult to weed out non-serious applicants.

Who is NOT eligible?
You have to prove your intention. While I am a dreamer and chase lofty goals that are beyond my reach, for the grant, I want to support people that are damn serious about it. You will have to prove that you have skin in the game.

What kind of projects / people would I support?
You could be whoever and you may want to do whatever. However, I’ll admit that I have a bias towards creators and education. So if you seek money for creating something or pursuing some course / education, I am more likely to support you.

Some projects that are a great fit for this are…

  1. You want to take up a course that you can’t afford
  2. You want to cut a music album and need money to pay for the studio etc.
  3. You want to write a book / script etc and need to pay your bills while you write it.

Please note that this is an indicative list only and the grant is available to anyone under the sun. As long as I believe what you do has the potential to make a difference.

Who can apply?
Anyone. From India.
I don’t know how to do the logistics of expanding it beyond borders.

What’s the catch?
No catch. I dont want you to thank me. I dont want you to include the C4E logo in what you do. I dont care if you forget me. All I care for is that you are accountable to me. That’s it. And no, I dont care about output. As long as you are good with the input, I am ok.

How can you apply?
I will announce more details over the next few days. I am hoping for the following timelines…

These timelines are broken. Apologies for this.

  • Applications Open: April July 2021 Jan 2023 Feb 2024
  • Application Deadline: May Aug 2021 Mar 2023 Feb 2024
  • Decision and Disbursal: June Sep 2021 17 Mar 2024 – 31 Mar 2024

In case you need this money urgently, do write in and I will make exceptions.

So that’s about it. Do let me know should you have any questions. More on this over the next few days.

Thank You!

Housekeeping and version history…

  • Update. On 13 Jan 2024. I will FINALLY push this in the world by the end of Jan 2024.
  • Update. On 30 Sep 2022. I hope to get to this in 2023. Have been busy with work and 2022 went like a whirlwind!
  • Previous Update. On 11 Dec 2021. I am running way behind on this. Sincere apologies. Will pick this up #in2022.

140321 – Morning Pages

Quick and dirty update from how I spent Saturday. Wish I the time to write more. The day was among the best.

6:24 AM, Mumbai.
Completed this somewhere on the Nashik highway at 10ish.

This is going to be one of those pages where I want to write a lot (I think I have a lot to write) but since I am short of time, I will not be able to get a lot of words in. I have to be at someplace real early. I had to be out and about by 6 AM, to be honest, but thanks to some snafu, I am still at home and that means I can get some words in. If not a lot, I can at least get a ToC of sorts in. Yeah, I have a table of contents of things that I want to talk about.

Here it is.

A. SG’s interview. There’s apparently some interview that I gave when #tnks came out where I have bared my soul. A stranger can read that and get to know who I am and what I think about. In that, I have even talked about my hatred for pets! To make matters worse, it has my photo on it. I need to do something about it. I can’t have my opinions floating around on the Internet like that. Lol. The entire life has been lived in making my life an open and public affair with this blog 😀

Need to find that interview and “fix” it.

B. Poker. A few days ago I was in this weird mood where I did not know what to do. None of my friends was around. Taarak Mehta felt like a drag. Brooklyn Nine-Nine was not funny no more. I couldn’t sleep. I had had enough of everything. I somehow remembered my love for Poker and after I don’t know how many months, I put money on a poker game. It was on Pokerstars and I sucked as bad I did when I played regularly.

Poker is one of those things that I think I can be really good at. There is an element of luck but you can control it to a large part. It just needs two things – knack for the game and the time required to build that knack. I suspect poker is like chess. You need to have some sort of inclination and “gift” for it and then you need to back it with consistent and focussed effort. You know, more you play, better you get.

Wait. Isnt this true with everything and anything? I guess!

C. SoG Grant. I saw a post on my Instagram last night and I reached this page on Thejesh GN’s blog. He’s started a grant in his mother’s name where he’s supporting independent creators on anything that they want to work on. I love the idea. I am so inspired that I decided on the spot that I want to start something. When I was growing up, I did not have the patron or the resources to chase what I wanted to. Now that I have some resources, I want to support others. An annual grant could be a great thing. Need to put things in motion. #note2self

D. Swiggy. Last night I was hungry and I decided to order something to eat. Good thing is that I ordered on Swiggy and that means the order was never delivered. Which is ok. I understand the business is run by people and they can often fuck up. But the way they handle these things is what needs fixing. The customer service is non-existent and the way they speak with you, they lack empathy. They assume that an order is a physical thing and if you refund the money, the customer is ok. They forget that it’s food delivery and the person on the other side could be hungry. And its well known fact across the world that when you are hungry, you are not the person you are. And you need to talk to hungry, angry, irate people in a different tone / manner etc. I promise I will make it a mini-project and try and teach these people how to be customer-centric and have some empathy.

So that.

E. NA. I also want to talk about this woman, NA, that I met via Lunchclub yesterday. Out of 30 odd people that LC has matched me with, she was only the second that I had wanted to meet.

And I goaded her into meeting me.
And we met.
And it was awesome.
NA is one of the finds of this year so far for me. I hope I can become friends with her and get her to do something with me. More about her on some other day. Today am kinda short of time.

F. Misc. Things that I want to talk about but don’t have time for. 1, I pet a dog at a friend’s place. My first time ever. 2, The realization that I am #foreverAlone and unlucky in love. Every woman that I seem to get close to tends to get away from me. The pattern repeats where these women think that am a loser and move on. 3, The feeling of heaviness and general lethargy and my desperate attempts to get over those. 4, Hunt for a new house (which I am hoping is a little better than the one I am on). 5, I am not sure. I forgot 😀

G. Streaks. Here.

  • Morning Pages – 92
  • #aPicADay – XX (will count at some later date)
  • 10K steps a day – 1
  • OMAD – 3 (thanks to Swiggy, the streak remains unbroken)
  • #noCoffee – 5
  • #noCoke – 5
  • 10 mins of meditation – 0 (adding this from today on)
  • #book2 – 0 (I REALLY need to start on this!)

So yeah, thats about it. More tomorrow. On a Monday.