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“Not my type!”
“Oh, this one is just like me!”
“It would be difficult to hang around him.”

The mind is constantly labelling people we meet. 

However beneath the surface, there are no “types” of people.
They are just being themselves. 

What if, instead of putting people into compartments, we saw them for who they are?
Tried listening to their perspective?
Understood their awareness and applied it in our lives?

People aren’t inherently different.
They are simply doorways to learn more about ourselves.

“Waking up early gives me energy.
But my friends are out partying tonight and I do not want to miss the fun.”

“Studying is important.
But this new Netflix series everyone is talking about makes me feel I am missing out.”

“I do not have the money.
But everyone seems to love the new iPhone and I do not want to miss out.”

For everything that we should do, there will always be something that we will miss out on. 

The question then is, what is more important? 

How will we ever enjoy what we have, if what we have is never enough?

We are with friends. Yet we feel bad at the end of the conversation.
They care for us. Yet something doesn’t feel right.
We are there for them through thick and thin. Yet we don’t see them happy when we are.

Too often, we are surrounded by beautiful toxicity in the form of friends.
People who are there for us sometimes, yet make us feel bad every time.
People who are themselves, yet never respect us for who we are.

Settle down in life. Or keep changing professions almost every 5-7 years.
Do what everyone else does. Or do what feels right.
GIve away your sleep for others. Or make it a top priority.

Doing what is uncomfortable always feels uncomfortable at the start.
Because what if we fail? 

There is temporary discomfort in doing the unconventional.
There is a permanent one in living life as a template.

We don’t choose our parents.
Nor can we choose how they conduct themselves as parents.
Or the repercussions of it.

But we do choose what to do to ourselves, once we are aware of what happened.
We can either blame them for our lives.
Or we can choose to heal ourselves.

Both are going to be painful, but choosing pain to heal is a preferable place to be in, than choosing pain to add to existing pain.

A part of growing up is being able to parent ourselves, if we believe we deserved better.

There are important items in our bucket.

Yet we say yes to every offer that comes our way.
Perhaps we’re scared of what they will think of us.

In that process of committing without thought, the urgent gradually takes over the important.

Leaving no room for us to act on what’s important in the long term.

Say no.
Polite no.
I’d rather skip this.

They aren’t rude, they are simply prioritising ourselves before we offer to others. 

That isn’t mean, rather super helpful for the very few commitments we would offer to work upon.

We teach others how to treat us, by how we treat ourselves. – Oprah

We want to make our best impression.
Give the most meaningful answers.
And make sure the interviewer is happy after evaluating us.

These are the thoughts that are going on in our mind, before appearing for an important interview. 

However, the interview is not only for us.
It is also for the company, for us to decide whether it is the right fit or not.

Going prepared with our questions and drafting a resume that shows who we are is as important. 

We are going to exchange our time for salary, not our happiness.

A journey in a job is fulfilling only when it is a two-way line, just like any other relationship.

Entrepreneurship is cool.

It’s a great feeling to launch a product that you made from scratch.

But, maybe the entire ecosystem of sales, management, product, etc., overwhelms you.

You love product development but the processes and team building responsibilities don’t excite you as much.

And that’s perfectly okay.

It is perfectly okay to not do what almost everyone else is doing, because you don’t have that inclination.

Such awareness is power.
Because now you know what to act upon and what not to choose willfully. 

In life, you don’t have to become what everyone seems to be becoming.
Getting to such a realization is precious. 

Feeling stuck.
Tried everything.
Don’t know where to look.

It helps asking other people for their opinions.

Not out of pressure of receiving help, rather out of hope of receiving a different point of view.

“What would you do if you were in my place?”
If we ask and just listen, we would not be in the same place.

Perspectives broaden our worldviews.

We may or may not get help, but we’ll think differently.
And that is a good enough start.

Linchpin is a small pin that keeps various parts of a wheel together. 

In our world, we call them humans that are indispensable to an organisation.

While a linchpin does a lot of paddling like the duck, there are some things that they categorically always do: 

Owning the job: No job is small or insignificant. Having the courage to do it and get the team along is what makes them indispensable.

Don’t require follow up: If a linchpin owns a job, they own it completely. We won’t be required to follow up with them, and when they are running late, they will be the first to inform.

Owning outcome versus output: Output is what is required from us. Outcome is the magic we create beyond what is required from us. 

Owning the output is having to do the task; owning the outcome is wanting to do the task. Linchpins sign up for the latter because their work signs for them.

Rewards and accolades alone don’t make linchpins. 

Being a linchpin is a choice — the competition is scarce, and we make that choice each day as who we are.