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We humans are hardwired to be liked.

It is one of the reasons why we stay in toxic relationships – be it partner, friends or family.

Here’s the truth: You will feel guilty of taking them out of your life.

Here’s the bigger truth: You will feel grateful after a year, for taking that step.

We fear we will not be loved when we make tough decisions in relationships, however, we will rather be able to love ourselves more when we do make those decisions.

As a founder, whether you want it or not, you will take everything personally.

Growth, stationery, commute, profits – everything under the sun. You would share credits, and kill yourself for everything that isn’t working.

Every day you will live someone else’s life, until you finally live yours.

Which is when you will come back to reminding yourself why you became a founder in the first place.

Because the only story that matters is the one between your two ears. Everything else, is just noise.

Stillness is a valuable trait.
If it is peace of mind that you are after.

Everywhere else, stillness is a bug, not a feature.

People who are still blaming their past.
People who are still stuck where they were 3 years ago.
People who are still complaining.

Life happens. Things happen. Things move on. But if we don’t, we are creating the graves of our happiness right there.

Moving on isn’t only for the lucky ones. It is only when we move on, we get lucky.

Success doesn’t make you happy, especially if it is others who are getting successful whereas you are struggling to figure out the next step.

You may want to quit.
You may never want to get out of quilts.
You may want to convince yourself that your self-doubt is real.

However, getting up anyway despite someone else’s success, is true success.

Success changes meaning at different points.
Sometimes, its simply showing up.
Sometimes, it is putting in an extra rep.
Sometimes, it is having the right conversations with yourself.

In no case, success means stagnation. Momentum brings motivation, complaining creates cringe.

Do you sometimes feel that your life never gets sorted?
You get out of one maze, just to land yourself into another one?
The worst part, you see everyone else is living a dazzling life on Instagram stories…

We all feel the same.
We all feel it is only we who is lost, and everyone else is sorted.

The truth of FOMO is that everyone is missing out, yet no one is aware of everyone else’s fear.

That is the best thing about being lost. Not the fact that others are also lost, the fact that you are not alone – which itself brings a sense of meaning and belonging to a community, even while walking alone.

The great thing about being lost is that we are all in this loneliness together.

I am someone who wakes up every day around 4:30 – 5 am.
However, it is less about what time you wake up, it is about what you do when you wake up.

Do you go through your mails first thing in the morning?
Or see how many likes you have gathered?
Or check if your friend has seen your message?

This will anyway set up your day for a failure.

As much as waking up early is a great habit, owning your first 2-3 hours for yourself is the best way to set up for success in the outside world.

The outside world is simply a reflection of the inside world.

Whenever I’m reached out by people asking me if they should go for an MBA or not, the answer, mostly, is no.

Here’s the mistake we make while considering an MBA:

• We want to do it to get a degree.
• We do not know what to do next in life.
• It will give us two years more to not face ourselves.

Here are the real reasons for which one should consider an MBA:

• It is from a top B-school
• It has a difficult selection criterion
• The career graphs of their alums are an example of what they reflect

The network you get from a top B-school challenges you to change your thinking completely, and that is the only reason you should consider an MBA.

It turns out, most often in life, we are not confused about answers, we are confused about the right questions which invariably make the answers difficult.

I once spoke about how an artist always strives to do more, they are never running away from “more” work.

There is, however, a corollary to this.

The artist wants to do more because she does less in every other area. Purposefully.

She says no to parties if she is working.
Doesn’t eat out if she is on a diet.
More than anything else, protects her time like a Mom guards her new born.

That leaves the time and the mental space to get into the depths of who she could be, instead of what the world wants her to become.

You could do more, only when you do less.

You will write cold emails to prospective clients.
Will join an online course to upskill yourself.
Start meditating at least 10 minutes a day.

All of these are good resolutions.
But none of those work.
Until you do the work.

It is always the actions that take all the rewards, never the commitments that are never followed by actions.

We are made not by the promises we make, rather by the promises we keep.
The world knows us not through our words, rather through our work.
Showing what you could do is far lesser than showing up and doing.

The things that will give the best results are going to be difficult.

Working out instead of sleeping in.
Sleeping on time instead of Netflix.
Writing a cold email for a job instead of waiting to be picked.

Of course, by their very nature, they are uncomfortable. The opposite is comforting.
Everyone does those. And doesn’t require any effort.

The very nature of hard things is that rare people will do those.
People don’t just get lucky. They just do the unconventional.