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One of the most frequently asked questions to me is: “How do you manage to wake up early?”

Logic says several answers to it:

• Keep your workout gear next to your bed
• Alarm clock in another room
• Burpees on waking up, etc.

All of these work, until they don’t.

The true question to address is “How to sleep on time?”

If you’re sleeping at 11 and want to wake up at 4, the motivation will certainly stop on Day 4.

What if we get a night-time schedule, that makes it impossible to sleep late? Something like:

• Having dinner 2-3 hours prior to planned bed time
• Spending time doing activities that relax you
• Planning for the next day

It turns out, if we turn to twist the outputs without changing the inputs, the motivation won’t lasts.
The more we strive to get the inputs right, the more the outputs automatically take care of themselves.

Job interview. Client meeting. Exams.
We want the best for us.

And for the fear of not making it, we automatically get the stress for us.

Stress is a form of fear.
Fear of loss.
Loss of opportunity.
Opportunity that you got by luck.
Now you’re scared.
Of not making that luck happen again.

The truth about luck is, of course, that it just happened to occur.
The question is: Have we designed our life in a way that it occurs more often?

If we do not see results on the outside, we think we are not growing.
Not the best definition of growth.

Growth is rather an input. If your inputs are getting better with time, you are growing.

The goal is not to make the world notice your change, immediately.
The goal is to make yourself cringe at what you did 3 months back. That is the best growth!

Often when people ask me, “What is the secret sauce behind your consistent content”, I have only one answer:

Creativity is a process.

Every Tuesday, for example, is my shoot day.
It’s been over 1.5 years that I’ve built a full-time team, and I haven’t missed a single week.
Tied up schedules, birthdays, or even vacations – I simply show up and shoot.

The answer to all complex problems of life are simple. 
It is all about the relentlessness with which we show up and do the work, and put in the bricks even if the eventual building is far away.

Whenever kids in their late teens or twenties reach out to me saying they have wasted their life, my response, in some way or other, is: “You have time!”

However, at the same time I am very particular about how I use my time, in a way that gives me the maximum energy. Almost standing guard at the door of time – and using it for work or for Netflix, in my way.

Micro focus on being strict on time, with macro focus on being aware, that you have a lot of time – isn’t it the best thing about time?

Taking care of your days is important. The years would eventually take care of themselves.

I often talk about choosing the path you want to choose, so that you don’t regret later.
Because we will never have the answer to “What if?”
It may or may not be the best decision, but the only way to figure it out is by making that decision.

On the other hand, a lot of people in their 30’s reach out to me with their regrets.
I thought the same of myself, when I was 30.
I was fired from my first startup, was figuring out what to do with life, and watching “The Social Network” featuring Mark Zuckerberg’s story made me feel even more miserable.

However, as I started applying, things changed for the better.
That is when I thought, it is not about the years gone by. It is about the years still left!

It turns out, when we are young we refrain from making a decision thinking we might regret it.
When we get a bit experienced with life, regret already takes over.

That is the nature of regret – it makes us wander about our future, and accuse our past.
And the only way to get out of regret, is to make your present count.

Forming habits. Showing up for creativity with discipline. Working on your mindset and your body.

Over time, we get to a place of lesser regrets and more gratitude, for taking care of the inputs, and let the outputs unfold.

Regret is like a weed, if we don’t tend our garden of the present with the right seeds, the weed will inevitably show up.

People who have crossed their 20s, are mostly full of regret.

People who do not have financial debt, often have emotional debt.

The decision that hurts the most, is the decision that is not made.

We have one life.

Why do we always want to get it right before even knowing what our definition of “right” is?

The game is to stay in the game through wise choices, that come through execution and bad choices.

Of all the investment advice I give, here’s a cliche: Don’t invest!

Yes, you read that right.

Don’t invest until you have had a subscription to these two things:

• Life insurance for yourself, to take care of your family if something unfortunate happens
• Health insurance for you and your family, to protect from huge financial crunch, in case of hospitalization, if any

We usually ignore these costs, thinking we’re young and we don’t need those.

However, the very nature of contingency is it does not knock the door before arriving. We owe it to ourselves and our family, to be insured against it.

What is the best way to figure out if you are making progress?
What if you are getting increments but know it in your heart that you’re doing the same things you used to do three years back?

Here’s the benchmark I use:
If I’m doing something where my probability of success is high, it means I’m getting super comfortable, and not making progress.

Progress, by itself means, succeeding with low chances of success.

To get to a place of cringing at your content 3 months back.
Or getting effective with rising 10 minutes earlier, every week.
Perhaps forgiving when its hard, because you want to move on.

Of all things, the best thing about progress is you control it. Realising it is another.

Some cool things to have independence from:

1. Anyone’s definition of success, other than your own
2. Your own self, whenever you say “I’m like this only!”
3. A culture (at home and at work) that is inherently designed to make you lose
4. Waiting to be picked, instead of cold emailing the CEO of the company you want to work with.
5. Fixed Deposits. Forever