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Was it okay?
Did you like what I said?
Do I look good?
Do you love me?

Of all the needs that we have, the need for validation always makes us weak.

Waiting for someone else to tell us that we are right.
Asking people to be our cheerleaders, because we can’t be our own.
Basing our identity on the perceptions and stories of others.

What if we started telling ourselves that we are enough?
What if we knew that it’s okay to be a work in progress?
How would things change if we knew from within that we are doing our best, and raising the bar every single day?

Till the time we base our identity on what others think, we will keep getting weaker.
And never discover how strong we truly are within.

We all have a definition of who is a poor person.
Someone who doesn’t have a lot of money.
That’s financial poverty.

But there is another definition of poverty.
Mental poverty.

A state where someone is not satisfied with what they have, no matter how much that is.
A state where we fail to recognize that we already have a lot to be grateful for.
A state where one is consistently in need of more, because they never have enough.

Financial poverty is visible to others, mental poverty lies within.

Some people are so poor that all they have is money.

You asked for their help.
They refused.

Maybe they didn’t want to help.
Perhaps they were not in a position to help.

Couple of days later, they need your help. 

If you can help them, should you?
Or should you make this the best time to seek revenge?

Asking for help is good.
Not taking it personally when we don’t receive the help is better.
Not being personal, when the same person asks for help, is great!

Maturity in life is when someone rejects us and we don’t take it personally.
Bigger maturity is when they come back for our help and we help them.
Just because we can.

If you’re driving your car on the highway, you choose your speed, within the limits.
As you enter the city, you don’t own the speed anymore.
The clutter on the roads, the traffic and speed of others defines your speed.

That’s true for life as well.

We don’t own our pace, when we are cluttered.
Cluttered with emotions, desires, stories, people telling us what to do.  

To get to the speed we want, we have to declutter our life and get from the city to the highway mode in our life.

To own our speed, it isn’t enough to drive our life.
Who and what we drive it with matters just as much.

What do I look for in candidates while hiring?

Not their college? Not their work experience? Or their family background?

For me, it’s always curiosity.

Why are we doing what we’re doing?
What would this look like if it were easier?
What is this trying to teach me? 
What’s the root cause to solve for?

The curious minds fall in love with the problems instead of solutions.

They enjoy the process instead of the final product.

They know that they don’t know everything.
And that is the best thing to know.

I love working with curious minds who are obsessed with asking the right questions. 

“There is no one right answer. Only better questions.”
– Tim Ferris

A successful singer was once interviewed on a talk show.

He was bullied his entire childhood for being fat. Fast forward to today, he didn’t feel resentful towards those kids.

When asked why, he replied: “Had I still hated them still, they would have defeated me.”

The best way to live life is to live life, instead of keeping accounts of who did what.

The best way to be undefeatable is to let go of those who’ve made every attempt to defeat us. 

One of the best ways to win in life is to own our happiness.

We get a new job and start as if we are the first one to have this job.
We enter a new relationship and start as the person has had no relationships before.
We handle a new client and start proposing solutions immediately.

Whenever we start something new, we start As if we are the start.
And there was nothing before us.

And in that process we rarely stop and ask about history.
What worked, what didn’t work, why didn’t it work and what is there for us to learn.

Instead, we start with a clean slate.
And end up repeating the same history on that slate.

History exists for a reason.
For us to learn from it.
To create a better history.

All our lives, we are surrounded by voices.

What we should be doing.
What we should be thinking.
How we should be doing things.

Instead of clearing up the smoke, these voices end up creating more.

Mystic and philosopher Rumi, once said: “There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen.”

What that voice is trying to tell us, nobody else would be able to. Because we are the only one who is listening to that voice.

That voice is the voice with clarity. 
Only if we are willing to listen.

What’s the difference between a product company and a service company?

A service company reacts.
Reacts to the requirements of the client, to the situation, to the context.

A product company preempts.
Preempts the requirements, the situation, the context.

A service company keeps asking, “What do they think about us?”
A product company keeps asking, “How do they feel when with us?”

We meet people all the time.
Online. Offline.
New people.
People we’ve already met.

And quite often, we’re also asking the same question: “What are they thinking about us?”

What if we thought of ourselves as a product?

What if we asked ourselves: 

What emotions do we leave people with? 

How do they feel with us, instead of about us? 

What’s the experience they have with us?

When we ask this question, we think less about what people think about us and more about giving them a phenomenal experience. 

We think of ourselves as a product, as against a service.

How do we live a life of integrity?
A life of honesty?
A life where we do not have to second-guess our thoughts and actions?

Roman Stoic Philosopher Seneca said: 

“We should live our lives as if everyone could see us.”

What would we do differently if everyone could see us?
What would we stop doing altogether?
More than anything else, how would that change our life?

When we assume everyone can see us, we stop lying to the world.
And that is the first step to stop lying to ourselves.