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Email from a colleague that’s moving on 

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I am an eternal optimist. People who know me well call me the irrational optimist. 

It’s my belief that the future is always beautiful. Tomorrow is always better than today. 

The operating word I chose to describe the future is better. 

It will be bigger. It will bring in more gratification. It will make you a more aware, a more experienced individual. It will bring peace, a sense of accomplshement or achievement. 

Unfortunately, most of us use the wrong operating word to describe the future. 

Easier 

Tomorrow will be easier than today 

Come to think of it – we have been raised this. 

Study tomorrow so that tomorrow is better (easier, is what they were hinting towards) 

Finish your education before so that you can depend on it tomorrow (education will make the future easier) 

Work hard in your 20s and 30s so that 40s are better (easier again) 

Instead, how about realizing the only truth of life 

Tomorrow is not going to be easier. It will be better, at best. 

And if that’s the case, the right question to ask is not if you are excited about the future. 

Instead,

Are you prepared for the future? 

Debt is largely a misunderstood financial instrument, especially at a consumer level. Somehow taking debt is not considered being financial prudent. While there is enough literature to suggest that debt can be a fantastic lever for growth, if managed well. 

Reason it carries a bad reputation is because of all the horror stories when the debt cannot be serviced. You can lose everything you had, because the debt providers have the first right to your property. 

But the normal world, where debt is serviced well everyday and individuals gain from this debt, largely goes unnoticed. Because hey, it’s the normal. 

There is another kind of debt servicing that rarely talked about. And I consider sheer evil. 

Emotional debt

Debt that we take on our head. Either by choice, or artificially planted. 

There is a fancy name for that too. Emotional blackmail. 

It’s debt, at the end of it. 

Because you tell yourself, irrespective of my situation and my need, I need to service this debt first. 

I cannot leave this job, because I had promised my boss I will stay

I cannot go back to work, because I had promised my kids I would be around 

I cannot take this decision, because it will betray the trust you have in me

I have to tell you how much I love you, and care for you, before I express my love for anything else

I have to fulfill my destiny here, before I fulfill it somewhere else 

Emotional debt is an intangible. It doesn’t exist. We created it. And we allowed it to grow. Because we don’t pay for it everyday. We accumulate interest for that one day when we will repay back the debt in all. 

And this fucks up our judgement. 

Here is what helps

Treating emotional debt as financial debt 

Take it only when you need it 

Pay it in monthly installments

Emotional debt has killed more people than financial debt ever will. 

Right before the gym entrance this morning, I am greeted by a guy I have seen several times working out. 

“The gym is closed”

“Really?” 

Of course the question was a rhetoric. I wasn’t going to believe him. I went up to the door. And indeed, there was a closed sign hanging on the door. 

I pushed the door open

Looked inside

There were folks working out 

I didn’t say anything to anyone. And started to work out. 

A minute later, the “gym is closed” guy enters. And remarks, “stupid people. Why did they put the closed sign on the door, when it was open?”

“To determine whether you would take the world’s declaration as the truth. Or go and find it yourself”, I told myself. 

“Next time, open the door. Irrespective of what it says” – I told him. 

“And I am not talking just gym doors”

This place, this morning, had taught me yet another life lesson. 

As the founder of a pro-consumer tech startup, the right thing to say is “customer is the king”.

The right thing to say is that we are “customer obsessed”

The right thing to say is that “the customer is always right”

Just that – the customer isn’t always right. The customer is always optimizing for their gains. And that can lead them to be petty, to be dishonest, to be unreasonable.

At nearbuy, we make a lot of mistakes. And the nature of our business, where the delivery of the service is not in our control but in the merchant’s control, makes these mistakes more vivid.

And everyday, we work really really hard to fix these problems. Through tech, through working with the merchants, through processes.

We are able to resolve most customer concerns. Some of them happen instantly. Some take time. At no point are these shoved under the “I don’t care about this” carpet.

Sadly (and perhaps understandably) some customers don’t care about any of this.

Yesterday, I had a rather disturbing conversation with a customer. A senior employee at a large MNC. Regular buyer.

He found our customer service “disgraceful” because we refused to give him a 25-30% additional discount on his bulk purchase. He has uninstalled the nearbuy app and vowed to encourage others to do so as well.

“I am really sorry to lose you as a customer”, is all that I could say.

Another customer yesterday claimed that our Buy1, Get1 offer on Sunday brunch was misleading because it was sold for Rs. 19. She felt that for Rs.19 she would get 2 brunches.

We should have absolutely don’t a better job of the words we chose to describe the offer. But to imagine that you would get 2 brunches worth 1200 each, by paying 19 bucks? And then to call the customer service manipulative, when we tried to explain the situation?

Guess what – had the customer raised the issue to make us aware and not raise an alarm, we would have most certainly made the purchase for her, on our expense. Because we like people who genuinely wish to help us get better.

And then I see this on Quora

The response is one thing. The 16k upvotes is  what’s most disturbing.

There is a section of society that endorses this dishonesty. That calls it smart. That calls it “fuck you, business. I only care about my money”

It’s these same set of customers who have tragically seen themselves or their friends and family go through layoffs and shutdowns because of the recent conditions in the market.

The customer today is more powerful than ever before.
You can voice your opinion and make organizations respond to your needs.
You can bring companies down.
You can make them win.

And that makes the role of the customer a very responsible one.

We need your money.
And promise to work really hard to give you value in return.

But more than ever before, we need you to be fai?r.
To demand what you ought to, not what you want to.

Please don’t make us fake customer service. 

I rarely talk about the future. Because it’s my imagination that I will try and impose on someone else, without having given them the basis for imagining it. 

However, day before, I found myself doing so. Talking about the future. How I imagined nearbuy to be 2-3 years from now. 

It sounded like science fiction. It sounded crazy. It sounded impossible. Unimaginable. 

Except, 

It’s none of that. It’s going to happen. 

Not because I have dreamt of it. Not because I have a misplaced sense of self belief. 

It’s going to happen with or without nearbuy

Because it’s not MY future. 

It’s THE future! 

We are always overestimating the awesomeness that’s going to happen in a year. And always underestimating what’s going to happen in 5 years

The future, by definition, is meant to be ridiculous 

I tend to think a lot. More than I should. And starting this year, I wanted to change that. 

The human ability to imagine, sets us apart, in both good ways and bad. While it’s allowed us to created the world that we live in today, where the environment isn’t creating our world but we are creating the environment around us to live in, our imagination on a more regular basis plays havoc with our focus. 

Our thinking, our excessive thinking, leads to pressure. To expectations. To imagine results. To imagine success or failure. 

While our ability to focus, was meant to be above all of this. 

Meditation has taught me an important lesson. 

Being aware of your feelings, your emotions – is not the same as thinking about them. 

The ability to focus on something, is the ability to not imagine anything around the past or future moment. 

Simply be aware

Focus doesn’t know pressure. 

Pressure is what we create to give an illusion that focus alone can’t help us win. When ironically, focus is the loneliest action we can adopt. 

…and yet someone would have thoroughly enjoyed the journey, the pain, the joys, the emotional ups and downs. 

…someone would have said, “I don’t even know what Rome is. I am just in love with the process.”

Long term quality results require long term quality focus. 

No short term reactions. 

No drama. 

And it’s so critical to remember to enjoy and appreciate the process, the journey. 

You are going to spend far more time on the actual journey than in the brief moments of triumph at the end. 

We have been taught to mind our Ps and Qs, since we were kids. 

Say please. Say thank you. 

And we have mostly done a great job of adhering to it. Well, mostly 

However, notice how our thank you are almost always trigger-based 

Someone does something for us. Thank you. 

Someone brings something for us. Thank you. 

Someone helps us. Thank you. 

Someone listens to us. Thank you. 

Someone shows us the path. Thank you. 

At some point in our learning, we forgot that thank you is way more important, when there is no trigger. 

You have been there whenever I needed you. Thank you. 

You have been so helpful during this period. Thank you. 

I was thinking of the good times we have shared. Thank you. 

I have seen you and learnt so much from you. Thank you. 

I think you are such a great human. Thank you. 

Whenever you acknowledge someone or something, even your own life, without any trigger, it triggers the most under-rated virtue of all – gratitude. 

Saying thank you is manners. 

Feeling thankful is behavior.