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Words. Wisdom. Winners.
Do this in your 20s
- Spend time with people nothing like you. So that it opens up your mind.
- Build a routine. So that it gives you the discipline to do the things you should be doing.
- Workout. To respect your body and keep it productive and fit.
What else would you add?
Stop!
Stop seeking attention.
Stop seeking validation.
Stop seeking goals that you never wanted in the first place.
When you stop seeking what is only an external metric but drains you from within, that is when you truly grow and start fulfilling yourself.
The best growth rarely happens from seeking meaningless things.
A good life
DDLJ is one of the most popular movies in the history of Indian cinema.
No wonder, almost every person I know loves that movie.
However, there is one favourite scene of mine from the movie, which a lot of people tend to forget.
It is about Simran’s (Kajol’s) grandmom, when she unexpectedly is bedridden, and perhaps won’t be around for long. In that scene, when everyone is surrounding her, she says a line that has forever stayed with me:
I have lived a good life.
This is what is a life truly lived.
Living a life on your own terms.
Living a life that even when the whole world was against you, you lived a life that you found was meaningful.
Live a life that you are proud of. Everything else will take care of itself.
Fail often
How to deal with failure?
Fail often.
Not the kind of failing in exams, or making a disastrous life decision.
Rather the smallest of things.
Asking a stranger for money.
Greeting a stranger in the elevator.
Sending that cold email to the CEO of the company you want to work with.
Worst case? You will fail.
Great. That is the intention.
However, in it will you understand how to build the muscle of dealing with failure. Which is what you were looking for – how to deal with failure.
Being right or doing right?
I am right.
What I did was right.
I am always doing the right thing.
Vs
I could have been wrong.
Let me know the truth versus figuring who is right and who is not.
There is more power in knowing the right thing to do, than to know who is right.
Smart people, when they start doing the right thing versus trying to be the right person, is when they eventually become wiser.
Nice and kind
There are a lot of nice people.
Nice because being nice is nice.
Nice because they want you to think nice of them.
Nice because who wants to not be nice and be a bad person.
And then there are truly kind people.
Who truly care, without wondering if others think they are nice or not.
Who be the bigger person in every conversation.
Who want everyone to win, together.
Anyone can be nice. But the truly nice people, are also kind.
Achievement
It is what you feel within.
For what it has made you.
And for what you have become.
Achievement is rarely something that is to be shown. It is only a feeling.
It ceases to be an achievement if the only purpose of it is to show off to people.
Trial and error
To try a new sport.
To build your favourite product.
To write a cold email for your dream job.
You may hit the trial. Or you may not.
This is life.
The more you try, the more errors you make. Or you inch closer to your success.
However, the odds of your success are directly proportionate to the number of your trials. Showing up is always the key.
The right reasons to startup
I hate my boss. I will now go and start up.
Except, it perhaps might not help you
3 wrong reasons to startup
1. I want to get rich
2. I hate my current life
3. Everyone else is doing it
3 right reasons why your job might be the best for you:
1. You are obsessed with building
2. You cannot stop thinking about the product
3. You want to do something that will help others as well.
When you pick the right reasons, there is no way you cannot be successful :)
Would you have still dropped out?
I dropped out of my PhD in the US.
100% scholarship.
Handsome stipend.
Yet, because I was not happy, I decided to quit.
Someone asked me the other day (almost 18 years after that happened), “Would you still drop out if you had sponsored your education, instead of it being on a scholarship?”
It got me thinking.
No one had ever asked me this question before.
And the answer is no.
I would not have quit.
I come from very humble backgrounds.
Not born with a silver spoon.
Hand-to-mouth existence for the longest time
So affording an international education in itself would have been a dream come true, which I would not have abandoned.
That is why, I suggest everyone make their life decisions based on their own life.
You are not living my life.
I am not living your life.
And you are certainly not living any influencer’s life.
Your life. Your choices.
Use the content you see online to get inspired. Not to mimic.
And you will be more than fine :)
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