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5-step process to remember everything you read in a book:

Reading on a Kindle

When I read a book, I highlight a lot.
A LOT.

Anything that catches my attention, intrigues me, fuels my curiosity.
Sometimes entire pages.

Exporting the highlights

What I love about this is that I do not feel the pressure to finish a book.
Whatever I read, however much, has takeaways in the form of these highlights.

I will then export these highlights into a pdf and email it to me.
Kindle allows that.

Sit with the highlights

I now have my own summary of the book. Not crowdsourced. Personalised.
After a week, I sit down with this pdf for 15 mins. And ask myself one question:
“How can I apply this to my current life?”

Report progress after 30 days

After a month, I would sit again for 10 mins (doesn’t take longer) and see how, if at all, any of the new paths led to some revelations.

Maybe I agree with them more.
Maybe I realised they don’t work for me.

This check-in is critical.

Create a re-read list

Basis the impact and resonance I felt, I add a book to my re-read list, which means I will read it once every year.
These are phenomenal books (for me) where each time I pick them up I have figured something new that has helped me.

There is a twist though.
The re-read list at any point cannot be more than 12 books.

So if I want to add to it and I already have 12 books, one book has to be dropped. This keeps me honest with the quality of this list.

This 5-step process has helped me assimilate most of the knowledge I can derive from books.

It has also made me appreciate the power of books.
How, at the cost of a pizza, I get to download someone’s entire life and learnings!

I recognize this process seems too dependent on a Kindle.

The Kindle just makes the job easier. But the process can very well be done with a physical book too.

If you’re driving 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

It is not you who changes your environment.
Your environment changes you.

That is why it is critical to pick the right environment.
Or move away from the wrong ones.

This applies to every aspect of life.

College.
Work.
Friends.
Partner.
Family.
Relatives.

Everyone is carrying a burden.
We just see ours.

Be kind to people.
Be kind to yourself.
Always.

Different career streams to choose from.
Two job offers to pick from.
Deciding whom to build a relationship with.

There are numerous such instances where we face two not so obvious choices to make. And we often find ourselves saying, “I don’t know what to do.”

Do we really not know?

I think mostly we all know what to do. But we crave to know if it’s the right decision. We spend an inordinate time analysing, researching, planning, debating, thinking – in the hope to get to the right decision.

But we won’t ever know if it’s the right decision, until we make the decision.
And this thought paralyses us.

When we say “I don’t know what to do,” what we usually imply is, “I don’t know if the decision I make will work out or not”.

We don’t fear making the decision.
We fear an undesirable outcome.

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.

Lots of work on the list?
Several hindrances?
Unable to focus?

Do you also sometimes feel the same way about your work?

No matter how much you try to focus on your important tasks, the hindrance just keeps coming up. It’s almost repeated on an endless loop.

The real task then is the hindrance that comes in your work.

That problem that keeps repeating itself is your task.
The individual that doesn’t help you reach your goal is the one you need to have a conversation with.
The distraction that doesn’t let you focus, is what you have to manage first.

What hinders your task is your task.

5 signs of a job worth staying in:

1. You are respected for who you are.
2. There is acknowledgment of what you do.
3. You are rewarded for how well you do it.
4. There is growth while you do it.
5. You are mentored when you lose track.

1 sign of a toxic job:

You dread going to work everyday.

“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.