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1. Just because someone is good at their work doesn’t mean they will become good managers.
   Managing oneself is very different from managing others.

2. You grow professionally by making your boss’s life easier.
   
3. What counts is 5 years of experience.
   Not 1 year of experience done 5 times.
   
4. Action >>> Thought.
   No one gets rewarded for “I had the same idea much before them.”
   
5. The reward for standing by your promised word is immense.
   Once you have made a commitment, no one should need to follow up on you.
   
6. Jobs are not 9-5 or 10-6 or fixed hours.
   Jobs are the amount of focused time you spend on it.
   
7. If all leaders in the company engage in politics, then it is not politics.
   It is the culture.

We are motivated to do things ONLY under 2 circumstances.

1. We like what we have to do!

?Think about it – we rarely require motivation to do the things that we like doing, things that we want to do.

It just happens.
Without any push.

You could just as much be motivated to workout (if you really like working out), as you could be motivated to sleep 30 minutes more (if you like sleeping).

But this works. Without fail!

2. We are ‘forced’ to do things we do not want to do.

?The reality is – we will NEVER be motivated to do the things we do not want to do, unless there is external pressure applied.

I know when I say external pressure, the construct in your head is most certainly a negative one.
Punishment, rebuke, reprimand, penalty.
Or in serious cases, something that fears us, scares us, scolds us to move, to show up, to get that thing done.

But the external pressure could very well be positive as well.
Financial incentives, acknowledgment, respect, fame, sense of progress.
An accountability partner.
Something that makes us move, that tells us it is non-negotiable to show up, or oddly pleasant to show up.

The key then, is to pick up something you want to do, but do not like doing (say going to the gym).
And then don’t wait for the external pressure.
CREATE that external pressure.

?Hire a trainer. Go with a friend. Sign up for the membership. Commit to a goal publicly. Find a new love interest in your gym. Engage in the gym gossip.
Whatever works for you!

Do it, until you move to circumstance 1.
And you will.

Until then, the created ‘pressure’ is your ally, your friend.
Create it, before the world forces one on you!

Not a single day goes by where people write an email or send a message, with a question they are struggling with.

More often than not, these questions are around their present situation and how they are not happy with it.

Someone is tired of their job.
Someone hates their boss.
Someone feels they are in the wrong relationship.
Someone wants to startup but is not sure if it’s the right move.
Someone wants to move abroad, but isn’t sure which country.

They graciously seek my opinion on it.
But I am no one to offer that.
I do not know. I cannot.

Instead, I ask them my favourite question, “What do you want to do?”

Most people reply with what they think they should do.
What they think should be the right answer.

No!

My question was – what do you WANT to do?
If everything was indeed possible, what would you WANT to do?

Once they come to that point, my next question is, “What is stopping you?”

This is when reality hits hard.
More often than not, it is our own mind.
We have convinced ourselves that we should not pursue what we want to do.

Because it is too risky, because people will laugh, because we might fail, because what will the world say, because we may not get a chance to recover.

But you know what?

A year from now, you will regret not having started today.

I recently met my school friends, 25 years after graduating.

One of them recalled a trip we took together in 2006.
I was 26 back then.
I was sharing with him back then that all of my life’s definition of success was pegged to one thing: “Owning a Honda CRV” :))

It sounds so unlike me today.

In school, success was getting into the IIT.
In college, success was going to the US.
In MBA college, success was a consulting job.
At work, success was a fancy car.
Later on, success was receiving awards.
In my startup, success was becoming a unicorn.
Today, success is owning my time.

I changed.
So did my definition of success.

You will change too.
That’s okay.

?But that ought to change your definition of success too.

Do not remain married to a version of you that doesn’t exist anymore.

Growing up, the 4-letter word in our world was f**k.

Today it is FOMO.
The Fear Of Missing Out.

Missing out on the things our friends are doing.
Missing out on the experiences others are sharing.
Heck, missing out on some random dude posting on IG about some random person they met. And we are like, “Oh man, FOMO ho raha hai!”

There are just too many choices to choose from.
Because of social media, we have the ENTIRE WORLD telling us what they are up to.
And what we could potentially be doing.

It was some years back that Ravi, my nearbuy co-founder, introduced me to JOMO.
The Joy Of Missing Out.

When you miss out on something, you still have something else with you.

That moment.
That precise moment, which is yours.
Nobody else’s.

At that moment, when you see the picture of your friend enjoying, close your eyes and breathe in what you have.

Let go of what your friend might be going through.
Which most likely is also FOMO, from their other friend.

Remind yourself of this very moment you have with yourself.

As Naina from Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani said:

“Life mein jitna bhi try karo, kuch na kuch toh chootega hi. Isliye yahin, isi pal ka mazza lete hain.”

I love the fact that I have a routine, and I would recommend everyone to have one as well.
Because it ensures you attend to yourself, before you attend to the world.

Here is my weekend routine:

Friday nights are exceptions to my “sleep by 9.30pm” rule because I conduct a live session at 10pm on Instagram, every Friday.
It is one thing that I really look forward to because this is how I connect with my audience in the most up close manner.

Hence, Saturday mornings I do not get up around 5am.
Instead, I get up around 6.30am.

6.30-6.45am: Sip a glass of water.

6.45-7.15am: Meditate

7.15-7.45am: Reading

7.45-8am: Do epic shit :))

8am-8.45am: Gym

8.45-9am: Newspaper

9-9.30am: Get ready

9.30-10am: Breakfast

10am-12.30pm: Work day

This usually comprises checking emails, prepping for my Monday shoot (I shoot all my videos on Monday), thinking time etc.

12.30-1.30pm: Time waste schedule :)

1.30-2.30pm: Lunch

2.30-5.30pm: This is when we either watch a movie (happens maybe once/twice a month) or we go out for some errands (my wife and I LOVE shopping haha!)

5.30-6.30pm: Check emails

6.30-7pm: Dinner

7-8pm: Park with family

8pm: Get ready for bed

8.30pm: Put kids to bed

9pm: Read

9.30pm: Sleep

So basically, a LOT of chilling and unwinding with only half a day of work.

On Sunday, the same routine follows, except in the morning Ruchi and I usually go for a heritage or nature walk. 

Delhi has a LOT of places to visit and has a rich history and we both love walk tours with experts.

These walks usually start at 7am (so we have to leave home by 6am) and end by 9.30/10am, so we are back home by 11am.

So – getting ready, breakfast, newspaper etc. are all pushed to the first half of the day (by 12.30pm), after which the day looks very close to how a Saturday looks like.

Happy weekend, lovelies :) 

Everyone is walking with some goal, some target, and some destination in mind.

Finish your education by 22.
Get a job by 25.
Get married by 27.
Have kids by 30.
Buy a house by 35.
Get that fancy car, that vacation, that watch, that phone, that bank balance, that status, that position, that dream thing, by XX.

Every goal, target, or destination has a timeline set by us.
And you know what happens because of that?

You are constantly under stress.

Not because you can’t hit the target.
It is because you think you will not hit the target BY THAT TIMELINE.

The happiest folks are the ones who have goals, targets, and who work towards a destination BUT without a timeline.

Their desire is to reach.
Not to reach by a certain time.

Life is so random, and the world is so complex that it is quite crazy for us to assume that we will know what the future holds!

Free yourself.
Make some mistakes.
Give yourself time to recover.
Give yourself a life to live :)

If you feel low on energy throughout the day, this post is for you.

Sleeping well is perhaps the single biggest determinant of physical and mental energy.
You should aim to get at least 7-8 hours of sleep everyday.

I sleep at 9:30pm everyday (except Friday) and sleep for 7 hours.
And then try to sleep for another hour during the afternoon.

It is ridiculous how easy it is to gain that energy and how many of us still waste this natural cure to so many problems!

School/college had a fascinating way of trying to teach us something:

• Everyone will enter a class at the start of the year.
• Everyone will be taught the same subject.
• Everyone will be expected to understand and comprehend that subject, at the same pace.
• At the end of the year, everyone will give an exam.
• Based on how well you do the exam, you will either pass or fail.

Those who pass, will be ranked, to show who is doing better than the others.

However, doing better will have nothing to do with how well they understand the subject.
It will be purely based on how well they scored in the exam.

The singular focus of school/college was to train us HOW TO GIVE EXAMS and how to score well.
So that once we gave them, we moved to the next class.

School/college basically taught us how to do a task REALLY well just ONCE, and then move on.

When we entered the real world, we realised it did not care about all the things we had been taught and trained for.

This real world believed in just one thing:
Can you do the same task over and over again, while getting better at it, every time?

But that’s not what school taught us!
Which is why most of us struggle.
Because we don’t know what it means to do just one task really well and do it over and over again.

Realise that school first teaches you a lesson and then takes an exam.
While life first takes an exam and then teaches a lesson.

School/college failed you here.
Do not fail yourself!

Last week, my team and I returned from our quarterly offsite.

We are a fully remote team of 14 folks – so we meet once every quarter for 4 days. 

Each trip is a new city and a new experience. 

In the past we have been to Goa, Rishikesh, Pondicherry, Dharamshala, Udaipur, Kerala, Kashmir, and this quarter, we went to Sitlakhet (in Mukteshwar). 

We travel together, stay at really nice places, have good food, do things together, play games, and just be :)) 

It’s 10% work and 90% fun.

This time, one of the highlights was that everyone got a local sweet from their town.

We had a plate of 13 sweets from go-to sweet shops in Jodhpur, Delhi, Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata, Indore, Mumbai and Kota :))

Until the next time we meet, in September!