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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!

We are often told that quitting is a bad thing.

Because winners don’t quit.
Winners say yes to everything.
Winners hustle!
Winners are constantly motivated.
Sleep is a waste of time for winners.

They’re all LIES.

In fact, winners quit all the time.

They quit unhealthy relationships.
They quit toxic jobs.
They quit interactions that force them to be vicious.
They quit their decisions if they haven’t worked despite best attempts.
They quit situations if they are not headed in the right direction anymore.
They quit any bias that prevents them from exploring new differing perspectives.

What is the mark of a true winner?

To know when to stop doing something.
To know when to change course.
To know when to reassess, reimagine, and reconfigure.

Change exists not to make you full of fear.
It exists to make you full of courage. If you fully embrace it.

It is not funny how often I will speak to a person in their 20s who doesn’t like their job.

“Why do you not like it?”

“Oh, I am not creating any impact”

“Impact? How long have you been working?”

“6 months!”

“Who told you that impact needs to be created in just 8 months?”

Not their fault.

We have everything at a click.

Want Food? Click.
Latest Music? Click.
A cab? Click.
Books? Click.
Clothes? Click.
Love? Swipe Right! 

So this generation, for no fault of theirs, has not been trained to wait.
Their life has rarely been about waiting.
So they have failed to build a habit around patience.
However, the truth is, that most good things in life take time.

It takes time to be great at your job.
It takes time to find a good partner.
It takes time to find love, peace, happiness – all things that stay.

The best part if you are in your 20s?

You have that very time with you.

Make the most of what you are looking for, by making the most of what you have already – your time.
The impact will inevitably follow.

I hated the first blog post I wrote in 2005.

I hated the first social media post I created in 2012.

I hated the first video I created in 2017.

The first newsletter in 2020.

The first podcast in 2021.

But they are still there in the universe.
To remind me of how far I have come along in this journey.
Where I try to get better who I was yesterday.

The first attempt is mostly messy. However, it is only in doing and reflection that we finally get to powerfully poised attempts.

People spend insane time trying to come up with the right decision.

There is no way to do that! No one and nothing can tell you whether the choice you are making is right or wrong.

It’s just probability. Every opinion is colored with their own assessment of this probability.

In my opinion, the best probability for the “right decision” is when you do something that attends to your inner needs.

The core motive/idea/problem/thought that drives you currently.
Feed your soul with the one thing it craves for the most right now.

Are you someone who loses their productivity as the day goes on? 

This post is for you.

As the day goes on, many of us start losing focus, especially after lunch. However, here are some ways in which we can keep our productivity going even at this time:

1. Japan’s 80% rule: Japanese follow this rule where they stop eating after their stomach is 80% full. If you eat after this, then the food, instead of giving you energy, makes you more lethargic. Food is supposed to give us energy. The excess of it, simply takes it away.
2. Stay hydrated: I haven’t seen a single human being who drank 5 litres of water a day and was lethargic. None. 
3. Have a standing desk as well: Fitness experts are claiming that sitting is the new smoking, because it makes your bones weak, joints damp, and energy levels plummet. Why would you do that to yourself?

The key to doing productive work does not lie in doing more work, it lies in doing more of things that make you increase your productivity. Sometimes by even working less.

Unpopular opinion: 

The corporate world is NOT for you, if you are a good performer…

At the risk of endorsing a victim mindset, I will say this – most of the corporate world is designed for mass people employed, put through a regimented process, expected to be compliant and follow orders, make the least noise, show up, work and go back home to come back again.

It is NOT designed for the exceptional few.
The ones who want to make a difference, the ones who care, the ones who see their work as an extension of their expression.

The corporate world is NOT designed for the good ones.
It is designed for the average ones.

So if you are good, you are going to have it hard.

Why do you think startups even succeed?
Because they tend to bring such defiant, capable, willing folks together.

The ones who don’t say, “this is not my job”.

So if you are good – do yourself a favour.

Maniacally hunt down organisations whose culture nurtures your kind.
Be uncompromising in that search.

There are a few, but they are.
And you know what – they too are looking for you!

BUT NEVER EVER, give up on who you are.

Do not let the world change what is good in you!
Do not lose yourself in a place that doesn’t love you for who you are.

You know what the top reason was, for a job to be the best job people ever had?

There was a survey of 10,000 people done, asking about the best job they ever had.
14 choices were given about what made it the best job they ever had.
Money.
Work-life balance.
Didn’t have to work too hard.
All possible options. 

It turns out, the results were:
I accomplished more than I thought I could.
People treated me with respect and I did work I was proud of.

The results were the same – no matter which country people came from, no matter how old they were. 

Very often, we do not have that job.
We have a job that’s toxic.
A job that we have to do, for money.
A job that we hate, but can’t quit.

I recognize that these are hard choices to make, difficult choices to make.
All I want you to know that at the end of it all – this kind of job will NOT be the best job of your life. 

You may not have the BEST job today.
But you deserve the BEST JOB one day.

Get to that.
Make that happen for yourself.

A less-known hack to perform wonderfully at work: 

Have meaningful relationships outside of work.

Hike with your college friends.
Shopping with your cousins.
Go to a park with your family.
Concert with your former colleagues.
Or even a heritage walk in nature just by yourself. 

Everything that appears leisure and time away from work actually builds you up to work more effectively when you get back to work. 

Which is why you must actively build it into your weeks.
Which is what I do and block in my calendar as well.
Which is what you must go for, this weekend.

Time wasted is not productivity wasted, if it is something that genuinely fills you up.