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“There are times I feel I don’t want to live.”

“My mother’s dying. And I cannot do anything to help her.”

“Every morning I get up, I feel I would never be as good as my elder brother, whom my parents completely adore.”

I, as a CEO, have always been an ardent listener of feedback.
Thus, I started a wonderful thing at nearbuy, called the “Lunch with warikoo”.
Anyone in the company could fill up a form, and every day, I would have lunch with them for 30 minutes.

What I had expected was plain, simple feedback.
What I did get was something I wasn’t ready for.

Within 5 minutes, I felt I was not the CEO anymore. I was rather someone they thought would listen to them, without judging or mocking them for their choices.

And they opened up to me in ways I (or perhaps them as well) had never expected.

Here is what I learnt from so many conversations like this:

1. When people told me their stories about where they’ve come from, and what they have been through to just get to that point that I took for granted, it left me humbled. And that I cannot take the privilege I have been blessed to sit on, for granted anymore. 

2. Leadership cannot scale up.
It should take the best out of you every single day to lead someone. It should be the hardest thing that you do every single day.

3. All of us live in the shadows of what we think people think of us.
And that lunch broke that shadow, when it said it’s not important. It is not important what the world thinks of you because you are you. You exist. And you’re still here. And that is more important than anything else. 

After having conducted 252 such lunches over a period of 3 years, the one thing I concluded was that all that is important is for people to be heard. To be seen.

Which takes care of work better than you ever thought.

Life is too short to hate your work.
Life is too short to not pursue your dreams.
Life is too short to hold a grudge.
Life is too short to think of what others think of you.
Life is too short to be serious all of the time.

Life is too short anyway.
Why would you want to do things that do not energise you, my friend? Why?

If you are someone starting out in your career, here is one piece of advice I would give to you:

1. Figure out how much money you need for your needs, basic desires and disciplined investment. 
2. Once this money threshold is crossed, rate every job on the amount of learning you will experience.
3. Pick the job with the highest potential to learn. Pick a job where you learn the most irrespective of the money. 

Learning compounds faster than money.

The one decision that will affect EVERY area of your life meaningfully is picking the right partner. 

This is because, your partner affects: 

– Your financial life:
To have the same financial goals and use money in similar ways makes life less about convincing and figuring out, and more about living it together.

– Your physical life:
Your workout habits, your eating habits, your binge-eating habits, your sleeping habits – all have a direct impact on how you live your life.

– Your emotional life:
Stability in your relationship with your partner will eventually determine how emotionally stable you are in every other relationship you have.

Making this one decision wisely will determine almost everything in your life, meaningfully.
Not to be made in haste :) 

3 steps to a fulfilling career

1. Figure out your strengths 

We all have them.
We think we don’t because we compare ourselves to others.

2. Spend time finding roles/functions that thrive on these strengths

Those needn’t be the “usual professions”

3. Double down on the strengths!

Learn skills relevant to your niche. Keep upskilling yourself. 

A fulfilling career is the one you create. Not something that walks to you.

Complimenting others

Being kind

Being nice

Being polite

Being firm when needed

Complimenting yourself

Listening, instead of offering advice

Being your own best friend

Most importantly, being there for yourself even when no one is there for you.

In a meeting.
In a 1:1.
While in a class.
While watching a YouTube video .
While reading a book.

Our mind consumes so much information, that it wants to use it.

The only issue – it remembers only what it repeats.
For which it needs to write stuff.
Thus, taking notes.

Note taking is the easiest way to get things from intention to action. And that’s wisdom.

Do you feel you have drifted away from your friends?

I understand how that feels.
I have experienced it myself.

However, the truth is that you WILL drift apart from your friends.
They will find their paths and so will you.
Because of one simple truth – each one of us has a different growth rate. 

We could have started from the same point in life, and even if there was a difference in the growth rates it would not be visible early on.
But as time passes by, the gap widens.
Until you realise you have become two different people! 

So if you hear your friend repeatedly saying ‘You have changed’, every time you meet, the fact is it is them that haven’t changed. 

Which is when you would know it is time to move on.

Continue to be friends with those who love seeing you grow.

“Dear Sir/Ma’am”
“To whomsoever it may concern”
“Greetings of the day”

These are great starting lines of an email/message.
Because I get to know instantly I should avoid them! 

Humans do not talk like that :)

Send your cold emails, like a human would. Not a robot!

Wake up.

Read your slack and email notifications.

Curse your boss in your mind.

Hate your job.

Get up and get ready for the day.

Sit to work with a fake smile.

Gossip with coworkers.

Blame the management and the system.

Do mediocre work.

Don’t fulfil your commitments.

Wind up for the day.

Bingewatch for next 3 hours.

Fall asleep with TV on.

Do nothing to work on your passion project. 

If this is the life you are living, when are you going to take the first step to changing your life, my friend?