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Today is my 20th birthday, Ankur. Any advice for me? 

Whenever someone asks this to me, I have just 3 pieces of advice: 

1. Be your best friend
2. Be your worst critic
3. Be your biggest supporter

Cheers to 20s, the best decade of your life!

20s is a decade of confusion.

However, in reality, it is the best decade of your life, ever!

Here are my 3 suggestions to people in their 20s:

1. Most people in their 20s feel they are too old.
   But you are not! Do not feel you are running out of time. You are very, very, very young.
   You still have time. 
2. The only person you should be competing with, is who you were yesterday.
   No. One. Else.
3. Do not put the pressure of making long-term decisions quickly.
   The deadline to achieve things by a certain age has been set by society.
   And is a trap.
   Avoid the trap.
   Define your own pace. 

The decade that you spend in confusion, is the decade you must start spending in creation. Of yourself.

You MUST keep your money in Fixed Deposits. 

You read it right :)

You absolutely must keep your money in Fixed deposits, if:
– It is being kept as an Emergency Fund
– Not as a measure of investment

Here is how your Emergency Fund should ideally look like:

70%: Fixed Deposits
20%: Bank account
10%: Cash (or can be bank, if Debit card has no withdrawal limits)

Don’t invest your money in FDs with the false hope of making it grow.
Rather park your money in FDs with the true assurance of it backing you up when a dark day does show.

You can love, only if you know how to love yourself.
You can teach, only if you know how to learn.
You can build, only if you know how to be patient.
You can be content, only if you do not compare.
You can get rich, only if you buy assets and not status.
You can be trusted, only if you show up when one didn’t expect you to.
You can manage your time, only if you know how to value it.
You can be happy, only if you choose to be.

You can be anybody you wish to be, only if you know who you truly are.

Here is something that bothers me.

The world is increasingly indulging in glorification of entrepreneurship.

Everyday, you hear of fundraising announcements. Founders becoming millionaires and billionaires. Sponsoring tournaments, signing up celebrities, giving crazy discounts, running TV ads.

And an entire generation is being raised with the belief that starting up is the cool thing to do.

I don’t have a problem with that.

I have a problem when the belief becomes that starting up is the ONLY thing smart people do.
To the extent that those in jobs are ridiculed for being unambitious, or for not taking control of their life, or being such losers.

No! You are NOT a loser if you are in a job.

There is nothing wrong with having a job.
As long as you are happy with it. And find meaning in it.
What matters is what you want.

You want the stability and structure of a job – go for it!
You want the rush and excitement of a startup – go for it!
You want a life where you do not want to work – go for it!

Your race is not with the world.
It is not with the one who looks cooler, happier, or is more famous.

Your race is within.
It is with your own self.
The race is who you were yesterday.
And if you win that race everyday, if you are better than who you were yesterday, you are truly at peace!
If you are not winning this race, or worse not even participating in this race with yourself, you will CONSTANTLY fail by falling for what the world thinks you should be doing.

One of the biggest mistakes I made as a leader was I assumed that if I sugar coat what I didn’t like about people’s way of working, they will feel less hurt.

Instead, they were left confused!

I mistook being nice as being helpful. 

Being clear and direct is more important than being nice.

Because if you are so nice that it starts making noise, it is not being nice. It is disguise.

There are emails.
There are WhatsApp messages.
There are urgent things to attend to.

And here’s what most of us do: Attend to them.
Allow them to invade what’s important.
Someone else’s urgent becomes more important than what’s most important to us.

Why do we do that?

Why don’t we stand for what is most important to us – something that will NEVER come back – our time?

When we respect our time, we eventually respect everyone else.
When we let someone else’s urgent invade our important, we lose respect for everyone else. Including ourselves.

It is simple. I do not deal with them.

If someone says something that seems reasonable, I respond. Sometimes even have back-to-back conversations.

If someone says something that is not true, I simply have fun. By not responding most of the times :)

Win-win.

The truth is, if you truly know yourself, no one can touch you. If you are at peace with who you are, external chaos is merely a chatter. If you are aware of your qualities as well as disadvantages, you have an unfair advantage that most people don’t have. And that’s the most powerful thing.

One of the biggest mistakes Indian parents make is to not teach us accountability at an early age, and then suddenly make us responsible for all our actions.

It is okay for the kid to know that if they stumbled and fell on the floor, the floor is not to be beaten. It is the kid that needs to learn how to walk properly.

But, we can talk about how our parents screwed up, or take responsibility to make everyone around us accountable.

A not so good past is a chance to create a so-good future!

Binge watching is not relaxing you. It is numbing you.

\Your mind is not thinking. It is consuming.

Your eyes are not calm. They are wide open.

You are not active. Your body is decaying gradually.

If there is only one benefit of binge-watching, it is the awareness of the zero benefits it brings.