Blog

Most of us hate school and college.
For understandable reasons.
We apparently do not learn anything that will be helpful in practical life.

However, school and college teach us an important concept of life: of HOW to learn.

That understanding of how to learn, teaches you to be a student forever, even when you are out of your college, without any teacher.

Which means, if you have to be learning forever, the best thing you can take away from school and college is to learn how to be a student. 

For life.

1. Keep a distraction note book
2. Use Pomodoro timer. 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of break
3. Set distraction time
4. Look for the emotional issue of distraction
5. Don’t be so harsh on yourself.
6. Know that delayed gratification gives better results than instant gratification
7. Force 10 minutes of work. And you will be surprised at how distraction goes away.
8. Go for a walk. Look outdoors. Because we are so busy looking at our screens, it is inevitable to be distracted all of the time.
9. Do not use phone all of the time, each time you are bored. Allow yourself to be bored.
10. Reiterate your self talk. Instead of telling yourself “I get distracted easily,” tell yourself, “I am absolutely focused on the task I do. I am a focused person.”

Seeking therapy
Learning to let go
Learning to be happy alone
Not judging people on the basis of their bad habits
Learning to sit in silence, doing nothing
Being aware of their thoughts
Learning, without the need of showing anyone

What else would you add?

You say:
“I want to do whatever I want to do.”
“I want to live life the way I want to.”
But then you desire what others get out of their life, by living life differently.

Life life the way you want to.
Learning all that you can, from others.

“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.