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Class 6

Dad had just lost his job. We were under severe debt. Desperate for money, he started working at a corporate gifts biz. 

That night, we had to fill ball pens with refills, to be paid per 100 pens.

The room was full of pens. And I asked “how will we ever fill them all?”

Dad said, “There are 3 of us. We can fill 3 pens each every minute. So 9 pens every min. Which means in a night we can do 3000 pens!”

And I was like “wow!”

We filled pens the whole night.

He gave me hope.
We made it! :)

??From an early age, thinking about money was not encouraged.

It was the unsaid rule that money is important, but thinking about it is evil.
After all, money was the reason behind the fights, the wars, the disagreements.

Now I know, it is not money that is the cause.
It is the importance we attach to it, in our lives.

Money is simply a medium of transaction.

When it becomes an emotion, that is when it consumes us.

And that is true for all things in life!

An underrated impact of having a routine is self respect. 

Think of all the promises you made to yourself and broke.
And what it did subconsciously to your self respect. 

And think of all the promises you made and kept.
And how that made you feel you could trust yourself. 

The healthiest way to feel validated is to have a routine and deliver on it.

I read every day.
For 30-45 minutes, early in the morning.

Only non-fiction.
No specific topic.
Anything that intrigues me.

How it has helped me is to connect the dots from multiple fields, personalities, and experiences.

I remember how Stoic Philosophy helped me design the investment approach for nearbuy, and how Charlie Chaplin’s biography helped me make better video content!

It is ridiculous that a good book at the right time, costing less than a pizza party, can change your entire life! 

Ma always stood for perfection.
But she has a very interesting and inspiring definition.

Perfection is when you do something with such finesse that people are left amazed at how you even did it.
But for you, it is not a big deal. 

It is a habit.
It is natural.

I learnt from her that perfection is personal.

It is what makes others wonder.
But for you it is the only way you know!

Our routine sets our habits. 

Our habits determine our experiences. 

Our experiences determine our emotional state. 

Our emotional state determines everything.

Tomorrow – A mythical land where 99% of all human productivity, motivation and achievement is stored :))

You DO NOT need to set up your life before you are 30.

Life is not a scripted game.
Things won’t go as you planned and adding a deadline will not necessarily help.

Take your time.
Explore.

You have time.

Our mind craves distraction because we make it a forbidden fruit.

Do the opposite.
Set up time to waste time.

I have 3 slots in a day, of 30 mins each – where I waste time.

IG reels, YT shorts, whatever I fancy.

My mind looks forward to it, knows it is coming, and thus doesn’t crave for it randomly!

Works like a charm.

We were hiring for a software engineer at nearbuy (my previous startup).

The candidate we really liked was working at one of the IT giants for the past 3 years.

His salary was 4.2L p.a.

The HR manager asked, “how much should we pay him?”
“Why are you even asking?”

“As per the salary benchmarking we have, his salary should be 14.5L. That would mean a 3X jump on his current salary.”
“And why is that a problem? How does his current salary dictate what he gets paid in a role that he’s qualified for?”

“Because it’s not market practice.”

I never really understood this phenomena of asking for previous payslips, by companies.

To me, it is lazy and smells of an non-existent process to determine salaries in an objective manner.

We made the offer to the candidate.
He called assuming it was a typo.
He thought we were making a 4.5L offer :)

It was cute, and sad, at the same time.
We told him that the offer was indeed 14.5L

We upheld a process that worked for us.
He upheld his pride.

Win-win.