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The pandemic took a lot away from us – mentally, emotionally, health, relationships, even money.

That’s unfortunate.

However, I believe it also gave us a huge gift: of our own company. Which we needed the most.

For everything that comes to break you, comes with a gift to meet yourself on the other side.

No, you wouldn’t get the Buddha answer (though it is true :D).

The root cause of our suffering is that we want all our desires, wants and goals to be fulfilled yesterday.
We want timelines to be ticked because we want our wants to be met.

When they don’t, we suffer.
Call ourselves inadequate.
And even doubt our capabilities.

Instead of putting a timeline to our goals, putting a timely adherence to putting in the work (even when we don’t feel like), is what will make us own everything we could. And that’s beautiful.

I recently ran a fun game with my team, asking them to submit a google form to make a wish or two.

Not that all wishes were fulfilled (immediately), but that shows a lot about us as humans, and our beliefs about what could make us happy.

The range was awesome, from Rs. 600 to Rs. 1.5 lacs, from experiences to goods, and even making a wish for others!

While we were going through this, I told my team an important insight:
Put a number to the amount you think is going to make you happy. And then you will realise how easily it is within your reach!

Numbers work wonders. Especially when you put them out from the desires to the draft.

The question you ask yourself daily before going for a job you hate.

If you are asking the question daily, you already know the answer!

I was recently talking to an 18 year old kid, who is going to pursue a combined graduate and masters of 5 years in IIM.

However, he was not sure if he wanted to take it, or go specific where his interest lied.

When you are very young, you do not know yourself very well. Even though you may think you do, your passions change as time does. And that is the most beautiful thing about life.

The way, then, is not to attach yourself to an identity in life.
The way, is to live multiple identities before calling yourself one
More zooming out, will let to the right eventual zoom-in!

Falling in love with yourself includes just three things:

1. You will NOT blame yourself.
   You can point out your mistakes. You can get better. But you will never say to yourself: “You have done it wrong. All the bad stuff has happened because of you! You are a wrong person. You are inadequate. You are a loser! You will never be able to do it. You don’t blame the person you love.
2. You can live with that person even without talking to that person. The kind of people whom you meet after years, you take off right at the place where you left it. Or you don’t need to talk to them, but not forcing to talk to them. However, we cannot sit with ourselves. We are scared of our own thoughts. We don’t know how to spend time with ourselves!
3. You don’t judge yourself. That fat kid. That failure. That ugly girl. That inadequate person. The one who is not loved by anyone. Every time you judge yourself, you are damaging the relationship with your own self.
   
   No one knows you better than you.
   Yet isn’t it strange you wish others to love you yet you are your worst critic?

My firsts book Do Epic Shit hit Amazon India bestseller within hours of its launch.

That was a proud and gratitude-filled moment for me.

However, I want you to walk you through what seems like an easy hit to the bestseller list:
– I have been blogging for 16 years now.
– For the first 4 years on YouTube, I gained roughly 7,000 subscribers only.
– I have been creating content on LinkedIn for over 5 years now.
– Writing Twitter threads relentlessly since April 2020, did not miss a single week.

While it always fills me up with gratitude for all the love you shower on me, I think I owe it to you to tell that it takes almost a decade to become an overnight sensation.

I once wrote on Twitter, “Trust doesn’t get built just by meeting expectations.”

There are two parts to it:

1. Building trust
2. Meeting and exceeding expectations

Here is a three part process to it:

When you do what you are supposed to do, you will get what you are supposed to get: money in lieu of work.
When you exceed what you are supposed to do, it becomes obvious that you cannot be compensated in monetary terms each time you exceed expectations. However, as you continue doing it, you build trust. Which becomes the driver for humans above meeting their financial requirements.
As you continue building trust, you are rewarded in bigger ways than you were supposed to, because you did more than you were supposed to.
The last part does not come easy or announced or even expected.

However, if you do the bare minimum, how can you even think of maximising your life?

No one else could walk your path.
When you accept this, you turn off your blinders.
And listen to the person talking to you, instead of figuring out how to give them solutions.

Everyone knows their solutions.
What people are looking for is validation.
Validation comes from not judging what they say.
Which is the last thing we do. And the first thing we must do.

Listening to someone without judgement is the most precious gift you can give to that person.

What we fear the most is usually what we most need to do

None of us fears going along with the status quo.

What we fear the most is taking unconventional decisions and taking the steps that would make others laugh at us.

Guess what? No one broke any mountains just by doing comfortable things every single day.

Fear and discomfort are green signs to go ahead. Love for the status quo is a greener sign to abandon it.