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For you in order to win, no one else has to lose.

This is what I told the second batch of How To YouTube – our flagship course graduates as they graduated.

And that is what I want you to ponder upon.

Where in life are you anxious because someone else is winning and you are not?
What if you be excited instead of anxious that someone else winning is an example for you to win as well?

Most people in their 20s are scared that they are already old.

It was true for me as well.
At 24, I felt I was 40.

Funny enough, I am 42 now, and don’t feel a day older than, say, 28!

Now that I reflect upon this reversal of sorts, I realize that it is virtually impossible to not feel old when you are young.

And the world certainly doesn’t help.
“Finish your education.”
“Get a job!”
“Get married!”
“Have kids!”
“Buy that house, that car!”

If god forbid, we are confused, or not interested in what we are doing in life, or feel disillusioned by where we are headed, we are made to believe that our life is over!

Here is the truth:

You may not have a choice to feel old, when you are young.
But you do have a choice to feel young, when you are old.

And that will only happen, if you constantly keep challenging your core beliefs.

I believed that going to the US was the only way to get a grand life.
I believed that if I made a promise to my parents, then going back on that promise was betrayal.
I believed that I would be happy if the world liked me.

Today I know, these beliefs were limiting.

These beliefs were the way I lived my life, but when I dropped out of my education, I challenged all of them. 

Only when you change the beliefs that limit you in your life, will you form new ones that give you hope, joy and contentment.

Ask yourself, “What are my core beliefs that tend to limit me and not set me free?”

You are NOT already old.
You have a wonderful life ahead.
And it is just getting started :)

Give yourself the space to try.

Ask. Don’t assume.

What you assume may not be the truth.
What is the truth may never cross your assumptions.

Speaking solves problems that silence doesn’t. Because it wasn’t silence in the first place. It was assumption.

It is easy to think of peace by distancing yourself from the world.

But no matter how much you choose to distance yourself, you will again come back to the same place.

Then what is the way to peace?

To find it when there is chaos.
To be okay with who you are (even while working on yourself).
To let your wins and loses be defined by what you define them to be, not what the world thinks.

It’s going to be hard, that is why most of the world chooses not to be at peace.

However, peace is always a choice. Which emerges from the kind of life we live.

The other day someone played a rendition of Bella Ciao on my IG live.
It was so succinct, that it was evident to me that he had worked super hard on getting this right.

And it quite got me thinking.

How easy it is, to give your 98%. Or 99%.
Most people won’t even recognize that it was not your 100%.
But you would. And you wouldn’t know that it was the best you could sign off with.

And then there are people like this attendee on my live. Who work with relentless devotion to give their 100% in what they are doing. Which not only shows, rather oozes out of everything they produce.

You don’t need to be great. But you do need to put in great courage to feel great at the end of the day. There is no other way out.

1. Focusing on settling down. You do NOT have to settle down by 24. Spend your 20s exploring. I am 42 and still not “settled”.
2. Waiting for your friends to validate you. They may have different perspectives. And different places to reach. Love them and respect them in their journey. And respect the differences of opinions.)
3. Spending tons of money on shopping to buy things to look cool to people who do not care. Live like a pauper. No one cares what you own, in your 20s. Or even later.

You will “arrive” when you do not care so much about arriving.

How to feel bad

1. Seek validation
2. Don’t love yourself

Sadly most of us are doing both without even being aware of it.

Feeling bad is a plant we give growth to, through our own seeds of insecurity.
Feeling good is the seed we can sow right away, through being confident in who we are, while we continue to grow where we need to.

There are no 18 things that will change your life.
The ones who shared the list, are the things that changed their life.

But for something to change your life, you have to do your things.
Unless you figure out what actually changed your life, picking up from someone else’s 18 things is a good place to begin.

Success doesn’t always need to be invented. It could also be very well discovered, through standing on the shoulders of others.

We all need a job. It may not necessarily be the one you love, but you do need one.

And if it is something that you do not see yourself doing in the long run, you absolutely must remind yourself that you are doing this job for the time being, till you figure out something better, that will take you closer to what you want to do.

It will help you not get addicted to that job while still being there for the time being.

It takes some time to change your job. However, it only takes a second to change your equation from making the job you hate your life, to making it just a small piece of life.

1. Consistency
2. Understanding requirements of that platform
3. Experimenting on new things
4. Learning from data
5. Having fun in the process :)

Content creation is technically a science that requires the art of not being committed to a single formula. And that works all the wonders.