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The first time nearbuy went to hire from ISB, we had to find a way of creating a buzz on the campus. 

We weren’t a well known brand. And competition for talent was intense.

So during the pre-placement talk, we told students three things.

1. Your resume SHOULD NOT be in the ISB resume template.
2. Add color to your resume.
3. On the resume, name someone else from the batch who you think is better than you, for the role you are applying for.

It was super interesting to see the reactions.

1. While some students were relieved that they did not have to follow the template, some were jittery. Because now there was no standard way of doing the task!
2. Almost everyone was curious as to “what does color mean?” This led to the most joyful submissions: PDFs. Comic books. Highlights.
We sensed liberation!

3. We collated the frequently recurring names, and if they hadn’t applied reached out to them, while the submissions were on.

“7 students who have applied think you will be better than them at this role. Do you wish to consider applying?”
In a batch of 770 people, we had 380 students applying!
It made our job of shortlisting a lot harder, but we weren’t complaining.
This is what we signed up for!

We eventually hired 4 product managers. And all 4 of them stayed with us for 3+ years!

There is a thing about templates.
They are very seductive.
They give an illusion of safety.
They give an illusion of low risk.

So a lot of us fall for them.

Not just in our resumes.
In our lives.

Think about it.
How many of us are living our life like a template?

If Class tenth marks > 90%, then science
If parents = engineers, then engineering
If parents = business, then study commerce
If engineer = yes, then MBA
If age > 25, get married jaldi jaldi
If married > 2 years, sunao khushkhabri to the world

All of these are nothing but templates.

And whenever I think of templates, I am reminded of a powerful thing that Steve Jobs once said during an interview.

“Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.”

But most of us do not change the rules.

We play a game designed and rules laid out by someone else.
And thus the rules laid out by someone else.

The world does not need another template.
The world needs a rebel.

Invest consistently.
Not out of FOMO.
Rather as a habit.

It is so obvious yet so sad so few people do it.

When you invest without worrying much, the compounded results take away much of your worries.

It is okay if you do not have an hour-by-hour schedule of what you do (recommended, though).

However, what would be wonderful is to have a routine of workout, meditation, studying, working, free time, walk, and everything else that is important to you.

If it is important to you, even if your schedule is a bit here and there, you will be able to get done with a good routine.

Routines prevent from riots, when schedule is simmering around a bit.

Depend on yourself for your happiness.

Depend on yourself for your true success.

Depend on yourself for figuring out life.

However, don’t depend on yourself for remembering things. Free your mind of tasks. Let the memorisation be done by a notebook and a pen and a paper.

Let your mind do the noble task of thinking, by making it get rid of the naïve task of remembering.

We want to ask.
We all need help.
We want a push to get farther.

This isn’t a weakness. It is a strength, of trying to get better.

Most of us are scared to ask because we fear a no, or judgment on our capabilites.

Hardly wondering, what if we get a yes and become more capable?

Asking is cool, which begins with asking yourself the cooler questions that give better results :)

After changing my career multiple times in my life, I have come to this huge realisation about life – that 30-40% of work is actually doing the mundane tasks. Even if your job is shiny.

How to do those mundane tasks – do them!
Whether it is when you don’t feel productive, whether it is the time you feel the most productive, or when there is the least resistance.

Doing gets things done :)

What comes as platitude advice is usually the advice you most need to execute on.

Most of us consider investments to be something that generate huge returns in monetary terms.
Bonds, stocks, crypto, etc., are great examples.

Some investments do not give monetary results. But they give equal rather far more value than money.

Spending time with family.
Working out.
Meditation.
Reading books.
Spending time with yourself.

The investments that do not look like generating money, are the investments that do generate the most money!

1. Doing difficult things. Even when you don’t feel like doing them. You can earn decently and have your pleasures even when you don’t do difficult things. But an easy life hardly becomes a happy life.
2. Living by your own definition of success and failure. So that when you succeed, it is on your own terms. When you fail, you know where to close the gap towards getting successful.
3. Not caring what others think of you. The burden of others’ opinions is not for you to carry. Carrying your own life is in itself an act of courage. Carrying other’s opinions is in itself an act of cowardice. Knowing the difference, is superpower.

We often think we have to be cut from a different cloth, in order to become the top 1% of the world.
Hardly wondering, that we have to focus on creating and living in a cloth created by ourselves, and we have already won 99% of the battle.

When people get happy by seeing me on Instagram Live, here is what I really intend to do: Listen to them. Listen to their stories. Listen to where they belong. And just be myself.

As weird as it may sound, I am not talking to a follower. I am simply talking to a human being.

And that makes all the difference.

To be human is what makes human connections.
The happy truth of life, that most of us sadly forget.

Show up anyway.
We all have seasons and reasons why things are not working out.

However, those who work even when they are out and about, eventually work things out.