spark

Have you been around people who influence you positively with their actions or work? We are social animals. We crave inspiration, care, and respect. Once we are part of a community, group, or company of friends who are all progressive, we will start showing our spark. We will be motivated enough to go against all odds. The reason being we have people with us who have got our back. They are helping us glow, run and chase our dream.

You have to be very lucky to find such a company. In most instances, we live in a flight and fright zone. We have no room to experiment, fail, and make mistakes and learn from them.

Our monkey mind is scared and born pessimists. For it, survival is the default. Hence, most of us never reach that sparked state in our life. Some of us are not lucky.

We go out chasing love, relationship, and whatnot. Marketers and Hollywood make the most out of it.

Instead, we should find a company that inspires us to do the impossible. Those who make you better every day. Those who inspire and keep igniting the spark. They make us better in all senses.

As we grow old, our looks will fade. The likes on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube will not matter. It will be company and consciousness. Having the right company will define the end of life. It will make our living and parting less miserable and filled with a spark.

original

My encounter with Haruki Murakami happened six years back. I wanted to get into running. His book “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” helped. I have read half a dozen other works of his. I always questioned his mental state while writing that fiction. I often joked about what he smokes during his writing session. 

His recent book “Novelist as a Vocation” sheds some light on it. He is one of the misfits living in his zone and delivering continuously. He speaks about originality in one of the chapters and talks about an artist qualifying as Original. I felt like sharing it. 

  1. The artist must possess a unique individual style. It should come immediately after listening to and reading their work. 
  2. Their style must have the power to update with time. It should grow with time, never resting in the same place with time. 
  3. Over time, that characteristic style should become integrated into the psyche of its audience to become a part of their basic standard of evaluation. 

You can relate to it all by reading Oscar Wilde and Ernest Hemingway or looking at the paintings of Picasso or Van Gogh. 

flow

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks about the mental state called: Flow in his book with the same title, where we are super focused and lost in one thing. We become obsessed and work all along. There is no time or days in consideration. We get lost in a unique world of our own. We become super creative and find ways to do the unknown.

I see flow in one more aspect of life: living to the maximum now. It saves us from wandering in the past or worrying about the future.
We are in it now at this very moment.
We enjoy and live in it.
There is no clutter, anguish, or pain about anything.

Living in flow is about living in now. And it is not easy.

uncertainty

Working with a team means having multiple minds. It’s an assembly line. The complete product requires working like an orchestra. That means everyone has to take responsibility and ownership.

A leader’s responsibility determines predictability and quality deliverable in a defined time. It comes with experience and deploying capable and efficient resources in the mission.

A leader defines multiple strategies for smoother deliverables. It can include enough buffer time for outsourcing. There is no one right fit.

Everything boils down to shipping quality products with the right resources and on time.

There is limited certainty and mostly uncertainty. That is where the planning and forecasting, and backup plans help.

cause

At times I keep asking myself the cause for my existence. The feeling differs from time to time. I quit my full-time job to build a better life for myself six years back. A better life, essentially being master of my own destiny and riding life on my guiding principles. We have done well for ourselves, built a great team, and got enough customers who believe in us, our way of doing business, and pay us sufficiently to solve our financial needs.

Now and then, the question comes, is this it? Is this life? I am still looking for answers. I have made a few friends, learning from their journey and trying to learn from them.

I still don’t have an answer. But thankfully, there is no void in life. Even if I die today, it will be peaceful. My soul will not torment others. I won’t be the ghost troubling others.

top

Change starts from the top. Monkey see, monkey do. If the leader is complacent and not paranoid, how do we expect the team to deliver? Can you change the default overnight? Human beings’ obstacle is fighting with themselves and bringing change within.

Everyday PR stories and startup news reporting speak of founders announcing about conserving cash, cutting free food at the canteen, and not taking first-class flights. It is a tall ask that employees will change overnight because of macro conditions and not having enough in the bank.

Why was top in chill all this while? Why did they not plan for this adversity early on? How do they expect the entire culture to change overnight?

maatam

Kal tak apni naakami ka maatam manaye za rahe the.
Aaz hamara zanaza ja raha hai.
Apne na-umeede me hum simte rahe zindgi bhar.
Kisi se kuch paya nai, bas lalak se reh gaye the dil me.

Sab tha uper wale ka diya hua hamare paas, bus ek jine ka zariya nai tha. Koi maksad aisa tha he nai ziske liye hum ziye. Ek kisam ki kami se the zindgi me, ek dard sa reh gaya tha. Apne bete hue kal me dub dub ke filsal se rahe the ham. Apni aaz me jina chor diya tha, bite hue kal me he dubki lagaye za rahe the.

Ab dum nikal gaya, ab mitti me mil gaye ham, wo siyasat, wo kaamyabi ka pulanda bhi saath jala diya auroo no. Kya kisi ke paas kuch waqt baza hai auro ko yaad karne ka is duniya mae. Kaun kisi aur ka kalma padhta hai aajkal. Sab khoi hua hai, sab gum hai is duniya ke chakachaaundh me.

entrepreneurship

I see people preaching about becoming an entrepreneur and breaking into entrepreneurship. I have my aversion to these sales pitches or evangelism.

Entrepreneurship is not clearing an engineering entrance or a medical entrance exam where you read a syllabus and jump in to qualify.

Entrepreneurship is not a 9 to 5 job with a steady income or life in luxury and comfort. Putting everyone on the entrepreneurship treadmill will result in a more distorted society with a generation of stress and trauma. As statistics say, 99% of startups fail.

There is a dark side to entrepreneurship: full of failure, stress, loss, and pain. The media, shark tank, and others never talk about it.

Entrepreneurship happens with a cause, purpose, and fickle-mindedness. The journey is rough and mostly a failure. So make up your mind if you want to get into this.

Please join it with conviction, not for sexiness. Because mostly, you are alone on your own in the uncertainty.

Don’t waste time listening to a podcast or reading books on how to be an entrepreneur venture, knowing what all you have to lose or win.

Jump into entrepreneurship for the right reasons.

rant

How much can we progress in life if we rant non-stop?
How much time will be left to love ourselves if we criticize the world?
Our progress depends on how we see the world, not what the world has to offer us.

We can waste our time criticizing others or seizing the moment.
It is easy to complain than to create. It is easy to preach than practice.

The path is yours: it is on you to define your journey, stay as a person criticizing the world for life or be part of the world and make it better.

own

How much do we have to keep ourselves in hiding? Why can we not own our flaws and walk boldly for the rest of our life? Nothing stopped Helen Keller from writing. She knew she had to live with it throughout her life.

Our life on this planet is limited, and not all of us are born perfectly or live healthy life. But this does not mean we should stop living or hide from the world.

People survived the worst of their traumas because they owned and accepted to realize to live beyond it. Now that this has happened, sulking is not the solution. Accept, own, and thrive.