opportunity

I got lucky that someone trusted me, gave me the opportunity. I would not have reached this far in life without it. My mother was adamant seeing me go to Delhi for higher studies. Coming to Delhi, making great friends, and amazing teachers helped me to learn and grow.

As I grew in the profession, I got the opportunity to learn from my mistakes, pedigree, or ethnicity caused no harm.

I am less risk-averse and have allowed myself for more experiments. I am more open to working with the underdogs, experiment with life. My journey has made me think more about helping the underrepresented community and think in terms of gender diversity.

I feel society will progress ones the lens of caste, religion, pedigree gets thrown. We should start believing in our peers, youngsters, and give an assurance that I have got your back. It is okay to experiment, fail. Let us give all the backing and courage.

ownership

I understand ESOP is the hot cake in our industry. But is money the only indicator of ownership in an organization? What about responsibility, feeling on oneness, and belonging to the organization?

A company has to provide radical freedom and fearlessness to its team. That is when they will experiment, question, and come up with magical innovation.

Materialistic incentives are temporary, and they cannot bring the best of us. What requires for the magic is the attitude of fearlessness. The belief from the top management that goes try new things, even if you fail, we have your back.

sleep

I have not been sleeping enough. I felt groggy and blamed it on getting less sunlight. It affected my habit of reading and focus.

Last night I was in bed by 9 pm, had good 9 hours of sleep, and I am feeling all charged up. After so many days, I was able to spend some time reading and thinking. My knee pain has also subsided. I will be going for a run tomorrow.

I am also noticing that my quality of sleep, dreams are correlated with what I am consuming as in movies, reading, news, etc.

equality

I was in a conversation last week with my friend, who is running a successful business. She was in jobs while doing engineering, learning building her life, unlike most of us who were partying.

One thing which she told later was that even after all the hard work, setting up a successful venture, people are closed-minded and treat women differently. She has to work harder than their other competitors. She mentioned that the disparity is wider in lower-income, educated women.

While talking to my sister on Rakhi I asked the inequality, bias, and prejudice. She said women folks have to live with it unless society changes completely. It also makes her more powerful and pushes her to work harder.

I remember all the contributions my mother has in my life. She was adamant about having us get a good education. My sister stayed mostly in a hostel, and I moved to Delhi for higher education in 2000. My mom said education is a great equalizer, it will take help in equalizing. People will see you on your merit rather origin, color, race, or sex. I agree we have gotten a better life because of her initial push.

I also see millions of women, girl children fighting for equality, better treatment. It is getting better with education, but we are still far away. We have to change ourselves first, and society will change. We have to get away with a different set of rules books for our sons and daughter. What son can do and daughter cannot do mentality should be thrown away.

method

I keep reading tweets and hearing from others about how to build successful startups. The thing is most of these are someone’s experience or playbook from some university professors bestseller. These are unique and, 9/10 times will not fit with your journey.

One sentence we keep repeating ourselves among us is: nobody should die in our journey. Rest is all good, be it a timeline, release, sales.

Will this advice fit for a growth company or a founder dreaming for a unicorn? It won’t. So who am I to advise this to anyone? It is my journey, and limited knowledge of mine is fostering it.

cult

We, humans, are conditioned to live in a society and worship a leader. A leader can be a politician, caste leader, or religion affiliated godman. We humans will bow to a leader and, that keeps the leader’s aura in place.

Leaders lose the moment they lose the respect of followers whom he rules. Leader unites in the name of caste, religion, nation, dialect, etc.

A leader can go at any length to hold his authority: be it giving religious angle or nationalism or pride.

Our history teaches the worst leaders have been propaganda machine. They conveniently swung truth to their favor. They threw lavish parties and sports for most jobless people, the mass murderer Hitler or the rulers of Rome post-Marcus Aralias are histories.

In the end, diverting away from real issues to keep their thrown is the ultimate goal.

We should not let leaders turn into a cult. We don’t want anarchy.

accept

Why is it so difficult to accept our mistakes? Is it more to do with never go wrong attitude created by society or our ego.

I see endless thought leadership and fight on twitter now and then. On many occasions, one person shares something controversial, incorrect, and fights until the end to hold the ground.

Why are we like this? How difficult it is to accept our mistakes and move on. Why do we have to waste time proving ourselves correct?

An apology is not a sign of weakness. We have to realize we are an invisible part of this bigger cosmos. Our knowledge is limited.

obsessed

Has it ever occurred to you when you have become too obsessed with something? That obsession could be about work, person, or possession.

Has it helped anyone being obsessed? Or it has fostered panic, fear, or sleeplessness?

I spoke to a few friends. Their answers were mixed. Some said being obsessed about anything is like being on drugs. You can become restless and paranoid.

Some other friends told me that an obsession adds meaning to their life. It shows them a clear path to march every day.

I understand we have one life, and most of us want to leave with a legacy. It is also important to note that we have to live rationally, not like a headless chicken. So there is no one fit for all.

I understand psychologists selling books talking about burn out, stress, and all. But can you get all this ill when you are loving what you are doing, obsessed with it every moment and actions?

Is the byproduct of obsession has more to do with our mindset and likings?

body

It took me over 30 years to realize that my body needs some care. I meant knowing myself, my limits, and what and how everything affects my body. Most of us relate the body with looks, muscles, and abs. We tend to treat the brain like a less loved organ without knowing that it consumes 80% of what we eat.

We are living in an app economy, pings, email, SMS, and nudges are all around us. Smartphones came to make us more productive, but we ended up becoming its slave. I have seen on some occasions we are showing more care to it than humans.

We are suffering from information overload. Platforms like Netflix, Prime are competing against our sleep. Insufficient sleep, information overload is taking away our ability to think. We have started sticking to default because the brain takes shortcuts, and on most occasions, we are losing to markers.

What we are eating is taking a toll on our mind and body both. Sugar, Alcohol, and colas are available in abundance. Every single billboard on our street is guiding us on what to buy next. Food delivery apps are mainstream, disguising us with discounts to fast food.


limit

What is our limit, be it taking pain or seeking for our goal? What does it take to become successful?

Can we feed a horse if he is not thirsty? Does limit mostly manifest of our mind? We have created an artificial wall and scared of getting hurt crossing it?

Watching Hollywood, listening, or reading autobiography it seems one has to do the impossible. It requires sweat, pain, hard work apart from many sacrifices.

Does that mean this limit is more of artificial, we have created it?