Nishtha Gehija

I was at Uniqlo the other day, when I picked up 4 items of clothing to buy. The average cost per item is ~2.5-3k, so I roughly estimated my bill to be ₹10K.

Except, when was at the self-checkout, the bill was showing ₹20K!

I even asked the staff near the checkout, when they told me that the pink sweater I had picked up was ₹10K.

So I let go of that pink sweater and picked up the other things.

And it was not because “I could not afford it.” Just that I did not think I wanted to spend ₹10K on that sweater.

That is it. That is it.

Life is rarely about spending your money despite having it. Your spends must also be in alignment with what you want them to be.

I see this with billionaires all the time. They can afford luxuries that most people dream of, but when it comes to overspending, they are always meticulous instead of simply throwing money around.

Impulsiveness without or despite money isn’t a stuff of legends.

Side note: Things like this also keep you in charge of your senses.

One way is to pick up more work. Bite off more than you can chew.

Pro:

You will certainly make more money.

Cons:

1. You will have less free time, which is much needed for a freelancer to think creatively as well as strategically.
2. For every single one of your existing clients, you would be less present, more delayed in delivering your work, and always on the go, never really there.

So what is the solution?

1. When you are in real constraint of time, tell your new clients, “I’d love to work in this, but due to existing commitments, could we please begin by XXX (a later date)?” No clients have said no with this ask of mine.
2. If you want to make more money, think of how you can strategically increase prices for your services. It does not have to be “I wish so”, but a reason how and why you can do it, so that your client is also happy to pay. Also, please know that as you start charging more, some clients might walk away. And that is fine. It only maintains your current income level, while still giving you more free time to consider if you want to onboard new clients in that created vaccum, or simply continue.
3. Lastly, always think about building assets, such as a corpus, an intellectual property. or any other asset that floats your boat. Do not simply dismiss this idea. The entire purpose of this grind should be that it makes you stop grinding.

Get rich bro. Financially, as well as spiritually.

It usually stays when your life and your career is dependent on gaining praise from others.

The time when embarrassment really goes away is when you start marching to your own beat. Humbly.

1. It should help your customer, not your ego.
2. You must come alive through it.
3. Start small, gather feedback.
4. Have the courage to listen to your intuition.
5. Enthusiasm.
6. A good product in public takes practice in private.
7. The ability to detach and continue with your daily practices of meditation, workout and walks.

You are never grateful for scrolling.

You never regret reading.

Please run away from them like the plague.

They will emotionally blackmail you by calling you angry, being high maintenance, or simply being too much.

All false, all a manipulator’s tricks to keep a nice human trapped.

Please run. Please, please run.

When someone hurts and shatters you from inside, it breaks you in the moment.

Some people turn sour forever, while some bounce back.

What I have learnt is that the people that turn sour are the people who do not learn the lesson. And they do not wish to change their behaviour towards the same trigger.

For example, if my usual behaviour is keeping to my own self, and someone pokes me often at a public gathering, the next few times I am going to either stay away from them or not go at that gathering. But to show up close to them at the gathering and becoming bitter like them is the stuff of losers. Mostly, being a loser of your own goodness. What a pathetic loss.

Please do not lose the love inside of you. For those who drain you of it, please rather stay away from them…

I usually wrap up work by 6pm. When on rare days I open my laptop to do something important, it always ends up affecting my eyes, and sleep time,

The bigger issue is one stops recognising it, if it becomes consistent even for 4-5 days.

Until one day one comes back to the old good habit of wrapping up screen time early, and noticing the difference.

It is always the small things.

The best part is also, it is always the small things that you can change too.

…is generally how you look at the world.

The best part is, the world usually adapts to who you are (kind/thankful/grumpy/shady/peaceful/loveful/complaining/shining).

When you are too obsessed on The Project of your life, you feel so much pull towards it that the idea of starting and building it is the only thing that is surrounding you.

It takes a lot to get there.

Too many projects that did not work out.

Too many tears.

Too many unexpected twists and turns.

But the gift of all this misery is that the project comes to you. You simply have to be there to receive it well.

1. Working without distractions first 3 hours of the morning.
2. Putting your notifications perpetually off.
3. Ordering things that your parents like.
4. Workout out/outdoor walks/both.
5. Writing a book.

Is sometimes a good thing.

Especially if it (one or more of the following):

• is temporary
• is done to enhance your core personality
• makes people around you happier
• helps you achieve the result you want
• and often ends up becoming the extension of your work that you love.

All of these, without making you lose your core personality.

It must shatter your existing notions. It should make you rethink your existing systems. It must make you question a lot of things, at the same time it should not make you question yourself.

Most importantly, growth needs to be a personal choice.

Few weeks back I picked up a fun book called “Go ask Austen” from Bahrisons. The book is a culmination of several famous one-liners from Jane Austen books, followed with a one-line explanation of those sentences.

Except, in most cases, those one-line explanations are doing nothing to supplement the main quote. What those one-liners are doing, instead, is assuming every reader has read the above text, and is then giving super contextual answers.

Why it is not a great choice? Because the numero uno rule of every content piece is assuming this is the only content piece your audience is consuming. Be it a video or a book. Even if it is a book on lessons from other books. And then make it whole in itself.

This shows you care for the customer and their experience, and nothing in the world is more important than that.

Thus, to have the right perspective is all you need.

Think of your customer first. All of the time.

Plan it.

PS: This is not just about having a great week.

One, by learning good things from their life.

Two, more importantly, learn what are the things you do not want from their lives into your life.

Your parents suffered so much because of those mistakes. The least you could do to them is not turn up like them.

There is no other way to honour their struggles.

I am super protective of my weekends. Especially Sunday. So much so that “Protect your Sundays at all costs” is the second most read essay on my website as on date. (PS: I wrote “as on date”, so, dear universe, feel free to give more views to other essays and keep doing that over and over again :))

However, today is navratri celebration at our spiritual class. So this morning I (and several other 10-12 friends) stayed back till 1 pm instead of the usual ending time of 9 am, to prepare for the evening Nav Durga chaitanya jhaanki.

And in the evening, during jhaanki, we had so much fun from around 5 pm till almost 10.30 pm. (Yes I know, too late to sleep, but two days a year is fine, isn’t it?)

I am someone who is an introvert, and through a quiet Sunday. I get recharged for the whole week. It is only irrelevant when it comes at the cost of not celebrating festivals. Now that I want to do.

But being with the right team, with the right intent, with only love for each other makes everything magical. You also tend to have respect for the tiny pockets of time that is wasted here and there, because the camaraderie and joy makes everything worth it.

So, Happy Navratrti, folks?

My house help quit her job on 09th October of this month, and since then, I have been taking a breather.

What that means is I am not freaking about not having a house help. And have called Insta help/Pronto at least 6 out of the last 8 days.

While it is good to have convenience, at some point very soon, I would get someone to be a house help didi to me, like the ones that come daily to our houses. Of course, it is so easy to tap a button and get someone to clean your utensils/home at much cheaper rates overall.

One, it makes you reach out to your phone for at least 15 minutes extra each day (booking, tracking, not getting the same one who underperformed last time, figuring out work to make sure they have things to do for the entire 45 minutes, and so on). Two, I often wonder, so many hands touch my utensils, the same utensils in which I cook bhog for God. Yes the overall cleanliness of your own house help didi is also something you cannot forever testify, but there is at least the same energy and the same set of hands. Three, there is familiarity of knowing what to do and how with the consistent one.

Also, think of things like quick commerce. I do use it for a lot of my groceries, but the best fruits, vegetables are only available at my nearby thele waala.

Or think of this boon called internet. It has built so many careers and lives. But no one talks about the careers and lives it has destroyed by making people addicted to it.

So, yes, convenience is great. I would love it sometimes. But to really be peaceful, the good old systems need to be in place. And hence, I shall find the right house help soon 🙂

To talk to someone with love and genuine care (where you do not need something from them in return) is such a brave thing to do.

But when you do it to others, they move mountains to do what you asked for.

On the other hand, if you have the most genuine intentions but your words are filled with fire, sarcasm and distrust, even those who want to do something for you will question themselves twice.

Skepticism is a virtue, when one is around perpetually shady people.

But when you are surrounded by people who are genuinely caring, the first thing skepticism robs you of is your goodness.

Several months back I got an email from a reader of mine. It was in response to an essay I wrote.

The response was something about in the essay only, but it ended with a line that said: “I am in a hurry now, so I will give a longer response later.”

Bro, give the longer response later. Why did you need to inform me?

I of course did not say this to him, but this is a reader that has been good often. So I was debating if I should respond to him or not.

I honestly did not want to, but I considered for a moment if I should, because what if he does not buy my book later, whenever I put it out?

And then I realised, there was a book link in that essay itself, which he had responded to. He did not buy that book that was there. So there is no way he would buy with me as a service provider being nicer.

The lesson here is not that you should respond to weird emails if they are a buying customer. The lesson is that if your intuition tells you something is wrong, please don’t do it. With doing the right thing, you will always find the right customers.

Certainly not the ones who promise to write longer emails (bro I am not your anything, please don’t write these messages to a female), and never buy..