Nishtha Gehija

Especially when you are hyper-independent and ride a self-driven car like me.

You sit at the back of the cab, and you surrender.

You know you will be taken to your destination. You know you cannot control much about the forces you will meet in the journey. You have done your best, and now you are free (doing nothing) while getting things done (going to your destination).

I don’t build these moments purposefully into my life but whenever life calls for them, I have my best reflections.

I also believe it is true for every single one of us who looks out and does not look down at the screen in their hands.

Please try this the next time you are riding a cab (especially alone). Just you. Looking out. No phone. Not judging others. Not losing it out when there is traffic. Just flowing with the flow of life. You will practically feel the calm within chaos.

I think about this often.

Please note that I have not written “the shortcut”.

A shortcut usually avoids the core essence of doing something. A quick and an efficient way is going directly for what you really want, instead of preparing so much that you forget to understand that you are actually procrastinating.

The long route will still get you there, but why not do it quick?

There is a friend of an acquaintance of mine, who always needs people to lean on. Planning getaways, planning a catch-up, coming up with ideas to stay together, he has something planned for every weekend.

The other disadvantage is he mistakes his charisma and chutzpah for competence and confidence.

These kind of people are equally distributed around everyone’s circle. Once a year, I come across such hyper-dependent but visibly independent people.

Some characteristics:

• Always looking for the “next thing”
• Hates a monotonous life
• Questions everyone who doesn’t think like them
• Too much fluff, too little depth
• Too much charisma, too little competence
• They hold others together not by the depth of their thoughts but by the chutzpah of their conversations (this is an extension of the previous point)
• Show zero signs of empathy

When I think about such people, I pity them. What all must have transpired for them to be able to never know themselves. Maybe a lot of successes, because failures open doorways for reflection. Maybe too many failures, that they think someone else is responsible for them. Maybe a lot of fear, because spending time with yourself is scary. I honestly have a lot of sympathy for them.

But what I also know for sure is that most people who are surrounded by a character like this end up feeling they are wrong (and not this character).

And I am here to tell you that the only wrong thing that is going on is you not listening to your intuition. It is rare to be alone and it is often a gem. It is a mark of the highest level of satisfaction to adore your boring life. It is a joy to be a listener and not always speaking.

Of course a man is a social animal. But how will you ever know your inner voice if you are always surrounded by noises?

The loudest things in life are the quietest, if we have the audacity to listen to them.

…being kind to your house staff and the guards of your society.

Even though your rational mind wants to think they might have erred in something, to not stir that err is what truly makes you a great employer.

You do not necessarily need to make sure everyone else suffers in their job as you do. When life gives you an opportunity to make pressure stop at you instead of being a funnel for it, grab it.

What ghostwriting looks like:

I write on behalf of my client. I ask them questions, they answer, and lo and behold, the chapter pours like anything.

What ghostwriting actually is:

• I ask them questions
• They answer.
• But the client is passionate about 10 things related to the topic, so sometimes they divulge.
• Which is fine, because I get a TON of filler content for the book.
• But every chapter like this requires me to write and sharpen things to make the content stick to the point. Only those with focus can do it.
• Add to the above, you have to make sure the transitions are correct, the words are landing where they should, and it should be simple. Again, the hardest part.
• Lastly, do the heavy lifting of taking the filler content to the right chapters.

Writing is hard. Writing in someone else’s voice is harder. Writing to stick to the point while making sure the extra content is meaningfully taken care of in the book is the hardest.

But that’s fine bro. The hard work that you enjoy is the work that creates miracles.

I was in 6^th standard, when I was sitting lonely in mine and my sisters’ study-cum-bedroom, sad of losing my then best friend.

“She has picked up another best friend since last week,” I told my sister.

I don’t exactly remember what she said, but at the end of her monologue, sitting next to me, both her palms on each of my shoulder, she sang a song, “Dil pe mat le yaar”.

Two decades later, as life has gone on to play its unexpected playlist, I have often concluded that this is a cycle of life. Some friends walk along, some don’t. I am sure there might be some old friends of mine that think the same about me too.

But going down the doldrums of anxiety and apprehension is not going to help you. Rather, l have come to these two ubiquitous conclusions each time something like this happens:

1. You must learn to be happy alone.

2. Because when you are happy alone, you do not make others feel lonely the way you were made to feel little and lonely.  

It’s a subtle rite of passage where you have to walk through the path of fire, so that you become your warmth while making sure you protect everyone else from that heat.

I was once travelling to Sonepat from Noida with a few of my friends, and after reaching the destination, one of the friends commented, “You drive really well.”

Like life has been a mixture of compliments and criticisms, like for everyone.

Then when someone commented on a skill that women are usually trolled for, it somehow felt like a validation.

On a different tangent, I think we buy into the usual stereotypes so naturally that when someone tells us we are overcoming those stereotypes in a positive way, we feel elated. We feel elated because we could never expect we could excel, while we were excelling at those things.

Influence determines almost everything we do and how we think, hence it is worth considering what you allow yourself to influence.

This post is not about receiving that compliment.

It makes practical sense to sit together after a big project and talk about feedback to make it better.

What if, instead:

1. We get around the table and make everyone speak one (or three) good thing(s) about the project, but it has to be not from them but about someone else.
2. Then everyone else writes one thing they could do better with themselves in the same project.
3. And then they write the name of the person who needs to do better + how to do it better and more constructive next time (not just “you were bad”). You don’t need to write your name.

It has never been done before, but it is worth testing how we do at a point of cheering for others, correcting ourselves, and correcting others anonymously.

Growth may not always have to be disturbing.

When you choose to write in your journal instead of scroll, you instantly feel better and lighter.

When you choose to invest your money instead of getting that Prada to pin on your Instagram profile, you instantly feel more responsible and reasonable. 

When you choose to call your parents even if you are tired and want to sleep, you instantly feel grateful for a life where you are able to have their blessings. 

We think we are delaying our pleasures, but the highest sense of pleasure is doing the right thing. 

Is never going to be fruitful.

This does not mean you should not be doing things for others.

But it pays to do things for others when you genuinely want to, not out of people pleasing. If the only intent is the latter, it often results in displeasing yourself.

As I sat down to untangle my after-wash hair yesterday, I was reminded of the first time I had gotten rebonding done in my hair.

It was the summer of 2015, exactly 11 years ago today. I had sent a picture of myself from salon to all my sisters.

My elder nephew, who was about to turn 8 in a few months, sent me a voice note from my sister’s phone that I remember to date, “Hey Masi, looking good, looking really really good.”

I was so amused by the joy and emotion he had, especially at “really really”.

Now that he is going to turn 19 in a few months, I don’t know where did we lose his emotion.

Where did we lose the emotion, the empathy, the ability to praise something for what it is, the ability to call something out for what it is.

I know he is a teenager now, going through his own physical and life changes together, but somewhere I also believe we as a species are also responsible for creating men who don’t feel anymore.

He is still a nice guy, I’d never contest that. But he has become like most men I know — dispassionate, who might never bat an eyelid before jumping off a cliff but remain seated in their closet of concealed emotions forever.

If you are a man reading this, may you please figure out a way to express yourself. It does not make you less of a man. It only makes more men and women respect you for tuning into yourself.

In a world of AI, we need more humans. Oh wait, we have needed humans always.

To overcome your own vices.

To not comment on someone else’s clothes.

To not mock someone in a gathering.

To look at people for who they are and not who others are.

To be really interested in people in an interaction.

To not carry someone’s no as a badge of animosity.

To be nice to yourself, because you do unto others what you do unto you.

The direct effect of your work is that it serves your customers and pays you money.

The indirect effect of your work is that it builds the brand and hence makes the investors happy.

Yet, what is the overall effect of your work?

One of my core business principles is to look at the after-effects of the work I am doing.

The work I do should make the world a better place.

This means:

– For the books I am ghostwriting, I ask myself, would I happily gift these books to my nephews and nieces?

– For anything I write, it has to come from a place of reflection and not replication of AI content.

– For the conversations I have, do they make the other person feel better? I hopefully hope so…

So many of us are too focused on the “let’s do it now” and too little on doing it with the right intent and execution.

It is easy to think about profits and valuation. I am a CA and a Sindhi, and I love money.

Yet profits and valuation stay sustained when you have built the foundation of your values right. It’s almost always incredible how the past values define the future of your work, your business.

…what would you change from your past?

People often ask this question for reflection.

What if they asked, “what would you change in the future?”

You already have the magic wand. Use it.

1. Don’t look for ideas or a great writing session while being connected to the internet. Disconnected is your default, connection is only a tool to post/schedule ideas.
2. Empty pockets lead to great ideas, which lead to great writing. Your empire is literally being built while putting your clothes in your closet.
3. No one feels like writing every day. Even Olympic athletes hate working out. Yet the only way is doing.
4. Write from your heart. If you are writing something “because it would look good while it does not click with your heart”, it is never going to result in great art.
5. The only shortcut is not aiming for shortcuts. But it takes several failed shortcuts to truly internalise this.

PS: Every writer needs to read this

With gratitude being popularised ubiquitously, people are somewhere (maybe) realising the importance of saying thank you.

But saying thank you and really meaning it, along with using the first name of the person is the gracious level of gratitude.

When you cross step 1, you default to step 2.
Kind people begin directly with the gracious level.

And how is it beyond the home, the car, the properties?

All of those are good, your hard work, your toil.

But does your life include becoming a better version of you?

Were you a (good) different person today than yesterday?

Were you nice to strangers and to those who hurt you?

Were you nice to yourself?

Did you listen to others while in a conversation?

Did you have the courage to leave a gossip?

Did you have the self-love to go to bed on time daily?

True life is perhaps making your life a study material that extends beyond material riches.

Been waking up to this view for this week:

It makes me often think about true richness.

True richness to me is having the ability to wake up to this, even at your home.

When I was a kid, my uncle, aunt and cousins used to live in a government quarter, which was legit surrounded by an infinite jungle.

But as grown ups you realise these are the real wealths of life.

Of course money is important, as I always say, but that money should be put to use for making your mornings peaceful. I am blessed to be living in such a place at home as well as my parents’ home, maybe because at some level you find what you are looking for.

I truly wish more people make time to live around at least a few plants and trees, sunrise, and a terrace to walk around. To me, hanging around at these places have helped me make more material riches.

If you don’t spend your time exercising, you will spend your life waiting for the elevator.

If you don’t spend time meditating, you will have no option but to take 5 hours on a task of 15 minutes.

If you don’t spend time reading and making yourself better, life will make sure you become your own guinea pig.

Living life on reactive mode is hardly living your life.

I often want to run away from travel preparations. Even if it sometimes means minimal preparations for leaving for my hometown.

I was about to diagnose myself with anxiety yesterday, as I came back from hometown a day before and now in just 30 hours was going for a very short meditation retreat.

But then words of Marcus Aurelius came into my mind, where he says:

“Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions — not outside.”