I was sitting with an agency friend of mine.

And he contrasted how different clients come up with different colours.

One of their clients is a wonderful, super-rich, happy businesswoman. She has built several businesses, and despite that, remains one of the humblest, kindest, and most secure people they have known.

She says sorry if she is on a call when my friend calls her.
She trusts them completely.
Never micromanages.
Appreciates often.
Shares her PoVs.
Is hands-down on her work.
Whenever my friend says “I am on leave but I will take care of work in advance” she says immediately on listening the word leave: “Superb. No problem. You go…” But then my friend has to tell her that work will be done…
And most importantly, she is secure in who she is as a person.

As a contradiction, there was a client this friend worked with in the past, who:

• Micromanaged every single thing
• Had no opinions but want to be “successful” because they hadd hired my friend!
• Hated ChatGPT because that meant my friend was not doing their work well. (But their staff member sent my friend notes of their PoV that were 100% GPT generated! Okay.
• Never took my friend’s first name
• Does not trust my friend with respect to the points of view they give based on their vast client and agency experience, and suggested “My friend should do as suggested” and drive results. You don’t hire smart people to tell them what to do. You could hire dumb people as well, for that. You hire smart people for them to tell you what to do. Bro, it’s your money at stake!
• Call their own work that my friend did for them as “random gyan” – basically disrespecting the art of their own labour.

Life, I believe (so does my friend), is too short to spend it with people who disbelieve themselves, let alone disbelieving you. No amount of money could ever compensate for the loss of self-confidence that comes with working with people like this.

Spend time figuring out and trying to work with people who trust you, and care for their as well as your growth.

The opposite of life is not death, it is purposelessness.

The feeling of not having something to look forward to, the feeling of not feeling passionate about something, the feeling of trying to look happy but not finding anything worth being happy.

The list goes on and on and on.

Almost everyone goes through this.

So, to beat this, find your passion.

Your passion could be dancing to reels.
Or writing your book.
Or making a beautiful garden for yourself.
Or having a clean room.
Or perhaps having the most stylish yet cost effective interior for yourself.

And devote yourself dedicatedly to it.

Make it bigger than yourself.
Make it the fuel that gives you fire.

And over time, you will discover how it helps you when nothing does.
And trust me, a lot of the times nothing does help, other than your passion.

“Hi Ma’am, I am calling from XXX Insurance company. This is regarding your health insurance plan. I see you are unable to activate plan for your father.”

Wait, what?
I have been paying monthly instalments smoothly.
Did not receive any notifications that my father’s plan didn’t exist!

The floor slipped off my feet – bro, I want my parents to be insured at any cost.

Turns out, they had made a mistake.

I told them the last time I paid a premium, and that I even got an email from the provider.

“Yes, yes, your policy is there. Don’t worry.”

“Bro, you said my father’s policy doesn’t exist. Please double-check.”

“Don’t worry, don’t worry, I was just checking. Yes, it is there.”

It turns out, once they realised it was a mistake, they tried turning it into something they were concerned about, instead of accepting their mistake.

But accepting your mistake doesn’t make you any less of a human. If anything, it makes the other person know you care.

Say sorry when you make a mistake. Nothing gets simpler.

They will not understand you.

They will blame you.

They will not listen to you.

They will not try to have a two way conversation.

They will call your need for conversation “anger”.

They will answer in one word for something you want a deep conversation on.

They will switch things to “you don’t understand” but will never explain, even if you ask them to explain.

They will say things have changed, while doing the same things over and over again.

They will show you in a thousand ways that you don’t matter, but will say you do. And mess with your mind.

They think they are the victim in the relationship because you held your ground.

And you know, by all means it is okay to get out of that relationship.

But, please bless them in your heart. And do it again. And again. And once again.

Because what they did to you hurt. Don’t do it to anyone.

I am not saying still be in that physical or verbal space with them. Maybe you would move on. But as you think of them, and you would, bless them. It will free you, before it frees them.

And yes, you don’t need to be in touch. As a matter of fact, you shouldn’t be in touch, if it hurts you. But never stop blessing.

Because no one knows it better than you, on how it feels on being blamed.

Whether you buy something on Black Friday or not, that’s your choice.

But if you get to a place of selling stuff on Black Friday, make sure it is not a bad deal for people who paid you on non Black Friday days.

Ethics supercede everything.

Often reminds me of the quote from Martin Luther King Jr:

Power without love is reckless and abusive.
Love without power is sentimental and anaemic. 

Lose either of them, and you lose.

A reminder for us, for the rest of our lives. For dealing with the rest of the people we meet for the rest of our lives.

I was productive.
Doing great work.
Taking lesser time to do more work.

And then something happened…

I got on a phone call.

And then, I wasted two hours. Just doing random stuff. Watching a podcast. Alt+Tab. Etc.

It turns out, phone calls are a distraction. I try to put them together on one day of the week. And today I slipped.

So my friend, if you are having a difficulty focusing, maybe the detour to focus is in your hand. Keep it away.

What else do you have, other than your time?

PS: When you are mindful about the use of your time, you enjoy wasting it as well, instead of feeling guilty.

There are two steps:

1. Get to know the market rates
2. Get to do the hard work of differentiating yourself, like Seth tells us here.

Notice I wrote two steps and not two ways.

Because when you are starting out, the only way to go to the top is begin where everyone else is – by understanding the market rate.

That is not a problem. Everyone begins at zero before they get to become their very own hero.

The problem is you trying to “quote your dream figure on your vision board” or not researching at all.

I am a huge believer of getting what you want and going beyond the norm. However, when you are starting out, you gotta do the work to get the number you deserve, and nothing else.

To go to the top, start at the bottom. But just start, my friend.

“Have people taken advantage of your goodness?” the journalist asked Pankaj Tripathi.

His response:

“If someone took advantage of my goodness and I remembered it, is my goodness even worth it?”

Something for all of us to consider.