Tag: awareness

Manager

Making of a Manager 8.0

Just completed a trip with my team.

Few life lessons learnt:

  1. If being a friend interferes with your ability to become a leader, helps to be the leader first.
  2. Talk about others in your mind just like you talk to them about them.
  3. Learn to value loneliness.
  4. Before loving others, have you tried to love yourself?
  5. Only broken people break people.

Also, a note to 2-3 of my teammates whom I know I wasn’t 100% present with:

I’m sorry. I can do better. I love you, no matter how much or how little we spoke during this offsite.
Also, you are an amazing kid. Let no one else make you believe otherwise.

Thoughts

Life lessons at Rishikesh – 2.0

I tried high rope walking in the morning. Was veryyyy scared. Gave up. I wasn’t even ready to jump off the harness when I decided to give up. Was pushed.

Tried climbing the wall in the evening. Failed again.

But didn’t have even an iota of regret. It’s better to try and fail than to not try at all, I suppose.

Other than that, I really need to work on my looks. Looking way more untidy or it is lack of confidence due to so-called friends not being around.

So much of a normal day. Yet so much to learn.

Life is epic. With life lessons coming in.

Family

A random moment of joy

Yesterday I was feeling typically heavy after my therapy session, which ended at 4 pm.

I went out of my room, and sat in the balcony with my Mom and 3 year old nephew.

We were talking random stuff. And having fun, because – kid 🙂

And then, he randomly went to the kitchen, brought a plate and a spoon, and started banging them against each other.

Nishu Masi, dance!

Somehow, I got up and started dancing. And doing the cartwheel. He stopped banging. I stopped dancing. He started banging. I started dancing.

Lasted for 5 minutes. But something I will remember forever.

No lesson to derive from. All good. Just life. And moments worth remembering.

Life

This is our biggest problem

Our biggest problem is believing someone else is responsible for our problems.

If we realise this is our biggest problem, all of a sudden, we gain power over our problems.

Isn’t that magical?

Knowing Yourself

What I have been learning about being good…

If you take your goodness constructively, it will do miracles for you.

Because goodness, in my definition, is responsibility.

If you are good, it is your responsibility to treat the wrong person right.
If you are good, it is your responsibility to receive the wrong given to you in the right manner.

Most people (at work, outside of work) realise that only a few people can be this responsible. Thus, it is the responsible people that get most learnings. For those who do not care to be responsible to perceive things right, they are just doing the job.

Responsible ones, take the responsibility. They don’t like it the most, but they would never want it the other way. And that’s the most beautiful thing about being good.

Happiness

Do you have someone unhappy around you?

Think of an unhappy person around you.

Most probably, they would have a constant reason for unhappiness in their life – a job, a relationship, anything they hate.

Then, go back to the time when that relationship / job didn’t exist. Before that, there was something else that kept them unhappy.

It turns out, being unhappy is never dependent on life situations. It is always a factor of how you deal with life situations.

I have seen happy people boldly get out of jobs they didn’t like. Meanwhile, they still made sure to be happy at it.
I have seen happy people be happy despite the pay cuts during the pandemic. Because they chose to be happy.
Also, I have seen unhappy people get more dissatisfied by the day, despite all they needed was there and was getting bigger.

The more we realise happiness is a choice, the more will we be able to make the choice of being happy.

Life

Uncommon life truths

  1. Bad things on the outside make you more productive.
  2. Being alone is such a superpower.
  3. Walking heals. Every single time.
Manager

Making of a Manager 5.0

About hiring:

  1. Don’t make a decision while getting drifted by emotions
  2. Send a regret email + feedback
  3. Care, but understand that you cannot hire everyone
  4. Sometimes wishing for the best for your team means saying a lot of no.

About trust:

  1. Take a lot of time to trust anyone who has broken your trust before.
  2. Tell this to them
  3. Even when you trust again, verify.

About negativity:

  1. Even if someone in the team is performing negatively, talking to others would NEVER solve it.
  2. If you can’t resist, write it down. But NEVER talk to anyone about it.
  3. What you think radiates before what you talk.

Knowing Yourself

Water water everywhere!

We hardly thank water for its role in construction, however, without it, the building would just collapse.
Be like water, my friend.

We hardly put water in the list of ingredients of any dish, however, I’m yet to see a dish that doesn’t involve water.
Be like water, my friend.

We set big menus to serve to our guests in parties, however, they would complain for centuries if they were not served adequate water.
Be like water, my friend.

Water brings everything together, yet makes itself feel redundant.
Because it knows its value, it does not crave for others to know it.

Be like water, my friend.

Uncategorized

I wish I had the superpower of memory loss!!?

Just for one minute, just for one minute I popped out of my room and saw Maa watching Anupama, where someone is telling her, I wish everyone had this blessing of memory loss.

Maa be like: I agree!

Damn!

Okay, you want to forget?

Forget.

As simple as this. You remember because you remember, nothing else.

I remember my first relationship – I was so sooo deep into the memories of it years after it got over, that I remembered the chats of our conversations for years. Years! And this is after I deleting all of those, with NO back-up at all.

At a certain point, I remember it happened in early 2019, I forgot everything. EVERYTHING.

As a matter of fact, very recently I was reading my book which I wrote early in 2019 and was going through a snippet of chat, and I was like, “Dude, I didn’t know I remembered all of this!”

Forgetting is not a super power. It’s a choice.

Life

Three truths of life

1. You always somehow know what is going to happen next.

2. Keeping yourself busy is the ultimate anecdote to keeping yourself free.

3. Procreate is a cool place 😊

People

The saint and the prostitute

There was once a saint who lived up there, in the mountains. To meditate. And think positive thoughts.

In the hut, just opposite to his, used to live a prostitute. Every day, she used to look at the saint and be inspired – as to this is how I should be living my life – filled with positivity, and thinking of God.

Meanwhile, the saint used to look at the prostitute’s house, and think about how she is ruining her life, how her life is terrible, and how he would never want a life like that.

Several years later, they both died.

Up in the clouds, it was decided that the prostitute will go to heaven and the saint will go to hell.

“Why, I was meditating whole day?” rebelled the saint.

Here’s what the administrators up there told them:

It is not what you do, it is what you are thinking about whole day, that makes the difference. While you were busy mocking the prostitute in your mind, she was busy idealising a meditative lifestyle.

It turns out, our thoughts actually run or ruin the world.

Thoughts

Lessons from the lit train journey

Travelling in a train right now.

Started late afternoon. Will reach at night.

Thought something incredible:

During the day, when we peep out the glass window, we see nature.

As it gets dark, and we peep out, all that we see is our own reflection. Nothing external.

Darkness reveals ourselves to us. The pain, powerlessness and peeping for peace – show us who we really are.

No matter how much we wait for the morning to come, if we ignore the dark, we create another version of our dark in the light as well.

Uncategorized

What happens after your time comes?

I read a post of a very successful business owner.
Started his business from scratch – 4 years back.
Quit his handsome day job.
To pursue his passion.

During those days, as he mentioned, his father was asked by a friend about his son. When the father told of him quitting the job, the friend mocked him.

The business owner, who is quite successful these days, went on to add about son of father’s friend, who is now looking for a job due to being laid off during the second wave.

The guy went on to remark about times changing over time 🙂

While time does change, if it also changes you from a humble human to a mocking man, the better things that time brought with itself are of little use.

The real richness is in staying humble. That is when you are able to enjoy the flavours of money.

Money without modesty is a misery.

Life

45 KM per hour

I drove 70KMs yesterday.
All the way to Manesar to my place.
Took 1.5 hours – typically less time, but it was good because the roads were empty, because of Sunday.

If we calculate the average speed, it is 45 KM per hour, as per this.
However, did I drive at that speed?

Not at all.

Rather, for most part of the journey, it was 80-100 KM per hour, due to national highway being empty.

It was rather the slow movement at some traffic signals, that brought down the overall speed.

We all know this. We’ve all experienced this. We are at a place of accepting this.

However, this is what makes life go average:
Small useless insignificant things done small number of times, come down to reduce the overall average of your phenomenal epic performance.

Our days, certainly, aren’t any different from those drives.
The question that might help us, is: Are we setting ourselves up for the 100KM per hour drive, or the 20 KM per hour, that brings the huge average down?

Knowing Yourself

The problem is the problem

Three things that I do not understand:
1. People fall in love at X speed.
2. They fall out of love at 2X speed.
3. They have mental health issues at 3X speed.

Reasons:
– Parents not paying enough attention
– FOMO, because everyone on social media seems sorted
– We think we need someone else to complete us.

How to get out of this loop:
a. Get validation through who you are and what you do
b. Get validation through good books, videos and podcasts. They are super super super underrated.
c. Spend time alone. Daily. Outdoors. At least 30 minutes. If that could be a nature walk, nothing like it!

Manager

Making of a manger 3.0

Life lessons from being a manager:

1. You can be kind and assertive. You must be.

2. Raising your words and calming down your words is the balance you have to know.

3. Trust people, but push them to be better.

4. You don’t need to be on email and WhatsApp all the time.

5. You cannot be friends with your colleagues. You can either be friends or get strict work done. Can’t do both.

Art and Creativity

Conversation with an artist

Yesterday I had a conversation with a colleague of mine, who happens to be the video editor.

Of the kind and cute fellow he is, one line stayed with me:

“The only thing I don’t like is bad quality videos.”

Wow!!! That is an artist.
He is willing to learn.
Super happy to have 1000 feedbacks.
Rather DMs me often to share feedbacks.
And, LOVESSSSS his work – and that is visible from his art.

It is such an absolute pleasure to go through his videos.

Life is great when you are surrounded by artists.
Life is wonderful when you choose to be an artist.
Life gets gratefully incredible when you love your art. There is no one who can take it away from you. Unlike people who come and go, the art is a part of our existence.

In the process of making that art come alive, we come alive.
Isn’t that incredible?

Knowing Yourself

How slim is too slim?


A few days back, a relative called up on my birthday.
After exchanging pleasantries, they said, “I have heard that you have gotten very slim.”

“Yes, you have heard the truth,” I laughed that off.

“No, but very, very slim I mean,” they shot back.

I used my fun tone again, and asked, “But you would be still commenting on my looks even if I gained a lot of weight!”

“O, even that’s the truth!”

The truth is, no matter what you do, someone will figure a way to raise a question.
If you are kind, someone will ask you to be stern.
If you are stern, someone would want you to calm down.

If you are formal, someone would want you to be more casual.
If you include casual conversations, someone would want you to stick to the point in official meetings.

There are always going to be people raising a question on you.

The question is:
What is YOUR truth?
What do you want to do?

How much weight you want to gain/lose?
How do you want to set up your relationships?
Do you value kindness more than anything else?

And when you know what YOU want, here’s a repetition for the nth time:
It DOES NOT matter what others say.

Some good friends figure out a way to chill.
Most others figure out a way to negatively thrill.
Focus on the former, and life will never be still 🙂

PS: I don’t talk to my relatives per se, but this time I had to, because of my birthday :)))

Success

How my writing journey began

When I was in Class 6, I wrote my first poetry.

In Class 9, I asked my English teacher: “What shall I do in order for you to give me more than 7 out of 10 marks, in the Writing section?”

In Class 10 and 12, I was the national topper in English language.

In University exams, I got 63 out of 70 in English and Commercial Communication – the only exam I did not study ANYTHING! (Don’t know who the topper was :D)

In the 3 months vacation after giving CA exams, I ended up writing my first book!

In 5 years after writing that first book, I was finally able to let go of a stable career as an Internal Auditor and plunge into writing full-time.

What we see that happens suddenly, has years of unseen practice that goes into it.

But here is what I know for sure:

1. Your heart knows it, before you know it.
2. Your life is always showing you signs, it is just you – who has to stop and listen.
3. Your journey is always going to be different from someone who “made it before you.” But still, your journey is yours. And you won’t want it different.