- Bad things on the outside make you more productive.
- Being alone is such a superpower.
- Walking heals. Every single time.
Making of a Manager 5.0
About hiring:
- Don’t make a decision while getting drifted by emotions
- Send a regret email + feedback
- Care, but understand that you cannot hire everyone
- Sometimes wishing for the best for your team means saying a lot of no.
About trust:
- Take a lot of time to trust anyone who has broken your trust before.
- Tell this to them
- Even when you trust again, verify.
About negativity:
- Even if someone in the team is performing negatively, talking to others would NEVER solve it.
- If you can’t resist, write it down. But NEVER talk to anyone about it.
- What you think radiates before what you talk.
What I’ve been loving about life
If I go back to Nishtha of 5 years back, I would be ambitious. having a list of goals, wanting to go to TED, 30 Under 30, and certainly a Maybach.
Right now, I’m enjoying the process.
I’m working super hard.
I love my work.
I take my breaks.
All of this is so fulfilling, that the need for validation just goes away. It just does.
And what is left with, is the feeling of letting go of the need of success.
The success that you feel, when you let go of the need of success, is true success!
My father started working at 6!
Earlier this month my father completed 40 years of his shop.
He’s 67, and had already worked in multiple “jobs”, before “starting on his own”. Here’s a journey of his work, starting from age 6!
1. Worked for FREE in a bakery at the age of 6, used to get crushed powder of toasts as daily “stipend”
2. Worked at two general stores in later summer vacations at school.
He was so much into cleanliness that once the shop owner’s bag of cash fell off from a higher shelf!
Guess what, my father had such a repute of honesty that the shopkeeper never changed its place!
3. Worked at a readymade garments shop as he “grew up” 🙂
4. Worked at a crockery of a relative, created a huge repute and profit for them, however, later the relative had to sell it off due to financial crunch
5. Worked as a typist at the age of 18, at one of the reputed shops in our city
6. Got placed at a factory by his employer, where he almost died by sinking in a pit while riding his cycle back home, and “someone magically appeared from nowhere” and saved him! Yes, he and a friend went to search for cycle the next day and got it 🙂
7. He found refute that day at a nearby factory, which later hired him. That factory was JK Paper Mills. He was even hired by DCM, Waterworks, and all the factories but he was underage!
8. Along with working at JK, he opened his shop on 05 August 1981. Used to work there in the mornings and nights.
9. Quit his job in October 1982, while his kids were 3 and 4 respectively. Talk risk!!
10. When he started, his shop was in a narrow street. His Uncle, in 1983, suggested to buy one of the new shops coming up at the main road. He didn’t have the deposit money. The bakery shop owner, with whom my father used to work “for free”, lent him the advance deposit. Till date, our shop is exactly at the same place.
11. Not to mention, he also used to do “flipping” by getting socks, watches from Delhi and selling them in our home town in Kota. However, he felt he wasn’t playing it ethical by showing a low-quality item as shiny and that was unfair to customers’ money.
Last year, as I was freelancing, I had once suddenly lost a high-ticket client. One morning I was sitting in my room and thinking, I saw my father doing his prayer rituals as usual.
He was as tensionless, as free and as “let life come as it wants to” attitude on his face.
If 40 years of business could keep him tension free, I had no right to get tensed that day.
That day, my father gave me hope.
Today as I asked him this entire story, he gave me the power of resilience.
And every day, he gives me the power of love by getting apples / mangoes for me (instead of bakery stuff that both my parents love :D)
We are not the best of friends, but he accepts me when I’m doing a headstand in the middle of the room, and I accept him when he “turns on auto-download” of WhatsApp forwarded pics, and together, we all are imperfectly perfect!
Just as we should be 🙂
Ironies of life
There is a wonderful client of mine, whose business is making Ayurvedic drinks.
He once graciously sent me a huge pack of Ayurveda drinks, along with two packs of hot chocolate powder and gourmet coffee.
It turns out, everyone in my family loves hot chocolate powder more. Which comes from an Ayurveda drinks manufacturer. Ironies of life.
The other day, I was having that chocolate shake, while my Mom asked, “You’re still working with this client, right?”
I couldn’t stop laughing. Ironies of life – me who was having it once a month, and my Maa who doesn’t have it either – both trying to love the chocolate product of an Ayurveda manufacturer.
PS: Here’s a pic, of that chocolate shake. Enjoy 😊
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?
Random life lessons
Haven’t done a life lessons blog in quite some time, so here you go:
- You cannot enforce love. Not for people, not for work.
- Stay away from having calls during the afternoons. Sleep, baby!
- Stretching is as important as (if not more important than) working out.
- Sirsasana and sarvangasana are lit.
- Ghee khichdi with papad is the ultimate tummy-filler.
- Life becomes joyful when you are grateful.
- It takes years to get to a place of doing it in seconds.
Believe it or not…
Believe it or not, the phone IS responsible for all the problems.
Believe it or not, work from home is causing issues at home and at work.
Believe it or not, we need to be more grateful, not more depressed.
Believe it or not, reading good books does solve all the problems.
Believe it or not, we need to make time for free time daily.
Believe it or not, it will only get better when we make it better.
Believe it or not, meditation, good videos and morning and night affirmations ARE magical.
Believe it or not, but in our hearts, we know that what we spoke above was the truth…
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 :)))
So much injustice?
Think of a team of 20 people.
All are doing their work.
Some are rockstars, some are just getting along.
But you see the management treating everyone at par.
When you are a rockstar, this might irk you.
Someone else who is not performing is also being treated as well.
But…there comes a time, when things get levelled up.
We’ve all experienced this before.
The question is: What are we experiencing even when we are doing our best work? Envy or happiness?