Do you feel intimidated by more successful people?
It’s good to, as long as that is where you want to be.
It’s not good, if you’re taking that from relatives who don’t know where they are going.
Choices we get to make.
Tag: Success
Back in my school days, rather for the entire time of my formal education, I was a top scoring student.
Off late, when exams were dismissed by education boards in India, it still came as a pleasant respite to me.
Someone in my family, who passed their exams 20+ years back, wasn’t though.
When I told them I was quite happy with it, they were rather upset.
“How could YOU be happy?”
“What would happen to students like you, whose life depended on school marks?”
“Won’t it be unfair for students like you?”
Though I could sense they were not in a position to understand, it made me think:
- How many of real world skills are dependent on the numbers you got?
- Yes, your marks gave you a kick-start at the beginning of your career, however, did they decide your entire future? Never.
- We all have countless examples of back-benchers who went out to do amazing things in life, then why do we still place so much importance on formal education?
Of course, formal education is important. However the pressure we put on it to take us to the other end is unbelievable.
What really matters beyond formal education, is:
- Real world education: To observe. Reflect. Let your life be the teacher.
- Entrepreneurship: It doesn’t just mean starting up. It also means having the mindset of getting things done with trust for them.
- Letting go: So so important. The basis of life is letting go, after being and doing your best. Everything that you see with your eyes, is going to vanish. What will stay, is how you actually lived in between your two ears, during this time.
Closing statement: Formal education isn’t dead yet. However, the authority it had to dominate our lives never existed. You get to decide how your life will be, not your formal education.
Today I was supposed to meet some deadlines.
Then my niece came over, and she came specially to play with me.
So I had two choices – to scold her to come uninformed, or to play with her.
I did the latter.
Because you know what?
I have always stood by doing great work. So now I had a great bandwidth to delay.
It’s all about finding that balance. Do epic work to such a large extent, that when you don’t, it doesn’t make any difference:
Part I: Giving Help
If you want to help someone else, make sure you’ve helped yourself.
If you think you are still doing them a favour, you are not.
People love to know they’re loved, only if they could feel you loving yourself.
Part II: Asking for Help
If you are asking for someone else’s help out of their obligation to do it for you and out of their inability to not do it willingly, probably you need to rethink your choices.
Conclusion:
The only way to have everything aligned on the outside is to align yourself from within. Nothing changes before that.
The thing that you are looking for, is superficial.
You will not get it because it depends on someone else seeing it in you.
You will get it because being honest deep within, is a rare trait to be acknowledged. Let that trait shine on, even when there is acknowledgment coming from someone else to someone else. Being authentic is rare, live up to that.
Meditation is not just to “feel good”.
When we practice a dedicated practice of meditation, we hardly face issues managing our time and focus.
It’s not just for monks in the Himalayas. Fully effective for corporate ninjas like you and I.
Here’s the best thing meditation has done for me:
The ability to complete a two-hour task in 20-30 minutes. As exaggerating as it may sound, if you have practiced meditation consistently, you know this is as true as water.
You need more time, right?
Today I received a LinkedIn DM from an old school mate.
Nothing real, just very small talk to strike a conversation.
And I decided to ignore it.
Not because I had some expectations of him and he had shattered them.
Rather because how long?
How long will we keep basing our dopamine on random DMs from strangers?
How long will we keep wasting our time in pursuits that cumulatively waste days from our years?
How long will we allow someone else to decide when will we be available on social and they steer the conversation?
The best people live on the edge of saying no. That’s where everything happens.
To listen to “yes’s” saying hundreds of “no’s” is the most important thing. Sometimes even in a day.
It is a strange world, of course.
And in this whole process of being open and sharing your thoughts with others, are we really safe and secure there?
Most people today are carrying an emotional load.
And if we choose to share ourselves with them, the advice that is going to come isn’t necessarily going to be useful, rather the opposite.
So how do we be open in the first place?
Simple. Communicate everything to God. I personally write a letter to God every single night before going to bed, and the way he helps is miraculous.
As weird as it may sound, it is the reason that strong people persist and are able to be the lighthouse.
Will you, starting today?
PS: No one will see it, you’ll be happy!
When you look at your work a month ago and laugh at it, you know you’re growing.
Bonus Point: Also, when you look at another piece of work from a month ago and feel proud seeing it, you know you’re creating epic work.
Warren Buffet says that he enjoys his work so much that he would tap dance to work, and paint on the ceiling of Sistine Chapel.
Life is supposed to be like this.
At a point of time in my life, my life didn’t look like this. I hated my days.
Yet I continued investing in my learning.
And what came out of it, is totally novel.
Life feels blissful. Even if I work more, it is the best version of my life so far. Still to get better each day.
The thing that saved me, that will probably save you as well, is: investing in my learning each day. No matter what.
Everything else is just a byproduct.
Is it okay to take yourself seriously?
Or should you be happy and easy-going?
The answer is: you should take yourself seriously and be easy going in the process.
Take your mindset seriously, and be easy going towards the first time mistakes (second timers are the ones you didn’t learn from).
Take your efforts seriously, and easy going towards someone else’s.
You always know when is it the time to be disciplined and when to chill. You just need to decide – which will come from practising serious discipline as well as easy going discipline.
It is hard.
The easiest thing is to sit on the couch and eat French fries. Or play Candy Crush.
Waking up in the morning and working out relentlessly didn’t come easy to Jordan as well.
It is going to take a lot out of you to get there. Yet if you don’t make the efforts to get there you will get to a place it would be very difficult to get back from.
Working requires hard work.
Doing nothing requires hardest work to deal with yourself.
You get to decide.
The most important person in a relationship is You.
We build trust by doing what we do for them when they are not around. That builds respect.
Respect is what we do for them when what they do is not what we want to do, yet we do it because we love and respect them.
Read the above line twice. It is important because this is why most relationships falter.
One of the best learnings that covid brought to us is not to put all your eggs in one basket.
Warren Buffet has been saying it for years.
Not only for finances, also for our emotions and sources of income.
More than anything else, we have learnt never to depend on external validation (malls, restaurants, movies,etc.) for making us feel.
Will they support you is not the right question.
The right question is, will you support yourself?
Strictness does not mean rudeness.
Strictness also does not mean lack of a great bond.
Strictness also does not mean lack of respect.
However when work is to be respected, accountability must arise.
When we let people know the inherent measure of respect, we create a space for them to respect themselves.
Instagram stories shows the world what you are doing.
The only problem being: no one really gets happy on seeing the fact that you are doing great, and they aren’t!
The point then, is to have a life that others would want to draw inspiration and action from, instead of just allowing them to tap tap tap and criticise you and go away.
It’s a difficult process – to go away from what the world likes towards what they really really want.
The only easy process is eating mindlessly. Everything else takes efforts.
Recently I have started going deep into thoughts of Naval Ravikant and Kapil Gupta.
If you don’t know who they are, I won’t tell you bro, google them 🙂
And after reading their material, listening to their words – a strange thing happens!
All of a sudden, I derive zero pleasure in looking at posts on LinkedIn and Instagram.
The mind is drifted to a different plane of thinking, all of a sudden.
A place where it does not want to return from.
A place where the mind feels most nourished.
It’s immaculately strange, and conveniently the most beautiful place to be in.
Honesty I don’t know how to end this because I don’t want to preach you something, however I do want you to nudge to think deeper.
The mind thinks useless thoughts because it is conditioned to think so infinitely.
What if we start feeding our mind such such such powerful thoughts? Most people won’t, because misery loves company. The one or two that would, will change the world forever.
You really want to speak everything bad to that one person.
Except the fact that, that bad won’t change them either. It would just make them worse off.
You want to talk with that one person who does not want to talk with you.
Except the fact that, even if they start talking with you they won’t respect you anyway.
You want to change that one family member whose habits you’re not proud of.
Except the fact that, even if by a miracle of Aladdin’s Ginnie, even if they change – is your happiness always conditional on other people?
You want your team to love you.
Except the fact that, everyone loves only couch potato. For someone who is “doing something” will never be liked by all.
You want to….
Except the fact that, there will always be a “yang” to every “yin”, and vice versa.
Walking on the path of truth, is the only journey you’d be proud of!
Think of a recent WhatsApp group chat.
You were away while that chat was happening, and you read the conversation hours later.
When you’re done reading the chat, how do you feel?
Invariably your emotions are exactly same as those being exchanged in the chat.
The chat is simply written conversation. No one “said” anything to you. Yet now you feel those emotions.
Everything you read is just a thought.
Why not you write thoughts to yourself?
Why not read every single time, what you want to hear?
It’s easy. It’s simple. It’ll take just 15 minutes for you.
Will you? The answer depends on how serious you are for your life.
“What if this fails?” Everyone asks this question.
What is someone shows you it’s possible?
What if someone shows you what all is working?
What if someone tells you that you have done it before, so repeating the impossible is possible?
What if that “someone” is the one in the mirror?
There are going to be a lot of times when the only person standing in your favour is you. And if you are strong from within, you will know it’s possible.
Will you? Stand for yourself? Every single day?