The generosity of No.

It's obviously hard to get a no. That's what stops us most of the time. But it's even harder to say it. It takes emotional labour and massive generosity to do this. Sometimes, the door you are knocking on is not the right one,

Hidden wisdom.

Suffering is the body's mechanism to guide you towards something you need to do. Hunger is a suffering mechanism. When the body needs food, you feel restless. Until you eat something nourishing. So are thirst, tiredness, and fatigue. The central nervous system is significantly more intelligent than the

Low battery.

What do you do when your phone tells you it's running out of battery? One, you put it in the low power mode. The phone itself starts using battery judiciously until it's put on charge. And two, more importantly, you are conscious of how you use

Too many pivots.

Pivots are good at the beginning of a project. This is when they are cheaper compared to later. When an architect is designing a building, a pivot is just erasing a line and drawing it again. Seth calls this the thrashing phase of a project. Most of us though skip

Ignoring the compass.

When you are navigating through maps, as long as you follow the path, nothing much happens. But when you miss a turn or take a wrong one, the voice keeps nagging you to get back on track. This is how the body compass works, too. When you move towards things

BAE.

I wasn't aware of this, but it's trendy to call your loved one BAE, which stands for "before anyone else". Things that don't stop surprising me. But what about your other BAE? The thing you'd do before anything else. The

Deciding...

The decision-making process isn't passive. You sit down. You write down what's in front of you. You see the possibilities and the probabilities. And you decide. That's it. What elongates the process indefinitely is fear, is wanting to not choose, is wanting to stay

Stupid questions.

If you don't ask them, you assume things and stay stupid. When in doubt, ask.

Delaying happiness.

"Do your homework first. Then you can go out to play." What if we did the opposite? What if we choose to play first? What if we choose not to delay happiness? The sad truth is that we learn to delay happiness so much that we forget what

Who am I to?

This one question stops us in our tracks. We hide, shy away, vanish into thin air. We mellow down our desires. We trim our feedback. We shrink ourselves down. But who does that help? How does that make things better? How does that bring a smile to anyone's

Avoiding ownership.

That's where we get stuck. Whether it is our career, our relationships or our life, ownership is always there for the taking. And once we take it, we are in charge. And that's scary. As Uncle Ben said, "With great power comes great responsibility"

Zoomed out.

Google Maps shows you the complete path from here to there when you ask for directions. It's helpful. It tells you the overall lay of the land and by when you would reach. But you can't drive in that view. Driving requires the next action view.

What's changing this time?

If you keep doing what you have been doing, why do you expect the results to be different? What's changing this time? Not that you'd work harder, or better, or be more disciplined. But how's this a new experiment? Scientists do this all the

The perfect idea.

That's what you might be waiting for. The idea that will just work. That will not get rejected. That won't need any change. The one that all the devil's advocates would nod to. The perfect idea might be perfect, but it's an

Changing the culture.

It's tempting to want to do that. Changing the way everyone behaves. And sometimes the change is worth fighting for. Though it might require persistence over years to make it happen. If it feels right, that might be the path for you. The other choice, though, is choosing

Setbacks.

Setbacks rarely happen when you are sitting at home and waiting. It's only when you make an assertion and move forward that they show up. A setback is a sign that you are on the right track. The best response to a setback is to step forward.

Play to win.

No one plays to lose. We play to win. But play to win puts the focus on the win, away from the play. Play to play allows us to lose on the way to becoming better. Over time, play to play always wins.

Seeing the water.

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over

Off mode.

On mode is effective only when you have an off mode. Sleeping well makes the body more effective. A vacation makes our work more effective. Resting makes workouts more effective. We are living more and more in an always on world. And that's making us less and less

What would they think?

"What would they think?" - The actions and decisions of the social self are mostly based on this one question. They could be one person or many. The essential self rarely asks this. It asks "What feels right to me?" and then calmly moves in that

On sale.

The sale in the garment stores seems to be about you getting a discount or the store moving the inventory. But it's more about putting on a show. The sale is for these two weeks. You either buy and take advantage or you miss out. Things that are

Choices.

There is your current life. And there is your ideal life. Between the two lie choices. Most people keep choosing what they have been choosing. And they keep getting what they have been getting. It's challenging to choose differently. To break the patterns. But one choice can lead

Google Maps.

One view is the bird's eye view. Showing the way to where you seek to go. And the other is the ant's eye view. Showing what's next. If the ant keeps moving in the right direction, sooner or later, we reach our destination. Is

Something new.

I started going to the gym two years ago. At the time, my health was a total mess - weight, blood markers, everything. The first day in the gym, I was completely lost. I didn't know what to do. I felt like everyone was looking at me. I

What do you do?

"What do you do?" implies "Who are you?" and means "How do you earn money?" This entangles our identity with the way we earn money. This limits us in two ways. We lose our agency in choosing the most effective way to earn money.