Billboards. Billboards don't cost you much, do they? You are driving, and they are just there. You can drive right past them. Each one, though, costs you some attention, maybe a tiny bit. It might also bring up some emotions and desires. That's what it is designed
Good, bad and ugly. If I only write when I know a blog will be good, I won't write anything. Bad allows me to write. And good slips in some of the time. And just like good, sometimes ugly may slip in. The fear of ugly stops us from creating something good.
What's next? At any point, there are only one to three things that would move your life or career forward. In most cases, there's only one next thing. But also, at any point, we are working on several other things - most of them distracting us from the ones that
What do you think? "What do you think?" is not a helpful question. It doesn't tell the person what you need. Are you looking for strategic insights, critical analysis, grammatical errors or something else? Seeking better feedback requires asking better questions. Some examples: * Can you share how this makes you
The Prisoner of Azkaban. In the third Harry Potter book, no one was surprised by magic the way they were in book one. It had become the background, the norm. The story weaved forward now with this reality. It doesn't take long for magic to become normal. The question that matters is
Too something. "If I do this, people will think that I am too (something)." The something could be loud, selfish, greedy, ambitious, boring, or any other negative quality that the mind may conjure. And as this thought comes up, we shrink ourselves, we rationalise, we stop being our Self. Over
When & where? We should definitely do this sometime. Sure! When and where? "When & where" transforms a vague idea into a project - something that's likely to happen. The how then takes care of itself. The constraints of when & where help give it shape. Adding a who
Anxiety-zero Inbox-zero is something most of us have heard of and aspire to. Few are able to reach there consistently. But what is anxiety-zero? Is it even possible to get there? And to stay there? Martha Beck teaches us some tools that can help us do that in her book Beyond
The decision before. There's a hierarchy of decisions at play when we are in the middle of any game, including the games that matter - our work, our relationships, our health. You might think the current decision determines where you go. But it's the decision before that led to
Strategy games. You collect gems at every turn. From those gems, you start building assets. You start with the smaller assets, and then they help you get the bigger ones. Most freelancers end up focusing only on collecting gems at every turn. The successful ones build assets. The 3 assets most relevant
Doing the work alone. Freelancers, creatives and artists get used to doing their work alone. Not just the work that they love, but also the work of getting the work. We do not need to do it alone. But it takes effort to find the others. Those who would listen and ask generous questions,
At peace. You are your most effective self when you are at peace. You are your most intelligent self when you are at peace. You are your most social self when you are at peace. You are your most audacious self when you are at peace. Anxiety will convince you that you
Listen, for a change. The body keeps sending us messages, in the only ways it can. When it is low on energy, the messages are tiredness, fatigue, pain, and brain fog. We have all experienced these, but we have also gotten used to ignoring them... one more reel, one more episode, one more task.
Saying no. The social self is not comfortable in saying no. It will persuade us with rationalisations to say yes even when all our self wants to say no. The most often used rationalisation is "what harm will this do?" Saying no is a skill. And it's one
What do you buy? You think you buy a soap, or a phone or a car. You think you buy the features or the benefits. But all we are buying every time is a story. Sometimes the story is boring, so we don't tell anyone, and it dies. And sometimes the story
There's no time. Our mind is not designed to process time. When it sees trouble, it wants to find a solution instantly. After all, if we take too much time, the lion will eat us. So, we don't give ourselves breathing space. Everything feels urgent, and so everything becomes urgent. If
Surgical. Years ago, my favourite commentator Harsha Bhogle said this during an India Pakistan test match: "There's a surgeon at one end and a butcher at the other." Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni were batting together. We can treat resistance like a butcher. Declare war on it.
Tightening the screws. We all end up doing things that we don't want to do. Whether it's bingeing - food, streaming, substances, whatever, or texting someone we shouldn't text, or just doing something that ruins whatever we planned earlier. We might call this self-sabotage. We feel a
What if... When we set out to do something creative, there are many whatifs that show up inside our head... * What if I try this thing and it doesn't work out? * What if I invite people and no one shows up? * What if I call my friend and she'
Something wrong. "There's something wrong with me." How does this thought make you feel? Do you feel resistance or do you agree? Does it feel true? What if you tried something else? Something like: "There's something right with me." How does that feel? How
The leather seats. When you buy a car, the sales guy will try to sell you a lot of add-ons: the leather seats, the wooden interior and whatnot. The thing is, if you don't buy any of them, you still get a car. What makes a car, a car? What can
Without anxiety. Anxiety can convince us that we need to be with it all the time. Whatever we are anxious about - whether it is work, relationships or health - or something someone said to us, or our favourite sport team losing - or just anything that comes to our attention -
Foggy roads. Foggy roads are different from bumpy roads. Bumpy roads have visibility. Even though the ride is challenging, you can still see where you are going. Where the next turn is coming. Foggy roads need us to trust ourselves and slowly move forward. Find a taillight and follow it. Trust that
Bumpy roads. Driving on highways is quite straightforward. You know where you are going. You can guess when you'll get there. You have made this trip many times, along with thousands of others. We expect our creative work to feel like driving on a highway - smooth, fast and predictable.
Yellow, red... and green. When you wake up, which is the thought you wake up with? "I am in trouble. I need to do something about it." OR "I am not in trouble." Our culture forces us to start our day and live most of it with the first thought,
