Ready-made solutions. Throughout our lives, we have been given ready-made solutions. Pick one: science, arts, commerce? Pick one: engineering or doctor? Don’t even pick, just do an MBA. Ready-made solutions seem objective and easy to swallow. But they hide the short term pain of dealing with ambiguity and in exchange give
Sustenance and creativity. These are different things. We can’t expect our creativity to sustain us, we need to sustain ourselves for our creativity. Income generation needs to be looked at as an engineering problem needing to be solved. It is very different from the creative process. It’s important to separate the
Resistance is mediocrity. Mediocrity is all around us. In the industry, in education, in politics, in religion, in news. Mediocrity is the lowest common denominator. And mediocrity is like a black hole. Once you give into it, there’s no coming out. It sucks you in. And once you give in, then it
Life is short. Book that flight. Ask that girl out. Write that book. There is never going to be a time like now. Risk is the likelihood of the irreversible negative outcome. Tim Ferriss
From Martyr to Trickster The martyr is a sucker for rules. It uses random excuses to not do the work, to not show up. The trickster is full of tricks. Not only for the world outside but for its own brain. It lightens the mood, it reduces the stakes, it moves forward. The martyr
Mediocrity Why are we so comfortable with being mediocre? With not showing up? With our life not meaning up to anything? That we just come on this planet, survive and then die. Why be a human then? Be a cow, no? — If you liked reading this, consider subscribing. If you are
Prostitution The society does not look well on the women (and men) who sell (or rather, rent) their bodies to someone else for money. But what about the soul? What about your work? What about your life? Why is it okay to rent your soul in exchange for money? To not
Featured A hundred no(s). No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
What exactly is a career? Can there be life without a career? Action is inevitable. Career is about what action we take. What is our karma? Our action? The work? Money is just one of the factors of our work. It’s what allows us to continue with the work. It’s not the purpose
Money mindset. People don’t pay us because we need money. They pay us because we are offering something they want more than the money. The key to solving your money problem is to ask ’Who it’s for?’ and ’Whats’s it for’. The more you help people get what they
Getting through the dip. The dip will inevitably hit when you start showing up. And when it hits, it seems that the entire world is stacked against you. The only alternative that makes sense while going through the dip is to give up, is to stop showing up. But if we keep showing up,
What’s the framework for Career Design? The creator is at the centre of it all. And it has to be about the individuality of the creator. The individuality includes her dreams, desires, aspirations, fears. It is about reaching the foundational dreams. What is natural to the creator? What is at the centre? Each person has a
Make things happen. When you do the work, when you initiate, when you instigate. When you serve your audience. When you create tension. You make things happen. Be the one who makes things happen. — If you liked reading this, consider subscribing. If you are already a subscriber, do share with your friends.
Miss what’s happening Twitter tagline says, ‘Don’t miss what’s happening’. Unless you miss what’s happening, you won’t be making things happen. Let the breaking news break. Let the trends vanish into thin air. What will remain is what will matter. Your work and you. The amateur tweets. The pro
Permission & marketing. Marketing with permission. Do you want to get this? Do you want to learn more? Can we ask questions instead of shouting the answers? Questions is how communication happens. Questions is how relationships are built. The thing with a question is that it creates tension. The tension of giving an
Action vs. thought. Action is light and fun. Thought is heavy and burdensome. Most of our misery in life comes from thought, from trying to resolve complexities within our mind. Our mind is not a very good tool for that. Instead, once we get out of our mind and focus on getting things
Get something 'done'. The key is not to simply do but to get it done. What does done look like? What is the final step that makes the thing done? When we are struggling with Resistance and procrastination, getting one thing done leads to getting the next thing done and so on. — If
I didn’t know I could do that! The beauty of showing up and shipping is that we are surprised by ourselves. When we simply sit down and do the work, we are surprised by what we create. It take emotional labour to ignore the voice inside our head and to keep doing the work. That labour involves
Being stupid. The world is smart. Every one is. And every one is so smart that they think that only they are smart. But being smart can be stupid. Because we get nothing done when we act smart. We ship nothing when we act smart. It’s better to be stupid and
Make it easier. When we shift from the martyr energy to the trickster energy, we find easy and cool ways to get the tough things done. We stop making things precious. We focus more on doing and less on thinking. From playing deep focus music to getting a buddy sit with you while
Slippery slope Listening to Resistance is a slippery slope. Unless we mindfully put constraints in place, we can keep rolling downhill. Very soon, it all starts seeming normal and it takes tremendous effort to restart the uphill journey back to creativity. It’s important to be wary of the voice of resistance
Using Resistance as compass. What’s the one task you are avoiding? When we are busy, it’s mostly because we are avoiding the one task that needs to be done. Everything else looks attractive, tempting and sensible. Resistance puts all its efforts to make you avoid that one task. It takes tremendous effort
Taking a day off. It’s good to take a day off. But it’s not good to do nothing on that day. What is the minimum you can do so that you don’t have to start from zero? Are you too busy to do one push up? Are you too busy to
Strategy and tactics. McDonalds is fast, inexpensive and is based on local franchise. Everything McDonalds done is in line with the strategy. Opening a fine dining restaurant won’t work for McDonalds. When we don’t have a strategy, we are all over the place. We don’t have a basis to take
Do it now. Yes, you can do it later. But will you? What will change later? How will later make things better? And what will it cost you to carry this thing around in your head? It’s better to do it now and move forward than putting it off for later and
