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 was
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.
Status games. Status games can only be played with other people, even though they might exist just in your head. These games are about comparison, about finding your position relative to the others. Status games take us away from our core, our values, and our yearning to bring the change we seek
Please adjust. When I was growing up, it was usual for people to ask you to adjust so that four could sit in a seat meant for three. It doesn't stop there, of course. You learn to adjust to your sibling's old clothes that don't fit
"But, I already..." "I want to do this thing. It makes the most sense for me. But I already..." This is what sunk costs sound like. Sunk costs aren't free. They cost something. It's in the name after all. The question is: Are you willing to pay
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 matter.
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 to
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
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 this
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.
