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,
This is leadership. Once, when I was in school, one of my teachers was very angry at our class and she was scolding us. As this was happening, a student's pencil box fell on the floor and everything got scattered. We were all frozen, not sure what to do. After all,
Unentangle. We can't unentangle the mess inside our heads unless we are willing to put them out on paper. When we see the stories, beliefs and the facts that we are carrying, and the actions they lead us to, we can start making the necessary changes. It takes courage
The story of the price. How much does it cost to make? That's what most artists and freelancers ask when they are trying to price their products and services. The only useful insight here is that price should not be less than the cost. But beyond that, they hardly matter. The customer isn&
Two jobs. If you don't have a boss, you have two jobs: the boss and the worker. The worker gets the work done. The boss brings in the work. When do you show up as the boss?
After the ball drops. "I should have already done this." "I don't even know where to start." "There is so much to do." Anxiety shows up in the form of guilt and shame inside our heads. But instead of helping us move things forward, it leads
In trouble. We live most of our lives as if we are in trouble. As we resolve one, another shows up or we end up inventing it. It might be worth taking a moment to breathe and telling ourselves that "you are not in trouble". Yes, there are things to
Asking what's true. There are times when the voice inside our heads becomes critical. It points out to tasks not done yet, projects not completed, ideas not acted upon. But it doesn't stop there. The thoughts spiral and soon get into imaginative territory comparing the current situation with an ideal one.
Driving in the fog. Driving in the fog is tedious. It is a bit unsafe and it requires a lot of focus. Even though you are driving really slow. The tail light of a car ahead of you is the only thing you can hold onto. Driving in the fog is not about getting
Getting what you want. In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. ~ Oscar Wilde Wishing for abundance is something we get good at... whether it's abundance of money, fame, love, success or anything else. But we don't
Better than you. This is where self doubt originates, doesn't it? That there's someone better than you who can do what you are doing. Someone who knows more, would care more, would ship faster... would just do better. You don't know who, but for sure, there is
Always on. A few supposedly normal things we can observe people (including you) doing: Taking a work call from the gym. Having an emotional chat with a friend on WhatsApp while sitting in a work meeting. Browsing random reels on Instagram at 2 am in the night while trying to sleep. All
Enough might not be. Enough seems virtuous - "I don't want more than what I need. I just need enough." But enough keeps us stuck. If what we have is just enough, anything out of the ordinary can put us in the not-enough category. With enough, we always remain on
Someone else's job. You can look at the change you seek in the world and think of it as someone else's job. That would allow you to analyse and criticise and condemn. And, of course, be off the hook. For the change that matters, no one is in charge. It'
Jurassic Park. There have been almost a dozen movies made on the Jurassic theme but none match the first two directed by Steven Spielberg. The technology has evolved leaps and bounds over the decades and so have the budgets. So, why are we not making better movies? Maybe that's the
One thing at a time. How do you get out of a mess? Whether it's an anxiety spiral, a financial turmoil, a health scare, or something else. It's tempting to want to sort everything in one go, in one shot. But that only increases the helplessness. What we can do is
Notes on practicing. An excerpt from The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander & Ben Zander: Ben: I am reminded of a dispiriting moment in a cello lesson with my teacher, Mr. Herbert Withers. He was eighty-three years old, and I was eleven. I had tried to play a passage, but I
Over time. Compounding happens over time. And effective change requires compounding. You make changes (some slight, some not so much) to your eating & workout habits, and over time your health starts improving. Same with your work and your relationships. Working with a therapist or tools like IFS (Richard Schwartz) or Compassionate
Hazy specs. They seem okayish. Not bad. You can see. Not clearly. But you can manage. It might take a minute to clean them, but we can get to it when they get really bad. Hazy specs make everything else hazy. It's a systemic disadvantage. The extra effort on your
Beyond hope... and fear. Hope and fear are two sides of the same coin. One can't exist without the other. When we brush our teeth in the morning, we don't hope for them to be healthy. Nor are we afraid that they would go bad. We just know that if
Not running away. There are days when running away takes courage. And there are days when not running away does. Only you know which one feels like integrity on which day. If you need a sign, your body will tell. On any day, though, integrity does take courage.
