Author: J

Hey everyone, Minnie here—the cat who went from ruling the streets of Surat to lounging on silk pillows. But hold your horses—this giggle-fest isn’t just about my fabulous self. It’s also about Jitesh, my human, a Bollywood hero who’s lost in a big, foggy city—full of feelings but unsure where to go because of his worries and anxiety.

Let’s rewind to the blockbuster moment when our lives crashed. Picture me, the Queen of the Street, doing my daily food critic rounds (you know, which dustbin served the best leftovers), and in comes Jitesh. He looked at me, and instead of seeing a furry menace, he saw a furry opportunity. With just a plate of food and a heart bigger than his head, he turned from a stranger to my personal butler.

Life with Jitesh has been like a non-stop comedy show. Every time I purr, he lights up like a Diwali lamp, and every game of catch-the-invisible-mouse makes him laugh like he’s watching his favorite sitcom. Who knew I had the power to turn a house into a laughter club?

Seeing Jitesh go from Mr. Anxiety to Mr. Cat Dad Extraordinaire has been the highlight reel of my nine lives. The once quiet home now feels like it’s always Diwali, minus the crackers, because, hello, sensitive cat ears here.

Our duo has proved one thing: saving a four-legged street philosopher can make you the star of your own feel-good movie. It’s like I was the secret sauce to Jitesh finding his mojo.

So, as I sit here dictating my memoirs from my throne (aka the sunny spot on the lounge sofa), let me share a kitty nugget of wisdom with you: life will definitely surprise you with some wild twists and turns – and hey, some of these surprises might be fluffy, love tipping over your water glasses just for fun. But if you’re open to these unexpected moments, you could be on an incredible journey.

Freedom with accountability is a core value that we uphold at August Infotech. We have mapped core values at August Infotech precisely what we are as a human beings and not what we aspire to be. It is easy to see August Infotech’s core values at work because that’s what we are as humans.

Freedom with accountability as a core value means everyone in our organization can make decisions and act in their work. Still, they are also held accountable for the outcomes of those decisions and actions. This value is essential because it allows for creativity and innovation while maintaining responsibility and discipline.

I am sharing my today’s learning.

• Zooming out helps see the picture with a better perspective.
• In a challenging situation, pick up the phone and talk. Or go and see the person (even better). Avoid emailing or texting.
• Have a rock-solid repo in your network.
• Detach yourself from all the emotions before making any decision.
• Think of the second and third levels of consequences when making a decision.
• Stay focused. Stay consistent.
• Let people work.

Happy Weekend.

Below are my today’s thoughts based on the experiences I had today. It never seizes to wonder how incredibly every day provides an opportunity to learn.

On this day of Guru Purnima, I feel the most prominent Guru is life itself.

• When it rains, it pours. Please fill up the tank and all the pots when it’s pouring.
• Life gives us a choice every moment. What we choose today decides our future.
• We can connect the dots only after things have happened; if we learn to connect the dots when things are happening, we can make a much better decision.
• Leaders look for possibilities, and managers look for numbers. Acting according to your role is critical.

Happy Guru Purnima.

Reviewed “The Happiness Advantage” book today at #SuratBookwormClub meetup. It was a great experience to share the stage with moderator Punit Gajera and Chetan Patel, the reviewer of today’s second book, “Why We sleep”? 

The audience was outstanding, and the questions asked during the Q&A session were thought-provoking.  

Every time I review a book at Surat BookWorm Club, my learnings get doubled. One from the book and another from the stalwarts of Surat IT, with whom I get a chance to interact, exchange ideas and do the networking.

My takeaway from the book “The Happiness Advantage” is how important it is to be happy to succeed personally and professionally. And from the second book, “Why We Sleep,” my learning is, no matter what stories we tell ourselves, we have to sleep enough.

During the networking session, I learned how people want to read books and overcome this challenge by pushing their comfort level.

Lastly, the support of the core volunteers, Alpesh Vaghasiya, Mitul Golakiya, and Ashish Narola, is always inspiring as they support this initiative from the context of contribution.

Most of the small businesses struggle with the lack of accountability at the top level. The small business owner generally isn’t answerable to anyone above, and that’s where the lack of accountability drives in.

I have faced this on and off with myself. While a recent meeting with some peers and my coach, we hypothesized that having a body or board on the top of the small business owner would make the owners accountable for their roles and responsibilities.

In the larger companies, there is the board, and then there is an executive committee consisting of the CEO, CTO, CIO, COO, CFO that reports to the board. The same model can be used for smaller companies. This model would make the owners accountable and would also steer the companies in the right direction.

Even if the smaller company doesn’t build a formal board, they can appoint someone they would be answerable to.

What are your thoughts on this matter? Share your inputs in the comments section below.

As we know, we come to the world with our allotted Karma for one life, and we have to spend these Karmas by the end of life.

Once we finish or substantially reduce the allotted karma, we start becoming free, and we can plan what next we want to do to progress spiritually, which leads to peace.

But if we keep procrastinating our karma, we live a life of anxiety and fear and never get to decide what we want to do with our life.

When we apply the same principle to our work life, which isn’t separate from our life, if we complete our allotted tasks proactively, we get time to define what we can do with our time for our own and the company’s progress.

And if we delay our tasks by procrastinating, we invite a work-life filled with anxiety and fear. Our consciousness doesn’t let us live with peace because it knows we must take care of the allotted tasks. 

We can find any number of reasons to procrastinate, but those are reasons. There is no peace until we don’t complete our allotted Karma/Tasks on time/before time. And without peace, there is no progress. 

In a nutshell, never procrastinate, and wherever possible, be proactive to finish tomorrow’s tasks today. That’s how we feel at peace and achieve progress.

A believer of the freedom model at the workplace, I let people do their work.

Question is, what is the freedom model? It means without anyone asking us or reminding us:
– we have chosen to be committed to the cause of this company.
– we have chosen to be committed to the other team members.
– we have chosen to think of the company, the associates, and the clients before ourselves.
– we have chosen that we will give first, before expecting any return.
– we have chosen to grow and make the most of the available. opportunities or by creating new opportunities
– we have chosen to put others first before us.

This is the beauty of the freedom model. We get to choose our destiny and we are accountable for the outcome. When we have the choice, we own the outcome. We have chosen to be a part of something and the responsibilities it comes with. 

As a believer of the freedom model, I am most accountable because I decide to have the freedom model. 

When a country gets independence, which we call freedom, it becomes the responsibility of the countrymen to up or down the happiness, economy, education, and spiritual index. Likewise, when we have the freedom model, it becomes our choice where we take ourselves.

What do you think? Is there anyone else responsible for any outcome, or do we own the accountability of our own choice?
—

We write tons of emails and the person receiving the email can only read us. This makes it the writer’s responsibility to compose the email with the words and tone that deliver the context of the message.

There are many tutorials and guidance already available on the internet on how to write an email. What I use is a two-point simple method:
– I use the Grammarly app to make sure that the tone of the email and the grammar are correct. Yes, they also suggest how your email sounds in tone, and hence you can adjust your message appropriately.
– I read the email I have composed and check if I am the recipient of the email; how would I feel? Is it landing the way it is intended to be? If not, I adjust the message.

For example, this blog post shows having a “Confident, Optimistic and Formal” tone.

Writing emails are important, and writing them in the way that they deliver correct context, is critical.

There are two types of loyal:

• Loyal by choice: No matter what, they will be loyal as it’s their choice.
• Loyal for lack of choice: They are loyal until they get the opportunity to be otherwise.

Neither is wrong or right. It’s just two different types.

We all are different. Some of us glow no matter where they are. While others can perform only when they are among the people they know. And others can’t perform when people they know are around.

Some have easy acceptance of new people and new situations or the changing circumstances. Simultaneously, others have to really work hard and practice accepting new people, new situations, or changing circumstances.

The challenge is, if you still want to grow out of yourself, you have to outgrow yourself. For example, if I have to gel with people independently without getting introduced, I need time.

I also tend to avoid places where I know people but not very comfortable with them. Once I know them, it becomes easier. Or I can even become comfortable with people if I get some time to spend with them. But when I practice the acceptance that this is who I am, it becomes easier as I can consciously accept the situation around me.

It’s still a challenge for me to meet people because of my introverted nature. I am practicing the acceptance of what I am, who I am, and at the same time working on it so that I at least can go and see people with the understanding of my limitations.

Just finished reading “The psychology of money” by Morgan Housel. The book is a good read. A different perspective on money and finance. Instead of going all or going broke, the author advocates the path of mindfulness in money matters.

Main takeaways:
– Live below your means.
– Save money and save for no reason.
– Invest for the long term.
– Investment goals are different per person.
– How you sleep at night is more important.

In the world of Robert Kiyosaki and Grant Cardone, Morgan Housel brings a new perspective, based not on wealth but peace of mind.

A must-read.

The book “The psychology of Money” will also be reviewed at Surat Bookworms Club this Saturday, 27th March. Attend to learn a different perspective on money.

Culture makes us so different from each other. In some cases, people follow all the rules when they are driving, when they are at work, or even when they are walking on the street. Most of them do this even if no one is watching them.

While in some other cases, people culturally believe that only if someone is watching them, requesting or forcing them to follow the rules, they follow. 
Sometimes we wonder why it is so easy for some cultures to follow most things, but could it be just a cultural thing?

What started as a long-time wish come true, today Surat Bookworms Club has its own second lot of reviewers ready. 

Together six of us had started Surat Bookworms Club back in January of 2020, and we reviewed books for the first thirteen months. Our aim always was to spread the reading habit, and we were sure that if we have to keep adding more reviewers, the reading habit will spread. It’s not an easy decision to let go of what you started but to keep something alive and grow it; you need to pass the baton.

My biggest lesson is on how to build a team of people that would carry on your legacy.

Whenever someone sends me a survey form and using their services, either paid or free, I feel obliged to fill up the survey form.

My general feeling is that if I am using their service or product, it’s my duty to make their services better.

Is this how you feel as well? I am not sure how this feeling got ingrained in my system. I will surely introspect and see why I feel such.

If you are being ignored by someone who always keeps chasing you, it’s time to look internally at what you did? It probably will not be because you did something today, but you would have built it up to this point over the period of time. The only thing is, the result seems sudden, but the road to the result is always long.

We are taught to forgive ourselves, and I believe in the same. Still, if you repeatedly do something ungrateful to someone, it’s time to introspect, accept where your faults are, forgive yourself, and work towards not repeating the same thing.

Again, if you are ignored, introspect instead of wondering.

We all have that one person in life who would calm you down when you are hyper. You know that small talk with that person would make everything dark and gloomy turn bright and shiny. 

This is that person who would make you feel and believe, that it might be dark right now; in just a few hours, it’s going to be sunshine.

Who is that person in your life?

At some point or other, we all feel stuck in some situation. No matter how hard we try to get out of it, we can’t find the way.

This happens to the best of us and happens in personal as well as business life.

Sometimes, we cruise at a crushing speed, and we feel nothing can ever stop us. And other times, we get so stuck at one point that no matter what we try, we cannot move a needle.

It’s like you have hit the plateau and aren’t able to break the barrier. My personal experience is, trying new things would help. Not everything will work, but if many things are tried, something will click, and you can get back on your speed. Yes, if you have a specific goal to reach, that also helps as a torch barrier and can guide you to be back on track.

Sometimes, you need to take a different route and sometimes more risk. In short, some new way has to be deployed because whatever you were knowing hasn’t worked. 

The two terms businessman and entrepreneur are interchangeably used many times. We call someone a businessman or an entrepreneur, while in reality, the person would be otherwise.

A businessman uses an already existing idea in the market and will build a business on that concept. At the same time, an entrepreneur is the one who brings his unique idea to build a product or service and use it to start his business.  

A businessman’s main motto would be to expand the market and create value for the shareholders. At the same time, an entrepreneur’s main motto is to solve some pain by building a service or a product as a start-up.

We see many entrepreneurs who would build a startup and then sell it to a businessman because an entrepreneur’s main focus is to create a market with new products. Once the market is created, the businessman takes it over from there.

Some entrepreneurs would actually be successful as businessmen too—for example, Steve Jobs of Apple and Sachin Bansal of Flipkart.

I have written a blog on this topic earlier and couldn’t resist myself to write it again. It is so important that you hire the right people. Those who know, understand and, act with accountability for the job they have been hired for.

If you are compromising on the quality of the people, be ready to pay the price. When you hire people to save cost or have emotional connections, you will get the result where you will keep paying for their mistakes, eventually paying more in absolute terms.

On the contrary, when you are hiring the right people, you might pay more and deal with bigger expectations; you will end up getting the results that will support you in your growth. 

There is an old saying, “if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys,” and it has some validity.

It has been a year since the corona first showed up in Surat. After a couple of months, Corona seems to have entered the second wave and is spreading fast. Simultaneously, the first one was tough and something we never experienced in our lifetime; what I am experiencing that the scars of it have made people anxious in general and a lot more impatient.

While the new curfew hours have been imposed, and about which we can do nothing, except for talking about the sanity of it, we certainly can take care of each other. We need to understand others more in today’s world, knowing that people require a more positive surrounding. We need to stand with each other and use positive words, and have a positive attitude. I have experienced that positivity spreads when people are positive, and it’s the same the other way around. And if we need to have an attitude, it better be positive is my view at this point. 

When the curfew was relaxed, we could have been more sensible. We could have worn the mask, stopped gathering, kept social distancing, and could have taken accountability to keep ourselves and others safe, but we chose to do there another way around. 

I am no expert in Covid, but I still believe that being always sensible is one thing we can all learn from Covid, not keeping sensibility aside as Covid cases reside. Otherwise, we aren’t learning anything from history. 

We can also learn that this is what it is now; how can we support each other with more positivity? Today, the world needs more positive people around. 

Be sensible. Keep a positive attitude.

In my opinion, breaking the comfort zone is so overrated. Pick any consultant, motivational speaker, or coach; they all talk about the same thing and break your comfort zone. 

I do not think we need to break our comfort zone. Who knows, whatever we have achieved is because we know how well we can play within the comfort zone. And life is not about playing the blind games; it is about taking calculated risks, which comes from staying in the comfort zone and, if needed, extending the comfort zone without getting into the danger zone.

I am scared of heights, and I don’t see a point why I would want to do sky diving or bungee jumping? It proves nothing. Instead, if I am good at running, I should expand my comfort by running a couple of kilometers more than what I usually run. 

Even those who say that we need to be out of the comfort zone, I am not sure if they have done and if they have done it, maybe breaking the comfort zone is within their comfort?

What do you think? Is comfort zone overrated?

I like to start my week on a clean slate. While I prefer not to be working during the weekends, and clear my weekly to-do list by Friday, if I still have any work that can’t move to the next week, I prefer to work on Saturday mornings.

Having a clean to-do list helps me focus on the tasks due in the upcoming weeks. Whenever I haven’t completed my to-do, either they are lost in the pile of new work, or if that work is must do, the new weeks’ tasks get hampered. Such situations impact my efficiency and productivity. Hence, I try and finish my weekly to-do even if I have to work on the weekends.

The above is true for my situation and how I work. You might have a different way figured out. How do you stay focused at the start of the new week?

Our situations are different. The way I have been brought up is different from how someone else might be brought up. How I have experienced my personal life might be different than yours.

The decisions I make are solely based on my World view and my understanding. For me, that shouldn’t make your views, decisions, and thoughts wrong. You might be different thinking and living, but for you, I think and live differently.

Neither of us is right or wrong. Mostly we are what our experience has been.

Not all opportunities are equal, and not all equal opportunities are for everyone.

We all are different and have strong belief systems. While one might believe taking risks is important than settling with the slow growth, someone else belief could be that financial stability is more important, even at the cost of the growth rate. 

Both the above scenarios are right in their own place and just one of the many cases to be considered. 

When dealing with any opportunity, you should be really knowing what you are, what is your belief system, and what is important for you. Only if all the tables are ticked right, then only you should go ahead and embrace the opportunity. Or you can decide the other way too, but then you would know what you are getting into.

As the business grows, we see a lot of opportunities being presented to us. To decide which one to proceed with, I prefer doing the S.W.O.T. analysis with the numbers at the center of my decision-making.

I am sure you are aware of what the S.W.O.T. stands for, yet, I am clarifying here.
S= Strength
W= Weakness
O=Opportunity
T=Threat

I prefer analyzing each deal for the strength it stands for, inherent weakness it has, the opportunity it carries, and the threat it possesses. If all these are put with the numbers, it will support in making the wise decision.

You may be believing in God or not. You may be meditating or not. You might be waking up early or are a night owl. You might be materialistic or non-materialistic. You might be an introvert or an extrovert. It really doesn’t matter what you are as long as you have acceptance for different people. 

There are day and night, yin and yang, male and female, Sun and Moon, that’s how life is. You are what you are, and likewise, others are what they are. When we expand our acceptance, the differences vanish.

Let’s accept everyone, no matter how different they are.

Happy Maha Shivratri.

Understand that the service industry demands providing service.

What the service industry teaches is to put our feet in the shoes of those we are dealing with to know where it hurts them. And this lesson is useful not just in the professional but in personal life as well.

Yes, there are some extremes where gracefully we can ask the client’s that we can’t continue. But with grace. How we serve and how we deal with others says everything about who we are and what we stand for.

Service or manufacturing, money always is the by-product. We start something because we believe we want to share with others what we have.

Serve because you are in the service industry by choice.
Put our feet in other’s shoes to understand their pain.

Today our biggest challenge is to be attentive. When we are in a meeting, we are checking our mobile, or when in a zoom meeting, we are checking our emails, or while driving the car, we are thinking of meeting points.

And then, at the end of the meeting, we aren’t sure what was discussed. After the zoom call, we ask what the outcome was. And we miss a turn while driving and have to take the long detour.

Imagine being in the meditation and thinking of office work. This way, meditation brings no results, and we blame meditation that it’s of no use. Likewise, when we work, if we aren’t attentive, we don’t get desired results, and we blame everything else, but not our attentiveness.

Only if we are attentive can we get the desired result. To be attentive, we need to be one hundred percent present where we are. This brings us attentiveness, and that is the key to extraordinary results.

We all have been taught of how important it is to have mentor. While I don’t deny importance of having the mentor, it is difficult to find a mentor.

Even when you find a mentor, it is rare to find a mentor who is really interested in your progress. Probably a good mentor is busy managing his own business and doesn’t have enough time to mentor enough people. This means, even genuinely good mentors having some time is already mentoring at his own capacity.

Another challenge is, when we have a mentor, we look at mentor for everything and deny to learn on our own. Which means, we are seeing the world with a specific view which narrows our knowledge.

If you can’t find a mentor, it necessarily isn’t a bad thing always.

There are the days when we are full of positive energy, and there are the days when our energy turns to not being so positive. This happens to the best of us, and it’s natural. The key is to understand that sometimes it’s okay not to be okay.

When our energy is positive, we feel good, and when it is not, we feel low. And when we feel low, we cannot accept it because we are taught we need to be positive all the time, which also puts pressure on us. Instead, let’s have acceptance that okay, I am not feeling super today, and that’s just fine. I accept it, and I will stay present to it and do things that will positively turn my energy.

When we deny, we confuse ourselves, and that frustrates us. When we accept, we give clarity to ourselves, and that helps us overcome the cause.

When I started writing the blog, I wasn’t knowing why I want to write. There was the phase that I wanted people to read my blogs and appreciate what I was putting in there.

Then came the phase, when I was writing because I wanted to continue the streak.

Then writing the blog started becoming the habit. Today, I write the blog because, I want to write my thoughts and put it in the universe and blog is the medium that I found is the easiest medium for my purpose.

I love writing the blog and while in the initial stage, sometimes I would feel it’s too much of a work to write everyday, but today I can’t wait to write it. It has become an integral part of my day.

And today, I am writing this post, again pushing it to the universe, hoping it will land to someone who always wanted to write. And? Nothing, I leave that to the universe.

You can do drugs but you don’t. You can punch someone but you don’t because you evaluate the con of doing it.

Likewise there are many decisions we take everyday which might not be as impactful and we do things without much thought. Those small things adds up and we don’t know when it becomes a big issue.

Key is, be present when we still have the choice, so that we don’t do things that we can but we shouldn’t.

How long is your to-do list? How often does it happen that we keep looking at the to-do list and can’t figure out where to start?

We get overwhelmed when we see a long to-do list and jump on taking one task at a time, without prioritizing them, most of the time in anxiety to get the work done. This way of working leaves us with more anxiety, reduces our productivity, and hurts our long-term goals, as we aren’t working on the tasks that take us towards our longer-term goals.

We blame everyone else, including our peers, subordinates, clients, consultants, auditors, people around, for the situation, instead of checking our way of working.

What if we prepare our to-do list the evening before, prioritize our work for the next day before calling it off for the day. And in the morning, re-prioritize based on any urgent work that has landed to us. This will help us take care of the urgent work that is unavoidable and help us take care of our important tasks that need our attention for long-term growth.

The straight forward deals are easy and should be preferable too. But at times the difference between a deal and no deal is the creativity we put in structuring the deal.

While building up creative deals we need to be cautious and should go for it only when both the parties involved are trustworthy.

The client might be interested in your service but his immediate concern might be the immediate outflow of cash. Instead of dropping the rates, you can structure the payment terms in a way, which would satisfy the client’s cash management need, while making sure your cash management isn’t disturbed either.

A word of caution, don’t use this strategy unless it is absolutely needed. The point is, sometimes we need creativity in making things happen.

We go with tweaking the numbers feeling and then make the numbers lie.

My experience is, most of the time, numbers don’t lie. Many times, when we doubt the numbers, it’s because we have been mischievous and pretend incorrect input is correct.

For example, while calculating return on investment, we love to ignore the correct return projected by tweaking the numbers because we want to go ahead and make the investment anyhow. And then, when the investment doesn’t generate the desired return, we console ourselves that our research was correct, but the luck was bad.

How many times do we ignore the numbers and make clearly emotional decisions, and have no rationale attached to them?

If we want numbers not to lie, we need to stop telling lies to the numbers. 

Well, I just registered my parents for Covid Vaccination, and they are scheduled to get their first shot on the 28th of March, 2021.

Both my parents being in their mid 70’s, decided to go for the vaccination as soon as it’s available. To give them the due credit, they have avoided travel and social gatherings in the past year. Though being at home was a bit difficult, especially for my Mom, who is very social.

It’s an emotional moment, and I can’t wait for them to get vaccinated and then able to live their normal life. Travel, and go wherever they want.

What are your thoughts on the vaccination program? I have been skeptical myself, but then finally, we decided to go for it.

Working in information technology for the past twenty years, One thing I am very clear about, this is the one industry which deals more with the humans, than the machines.

Though the industry itself sounds all techie, in reality, it’s a strong connection between the humans behind the technology that brings technology to reality.

Strong team bonding, caring for others, keeping people first, working for the greater good, and minimum politics are what I see as a norm in the information technology industry.

In information technology, humans are more important than the machines they work on. A good programmer would create great code on an average machine. He is not dependent only on machines, as more power to create actually lies within him.

Information technology has its own challenges, but I see certainly more human connections are built in this industry, and that’s from my personal experience. Be it various webinars, meet-ups, or hackathons, this is one industry that is eager to build human connections and paying it forward. 

I understand you collect the phone number while allowing me to get the free quote. And I am okay with you trying to reach me out once or twice. But reaching out to me 12 times a day, just because I filled up the form, is not just rude dis but also shows desperation.

Give the free quote and take the phone number is okay. But while using the phone number to market yourself, use your wisdom. Be wise. You got the permission to market, but how many times you market shows how ethically you are using the permission. Don’t overuse the permission, as when it is given. It isn’t given for overuse.

You aren’t just annoying your prospect; you are also pushing them away for good. Next time, he might not even want to get the free quote from you. 

Don’t be the policybazaar.com.

We don’t like something, we oppose it strongly, and we become the same.

We have so many examples around where we see that the people opposing something strongly and vigorously end up becoming the same. For example, some politicians opposing a particular policy and ended up being the same. Or an employee opposing some policy of the management ends up supporting and promoting the same policies when she gets a chance to be on the management.

I am not sure why this happens, but the evident examples are enough to believe it actually happens.

The point is, don’t oppose something so zealously that you end up becoming the same person you were opposing. Understand that you don’t support it, but accept that it’s there. Let it be. And change it when you get the chance.

The power of desire is what keeps us hungry. According to the desire in our hearts, we create what we have been desiring.

When we desire something and keep the mind’s constant attention on it, the object manifests through continuous action. Stronger the desire, the more power it has for us actually to make it true.

Desire is a vital tool that helps us achieve our goals. No matter what our desires are, spiritual or materialistic, they are the powerful tool to give purpose to our being. 

Great learning from my coach Chetan Patel, while attending one of his seminars as a guest. You become what you think you aren’t.

It’s straightforward and to the point. We all live with self-notion of what we aren’t, and we keep doing everything throughout our life to become that.

For example, my understanding of myself is that I am not focused enough. And this keep notion keeps me focused. Whatever I do, I will stay focus, but the story in my mind keeps going on all the time, that I am not focused. And this story that goes in my head keeps pushing me to be focused on whatever I do. But the story in the head never ends. It stays with us all the time.

This story is the reason what we become, for good or not.

What’s your story? What do you tell yourself ? What have you become that you think you aren’t?

I am a big fan of instincts. I trust my instincts, and I believe what feels good is good for me. 

While taking any decision, I make sure that my consciousness approves of it and that I am present to how I feel at that point. I normally take decisions on numbers, which assures me, but after all the math is done, I still check how I am feeling, and if what I am feeling is against what the number says, I go with my feelings. 

I strongly believe that what I feel good is good for me, and if it doesn’t feel good, I let it go.

How people see you is how people see your company as well. Because our actions, not the appearance, defines us.

If the people see your company as ethical, empathetic, forward-looking, outstanding, that’s because they see you as such. If you are clumsy and irresponsible, that’s what your company would look like. Because the people are the soul, and the company would only reflect the inner thinking of the people running and working in it.

On the contrary, what is the image of your company? That’s what people think of you.

The most important part of your personal and professional life is the people you are with.

People who motivate, support, inspire and work hand in hand with you should be your choice.

When you have the right people around, the ride is so much fun. You can surf smoothly with equal fun, no matter if the tide is high or low.

There is a price the seller wants. And then there is a price the buyer is willing to pay.

No matter how much you hype your product or service, and no matter how much you think your product or service is worth, the real test is in the market.

While people understand there is a price for everything, they also understand how much price is enough. No matter how creative is your marketing campaign and the Public Relations Officer, the initial sales would fade away soon if you haven’t priced your product well.

Saying this, I don’t say you can’t price your product high. All I am saying is your high price need to be backed by a higher level of quality. There needs to be an extra value left for the buyer, even after he has paid the full price for your product. He should feel that if the product would have been a tad more expensive, he would have still bought it and that what he has got is the value, even if your product is the most expensive in the market.

Does your product or service leave some value for the buyer?

When you promise, keep it. Promise is an agreement from your soul, no matter what, you can’t break it.

Because you have promised, the person to whom you have promised has considered it will be kept and would plan further. If you break your promise you put other person in trouble and if he can’t meet those promises at his end the cycle carries on, it initiates a chain of broken promises.

Don’t give promise that you can’t keep. And if you have given, never break it. Personally, I never promise and when I do, I keep it.

Steve Jobs created a market for digital distribution of music that was non-existent. Robert Iger acquired Pixar and Marvel Cinematic Universe for Disney and created a digital empire that gave Disney much-needed growth.

It wasn’t easy for Steve to deal with various musical companies, nor was it easy for Robert Iger to get the Disney board to approve Pixar and Marvel acquisitions. Both were innovative in their approach and created opportunities that others weren’t able to see.

When you don’t see enough opportunities, create some. People would think you are crazy, but you don’t always have to follow the herd.

Are you feeling non-productive? The solution is simple and easy. All we need is some willpower.

Many times we see people around are complaining about not being productive enough. And we see the same people are on social media, news, games and stock apps, and watching television, at the time when they actually should be working. All these just out of habit.

The cure is, delete the apps, remove the television from the bedroom or workroom. Start doing what you know you should be doing.

Even when you are done with the work, do something that would enhance your mood instead of being in front of the device. Sing, dance, walk, talk, meditate, go for a drive, and whatever else you actually love to do.

Let a week go by, and you would love this new routine and habit so much so that you never want to be addicted to digital devices.

Try it and share your feedback.

Leader’s always keep empathy for their team, customers, peers, everyone and everything around. They display empathy by action, not mere by words.

But is having empathy enough?

We normally feel sorry for others, but don’t take action. There could be many reasons for not taking the action. We worry what other’s would think, how would we look, is it okay to do something, is it my responsibility, what I can do? And so many other reasons. What instead if we stop thinking of reasons and start taking actions? None of the above reasons are actual, they are just another excuses of not taking actions.

Empathy without action is just another form of sympathy. We need to take accountability and do what we can to help others, by taking action. No matter, how small our actions might be, we need to be in the action, because every small action counts towards a larger good.

We respect and see the results of the work of all the great empathetic leaders in history because of the actions they took.

Are you the leader who takes action or feel empathy for others? Give a booster shot to your empathy by taking action.

You know something that others don’t know. You have acquired that knowledge with your experience and studying others rigorously, taking your share of failures and setbacks. And when it comes to fully implementing that knowledge, you think that what you can see, everyone else also can see the same thing.

Not exactly. Because they didn’t have the same experience, they haven’t acquired that knowledge, they haven’t failed as you have, and they don’t see clearly what you see now.

Sometimes, we underestimate our own knowledge and underpin ourselves. Instead, accept that you are empowered with the knowledge and experience and ready to use it to the fullest. Don’t hide behind the lie of you not knowing enough. Kill the fear and be courageous to take your destiny to the next level.

Be accountable for your life. Challenges would come, but they are there even if you don’t do anything. At least the challenge would be towards the growth.

Accept that you are unique. It’s that easy.

What’s your Sunday morning routine? I prefer to read and retrospect the week that was. It’s such a perfect slow-moving day, which allows me to introspect on how my actions were and my behavior was in the past week. What I should successfully carry on and what I should stop doing.

To read and to retrospect certainly helps to build your character. While on the weekdays, for most of us, it is difficult to have time for ourselves, we should give time to ourselves on the weekends. There has to be time for the friends and family too, and at the same time, there has to be time for self in isolation.

When we isolate ourselves, we open up to a bigger world within. Eventually, that helps us and the world around us as we quickly know what we should be doing and whatnot.

Do you give yourself time to read and retrospect during the weekend?

Start with the small, check the waters, gain confidence and if you get success with the little try, then go big.

Most of the time, we are good, starting with the small and getting success, but then we get stuck to that small. We never take the courage to go big and start enjoying our little success, not because we don’t want to go big, but because we fear losing whatever small success we got.

This, among others, is why most of us live a mediocre life and claim to be happy with our lives. I certainly feel if we can make it big, we will never say no. And because we don’t make it big, we “show” that we are happy in miniature and that life is not about making it big.

Go out, give it a small try, and don’t hold off when you get success. Give it the most significant shot you can give.

If you are overloaded with the work and feeling overwhelmed, there could be two reasons. Either you are actually overloaded, or you cannot manage your time, which is making you ineffective.

The solution is if you are consistently overloaded, ask for the support in the way needed. And be effective with your task management. See what you must do and what is most important, start from there. When the most important tasks are taken care of, you will feel more confident. If needed and if you can, move some work to your subordinates.

And if you feel such all the time, check if, apart from time management and being effective at work, if you really need an additional helping hand.

You know when you are doing the actual work. It gives you happiness, and any gloom you feel goes away.

And when we are not doing what we are supposed to do, we know that too. Because at that point, we are pretending to do the “important” work, but all we are doing is killing time. Under the pretense of doing the work, we fool ourselves. We also get others busy and involved showing how important work we are doing, and if someone shows us what we should be doing, we argue.

Have you been a trap by this trait? If so, how do you get out of it? Do you have support people who would show you what you should actually be doing even if you get upset with them?

Don’t pretend to be busy; instead, do the actual work.

All our childhood, we are taught that being a Tortoise can win you the race. That’s the brainwash we are oriented so that we can be molded to run in the race. It really doesn’t matter who wins the race. What matters is that it’s a race.

Our education system focuses on getting us ready for the race. These stories are created to highlight and teach how important it is to be in the race. We start believing in the rat race from childhood instead of understanding that each of us is unique and can have different aspirations.

When we are in the race, we become competitive, leading us to be envious of each other, and instead of living the life, we keep running.

I am a firm believer in growth and that we have all the rights to have an abundance of joy, happiness, success, health, and wealth. But that should be our aspiration, not the race.

Are you grateful for what you have? Do you keep thanking people for what they do for you? Being grateful is for our soul, and when we are grateful, we are thankful to everyone and for everything around us.

Likewise, if we aren’t thankful enough, the chances are, we aren’t even grateful for what we have. And when we aren’t grateful, we are avoiding the abundance that the universe has to offer.

Remember that the life we live and things we possess might be the dream life for many others.

Be grateful.

If you want to grow, you absolutely need only the best people. And by best people, I am not saying to hire someone with best skills required to perform the job. The person has to be “the best fit” in terms of culture fit, alignment on his and company’s goals, and of course the skills set.

If you are having the best people on board, retain them. Let go those who aren’t a fit and replace them by getting better people on board. Again, better doesn’t mean someone who is with you is not good, but better in terms of the “fit”.

We waste a lot of time working with those who’s aspirations are different from ours and that kind of drag us down. This is equally true for your partners, team, consultants, and even customers.

Check what kind of people are you with in your journey.

Don’t judge me. How many times do we say this when someone ‘judges’ us? And we think one should never judge anyone and that I never judge anyone.

Probably we even not judge people on that same topic, but then we think people on something else. Our saying and doing are different based on how we are involved. If we are being judged, that’s wrong, and if we believe people, we would have all the valid reasons to do so.

How if we start by not judging others and let them feel us? We should remember, reforms begin by changing ourselves.

I used to feel anxiety if I would wake up at an odd hour in the night. Though I will be up early, waking up at night is something I dislike.

My mind would take me to the thought journey, and it would end up only when it’s time to wake up in the morning. This would leave me exhausted in the morning and leads to a lack of focus during the day.

But for the past few months, if I wake up in the night, I am focusing on being happy. No thoughts, no activity, and no meditation. I enjoy this happiness, and I love how positive it feels and how much positivity it brings to my day.

Yes, when I then want to sleep back, I start chanting mantras, and in like few chants, I would fall deep asleep. So the question is, why don’t I start chanting as soon as I wake up? Fact is, sometimes I don’t feel like and at other times, I want to enjoy this feeling of being happy.

What do you do when you wake up? Share your experience.

It is important to entertain oneself. Even more important is how we entertain ourselves.

We can watch shows on television, which isn’t worth it if not educational and is not light entertainment. We need to make sure what we see is good for our eyes and what we hear is good for our minds.

We can read books that enhance our knowledge or spend time with family. It’s not necessary to talk a lot. It is important that what we speak is soothing for our loved ones.

Watching a show, reading a book, and spending time with loved ones are various ways of entertainment. Just make sure what we see, what we read, what we hear, and what we speak are enhancing our experience and relations.

How we behave is all the conditioning we have gone through all our life.

How we behave, react, take risks, face challenges and see others result from what we have experienced from situations and people around us. Our personal traits are the results of our surroundings.

Know what you want to become and be vigilant on what to pick and what not to, else you might end up being someone you don’t want to.

Do you stay present on what’s happening around you? Do you introspect on your actions? Do you let your surroundings impact you, or are you vigilant enough?

When you talk separately to separate people from the same group, you will only have bits and pieces of the information. And to make those quarters a full circle, there we need to connect them.

If you are working on something where you need a group, you can start gathering data from each individual and make sense of it; you have to tie them up as one piece of information. Then and only then will it take shape and will make sense.

When selecting an advisor or surrounding ourselves with the people we consult, we should be wise. Choosing the one who would advise keeping in mind the actual situation and consider the scenario from all the angles.

Most of the time, we take advice from those who would agree with our perspective, but necessarily it might not be in our best interests.

People who can’t see a 360-degree view on a particular situation can’t be your advisor. Nor those who can see the whole picture and still can’t control their emotions to give neutral advice. Neither someone who wants to look like a hero himself can be the right advisor. That person might not say to you that you were wrong.

We need advisors who can do it all at the same time. Seeing the bigger picture, keeping our long term good at heart, and keeping us as the hero of the situation. Someone who can stand and say, it’s your fault if needed.

What kind of advisors have you surrounded yourself with?

Have you ever seen a horse riding a human? But when it’s come to our mind we let it ride us all the time. And then we do as our mind guide us to do.

Instead of being the servant of our mind, we should be the master of it and guide it in the right direction.

Initially when we practice controlling the mind, it would be difficult as mind is used to ride on us. So from being the master to becoming the servant is a difficult journey for the mind and it would try everything it could to not let us be the master.

Practice mastering your mind and explore the creativity you have as when we control our mind, we can get amazing things done from it.

We always talk me, to us, to them. Our focus is still what “I” will get, and when that is satisfied, we think about what “we” will get, and finally, we think about “them” and what they will get. Them comes, if we ever reach till thinking about “them.”

All the inspirational leaders start thinking from “them” because they have a much higher agenda. When we are stuck in “me,” we are very narrowly focused and can achieve only things that are enough for “me.”. When we change our perspective and think of the larger good, our focus becomes much broader.

Instead of thinking, what I will get. Think, what I will give. Think, what I can do to make someone’s life better. Think about how my presence can elevate someone’s day and what I can do to make others smile. When we take action for others, our happiness is guaranteed. And it’s not the same the other way around.

Work to make your company proud, deliver the highest quality services and products to your customers, give your team members the best facility, and give your investors the best return. This is thinking about “them” first.

Are you focused on them? Or are you stuck in “me”?

How to be productive is the question everyone keeps asking. Though the answer is simple, it is not easy to follow because we are trained not to be productive.

We live in a culture where multi-tasking is considered a positive trait. Where we believe that when someone looks busy, the person is productive. Where working round the clock is considered a virtue.

While some people have god Gifted capacity to work more hours than others, most of us aren’t productive after certain hours.

So how do we make the most of the available productive hours? By focusing on what we are doing. It is a very simple solution. Instead of multi-tasking, do one thing at a time and do it well.

Instead of reading emails, talking to family, and eating breakfast all at a time, focus on one thing. Otherwise, you are three different people doing one-third of each work. Do justice to what you are doing.

When we are with the family, we think of the work. When we are at work, we think of the vacation. And when we are on the vacation, we think of the future. We are never fully present anywhere and that makes us unproductive. Because our attention is always diverted.

When we are focused, we are more productive and more focused. Even the outcome of the work we do is much better in quality.

Do you feel unproductive or feel the work-life balance is missing? Check if you are multi-tasking, or if you are physically present at one place and mentally at the other?

I always believed in never taking favor from anyone. But the culture of connection means you need to give and get favors sometimes.

And when I say a favor, I am not talking of anything unethical. I am talking of being flexible in doing small favors that might do good to someone without hurting someone else, including yourself.

When you support someone, the connections are built, and when the connections are built, people support each other.

What are your thoughts on favors? Do you think favors helps build connections?

Filters are good on e-commerce websites, as they help us find what we need, savings us time.

Filters are good when building relations because it helps us filter out those with whom we might not want to go longer. Saving their and our own time.

That said, filters aren’t good when we are talking to someone keeping prejudice. When we keep filters, we judge people; we decide what they have conveyed even before they speak. Be unfiltered and pure because then you are open to understanding other’s points of view.

What kind of filters do you keep?

We all have hidden agendas in almost everything we do.

If we are doing the charity, the known agenda could help someone, and the hidden agenda could be to earn fame. Likewise, if we are promoting someone out of the way in the social group, the known agenda could be that you wish well for the person, and the hidden agenda could be to earn the favor from the person in return.

Most of the time, we aren’t even aware that we have a hidden agenda. Having hidden agenda is okay. The only thing is, your hidden agenda shouldn’t topple your known agenda.

You can keep trying until you succeed. All you need is to have patience.

Patience doesn’t mean you should sit and wait. It’s about going out and try while keeping faith that you will succeed.

Patience also doesn’t mean being among the non-achievers and hoping someday they will become the achievers. Patience is to try and find the right team that would support you in the success.

When someone says they have good patience, check if that patience is to grow or hide behind the laziness.

I personally prefer traveling by car, compared to the train or air, obviously for the reasonable distance. Beyond certain kilometers, it doesn’t make sense to drive for the obvious reasons.

Even while traveling by car, I prefer to drive. My traveling preference has much to do with my strong belief in being in control.

I like to set up my schedule to start, take a break, and reach the destination. Not that I had ever missed a train or a flight, except for once, when I had slept at the airport after an overnight long-haul flight. Driving by self, gives me a sense of freedom, as well.

What do you prefer? Do you like to travel by car, train or plane? What do you think is your reason for the choice?

We all know what we want. It takes only digging deep inside ourselves to find answers.

While it sounds difficult, but with practice, it certainly is possible. Once that starts happening, we feel more confident about our actions because then we know what we want.

Regular meditation, having positive people around, daily introspection, and a strong support system of people who won’t judge you, helps one understand self more. And as we start understanding ourselves, it becomes easier to know what we want. That’s my personal experience.

While I don’t claim I understand myself completely and always know what I want, the above practices have certainly helped me.

Do you meditate and introspect? What is your experience with it?

Do you prefer to do only things that really matter? Even if that means you aren’t busy all the time?

Or do you like to do busy, even if that isn’t producing anything that really matters?

Being busy and being productive are two different things. What would you choose?

We work in a fast paced environment, there is pressure on everyone from CEO to the office boy. While we have to accept that with work comes a certain level of stress and pressure but we also add more pressure by pulling out our frustrations on others.

When people go to home from work, they should go with a smile, so that they can share the same with their family. Otherwise, they would share frustration instead of spending quality time with the loved ones. Not just that, they would take same thoughts to the bed.

Instead, why not to put effort in creating the world where we spread and share peace of mind. No doubt, this isn’t possible every time and every day but we can always give it a shot.

Everyone and everything around is for a purpose. Nothing in the universe is without reason. From the things to the people, everything is set around us to support our purpose.

Even the hard people around and hard times are to support us, making us stronger.

We need to see everything in our life as part of something bigger.

When someone enters the room, that person can elevate your mood or can destroy your mood, depending on what kind of energy they bring to the room.

How many times have you experienced the above scenario? How many times that someone has controlled your mood?

Have you ever thought about why someone can have an impact on your mood?

It is because we are always moving fast and thinking fast. This leads us to react to everything that we encounter. When we practice thinking slow and having slow moves, we can control our own actions. We can stop reacting and can actually not let other’s actions have an impact on our mood.

How do you learn to think slow? Meditate, exercise, eat healthily, read good books, and surround yourself with the people who practice the same. Eventually, you will learn how to control your own energy.

Try thinking slow and see how you can be in control of your actions.

When facing any challenge, instead of focusing on the problem, start with the solution in mind. It should reflect in the talks too. Meaning, talk positively. This will raise the hopes, and you will actually see the light at the end of the tunnel.

If you are an entrepreneur, it is your duty to bring hope when the situation is despair, faith when there is doubt, the joy when there is sadness, light when there is darkness. This doesn’t mean you overlook the problems. It means you need to focus on the solution and bringing your positive touch in the challenging situation.

How do you deal with the challenging situation? Do you frown, or do you start with the solution in the mind?

Some people are easy to train, and spending time in training them gives the desired outcome.

On the other hand, some people aren’t trainable. No matter how much time and how many techniques and tactics you use, you end up hitting the wall.

Spend the time training those who are trainable. If you are the leader, it’s your skillset to know who falls in this category.

When you are working ethically, keeping everyone’s interest at heart, working to make the world a better place, and not only for profit, you are already making a difference and doing business too.

Profit is a must when you are doing business; otherwise, no other goal can be achieved. Even not for profit, organizations can sustain only when they have the money. The same principle applies to business, only that it is with profit, where you are working towards benefiting a larger audience to make some difference to society.

Not having any objective is also okay, but then you look for spirituality or doing good outside of your work. And if you have combined your business and spirituality, you aim for two goals with one task.

What is going to be the model for the Tech industry moving forward?

Though currently, Work From Home is working, at times, the social interaction is missed and constantly online, affecting the sanity.

While Work From Home seems to stay now, personally, I feel that the hybrid model of Work From Home and Work From Office will be more of the norm for the tech industry. People would prefer working a few days from the office and other days from home.

While working from home improves the personal level of productivity, it helps to be with the team in person for collaboration and satisfy our social interaction needs.

I have reached this conculsion after talking to my team, taking surveys and also monitoring the Work From Home situation since the start of the pandemic. I strongly believe with a strong process and by taking accountability for our own work, Work From Home works.

What are your thoughts on the future of the work model for the tech industry?

Having knowledge and ideas matter only when we put them to action and keep converting those ideas to something meaningful.

Of course, not every idea would work but you have an opportunity to make a difference. To bring positive change in the life of people.

Life is a series of positive changes you make in other people’s lives. If you think your idea can make a difference, go ahead and build it. Your efforts can change the world for the better.

If you know what you want to become, spend the time with like-minded people. And that’s not enough. When you spend time with like-minded people, make sure you are talking about the topics that have drawn them to those people.

It is important to churn the thoughts on what you want to be constantly. If you are planning to be a very successful businessman and are spending your time with other business people but talking about the sports or favorite holiday spots, you are wasting the precious opportunity to learn from them.

It’s important to spend time with like-minded people and is equally important in talking with them.

Are your talks relevant?

Months and years go by, and we keep thinking about how fast the time is going. But the time is subjective, that is why sometimes we feel it’s fast and sometimes we feel the time isn’t moving.

How time travels depends on what we are doing if we are busy doing something that we love, like playing our favorite sports or spending time with loved ones, time travel fast.

And if we are waiting for test results or waiting in a queue simultaneously, it feels like moving slow.

Next time you feel the time is moving fast, the probable reason is that you live the life you enjoy.

We all have a cause that we strongly believe in. Something where we feel we can do something to make this world a better place.

It’s always sharing the knowledge, which has led me to co-start Early Bird Group, Surat BookWorms Club, bringing WordPress meetup to Surat, and starting a BookClub in my own company.

I didn’t realize this until my coach told me how all the above are connected via my strong belief in sharing the knowledge to benefit more people. And it’s not only the knowledge that I share but also my belief in building the platforms where more people can share their knowledge.

While knowledge sharing is my social expression, what is yours? What cause do you believe in?

Entrepreneurship is not rocket science, nor is it very fancy that it is depicted in the movies. When you become an Entrepreneur, you are signed up to be a professional.

You achieve something, and you have to think, that’s great, now let’s move on to the next task. You can’t sit and relax on that win.

Just like a doctor or a lawyer, you have to have a systematic approach to entrepreneurship. We learn new things every day, keep updated about our industry, go to seminars, attend webinars, take training, and be sincere about our work.

No doubt, sometimes we work for the disruption in a certain industry or work towards bringing something innovative, but the approach remains that of a professional. A straightforward, no show-off and hard work that is what actually Entrepreneurship is about.

We keep talking about growth and progress. But most of the time, the talk and progress don’t match. When we say progress, we don’t talk about the numbers, but we talk about emotions.

If we are feeling great, we feel that everything is booming, while the case might not be the same.

To check the real progress, keep your eyes on the numbers. Believe whatever the number says, and you won’t be misled.

If the number says that it’s progress, then it is.

Box cricket is a new thing. It’s a short format, fun, high tempo, and if you never had the fun of playing ‘gully cricket,’ Box cricket can give you a glimpse of it.

Some people dislike box cricket, but there was a time when one day was disliked, and t20 matches were dismissed by many. But today, t20 is the most loved format of cricket.

Not everything new or different has to be dismissed. Instead, embarrass newness as that might turn to be the game changer and disruptive.

When we focus on what we have, gratitude flows naturally, and when we focus on what others have, we feel ungrateful.

The key to happiness is to be grateful for what we have. If you aren’t feeling happy with what you have today, you will never be happy no matter what you have tomorrow.

Be grateful. Enjoy the gift of life.

Do something today if you want to make it big tomorrow. Just sitting and thinking will keep us where we are.

If we act, we might win or fail. If we win, cheers. And if we fail, double cheers because we would learn a lot from the failures.

But if we think and don’t act, we will neither win nor fail. We will stay where we are and unhappy.

Every achiever ever has done so by acting on their thoughts. I am not saying act without thinking. But thinking without action is of no use.

Take actions, massive actions. Let’s have sleepless nights. Let’s have an ache in the heart. Let’s be frightened. Whatever it takes. Please do it. Let’s be in action and expand our own possibilities.

I tried blogging in 2014 but couldn’t continue for more than a few days.

I started blogging again in 2020, and today it’s been one year. When I started, my goal was to write every day. And today, too, that’s the only purpose.

What is the difference between 2014 and 2020 for me? What made me continue writing for a year?

Doing introspection, I can conclude that I am enjoying writing this time, while earlier, I was doing it as a task and didn’t felt inspired to write.

When we enjoy something, we don’t need any inspiration, and we generate better results.

It is easier to stay in our old habits because it is our comfort. We will make any number of stories and will bring out reasons, just so that we don’t have to leave in our comfort zone.

Good or bad, habits once created are hard to break. Even good habits sometimes make us so stubborn that we don’t try to be flexible even if we see that it is needed. The reason, mostly, is because we are comfortable in our habits and don’t want the hassle of breaking the habits and challenging the status quo

And eventually, habit also becomes stale, and we become irrelevant. If you want to stay contemporary, keep challenging yourself with new challenges. Create something new, take the new task at work, pursue a hobby, join the gym, and join the local community. Do something, do anything before you become stale.

Last year I took the challenge of writing blog posts every day, and tomorrow my blog will turn one year. 365 days of writing the blog have surely helped me reflect on myself. The year before that, I started waking up at 5 am, the year before, I started meditating, and the year before, I took up reading regularly.

This year, I am challenging myself to stop procrastinating.

What habit are you dropping, and what habit are you picking?

When we focus on something, believe in the goal, have faith, the chances are that we will more certainly achieve that.

No matter how lofty your goals are, how many sleepless nights you get, how much anxiety you have to experience, keep the faith and belief. Nothing in history that was hard to achieve has been achieved easily.

Having faith in whatever we do and being persistent is the key to achieve unachievable goals.

Are you confused? Afraid of your lofty goals? Having sleepless nights? Great, then you are on the way to achieve your dream.

Remember, what we believe we achieve.

Normally we do the other way around. We Think Fast and Act Slow.

When we Think Slow, we bring clarity to our thoughts, and because of the clarity, we are confident of our actions. And when we Think Fast, we don’t have clarity as we don’t let our thoughts settle, resulting in haphazard actions.

Thinking slow also brings a mature way of speaking and overall peace to our being. This leads to people naturally drawn to us when we speak, helping with more acceptance of our talks.

Think Slow and Act Fast to gain clarity and confidence in what we are doing,

Either you can frown, or you can read or prepare yourself. When you are waiting, it’s up to you what to do about the time on hand.

Frowning will be the waste of time you got while waiting for someone or on something. That would make you will feel dragged and drain. So when waiting, pick wisely and mindfully what outcome you want.

Life is beautiful when we are mindful.

Nothing is more valuable than time. If you have to trade money for time, don’t think twice.

When you learn to create the time, you can use the created time for yourself, learn new things, spend time with your loved ones, follow your passion, spend time with yourself, and whatnot.

Learn how to create time. Being busy isn’t important if you don’t have time for yourself.

This new year, start valuing your time over everything else.

Today is the last day of 2020. The year of heartbreaks and breakthroughs, lockdowns and resilience, work from home, and anxiety.

2020 was the year like none before. It has been a true roller coaster journey, making us weak and strong at the same time. We certainly want to forget 2020, but it will not let us forget because it was once in a lifetime year.

As we enter 2021, we probably are wiser, smarter, and understand what is important to us. Most importantly, it has taught us, “this is it,” making us more accepting and adapting to the situation.

It was a tragic time, and that is why it was the year that has taught us the most.

Let’s welcome 2021 with new expectations and acceptance.

Happy 2021.

There is always something to learn, provided you are willing to learn and are networking with the right people.

Successful people are willing to share their knowledge and help others succeed. The question is how to make successful people speak?

You can either learn from their mistakes, watching their actions or by asking them the questions.

You can watch their mistakes and actions simply by observing but to get them to answer your questions; you need to give them space, ask the right questions, listen to them, and let the talk flows. They have a wealth of knowledge and are willing to share, provided you are willing to listen to them.

How many successful people are you networked with? How often you connect with them? How useful is their knowledge to you?

In 2019, I had kept the goal of reading 26 books and ended up reading 20. And for 2020, I kept the goal for 39 books.

Experiencing that I can read 20 books gave me confidence that I can read 39 too. 20 books was an experience upon which I built the dream of reading 39 books. That’s three books every four weeks.

Though I like that I could read 39 books, it didn’t come as a surprise as the foundation for it was ready.

That’s how we build and achieve our goals. The first few times are crucial when our goals are meager. The determination we build during that time helps us build lofty goals.

When your roots are deep and strong, the chances of you surviving any storm are much higher.

And the roots don’t become strong overnight. It takes years before the roots become capable enough so that a huge tree can blossom.

While we all focus on the beautification and health of the tree, let’s not forget what is holding it up.

How deep are your roots?

No matter what you are doing, where you are, or with whom you are, use your own wisdom when it comes to making decisions. Because everyone is telling you things from their perspective, that necessarily isn’t the right fit. People make you believe that their point of view is the only right view. That view might be true to their situation and may not be true for you.

We already know what we want, it’s just that we want clarity, and we check with others, but then we get blind with the views. Listen to everyone to gain different perspectives and when it comes to making decisions, listen to yourself. 

Be present when you listen to others. Check their intentions and your situation and take the decision wisely. 

Emotions are the basic ingredients that lead us to generate the results.

When the emotions are stimulated, actions are generated. And when wisdom is applied to the action, the right results are produced.

For example, when we fear something, this emotion leads us to take action. The action can be to fly or fight. And the wisdom helps us take the right action that would remove the fear from the root cause and generate long-lasting results.

How do your emotions stimulate you to take action? And what do you do to ensure you apply the wisdom to generate the results?

Merry Christmas.

As the year of the pandemic is ending, it’s time to reflect how the year was. It certainly was a year which no one had imagined at the start of it. We saw a lot of illnesses, deaths, lockdowns, curfews, and whatnot.

We also saw businesses, relations, and environmental changes. And we also saw human triumph, inventing vaccines in a record short period.

During all these, we all had time. What we will become in the future will be determined by how we have spent this time. Our future will be different depending on whether we have spent time being in action, learning new things. Or binge-watching on OTT platforms while gulping on unhealthy snacks.

The old sayings of ‘what you sow shall you reap’ are true even in the pandemic. It’s the same as ‘The law of Karma.’

What have you sown for the future during this year of the pandemic?

We all have our own way of unwinding. Some of us watch television, some read books, a few do workouts, and others spend time with family and friends.

All of the different ways of unwinding are right. Important is to unwind. Try not going to bed straight from work because that way you can never get relaxed. No matter what unwinding way you prefer, it is important to unwind as it helps for a positive thought process and better sleep.

I normally read books or watch a funny video before I sleep.

What do you do to unwind?

Entrepreneurs are creative, and that’s their biggest asset and liability at the same time.

Because of the creativity, the entrepreneurs keep coming up with new ideas. They also want to implement multiple ideas at the same time. While having ideas is one thing, executing them is a different ball game.

The execution of any idea needs a lot of dedication, time, focus, energy, and money. While it is possible to distribute these resources among various projects, the best results are achieved when there is only one project on hand.

Giving your everything to that one idea can make it big enough, which you can’t achieve with multiple smaller ideas.

Pick your project, get focused, and give your best shot. Make that project your moonshot project.

We have the habit of using things carefully when we own them. But when we know that it’s not ours or is owned by the public institutions, we tend to abuse them.

The same goes for the law. When we make the law and rules in our company, we follow them, and we want everyone to follow them. But we break the country’s laws, and in private conversation, we boast about the same.

Only if we start treating everything as if we own it, the world would be a much better place to dwell for everyone.

The age-old saying of “follow the leader” stands true. When confused or in the doubt, check what the successful people are doing and take the lead from them.

Call them up, go and see them, read their articles, hear their podcast, and keep your eyes on what they are up to.

When your mind is cluttered and doesn’t get the direction, get the answer from those who have been there, done that, and are still doing it. Don’t take someone’s advice only on their past success. Make sure they are proving themselves successful in the particular thing where you are confused.

When I am confused about making decisions, I check my successful peers, talk to them, and take the clue.

What is your story? What do you do when you are confused? Do you go with the instinct, do you check with the leaders, or reach out to people for support?

When we are dependent on someone to drive us around, our plans are actually dependent on their plan.

If that’s what you like, it’s wonderful, but if you want to be independent, you need to be your own driver.

Whenever life allows you to celebrate, do it full-heartedly.

Life is the sequence of moments that we LIVE and celebrate.

And when you gift, do make sure that it’s not just a thing but the thing is with an experience. We forget things and we cherish experiences.

Live life enough to build memories.

If you are good at making quick decisions, then certainly do it. We all have different ways, and while someone like me is good at making decisions after due thoughts, others might be good at making fast decisions.

I certainly would like to make quick decisions, and I adore those who are quick at that. I like to take advice from those as they gave me a different perspective.

What is your way? Are you a quick decision-maker, or like me, you take your time?

We all know we should learn from our mistakes and that we should move on. It has been told to us infinite times, but when we actually make a mistake, we fall into either of the two traps:
1. We either take our mistake for granted and move on without actually taking any learnings. This makes us make the same mistake over and over.
2. We take our mistake very seriously. Instead of learning from it and setting up a system to make sure we don’t make a mistake again, we stop taking any action, burdening ourselves with the mistake we made. This way can stop us from making a mistake but also takes away the chance to be successful.

The mistakes we make aren’t the fault of anyone. It’s our mistake. We should accept it openly, own it, take the learnings, place the system in place to don’t make a mistake again, and carve the path to success. Remember, the first part is to accept your mistake openly. Accepting mistakes clears up the clutter in our heads and gives us much-needed clarity on what actions are needed to be taken.

I like to move on with my mistake as my learning experience, but I am not there yet. I am being better at that and I am setting up a support system, which helps me avoid repeating the same mistake so that I can be more successful.

What do you do when you commit a mistake?

It is good to have people around but understand that everyone deals with their own things and are fighting their own battles. It is unfair to expect people to take responsibility and solve challenges for you. If you have someone such in your life, congratulations. If not, then learn to deal with your own challenges.

In fact, learn to be supportive of others. Grow yourself emotionally mature and strong, so you take care of yourself and support others.

If you can develop this capability, imagine how many challenges you can solve for others while not being dependant on anyone for your struggles.

Nothing is stronger than your own will power. This is my personal experience, as you grow mature, you naturally become more supportive of others while taking care of yourself.

How do you deal with your challenges? Do you need a lot of support, or do you provide support to others?

You feel it’s a waste of time and that you would rather spend your time “doing” the things. But when you stop or avoid conversation, you are actually putting a lot at stake.

Keep the conversation flowing if you want to have your thoughts reach out to the other person and if you care about delivering job, the way it should be.

Conversations are important. Without it, situation becomes gloomy for everyone.

How well do you converse?

No one remembers what you said. But everyone remembers what you did. If you want to set an example, be the role model by your action, especially if you an elder or are a leader.

The above stands true in personal as well as business. If your saying and doing are different, people will remember what you did and not what you said. That’s why it says that kids learn from watching their parents, and not on what the parents instructed.

Take accountability for where you want to take the people and the business, and likewise, be vigilant in your action. It is easy to think that it’s okay to be rude once in a while, but that’s when you need to keep a check on yourself.

Be accountable for the world around and the generation next.

If you can laugh and be happy on the weekdays, then understand that you are successful. And happiness comes from being grateful.

When we are grateful, life gives us happiness in abundance, and we stop longing for the weekends and vacations.

Since I started practicing daily gratitude, I have experienced that my happiness has certainly increased. Being happy certainly comes from how grateful we are.

Do you practice gratitude? What is your experience with it?

If you are having people in your life who are draining your energy, it’s time to think about whom you want in your life.

We all have our good days and not-so-good days, but if energy drainers always complain about their lives, surroundings, and people in their lives. Such people lack gratitude in their life.

While everyone needs emotional support, some people have a habit of feeling sorry about themselves, and you can’t support them every day.

If you want positive energy and peace in life, make sure you invest your time in people who have a positive outlook towards life and aren’t draining you off.

I avoid them. How about you? Do you have such people in your life? How do you tackle them?

The theory says a person is either left-brained or right-brained. If your left brain is more dominant, you tend to be more analytical and methodical. And if your right brain is more dominant, you tend to be more creative and artistic.

If you are more organized and better at reading, writing, are logic, like facts and calculations, your left brain dominates. If your right brain dominates, you are better at imagination, arts, visualization, and dance.

The point is if we might have all the capabilities, but some would be more dominating. It’s good to know what we are, as knowing ourselves helps us make the right decisions.

I am basically more analytical and methodical. I love maths, calculations, and figures-facts. Knowing this much about me helps me work on my strength and sharpen them.

What side of your brain is more dominant?

When you try to please others, you become unreal. And when you become unreal, you are never happy.

Not just that you would dislike being in this situation, you also would start disliking the person whom you are trying to please. The whole situation will start with you pleasing others, thinking it will make them happy and in return would make you happy. And ends with you being unhappy, and because you aren’t authentic, you won’t be able to please the other person forever, eventually making that person unhappy too.

When you are real, you won’t have to worry about pleasing others, as those who would be pleased with you would stick around, leading you towards spreading more happiness.

Personally, when I try to please people, I start feeling suffocated after some time. This leads me to avoid them, leaving them wondering why I am avoiding them. But with those, where I don’t have to work towards pleasing, I am natural and happier. In return, making them happy as well, without effort.

What is your experience? How do you feel when you aren’t real?

When you see someone respecting the person below his own rank in strength, status, money, knowledge, and age, consider that respect is genuine.

In general, We show respect to those above us in various ways, but that respect is not for fellow humans. It’s just for some reason.

But when we respect people without any reason, that’s when we understand the real meaning of respect.

Oh, by the way, respect is when you give, not when you expect it from others.

Do you know whose problem are you solving? Who is your market? Are you targeting the right people? Are you selling them what they need? And if you aren’t selling what they need, are you connecting them to the right person so that you be a good guide in the process?

Never try to be everything to everyone, you are just a hustler, whom eventually no one will trust. Let the word be out what you sell is solving the problem of your target audience. And leave the job where you can’t solve someone’s problem to those who can solve it.

Are you everything to everyone, or are you the problem solver? Do you care to say no? Are you generous enough to guide people in the right direction?

Going higher with your quality, thoughts, creativity, humanity, or work is always difficult.

It is easy to find short-cuts, take routes that feel faster, and give the quality that’s inferior to what you promised. Easier it is to fell compared to fly high. But raising your bar and not stopping until you reach the higher level without compromising anywhere is what one should aim for.

Going an extra mile while giving without expecting that you would get something better in return is what your aim should be.

Because the pleasure one gets by giving is higher than in the receiving.

Are you going higher?

If you can’t make it, don’t say yes. It is important to know when to say no. When you know you can’t make it; the polite manner is to say no.

When you say yes, you are setting up the expectation, and when you don’t make it, everyone involved has to face the outcome.

And the most hurtful thing would be your own reputation. No matter how much you would convince, next time, your word won’t be taken seriously.

Yes, sometimes it is genuine that you can’t keep your word; at that point, do the restoration process. Say sorry and express that you understand how it might have impacted the other person and how it impacts you. Complete by assuring how you would make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

Make sure your restoration is once in a while and doesn’t become an every time process. Otherwise, you are putting your word again on the stake.

Do you keep your words? And when broken, do you make sure you restore your word?

Nature is talking to us all the time. Don’t expect it to talk in any verbal language as it talks in various ways. Not limited to, but including, dreams, constant signs in the way of some subtle yet noticeable things happening around, you might come across some situation, or even some repeated things happening with you in a span of a short time.

It’s up to us to stay present all the time and understand what is that nature is trying to tell us.

I have been experiencing this lately. Do you have a similar experience? What signs are you seeing? What’s the code that you need to decode?

So the fourth day in the row, and I am writing the blog towards the end of the day. Not the most ideal time for me to write, but I usually feel energized for probably half an hour or an hour during late evenings.

My peak performance time is up to 5 pm. I am at my full mental and physical energy till that time.

When the day is busy, I try to find some time to write my thoughts during my peak performance time, but that doesn’t happen every day. And once I am out of that timeframe, I drag it till the end of the day when I get this half an hour to an hour window again.

I feel it’s good to know at what hours you perform better so that the day can be planned likewise.

What are your productive hours? And how do you deal with them once those hours are passed but something important needs to be taken care of?

More often, we hold on to our losing bets and quickly profit off our winning bets.

Instead, focus on winning a bet, keep and grow them, while cashing off the losing bet. When we keep our losses because of the fear of “loss,” we get into deeper waters. On the contrary, if we keep our profits, it can grow to something even bigger. Yes, be wise. Know when to get out of the profit, too, but don’t do it too sooner.

This is true for life too. We should know what our losing bets are and what are winning bets. Cut the losing bets treating them as bad habits and keep the winning bets while accumulating them. More good habits make you a better person, and more winning bets make you a successful person. That’s how you become the winner.

The art is in knowing when to sell, as much as in knowing when to buy.

Many people know when to buy and are good at scoring great deals. But comparatively, many few of them know when to sell.

Most either sell too early or hold on to too long. The real art is to cash out at the right time. Otherwise, you are looking at the opportunity lost.

Learn from the masters of the game on when to sell. Not so-called masters but the real deal. Read books, have mentors, network with like-minded and successful people.

Do you sell at the right time?

If everyone is giving free shipping for similar products, except for you, that might not be a good strategy. This is true, especially if you are dealing with commodity products.

If you are dealing with specialty products, you have your say. And the customers might be willing to pay extra for shipping.

You either deal with commodity products and follow the market rules or deal with specialty products and create your own rules.

The choice is yours, but the rules are different in what you choose.

Some people keep doing the same thing over and over for years. It’s the same routine that they follow. Though, it suffocates at times as they can’t break out of it.

It’s a different story when you love your routine or work and totally different when you can’t break out of that loop because it’s your comfort. Many of us live in such loops and feel stuck instead of breaking the loop and trying to get out of our comfort zone.

Loops are nothing but our comfort zone that we aren’t willing to break because it feels safe in there.

What kind of loops have you created? How will you break them?

Is there only one way to reach the goal? No? Is there any right or wrong way? Definitely not.

You can take your own path as there are multiple roads going towards the same destination. It depends on what route you prefer. A highway that takes you quicker or an in-road that takes longer but is scenic. It also depends on how fast you want to reach and how much you want to compromise on other things.

If your style is slow and someones are fast, let it be, as there is no right or wrong way. You have a goal, and you have a way, pick it and follow it.

Think what your way is? And follow the same.

Meditate and introspect. Nothing can be more powerful to know yourself and to break the mental boundaries.

If you meditate regularly, you will know what I am saying. It will calm you down, but not your dreams. It will give you peace but will still keep the fire in you going on. It will make you know yourself, without the need to unknow others.

Though, the best time, it says, is early mornings. And though I have experienced the magic of the early morning meditation, you can pursue it any time of the day, depending on the schedule.

Do give time to introspect too during meditation or separately at any other time of the day.

Turn your thoughts about yourself and the world around. Meditate regularly.

Is it everyone else who is holding you back from what you want to achieve? Or is it your own fear and unwillingness to face the consequences of taking the risk that holds you back?

Are you the creator or the reason maker? If you are the creator, it’s not that you will achieve whatever you want. But you will have the satisfaction of trying what you wanted and will not have to find reasons for not doing what you wanted.

Every creator’s legs shake when they pursue their dream. They get sleepless nights and face challenges. But those challenges give them peace at the end of the day because they are pursuing their dreams.

Are you creating your dreams?

Do you go and fix your broken toilets? Or do you take the help of the plumber?

While there is no small work, but the focus should be on doing the work that matters. Work where you can bring creativity and your mind to create value.

When your focus is on creating value, you stop doing things that don’t generate value for others.

Do you focus on generating value or are you busy saving every penny?

If you can communicate well, you can sell your ideas and can enroll people for the action.

The lack of communication can create a lot of confusion and unclear expectations. If you want people to get into the action, learn to communicate well.

Communication is the art that, when used well, inspires people to take action. Remember, Only communication isn’t enough. Right communication is needed, which gives clarity and inspires further talks igniting people to find solutions.

To assume that ideas will be understood or confusion will be cleared or for that matter, questions will be answered without communication, then it’s time to rethink. That’s why communication and clear communication is the key to success.

How well do you communicate?

Because kindness is something, you want to spread. Be kind even to those who aren’t to you.

We can either be unkind and stay unhappy while making others unhappy, or we can be kind and happy, spreading happiness around.

If someone is unkind, it’s their internal struggle making them do so. It has nothing to do with others, so be compassionate to them and give kindness in return. You never know; your gesture can change them for good.

Stories are great to convey the messages and for the learnings. But the stories created to give reasons and taking the talks to a different path aren’t needed.

There are two types of people, one who talks and hears the straight talks. They talk clear and upfront. In contrast, other types of people would make stories about everything. Even for the talks that need and can be done straight forward, they create the stories. These stories confuse others. Sometimes these are done purposely, and sometimes it’s just the habit and comes from the subconscious mind.

If you want to get the work done and make it easier for others to understand what you are saying, try not to create the stories. Be upfront and straight. And being straight in a polite way.

What is your style? Do you talk straight forward yet polite, or do you create stories and confuse everyone?

Nothing fake will spread if we stop it at our end.

If rumors are going around, if ‘I’ take the accountability and not spread it further, the rumor will die.

As human beings, we love gossiping, but that’s where all the problems also get started. What if ‘we’ decide that we won’t talk about anyone who isn’t present. Neither good talks nor bad.

Let ‘me’ take responsibility that I will not use anything that is pirated.

These are all small things, but this is what builds the character of our society.

No news or gossip will spread if we decide that it’s our duty not to spread it. Even if others are spreading it, you don’t have to. Someone has to take responsibility; someone has to be the first to pull the breaks on the fake.

Let that first be ‘me.’

It’s okay if you sleep till late.

But do try waking up at 5 am and don’t expect anything; feel the magic of 5 am.

Go for a walk, do some indoor workout, read, meditate, or gaze at the sky, do whatever you feel you want to do.

It’s the magic you want to feel, and once you know, you will get hooked to it. Even if you can’t keep up to waking at 5 am, you will want to.

So what time do you wake up? Ever tried 5 am?

Annoy everyone if that’s your being and be the world best at it.

It’s always good to be the best in whatever you do, rather than doing something else and being mediocre.

Go and annoy.

Most of us are having bigger dreams in life. We talk about being the best in the world, having a big business, reaching the sky. But do we really want it?

Most of us live a mediocre life and settle with very little. Why does this happen? What is that doesn’t make us achieve the life of our dreams? What is lacking? Or is it that we want to talk about the big goals because it sounds fancy; otherwise, we really don’t have any bigger dreams?

There is nothing wrong with either of the approaches. We can have bigger dreams, or we might be happy with smaller dreams. It is important to know what you want instead of dreaming about what others have.

When we are talking about the things that we really don’t want, we are creating delusion for ourselves. We run behind the goals just because others have them, without knowing what it takes to achieve them.

And in reality, when we have to give what it takes to make it big, we chicken out. We start to feel burnt out, need a vacation, and enjoy festivals, even if there is work waiting for us that can’t wait. This happens because in the first place, either that’s not our goal or we don’t want to give what it takes. Yes, we keep running behind that imaginary goal, which keeps us frustrate because we can’t reach there, and we don’t accept that that’s not for us.

Live the life that you want. Stop telling yourself a lie, because then you are buying others too into it.

Be what you are and live happily.

Every time we pull out our frustration on someone, it’s like throwing up on that person. We might feel sorry after doing it, but we might have done permanent damage to someone by that time.

People aren’t garbage on whom we would throw our mental garbage. Every living being is a well-crafted creation of the divine power and deserves the peace of mind.

We might be frustrated with our own reasons, but that doesn’t give us any right to spoil someone’s day. There are people with different tolerant levels to such garbage, and they might get hurt for longer than you think. If you aren’t having a great day, lock yourself and shut down your cell phone until you think you are sane again.

Let’s take responsibility and accountability for other’s peace of mind. Because if everyone starts throwing up, the world will become even more garbage. Let’s make it a place where everyone would love to live.

Next time, if you are frustrated, think of the person you are pulling it out. Another option is to take the right action. If you are frustrated, see what is the real cause and work on that cause. Solve it. That would take the frustration away from you.

Be mindful.

We are taught so much about planning, and while planning is great, it just doesn’t work for a few people.

As the new year approaches, most people will set up goals and plan to achieve those goals. While most of us can work only if we have a plan, there always are a few who would perform well when they have the goals but don’t plan them. These people know what their goals are, and they are good at getting them without major planning.

The point is if you are the one who can perform without planning, don’t get into the planning. And if you are the one who does plan, but can never follow the plans, see if you want to give ‘not planning’ a chance this year.

What important is to achieve the goal. If you are good at achieving the goals without planning, how about an unplanned year this time?

Saal Mubarak. It’s Gujarati New Year, and I wish everyone a Happy New Year.

As we know, we are an average of the five people around. I am sure we are making sure that we surround ourselves with those we see as successful and take benefit from the rule of average.

This new year does also surround yourself with those who are happy. When we become professionally successful and ignore happiness, eventually, we feel unhappy. Professional success and happiness are two different aspects.

While professional success is important, give equal importance to happiness and peace of mind and for the same, use the rule of average. Surround yourself with positive, happy, and cheerful people this year and expand your professional success to personal happiness too.

Let’s embrace Vikram Samvat 2077 with an open mind, open heart, happiness, and positivity.

Saal Mubarak 🙏🏻

It must be unique to India; in Gujarat, we even have this “varas nau vachlo diwas” or the middle day of the year. Which is not even in the middle of the year.

Because Gujratis follow the Lunar calendar, this day happens only in some years, which falls between the day of Diwali and Gujarati new year.

The middle day of the year can be seen as the day when the past is gone, and the future is yet to arrive. The day to reflect on the year that was, learn from it and implement the learnings in the year to come.

This day gives me a special perspective on life. I see this day as a chance to redeem the past and get ready to embrace the future. It’s the day when for me, life pauses to reflect on the past and to look forward to the future.

What are your lessons from the middle day of the year? Do you love to dwell in the past or dream the future or prefer to be in “now”? How are you planning to celebrate this “varas nau vachlo diwas”?

Wishing everyone a happy Diwali. A breakdown year that went by has been a breakthrough in many ways.

It was the year when many things revealed; people came to know others and self a little more. The relations and way of seeing the relations changed. The way we work and what we work for change.

Most of us adapted to these changes, proving that under the surface, we all know that the change is the only constant and that when the times come, we adapt to the change. That has what kept the human race thriving in situations where other species perished.

The same thoughts are the wishes for this Diwali. The strength to stay alive and thrive, no matter what challenges we face.

Also, as a race, humans are special, and we should take care of the other species. Be kind to animals, birds, trees, and plants. To the mother nature and each other.

Let the light of hope be alive. Happy Diwali.

Gift with love. When we gift, we feel good because essentially, as humans, we love to make others happy.

In this festive season, make sure to gift that is useful and within your budget. Post festive season, you should not stress out about overspending on the gifts as though the festivals are the essential part and parcel of life, it should not make you go crazy on spending.

Be still in your thoughts and content in your feelings.

Gifting brings happiness, so do get gifts, and be realistic.

What I have learnt and practicing (not mastered), is to be grateful for what I have.

When I want to see, I see there is so much the life has given. And that most of the time when I am not grateful, is when I compare myself with others achievements or crave for the things, I don’t even need.

Funny thing is, at that point, I don’t even realize that I might not even need it.

Practicing gratitude helps to understand what I have and where my focus should be.

Practicing gratitude and being grateful has been game changer for me to understand my needs and wants.

Just as there is a big difference between talking and doing, there is a big difference in doing and doing in the right direction.

Often, to get out of the mode of talking, we start acting without thinking if the actions are in the right direction towards our goal. Or we assume that we are busy but in reality, the work is not towards the goal. I call this “feel good” work, where the efforts are behind no goal, but we talk to ourselves that it is towards the bigger goal.

When we get out of the talking mode and into the action mode, the actions are in the right direction towards the goal and not in the direction where the actual difference your action is making is not moving a needle moving towards the goal.

Stop talking, start acting, and start acting towards your goal.

When the day doesn’t go as planned, especially on a jam-packed day, we tend to lose our cool and fell into the trap of anxiety. Theoretically, it is easy to say to keep cool and move on to the next task. In reality, we know that it is hard to follow.

Is it impossible to stay cool once something doesn’t go as planned? Do we really need to go cranky and make the whole day unproductive? Is there a way out? Well, what I follow is to go silent for as long as needed. Regain my calm. If needed, I take a walk or do meditation.

One of the above tricks always clicks and helps me to get back on track. It might take a few minutes to maybe half an hour, and at that point, it does feel a waste of time as the amount of work hovering is huge. It certainly helps to do this exercise to make sure that the rest of the day turns productive and not frustrated or filled with anxiety.

If you face the day when things haven’t been going as per the plan, try one of these tricks. I am sure it will certainly help.

The only challenge is to stay present to use one of these tricks in the pressured workload. And that too is possible.

Diwali has always been very special to me since childhood. I always enjoyed the vibe that Diwali brings. The firecrackers, sweets, new clothes, family, friends, everything has always been so much fun. Oh, and receiving the gifts.

As I grew up, receiving the gifts turned into giving the gifts, and it has been equal fun. For the past three years, the focus is shifting to gifting something meaningful and having a message attached to it.

Maybe it’s the natural evolution of life as we experience it. As the experience grows, our focus moves from fun to a different perspective.

Starting from just enjoying the festivals as a kid to making them meaningful and purposeful in sharing the ideas in gifts as life progresses.

At the same time, remember that we were interested only in the fun when we were kids, and every kid deserves it. Our ideology and our experiences shouldn’t be imposed on the kids. When their time comes to be an adult, nothing will stop them.

My theme for this year’s gift is ‘savings and investment’.

What gift are you thinking of this year?

If someone reads a lot, it is taken for granted that the person is knowledgeable and most of the time it’s true too.

But we should not confuse wisdom with the knowledge. By reading someone can gain the knowledge but wisdom comes only from practicing the knowledge. Without going in depth, and without practicing, knowledge is just the theory.

To turn knowledge in to wisdom, the most important aspect is putting the knowledge to the right action and to keep acting on it until you gain the wisdom.

Read with the aim of attaining the wisdom. Only then the reading is meaningful.

Ever wonder how sometimes what we think, actually happens? From something as little as how when you feel happy, your energy can spread happiness to others too, to a collective energy can bring change in a whole society.

We normally don’t see this play of energy because we are too busy and don’t think and see things in this way.

If we want to see the world around a better place, flow the similar energy.

While we live in a world where we can do almost everything remotely, we cannot reduce the importance of communication without seeing other humans the whole day.

In fact, with the reduced face to face interaction, the importance of clear communication has never been more important. When we don’t communicate and communicate openly, the challenges start surfacing. If we want others to know what we want or expect, we need to communicate effectively.

If we start assuming that others will understand without being explained or given clarity, we are inviting challenges.

When we see around, we will see that good communicator can explain their ideas with clarity and edge over those who don’t communicate when it comes to getting the message delivered. And delivering the right message is the first step towards getting the desired results.

What kind of communicator are you? Do you assume, or do you prefer to have clarity? Does your communication confuse others, or does it get the job done?

When the customer comes with a complaint, instead of getting into a panic, the service provider should see the customer’s actual challenge.

Most of the customers are busy in their own world and don’t have time to complain. Instead, they prefer to move on to a different company (mostly your competitor), hoping that they will find the solution. This is not a good situation for either because the service provider will never know what went wrong. And the customer might face the same challenge with another service provider if the customer chooses not to communicate the challenge.

On the part of a service provider, when a client complains, it’s an opportunity. Because the customer is being your consultant, who is pointing you the gaps in your services, and for that, he is paying you too. And for the customer, if he will show the challenge to his service provider, he can expect that they will fix it. But if he will move to the next provider without communicating, he might face the same challenge.

How good it would be if the service provider sees complaints as free consultation by the customer, while the customer sees the challenges he faces as an opportunity to explain it to the service provider and get it right for the future.

We go through various transformation stages throughout our life and career. Many events forcefully make us transform and many times because we want to break the status-quo, we initiate transformation.

To most of us, the word transformation brings a feeling of something big. To some, it’s excitement, and to others, it generates the feeling of fear. But it is neither. It is just an ongoing event. It’s our perception that makes it big.

As life progresses, we can connect the dots and see that we live in the constant transformation phase. We evolve daily. Most of the time, the only difference is, we are unaware of the subtle transformations happening every day.

And, because life flows freely, the only way to adapt it to accept transformation as the permanent stage. If we understand this, we would embrace and fall in love with the transformation instead of fearing it.

Are you holding back any change? Are you afraid to challenge the status quo? Think and act. Be the change.

When we try to handle more than we can, the focus always is on finishing the task. This means we won’t take care of the nitty-gritty and will rush to finish the job in whatever earliest possible way we can and move to the next, repeating the same pattern.

While at times, it is understandable that we have a lot on the hands, but only we would do the job right, the job will complete. Otherwise, it will come back either as not done right or half done, and that will give trouble to those to whom you have delivered the work and those for whom you are delivering the work.

We also will start looking for various reasons, but in the first place, no one else, and we are the reason for what we delivered. Everything else is just a story.

Only when we take full accountability for our actions, we start looking into completing the job instead of just finishing it.

Be accountable. Have an attention to detail approach and you will serve in a lot better way to everyone involved in the work with you.

Are you finishing your tasks or completing them?

Life is uncertain. This is the one truth we all know but aren’t willing to accept.

We want life to be in our control, and we wish nothing unexpected should happen. And when something unexpected happens, which always is expected, we get upset.

What, instead, if we learn to live with expecting the unexpected all the time. If we get comfortable with the unexpected, the fear of the unexpected will go away, and it will give us the strength to deal with the situation.

The challenge is, even while we know that life is uncertain for everyone, we feel that life is unfair only to us, while for everyone else, it’s fair. If we can resolve this challenge by understanding that life keeps throwing the challenge to everyone at all the levels, and become open to living with unexpected, it will give us the strength to deal with any situation.

Get in love with the unexpected and elevate your mental health and your life in general. Our love for being in control doesn’t give us peace. The only control that we have is on our mind, and that’s the highest kind of control.

Most of the time, we don’t do the things that we feel. Our feelings and doings most of the time doesn’t match.

We do the things in the impulse, and that’s not always what we feel. What we feel is our deeper inside, which is at the core of our being. Because we don’t have time to check how we feel, we act on whatever our mind says.

What if we check our feeling every time before we do something? Will our life be different? Will it be more as we want it?

When I started writing my daily learnings in the form of the blog posts, I didn’t had any targets. I didn’t had any milestones set which I would strive to achieve.

The only purpose was to express myself. And today while writing this 300th post, I feel the number is a milestone for myself and now I am looking for the 350th post as a new milestone to look forward to.

I am still not looking for the milestones in my blog posts, but I am enjoying seeing the consistency with which I am able to write. While, more than the number, it is about the satisfaction of expressing myself that I am enjoying. But at the same time this sidekick of milestone is also a good idea to cherish upon.

Isn’t that how we live? We start something with the sense of a purpose, then we get into the achievements. Not that I am saying it is bad, but the purpose should always stay before the achievements.

Instead of going only with the words, see what the numbers say. Don’t also go only with the numbers but including the numbers is certainly a better strategy.

Instead of taking the decisions based on emotions, match it up with the numbers too. If the number says a different story, you at least have a different angle, which you certainly need to think upon.

We tend to make decisions based on emotions based on how we feel for someone or something at a given time. When mapped these feelings with the numbers, we can see the real story.

Love the numbers and live them.

Most of us tend to compare ourselves with others. When we compare, we always feel that we are better and deserve more than others, but others undeservingly get more, which triggers us. This is natural, and this is what our mind tells us all the time.

How to tackle this situation of comparison?

Next time, when you compare yourself with someone, do the five/ten exercises. Give yourself ratings out of ten, with ten being the highest, and rate the person you compare yourself with, out of five. For example, you rated yourself an eight and the other person a four. Now see that the other person needs only one point to be perfect, and you need two points to make it to the ten.

Once done, see that you need to work double on the self, compared to the other person. Eventually, you will stop comparing yourself with others as you will start learning that comparison is useless, and focus on self-improvement is everything.

Comparison brings nothing but rage. Working on the self brings improvement, which eventually leads us to be better. But better than whom? Better than the self. You have to beat only yourself to grow.

Learn to understand when you get triggered. And when you see you are triggered, either go silent or walk off but don’t get into the debate at that point.

Knowing the trigger and working on it would save you from the aftermath as when you are triggered, you will more likely do out integrity. And this can start a chain reaction.

When triggered, accept you are triggered and go silent if you know no better way to handle it.

A yogi aspires to attain the highest level of self-realization. Through the thick and thin of his experience, he must remain calm, focused, and concentrated on his goal. It takes him years of practice, knowledge, learnings, and failures before he can actually see a glimpse of the success of his goal.

Likewise, a businessman’s journey should also be like that of a yogi. He has to stick to his ultimate goal without getting lured for any shortcuts to success. When a business person keeps increasing his knowledge, practice what he has learned from his knowledge and failures, and keep his head calm in all the situations while expecting the unexpected all the time, he actually sees success.

While a yogi’s success is self-realization, and the success of a businessman could be material gain, the journey of both is the same. If the businessman becomes focused on one and only one goal, stay calm, keep patience, and don’t get lured into distractions, his journey is no lesser than a yogi’s.

After all, it’s about the journey you experience. You don’t have to be a yogi to realize self; you can be a businessman, practice everything in your business that a yogi does in his self-realization practice, and still can attain the self.

No matter what you aspire, don’t forget to read the useful scriptures, have the master coaches or the real gurus, and stick to your goal.

We cannot give less and take more or even give more and take less. Whenever giving and taking are balanced naturally, life goes smoothly.

Plants and trees give us oxygen, and in return, we balance by giving them carbon dioxide. Employees give their time and talent in return for money and fulfillment of their goals. Citizens pay taxes, and the government gives facilities in return.

Giving and taking has to be in harmony. If plants start taking only carbon dioxide and stop giving oxygen, life can’t sustain. If employers take more work or when employees give less work, the long term equilibrium would be disturbed. If the citizens don’t pay taxes and the government doesn’t give the deserving facilities, the nation’s harmony will be disturbed.

If we don’t give back to nature, in the balance of what we take, the world’s sustainability would not be balanced.

When taking, think if you are giving enough back. Balance is the key to sustain and thrive.

We do things either out of obligations or with conscious choice. Though falling into obligation also is our choice, it is not the wiser route.

When we do anything out of obligation, it doesn’t last long, or we don’t do it as expected because we don’t feel it the right thing to do.

But when we do things with our conscious choice, we tend to stick to it for the longest time because our heart permits it.

Further, when we do things under any obligation, we are more prone to revolt and finally do things that we don’t want to do in a calmer state of mind.

Though both are the choices, pick the one you will stick to for a longer period of time.

Since the beginning of the time when humans started socializing, we live together, eat together, and work together. The whole socializing is in our DNA, and it can’t be replaced by phone or video calls because we want to feel people.

What has started as a new normal is already seems to be the end of it. What has been in our subconscious as impression over the period of centuries won’t go away in a few months or years? Our yearning to meet. And socializing isn’t going anywhere.

Work From Home might stay for some as it had other benefits. Outside of that, the new normal is already counting its days.

There are two ways of serving your customers. Either you can treat your customers as someone who is interrupting your beautiful life by doing business with them. Or you can be respectful to your customers, remember their names, giving them special treatment and become remarkable.

Being respectful or industrial isn’t dependent on whether you are a small local company or a giant having a global footprint. Instead, it depends on the management, what they think of the customer relation, how much they are training their employees, how much they care.

Be remarkable with your customer service, no matter what size your business is because business is about leaving a positive impact on others’ lives.

What I said isn’t what you heard. You heard from your perspective and disagreed.

We all have different perspectives, and many times what is told and what is heard are different. This can lead to confusion if you don’t get a chance to clear the air.

If ever such confusion arises, make sure you sort it out with open communication and clear the context of what you said.

To disagree and getting confused is natural, and to solve it, the only way is open communication because open communication can help you clear the context behind what you said.

Freedom is not about not working or not doing. Freedom also is not about being irresponsible.

On the contrary, freedom is about living without boundaries, striving for difficult goals, not bowing to the outside pressure, inspiring others instead of managing them, setting up examples instead of lecturing, breaking all the mental barriers, and taking accountability for your life. That’s freedom.

Believe in the freedom, shoot for the sky. Unless you shoot for the sky, you will not feel real freedom.