SG's Meditations - Issue #58
Hola! I am back! After a break of 2 weeks (the last letter I sent was on Oct 16).
Since then I've been on the road and have spent a lot of time in Delhi (and Gurgoan and NOIDA). And thus, I do have a LOT to talk about. Delhi does this to me.
So, let's get going!
PS: I will deviate from my regular method a bit. Plus, this is like a brain dump with little or no value to readers. So, please bear.
🔄 Things that went down in the last two weeks
A/ So I came to Delhi for Diwali. However, this time around I was not excited about it at all (and this has been happening for the last few years). To a point that I was (and am) thinking, what's even the point of Diwali. I mean I am not really religious. I dont care about the victory of good over evil. I dont burst crackers. I like when the city is lit up but that's that. I dont even like sweets too much.
Of course, I am home with my parents and my sis. And I know that these three people are the only ones that have my back. But do I really need an occasion for spending time with them?
On one lens, the answer is yes. Each day is numbered and it's a machine counting down to a non-reversible deadline fast. So I need to make the most of it. On the other, the answer could be no. Why succumb to emotions?
So that's a conflict in my head!
A.1. is that I am questioning the meaning of this entire festival thingy. I agree that it creates an occasion that you live for. The entire country saves thru the year and then spends it all in these 2-3 weeks. But then that's about it. It's like a mega shopping festival, organised by our culture and nation as a whole. No?
B/ Starting this weekend, I am on an SM detox. I have removed all apps from my phone. The intention is to get more work done. And specifically, get the first draft of the second book in by end of November. Let's see if I am able to.
Also, this is my millionth attempt at getting book2 off the ground. I have decided that if I am not able to complete the first draft by end of Nov, I will not write it anymore. I am aiming at about 90K words in the next 25 odd days. A tall order, considering I have a lot of work and a lot of travel planned over the rest of the month.
To that end (and to get inspired), I will re-read The Count of Monte Cristo, which in my opinion remains the greatest revenge story of all time. In fact, I would rate it in the top three books to read of all time. The other two are The Godfather and Mahabharata. I wish I can write something as cool and displaces one of these three in terms of being a revenge story.
C/ I played poker after the Diwali weekend and I realised that I dont have the chops for the game. I mean I agree that I was card dead and I did not hit anything but that's no excuse in Poker. People with rag hands routinely win big.
So, I have decided that I am not playing poker anymore. And if someone asks, I would say that I used to but I quit because I was not good. And this also means that one of my long-standing dreams of winning the WSOP ME Bracelet needs to go on pause. I will revisit this in a few years. If I am around for that long.
C.1. is an after-effect of the poker night.
For poker, I had stayed up all night. And then to survive, I had coffee the next day and then I was screwed for a couple of days. I need to realise that I am 40 now and I can't really do these things. Growing old is a bitch!
C.2. as a knee-jerk reaction, I have decided to not have coffee anymore. Lol! I don't know what I will do at a Starbucks now (once I start going there for work). And it's been almost a week now that I haven't had coffee even though I've been to Starbucks a few times.
D/ In the last newsletter, I wrote that I am not "feeling" the "vibe" at Bangalore. Now that I've spent a few days in Delhi, I think I have the answer.
So, I feel this vibe when I am meeting people that I have known for a long time. And have some sort of loose connection with. And then I work to make those relationships deeper. This is my jam. Loose connections > deliver value > deepen relationships > repeat.
On the other hand, is the ability to meet new people and create loose connections with. I of course enjoy that well. In fact, I love it. I love opening new doors. But while I was in Bangalore, I was unable to do this. I think I can safely blame it on the kind of work I did and the balls I juggled. I simply did not have the time to do anything. And I realised that as a marketing agency, people dont appreciate what you do. So that's another challenge.
I mean I am to blame for this. I can no longer hide behind excuses. And now that I am 40, I need to man up and do things that I want to do. So that.
E/ At the behest of a colleague, I started and broke 75Hard.
I mean I did not do the hardcore version. It was more of an attempt to get into the discipline of doing things for 75 days. I tweaked it to work on writing and photography. I did for a few days but then I stopped. I realised that with the kind of life I live, I may never be able to do one thing consistently for long. In fact, this has helped me get a deeper appreciation and immense respect for people that are able to do things consistently with limited resources.
Oh, I did put some pictures every day for a few days on my Instagram. Here are some. I hope you go like them. I won't find out till the end of November. But what does in trying :D
F/ Talking of routine and consistency, I realised all over again that I love it when I win my mornings. I thus need to protect those to the best of my ability. No meetings. No news. No exercise. Nothing that is not work. And for the next month, specifically, nothing that is not book2.
The only trouble is that I love nights way too much to not stay up. So, I dont know the answer. May be sleep at 8 PM and wake up at 3 or 4. But then I dont get to enjoy the nights. And I dont get to enjoy evenings. So that's a conundrum. Guess what they say about saying no is correct. I need to say no to the lure of the nights to be able to have the light shine bright!
G/ While I was in Delhi, I met my ex-employers. They are an event agency and they are crisscrossing the world all the time! And I realised that I love the businesses that make you travel the world.
Increasingly as the time at hand is more at a premium, I do realise the wastefulness of business travel (go to a meeting, deliver a presentation and come back the same / next day). But then there are things like events, sports, entertainment, teaching and more where travel is actually the input you need to make grand things.
So, I HAVE to find something that is in this zone. Plus, P mentioned that she likes this kinda work as well. And C will not say no. And with the two of them by my side, I can rally the entire C4E team to pivot to this.
What could it be? That ensures that I am at the airport every day. And international airport at that. Any ideas?
H/ Now that I have started to talk about work, lemme dump that as well. At C4E, am struggling with too much work! There is always too much to do and too less time. I dont know what to do to reduce the load off my shoulders. Maybe it's the pain that growth brings along?
I also think that I am not being able to rally my people along. I am probably failing to show them the larger picture of who we are and what we are hoping to do. In fact, this is the number 1 thing that I am sure of. I really want to make this sustainable. And fun!
I/ The 10X challenge. So, AA has given me a 10X challenge where I need to improve on one thing from my spider to 10X. While we figure out what this is, we've agreed that by Mar 2023, I would be better in my fitness and I would have made some progress on Uke. And I have taken this as a challenge. Let's see where and how this ends.
***
Phew! So that was the brain dump. Now, coming to the pre-agreed agenda!
📸 Photo of the week
I took quite a few photos over the last two weeks. Most of them are dumped on my insta. I wish I could choose more than one. But since I can pick just one, it would be this.
Saurabh Garg on Instagram: "This iPhone camera is 💣🔥. Took this from a moving car. Used no filters and, uff, what a photo! #sg75hard #indiagate #tiranga" — www.instagram.com Saurabh Garg shared a post on Instagram: "This iPhone camera is 💣🔥. Took this from a moving car. Used no filters and, uff, what a photo! #sg75hard #indiagate #tiranga". Follow their account to see 751 posts.
😊 Good thing from the week
I think the good thing from the week has to be the brain dump that I did above. And the two-week review of my Roam. I added it here. No this is not a public link. But this was good nonetheless!
🗣️ Quote of the week
I feel I am repeating this but here it is nonetheless. Roosevelt's Man in the Arena. Here...
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
Again, one of those pieces that I can hard relate to! No, I am not really marred by dust or sweat or blood but I get the drift that it's easy to dole advice but incredibly hard to do things. And thanks to my inability to move needle, I have a deeper appreciation for people that actually do things!
💭 Thought of the week
Now that Elon has acquired Twitter, he's moving at a breakneck speed and making changes like mad. I think that's something that I am thinking about a lot.
Primarily, what would it take to be that?
I know I can't be inhuman about things and I can't look at people like objects. I know I dont have 44 billion lying around to be able to buy things like Twitter but I do know that I can learn from how he builds things at an unprecedented speed and while he does that he challenges the very fundamentals of the industries that he is often new to! Ok, that was some sentence!
How do I become like that? I know I need to probably try and be Saurabh and not a Steve or a Paul or an Elon. But you get the drift!
So that!
📽️ Video of the week
Has to to Kana Yaari.
I love it to a point that I am willing to write an entire book about it. The song is so deep at so many levels and I can relate to it to the extent that I feel someone peeped into my heart and wrote the song! Each line in there is what I live on a day-to-day basis! The sad part is that I would imagine that I was unique in my love, loyalty and suffering. But since there is a piece of music with more than 44 million views, there are more people that relate to it. Talk of bubbles popping ;P
Ok, enough. Here...
🆕 The new new thing
Here's a new thing. Annual Review for 2022 and Plan for 2023.
If you know me, you would know that I am big on annual reviews and plans. I’ve been doing this for 10+ years now and while I’ve not become rich or famous, I typically know how to spend the year. It gives me a direction to move on. And it allows me to make decisions for the long term.
Most times, each year, I would lock myself in a room for a few days and do a brutal analysis and review of the year gone by. I would list the mistakes I made and the lessons I took. And I look at where I think I want to be (say, climb Mount Everest). And I look at notes I took during the year, the emails I sent, the tweets I made, the photos I clicked. Etc etc.
And all this evolves into a plan for the coming year. Here is the plan I wrote for 2022.
All this time, this has remained a solitary endeavour. This year on, I am starting a private group (limited to 20 people only) where all of us will meet each other (virtually and if possible, offline) each weekend over the next 7 weeks and plan for what we want to do in 2023. We will use tools like YearCompass and Tiny Change Planner.
The intent is to get more input and ideas and create a sort of Master Mind group to get things done. If you want to be a part of this, please email me at sg@c4e.in (and tell me more about you, your goals and why would you want to join this).
PS: If you do agree to sign-up, please be ready to commit to spending 2 hours every weekend (from 13th Nov to 25th Dec) with me and others.
PPS: Once we’ve identified our goals, we may evolve this group into an accountability group that helps over the whole of 2023 to ensure that each of us is on track. Again, I don't know how this will evolve. Let's see. Lemme know if this sounds interesting to you.
In the end...
This is it for the week (and the last 2 as well). After all the maddening moving around and thinking and stress, good to have paused and done a review of life.
And this, ladies and gents brings me to the end of this edition.
I hope it was a fun read! If you enjoyed reading this, please share this with your friends and family and help me expand the reach of my weekly newsletter. Right now I reach 63 people and about 40% of those opening this. So about 25 people read this. I want to have a larger audience. I want to solve for distribution! Help me with it! It will mean a lot to me :)
Over and out! 👋
- SG / 6 Nov 2022 / Del