Srikanth's Blog

1) Actively listen 2) Break bread 3) United front 4) Soulful friendship 5) Travel

1)  Wenn schon, denn schon 2) Writing is thinking 3) Be an outlier 4)  Seize the narrative 5)  Don't follow, lead 6)  Consume less, create more 7)  Get to the source 8) Codify your expertise 9) Collaborate strategically 10) Teach to learn, advocate, and network 11)  Progress, not perfection 12)  Build in public 13) Think first principles 14)  Think multidisciplinary 15) Pivot early on 16)  Carpe diem

Free is always an expensive affair. It comes with many hidden costs like obligations, low quality, and unforeseen future costs. Always pay for services and products for the best outcomes. Free is costly.

1) Decouple your identity from the identity card. 2) Network through work. 3) Never gossip. 4) Espouse your values. 5) Teach to learn, advocate, and network. 6) Communication is everything. (Use email wisely) 7) Arrive and leave on time. 8) Go the extra mile strategically. 9) Colleagues aren't friends, they are colleagues. 10) Focus on work, work, and work. (The only reason you're hired in the first place) Bonus: Document everything!

1) Know yourself 2) Accept yourself 3) Be Yourself 4) Shed your past 5) Define your values 6) Define success 7) Say no 8) Say yes 9) Amor fati 10) Do your own thing 11) First respect yourself 12) Invest in yourself 13) Embrace silence 14) Celebrate small wins 15) Watch your circle 16) Believe in yourself

1) Air 2) Water 3) Diet 4) Sleep 5) Walking 6) Reading 7) Meditation

If you want to master a subject, you need to find and get to the source. Always seek the direct source material on the subject. For example, if you want to learn about Personal Finance, pick the top 3 or 5 books on this topic and learn from the experts. Look at the citations and references in the book and go deeper into where the experts have found the base material to develop the book. The idea of delving deeper is to reach the source, to the extent possible and build your knowledge from there. When you read books, looks for footnotes and endnotes provided by the author. They will lead you to research papers and a range of books related to the subject. "They muddy the water, to make it seem deep." — Friedrich Nietzsche You don't need to follow some random influencers on the subject. You'll only end up gaining superficial knowledge without any depth. Influencers are mostly curators and not really creators. They quote the same books to build their content. Some are sma...

1) Neglect health 2) Fear change 3) Compare 4) Groupthink 5) Harbor resentment 6) Be miserly 7) Please everyone 8) Just coast 9) Wait for opportunity 10) Play God

1) The not-to-do list 2) Atomic progress 3) Timebox your work 4) The Sitzfleisch quotient 5) Routine, routine, and routine 6) Constantly declutter mindspace 7) Avoid the perfection syndrome 8) Work offline 9) Avoid multitasking 10) Think in weeks, months, and years

No money, no problem! In fact the lack of money, resources, and a pre-built ecosystem presents you a rare opportunity to become self-made. It's probably a blessing in disguise. Who would not want a good head start, plenty of resources, and a level playing field? Ideal worlds don't exist. So, in an unequal world where most people are inherited with wealth, familial fame, and many other opportunities beyond your reach, life might look and feel unfair. It's isn't! You can flip the narrative. See this as your chance to learn and grow from the ground up. If you ask me, competing with the fortunate is more fortunate. Remember, that inheritance has robbed the others of this golden opportunity of being totally self-made. All the wealth in the world can't buy you the satisfaction of becoming a self-made individual. Here's my speculation on inheritance . Here's my other question. Are you rich? Some are self-made and some are shelf-made. What opportunity did God bless ...

1) Punctuality (Respecting time is respecting yourself and other people) 2) Dressing is signature 3) Actively listen 4) Hold the door 5) Strictly no phubbing (Be in the moment, pay attention to people around you, else excuse yourself) 6) Gossip is cheap 7) Break bread together 8) Don't interrupt people (It's disrespectful and they tend to lose their train of thought) 9) Respect everyone equally 10) Don't overstay your welcome

What else do you need, if you just believe in yourself? Trust your gut, abilities, skills, values, perspectives, goals, and dreams. No one knows you better than you. How can others believe in you, if you don’t believe in yourself. Let’s be reasonable and have a sensible argument here. The more you believe in yourself, the more others will believe your belief in yourself. They believe your belief. You are what you are, and you can be what you want to become any day with clarity, courage, curiosity, determination, strategic planning, reasonable efforts, and of course with a wonderful stroke of luck. Yes, luck plays a role too. Luck works for those who are prepared for opportunity. If someone can do something, you can also do it. However are you willing to pay the price for it? Are you willing to go through what that someone has been through? Are you ready for a gruelling climb? Apart from few physical and intellectual limitations, most people have a fair chance in making a successful lif...

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Share your knowledge learning lessons, and skills. Show your work and be absolutely open with your ideas and process. There's no upside to hoarding ideas and gatekeeping knowledge in this era. Write a book, a blog, start a streaming channel, or a podcast, or whatever format and medium that works for you. Start sharing and spreading your knowledge. This act can help others as well as the most important person: you. You learn twice when you teach others. Also, you’ll gain the respect and admiration of people. Teaching doesn't necessarily mean classroom teaching. When you show your work, you're more or less teaching others. Apart from learning twice, you build a live portfolio of your work. Two birds, one stone. Gatekeeping leads to a stale brain. Open the gates.

1) Show initiative, move first, and move fast. 2) Maintain a win-win mindset 3) Resourcefulness, not resources 4) Build alignment 5) Anticipate change 6) Independent thinking 7) Ask questions 8) High emotional quotient 9) Enable leadership 10) Communitas

Learn to age gracefully. You need to accept and respect how your body and mind are changing and evolving. This change is not in our control, and that’s the best part. There's no going back, no matter what. How ugly it would be if we did not age in body and mind? It would be quite boring after a certain amount of time. Life's beauty is in our growth. Don't cling to their younger self and be desperate for the younger version. No matter how hard you try to control your aging, it's impossible, beyond the surface. That part of you is dead. Move on! Every new moment is an opportunity for a new experience. Accepting age, respecting god's design, and being in tune with your evolving identity is the most elegant way to live. You're at your best, today.

If you’re humble, no one can abase you. If you don’t compete, no one can beat you. If you don’t expect, no one can disappoint you. If you’re silent, no one can dispute you.

This is the most important meeting you should attend, every single week. A meeting with yourself. This is not about some random me-time advice, but it’s about actively calibrating your life. Take a weekly check on how you’re doing in various aspects of your life goals, be it your health, career, marriage, relationships, wealth or whatever is most important to you. Have this meeting with yourself, no matter what! Spend half-an hour every week to review and preview your life. Even 15 minutes will do. Well, I'm quite sure, you can spare 15 minutes of your life for yourself. Make notes, introspect, reflect, iterate plans, take better action, identify improvement areas, and constantly measure progress. Writing in your journal is even better. My friend, this is a meeting you can’t miss, delay or reschedule. By all means, get this one thing right. This is most important meeting. Don't miss it.

If you want to accomplish something on the side, you should find pockets of time. Not everyone has the luxury of doing something full-time. For example, if you want to write a book, but you still have to do your full-time job as well as address the other facets of life, it's imperative to find those precious pockets of time. These tiny recurring pockets help you build things at an atomic level. In the case of a book, you can make simple notes on chapters, ideas, research sources, and inspiration for your book. It doesn't matter even if the pockets are small as 5 minutes. Eventually these recurring pockets add up to hours and hours of thinking and work. The idea is to leverage your time and energy to the extent possible. Some examples of these recurring pockets are when you just finish parking your car and you find some quiet time. You're on the metro or bus, waiting to reach your destination. You need to identify these spots as per your specific routine. I just gave some ra...

The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company. — Seneca Retreating into solitude is peaceful, powerful and nourishing for the soul. When was the last time you were all by yourself for long periods of time? First, we must understand that being lonely and being alone are two different experiences. The constant demand for someone’s company, virtual or otherwise, does not give you the time, space and energy to think, process and act in the interest of your work and life. If you look at the positive side, the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 were quite the events for us to experience the power of solitude, recalibrate our thinking and get our acts right. There are numerous cases of people who found new passions and built totally new careers after the lockdown. Probably the silence was the trigger to reflect on life choices. Just killing time is not really staying in solitude. We have to kill the very demand t...