Plug it in. When your phone runs out of battery, you don't expect it to charge itself. You plug it in into an external source of energy. Same with your car. If it runs out of fuel, you don't expect it to go anywhere unless you pour some fuel
The carrot and the stick. The carrot will make the mule move towards where you want it to go, effortlessly. The stick will keep it in place, frozen. Mostly, we keep brandishing the stick and wonder why the mule doesn’t move.
Where are you going, next? When you book a flight, you have to choose. Are you going to New York or New Delhi? You might need to go to both places but the same flight is not going to take you there. Where are you going first? Which flight can take you there? What about
Reliable or perfect? Do you want to be reliable or do you want to be perfect? Do you want to ship on time every time, or do you want to never make a mistake? You can spend hours, days, weeks and months trying to be perfect. Or you can choose to be reliable
That's enough, darling. Steven Pressfield, Turning Pro: Ms. X is an attorney who lives in Los Angeles. Here’s her story: I was driving, alone, from San Francisco to L.A. I took Interstate 5 because it was faster than the 101 and I had a meeting I had to get to. I
The courage of sending short, specific messages. The fear of "no" makes us write long, complicated messages and emails. If there are multiple things to respond to, the likelihood of a simple no becomes less. In reality, though, the likelihood of a clear yes becomes minimal. It's better to write short clear messages
Can we make it easier? If you are feeling blocked at your desk, can you go to cafe and work? If you aren't able to workout at home, maybe it might be good idea to try a gym? If you can't fall asleep, maybe it might be better to take a
Oceans and swimming pools. Seth explains the smallest viable audience in This is Marketing: Coloring the ocean purple. There’s a dangerous prank that relies on thief-detector dye. This dye, sold as a powder, is quite bright and a tiny bit goes a long way. Once the powder touches the moisture on your skin,
Be kind. You don't know what the other person is going through. The other person doesn't know what you are going through. The least we can do is to be kind to each other and to ourselves.
"It's a memory." If you stub your toe now, you know it’s happening in the present, and you won’t try to categorize the feeling as a memory—unless you are experiencing a fear around it that seems excessive. ~ Rosamund Stone Zander, Pathways to Possibility. But most other times, the feelings that
Attention and love. There's hardly anything that won't get better when we give it attention and love. And when we do that, we get better too. The world can do with more attention and love.
Choosing your story. What is the story you are telling yourself? What is the story you want to tell yourself? Can you design your story with intent? Can you repeat your story until it becomes your story?
Restart. Restarting is re-"start"-ing. It is not a continuation. It's a fresh start. There is no shame in restarting. The challenge is in embracing that we are starting from zero again and comparing to where we were a few days, weeks or months ago isn&
What’s your phone for? The smartphone is a stark example of how when we are not clear about "what’s it for?", we are no longer in control. Even though we think that we need the smartphone to talk to friends or listen to music or click photographs, etc, mostly, it has
When and where? When we think of taking action, especially action that can potentially make our lives better, we skip the when and where. Rather, we say: I want to workout more. I want to write more. I want to take more action to increase my income. I want to make my dating
Intentionally imperfect. How can we get the first imperfect action step done in our project? Not just imperfect, but intentionally imperfect. The only thing that matters at this stage is that the action step gets done. That once its done, there is no going back from there. Once we get there, once
Separating money from identity. Resistance uses our self-doubt to make us seek validation from strangers when we are answering “what do we do?” This makes what we do precious, especially what we do to earn our living. Instead, if we can frame a simple answer, “I have an online business” or “I work as
Does it matter? That Netflix episode? That long drawn cricket match? That doom scrolling about US elections? That time spent perfecting your painting... or removing silences from your podcast episode? Who does it help? What change does it bring? What would you do with the time and energy if you had a choice?
One a day. Can you play only one game a day? That way, you look forward to playing again tomorrow, and you don’t feel guilty. Plus, you build an identity of being patient enough to wait for tomorrow. What about the Netflix episode? Or that pizza slice? It's a skill
Framing Possibility. Excerpt From The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander & Ben Zander: The practice is to invent and sustain frameworks that bring forth possibility. It is about restructuring meanings, creating visions, and establishing environments where possibility is spoken—where the buoyant force of possibility overcomes the pull of the
Fix one thing at a time. Most of our struggles in fixing things usually come from trying to fix too many things in one go. Yes, most of the time, we don't have the luxury to just focus on one thing and ignore everything else. But, what we can do is to figure out
Are you an impresario? Whether you are a freelancer or a creative, we can either wait for things to happen or we can make them happen by being an impresario. Here are 2 brilliant videos from Seth Godin that change the whole game: On being an impresarioUpdated in 2021 to include this lost footage,
Action / motion. Action brings about change. Motion gives the illusion of action. It's important to distinguish the two.
Minimum effective mindset. What's the minimum that's needed to be done to bring about this specific change? What can still be reduced? What's still missing? If we start approaching our challenges from a strategic mindset, we can regain the agency to bring about the change that we
