iamhasime

The Way of Doing Less

2025-09-10T13:01:00+05:30

It’s the start of Sept. I’m 9 months into my second stint at the startup journey. 90% of my runway is gone (some investments came up) and I’m brimming with ideas and insights to build on.

This Week in AI is growing well – finally! Good week-on-week growth in both readership and subscription.

The AGI School is gaining recognition within my ICPs.

And now, I’m emboldened to build a new brand for freelancing. For this I’ve chosen Substack and Twitter as the channels of growth.

All this while, I get ideas for two new apps:

Birthday Reminder App - still long on it. I believe no app exists that has become the go-to place for saving important dates for people.
Duolingo-like Language-learning app for learning Kannada.

By nature, I’m pragmatic and calculative. But it blinds me to believe that I’ll be able to pull all these off with the “right kind of balance”.

And looking at all the data that I have, I can too.

But here’s the reality: I was nowhere near the milestones that I’d set for myself.

The website, the app, the endless blogs and newsletters, it was as if I was just doing things and the time was passing without any changes.

It was in a moment of unflinching honesty with myself that I finally understood – I was not focused. I had too many things that I was trying to do and I wasn’t getting anywhere with anything.

This became concrete when my mentor and my ex-boss, Ayushmaan Kapoor 🙌, in a session that felt more like an intervention, laid out my choices that felt more like the choices given to Neo in the first Matrix movie – red or blue, focus or drift.

Deeper pondering made it philosophical: The way of doing less.

Doing less is not to say that you become a lazy buffoon but that you actively choose to do less. It is to focus more, care more on the singular action that you are commiting.

It is the discipline of refusal, the courage of restraint.

To choose less is to choose depth. To do less is to care more for the thing being done.

It’s the timeless wisdom, echoed across cultures and schools of thought.

The Japanese way of perfection. The 10,000 hours principle. 99% perseverance rule. This and that, it’s all the same.

Doing the same thing, for longer than most would, with unique experimentations, that leads to evolution.

Each evolution adds to the step-function of the act and allows for leaps to take place.

In the end of the entire cycle, it allows for compounding to happen.

This is the magic of focus – and the result of the way of doing less.

Intentional, focused, deep psychological and spiritual devotion to a single act that it becomes the edge.

So what am I doing now?

Deep focus on only 1 thing: building This Week in AI.

The aim is to get 1.5K subscribers by the end of September. ( At the time of writing this, we’re at ~850 after 9 months FYI )

I’ve identified that we need to only go after high-intent, opportunity-focused entrepreneurs and operators in India. And we need to be cash-positive by the end of the year.

All this while deeply focusing on what I do and straying off of any glint of inspiration ricocheting from the universe.

Not “doing less” but actively choosing to do less – for focussed efforts, allowing greatness to sprout.

PS: Special shout-out to Diven and Tilak sir for their endless feedback sessions, strenuous debates, endless discussions and for simply bearing with me 24x7.

The Way of Ideas

2024-06-09T16:19:04+05:30

No idea is a universal idea.

All ideas have a limited scale.

Some ideas, like socialism, work great between a family or a group of friends but fail at a scale of society.
Other ideas, like capitalism create wedges between a community but work great in running a country and the world economy.

Hence, no idea acts in the best interest of everyone. British Imperialism was brutal for India for example. Modern capitalism on the environment.

Similarly, there are no final ideas – everything is part of a greater unfolding system that builds on top of the existing ideas and keeps piling on.

At times, one might feel that ideas are cyclical rather than incremental. That’s because all ~~good~~ ideas are re-discoverable. Why? Because, all ideas build upon the older ones. Hence, it is imperative that we learn from the earlier mishaps with greater ideas. Totalitarianism is one such idea.

Ideas are time-dependent too. Because humans forget and omit all the time, as and when the times repeat themselves, so do the ideas coming out of that time. The Italian Renaissance is a great example of it. It built upon the already explored arts by Ancient Rome – after the “Dark Ages”; a gap of over 10 centuries.

The biggest fallacy of our (and every) time is that the ideas of today are the most complete ideas. Wars have been fought over this one mirage. Modern feminism movement is an example of such a social war.

But most bloody are people with new ideas turning violent to vindicate their new ideas. History is littered with such revolutionary “saviors” leading masses to their communal grave with their new, shiny ideas – China, Russia, Korea etc are the recent examples.

And lastly, the most tricky are the ideas of the bygone era, taking shape as the ultimate truth. They are dangerous because they blind you to the broader bigger truths. Ideas around identity, nationality, religion and other prerceived-truths are examples of this – too beautiful to have, too difficult to shed-off, and too easy to rotten a populace with.

Whatever it is, in each context, all ideas are valid. And in all scales, and timeframes all ideas are fallible. It is up to us, the bearers of our current world to understand this not be lost in the reflection of history.

Have a good one!

The Achilles’ Heel Trait

2024-05-25T16:04:04+05:30

How to prioritise your mental-peace by forgiving others’ “shortcomings”.

Part of growing up is spending more time with yourself. One downstream effect of this is a higher sense of individuality and symbolically, a heightened selectivity in the type of people you want around yourself.

And, although the alignment between people is rising due to closer knit echo-chambers on the internet and broader acceptance of differing ideas - there’s always someone who’ll just hate the existence of, someone whose existence just irks you beyond comparison..and you don’t know why.

No human trait is original, all that we are is an inherited copy of our parents, the society we lived in, a social class we grew in, if lucky a rich heritage, some traditions that makes us a part of a broader family, and some tribe – nation, state, language, heroes, stories etc.

With all this randomness, and uniqueness in the levels and breadth of perception, it is very far-fetched to expect 100% alignment from people. Further futile is people deteriorating their relationships, expectations because of these mis-alignments.

Hence, below are the two axioms that have worked for me:

Internal peace should be the primary goal of our sustenance – it’s too important.
Everyone, including you, WILL have an Achilles’ heel trait about them.

The only way that I’ve found to live a peaceful life without letting the “obvious BS” of the world get to me is these two axioms.

True maturity is making allowances for others’ Achilles’ heel traits.

If you learn to discount the obvious Achilles’ heel trait of a person, you’ll find a great deal of freedom and joy in the company of most people. A complex being like the guy next you can’t just be shrugged off and equated to null-value because “you didn’t like the way they didn’t call you, after they said they would”, or “they talked bad about you behind your back” – your internal peace is too important for this.

There’ll always be some people who will find contentment is harbouring offence or just the opposite, malice for others – those people will never find the peace that they are looking for.

And lastly, the top tier greatness is making arrangements for your Achilles’ heel trait when dealing with other people. Consideration, afterall, is the highest form of love.

Hope you’ve a great one!

Lessons from Feb 2024

2024-02-29T03:03:08+05:30

tl;dr of the lessons from this month

A. From the Books I’m Reading

This is Marketing by Seth Godlin

On Marketing
- “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill bit. They want a quarter-inch hole”
- Decision matrix: Desire for gain or avoidance of loss.
- Perception drives reality.
On user behaviour:
- People are different. Noone is irrational.
- Some people are looking for a feeling rather than the logical truth and that’s okay.
- “Everything that we purchase – every investment, every trinket, every experience – is a bargain. That’s why we bought it. Because it was worth more than what we paid for it.”
“Everything gets easier when you walk away from the hubris of everyone. Your work is not for everyone. It’s only for those who signed up for the journey.”
“The relentless pursuit of mass will make you boring, because mass means average, it means the centre of the curve, it requires you to offend no one and satisfy everyone.”
“When in doubt, assume that people will act according to their current irrational urges, ignoring information that runs counter to their beliefs, trading long-term for short-term benefits and most of all, being influenced by the culture they identify with.”

B. From the Internet

Sonder
The moment when you realise that everyone around you has an internal life as rich and as conflicted as you.
This feeling leads to greater empathy and kindness about other people.
Knowing Thyself
The discussion of marriage has commenced in my friend-circle. In all the discussions, 1 direction that I keep leaning on is the act of knowing oneself and reconciling with one’s ying and yang.
We are a generation whitewashed by the latest thing, filling our lives with wants that will outlive our human lives. Our spiritual experiences are the material possessions and artificial scarcity has us running around the world. There is so much noise out there that it drowns the authentic, self-voice deep within.
You will always be confused, lost and forever in the pursuit of that feeling until you understand yourself well.
You can’t also let others do that thinking for you, and adopt their conclusions.
One shortcut that I’ve recently found for this reconciliation of self is writing detailed essays about yourself. I did this activity this month and it made a lot of things clear for myself. The questions that confused me, ideas that eluded me, I could make sense of all of them. Some pointers for the essay: birth, pind (community, village, hometown), history, values, likes, dislikes, wants, needs, aspirations, ambitions, and goals in life.
Few additional tools to help you with this:
- Political Identity
  Our lives are run by politics. Of the states’, religion, people, philosophies and much more. The way you think remains constant across these fields.
  Here’s mine if you’re curious.
- Personality Test
  I gave the 16Personalites test again. It’s one of the best introspective tools to understand yourself better.
  I’m a Commander Personality Type if you’re curious.
Circadian rhythm
ONDC
On Marriage and having kids after 30
Prometheus
According to Greek Mythology, Prometheus was a Titan(older Gods, banished to the underworld) who stole fire from the Olympian Gods and gave it to humanity hence ushering the age of technology and human progression to building civilizations.
For his crime, he was bound to a rock, with an eagle eating away his liver daily. This was thought of as a form of eternal torment as his liver grew back every single day.
Esoteric Knowledge
Knowledge intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialised interest. Today’s businesses are built on esoteric & copious insights that you only get once you get deeper into one field.

There are a few other topics that I got into thinking all thanks to the illustrious set of friends that I have and I wish to do dedicated articles on all of them. They are:

Rise of Individualism (v/s Collectivism) is a Broken Capitalist Society Phenomenon
AI and its impact on Medicine
Why Now.

Auf wiedersehen!

The Way of Hashiras (pillars)

2023-08-16T04:23:08+05:30

Why you should do everything, everyday.

Yes, I’ve stolen the word – “Hashira” from the beautifully animated, a lil rushed but overall great anime : Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. If you haven’t seen it, you definitely should. To those unaware, the word “Hashira” means a pillar.

With that off the way, here’s what the Hashira concept is a metaphor for – We all live multiple lives. Our mental stability, happiness, and contentment are mostly derived from the stability of these lives.

Here’s how you can think of it: imagine a wooden plane raised on top of a few wooden pillars. The plane is a metaphor for the stability of our lives and each pillar, a metaphor for the many unique lives that we have going on ourselves. For some, it is their work-life, for others a relationship, for others their passion projects and so on. Whatever forms of pillars there are, the stability of the wooden plane is utterly dependent on the strength of the pillars that it’s standing on.

In the world of hustle culture, one mistakes by focusing and relying on only 1 of these lives. The mirage of focus often blinds oneself to the multiverse of possibilities out there. Don’t get me wrong, focus is needed for some greater purpose but the total no. of people drawing meaning out of that focus are the exceptions and not the rule. For a normal Joe, like me, a unilateral life is a myth, an illusion that we convince ourselves into living. People’s work becomes their identity. Their relationship becomes a marker in their friendship circle. The cause they support becomes their cause of being. As long as it keeps people busy, they are happy living that 1 life.

That’s until these pillars break – people either get laid-off or are not appreciated enough at work, or are burnt out and down goes their entire stability plane. When the source of an identity is lost, one looks for it elsewhere. The collapse of the wooden plane, and the absence of a new pillar to take care of it – instantaneously – results in the fall into the abyss of anxiety, doubt, imposter syndrome, and existential crisis which simmers for some time.

The antidote is simple. 1 pillar structures are seldom strong. Build more pillars. Ideally, 5+ pillars to hold your peace. So that if even one of them breaks or shows weakness or needs maintenance, the others are there to safeguard against the fall.

I’ve in the past made similar mistakes. For the majority of the time, I was a workaholic. I worked till exhaustion, from 8 AM to 1 AM. So much so that Saturdays were blocked lying on the bed, for therapy sessions with The Beach House playlist (Depression Cherry is :ok_hand:).

Exhausted, I decided to focus more on health – and only health. Work suffered. Back to the Beach House playlist. And then, something else came along and so went the cycle.

That was until it occurred to me how our brain works. How, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins – chemicals responsible for a good mental state are triggered by unique triggers that are independent of the other.

Nowadays, my pillars include:

my book-reading life
my work life
my “being a good flatmate” life
my relationships life – with friends and family
my side-hustle life
my gym life
my upskilling life .. and so on.

I’m in a completely different mental state nowadays. It’s a mindful phase that I wish upon a lot more people.

Your pillars could look different, and it’s completely okay. What is important is that you need to live them all. All of them, all at once. Growth in all is paramount.

All of these parallel lives complement each other and have long-term effects. All of these are infinite games in a finite structure (a day). The idea is to live an intentional life. The idea is to have a framework where nothing of value, worth the investment is left to the future to take care of.

Naval says – “All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest.” And nothing grows better than daily compounding.

Why TheCareerMint.com

2023-07-02T02:57:08+05:30

A note on why thecareermint.com exists

On the back of every NCERT book, there used to be a talisman on decision-making by Mahatma Gandhi. It goes something like this:

..Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will he [she] gain anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away.
Mahatma Gandhi

For me, these poor would always be The Patriwala from Ayodhya or that Street Vendor from Azadpur Mandi – with such realities around you, it gets hard to play blind and work on any product that doesn’t directly (or indirectly) work towards their upliftment. No hate or virtue signalling here, people should do what makes them happy and content

India is currently the 5th largest economy at USD 2.651 trillion in GDP. We are aiming at a USD 5 trillion economy by 2025 and are poised to be the 3rd largest economy by 2075 – big leagues.

Outside of it, India is the biggest and youngest open market in the world. A lot of problems still exist – someone will fulfil all those needs, in all aspects of life and make a killing. You will see more companies coming in, more FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) and more companies growing up. The dream of our freedom fighters – to build everything from a needle to a rocket in our country is finally going to be true. We are definitely making some strides in that direction.

Now, with such prospects you’ve got to wonder – what would fuel it?!

For every great economy to grow, at the pace that we are poised, you need a few things right:

a rule of law, that everyone respects
a setup of governance that allows every voice heard ( a democracy ), and
most importantly, a working class that knows how to build stuff.

You can’t do anything about the first 2. You can only do something around #3.

To have a population that knows how to build stuff, you need broadly four core sets of classes of people:

The first class is the STEM researchers and inventors. Sadly, we are not a society that cultivates researchers and inventors (We do celebrate innovators though). For engineering colleges, we have IITs – which do not come to any top 100 list anywhere. For healthcare education, we have AIIMS – where no new things haven’t happened for ages. The list goes on. The point is that we have no core research in our country. We have not invented anything and we only have our past to be boastful and proud of. (Nothing wrong in being proud of your past, but societies look at their pasts often do it because they don’t have anything to look forward to, across the horizon). If I were to build something, with all my intellect, I’d work here. Some people call this – foundational model. But, I am not well-versed in any of this and so I can’t help here.

The second class is a good set of the highly-skilled, educated working class. Training for this working class is a joke. Only 34% of corporates in India provide internship programs. It’s an unoptimised industry that has very recently started gaining traction. But, it’s still far away from bearing any fruit.

The third class is a set of artesian — people who come out of vocational studies – your masons, your plumbers, electricians, carpenters and all. I’m not going to bore you with the details (I don’t have them handy either) but my good ol’ product thinking and guesstimate tell me that this is an entirely unorganised industry where people get trained at the job, often through referral – i.e. the gates are closed for any Joe who just wants to pick it up as a career choice.

The fourth class, the financiers – people with money, thankfully we are good with them. We have a robust banking sector and have more than enough money circulating in our economy. Although tax collection is still very low ( only 6.25% of the country pays taxes ) but this will only get become better with time.

At CareerMint, we are thinking of solving the issues of the second class and have a vision to one day solve for the third and the first class.

We need a better way of helping the human resource of our country reach the maxima of their potential. In corporates and work environments, across industries, a hidden ceiling exists that people can’t seem to crossover. Be it a nurse wanting to progress into a higher role or an IT guy at a services company trying for better pay. It’s not that they are not skilled or don’t have the skill set – they are just limited by a network and knowledge that lets them punch far above their weight.

We wish to solve this.

Through a mentorship space, fellowships, apprenticeship programmes and a set of other minute innovations we wish to provide a platform for our college kids to get the best jobs and opportunities out there and then excel at them.

We are working on a pipe dream here. There are a lot of uncertainties. Some of which are at my end too. But, sitting down, knowing that this problem exists and not doing anything about is unacceptable. If we don’t solve this, someone else will – and we welcome it. We just don’t want the next big thing to come out of any place other than India. [ Not saying that we don’t wish to operate in any other country or that the ceil of aspirations and goals should be tied to the growth of a specific country after all our allegiance is to intelligent life itself – humans and non-humans ]

We are open to insights, suggestions, partnerships and problem statements. The mission is more important than the self – write to us, and we’ll go through it without any ego. [You can reach me via any of my socials]

I’m very excited. Hopeful and fearful of the future. If nothing, I’ll be fun. If you know me, please hold me to this post? If you meet me, ask me about this. That’s the beauty of building in public.

Finally, for reading thus far, I’ll leave you with this kinda speechy but kinda great quote that I think is cool and often resolves the “why” for me:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
A Return to Love, by Marianne Williamson

The Way of Product Management

2023-05-16T01:18:08+05:30

How to become great at the abstract job that is product management.

Product management is the job of managing and solving the abstract. There are a lot of beautiful anecdotes out there to simplify the definition but this is the most recent and interesting one that I’ve come across. It’s often the way of things, in time the subject becomes the critique of its definition. This happened to me a few weeks ago wherein, the meaning of PM-ship became an abstract question for me.

What does it mean to be a great PM? How could I become one, I asked myself. Everything worth doing is worth doing well, I thought. Every profession ought to be a pursuit of excellence, I read in the book: “The Book of Five Rings”.

In the past, I thought the following is what was needed to be a great PM:

Passion for creating products.
Ability to get things done.

I’ve now found that these are just the essential attributes to be a PM. Just a PM.

While passion for creating products may fuel you to create products, features, and PRDs; you can still make bad products and come out happy with your efforts.

Getting things done, or execution, makes you an operator. It is an important attribute of being a PM but it isn’t what makes one “great”.

Regular PMs, in my opinion, are passive. They wait for feature requests. Good PMs are active, they go out there to inquire about what problems they can solve. Great PMs, build hypotheses and then get them validated in the market. All of them get things done but the way is not the same.

Beyond the cult of “getting things done”, I’ve now realized these to be the more essential attributes to becoming a great PM – Ownership and Insights.

A product becomes successful when it solves its intended customer’s problems - known and unknown. Known problems are easy to solve. The customer requests a “feature” and an “operator” “gets it done” post discussing it with the engineers. The product moves a step ahead. If happy more customers use it; if lucky they pay for it too.

But what often kills products is what they don’t offer or the problems they never thought they had or cared to solve. Successful products are built on leaps of intuition and judgment by the creators of the product. Good intuition and sound judgment is earned by PMs with deeper insights into their product.

Ownership always comes first. Obsession with one’s work is critical for any job. But, it can’t be taught nor does every product/market trigger obsession from its workers. But a sense of ownership is a personality trait. It can be taught and often learned. It’s the discipline of serving your customer and showing up to your product every day. Ownership of the success of the product is what puts a good PM on the path of research, experiments, user interviews, bug fixes, and release cycles.

If ownership is a magnitude, insights are the directions. Every great product (business) vision is built on little unknown hunch-draped secrets or insights. Insights into the users, market, and industry help a product steer in the cloud of competition and bad market cycles.

While ownership can only be accepted and can be sufficed into a single piece of advice – take care of your users; building insights is hard.

I don’t know how to build insights. I’m still a learner, a fellow traveller, walker on the same path (hopefully as you) and here’s what I’m trying to build insights in my day job:

First Principles: Talk to your current and potential users. Listen only to understand their problems.
Analyze numbers generously.
Observe macro trends and read up on historical precedent on it.
Talk to veterans in your industry, their careers were built on their insights.
Go out, talk to people.

This is all I have. Abstract suggestions for an abstract job.

This post will evolve, there will be new lessons and I’ll be sure to add them here.

Owing to #5 On building insights I have to ask that you HMU if you found this to be helpful. My socials are mentioned on the left and I would love to understand the industry you work in and have deeper insights on.

The Path is the Goal

2023-04-12T03:03:08+05:30

Playing infinite game in a finite world.

NOTE TO THE READER: This article is not an attempt to change you or refute your way of life. The goal of this article is to share what wisdom I’ve found in the pursuit of the same ol’ success and habit formation in my own little lived life. I remain a stern believer that people should decide for themselves the philosophy of life that works for them – no truth is definite, and no version of god supreme.

I first started reading books in 2009. It started as a way to improve my vocabulary in school to get familiar with new ideas and a grander world in college (Rich Dad Poor Dad, Zero to One, The Lean Startup, Lee Iacocca etc). I used to read a lot and I used to read them to completion – even at the cost of great boredom. This affair with books came to a halt around 2015, my second year of college when I started working on my first startup – Dystanc (shout-out to Bhagat and Jasmine, my lovely co-founders from that time). Because I was always working towards a goal – making a damn website live, or learning that framework, or launching this website; I had no time to read books and I have never been able to take up any new hobby since then.

Don’t get me wrong, I started reading in between, with an aim of reading 12 books in a year – could not complete even the first book. I started writing blogs, with the goal of writing 1 each month – could never muster another one. I indulged in a lot of creative ventures but could never bring anything to closure or sustain it for a longer time. All goals were set in a moment of realisation, 60 seconds of motivation and ended the way they started. Forming habits in my 20s was seeming to be a hassle until I saw this beautiful poetry on Netflix.

Chef’s Table: Pizza happens to be one of the most beautifully crafted and multifaceted shows that I’ve watched in my recent memory. It’s up there with Everything Everywhere All at Once, and TheWhale in terms of story-telling. In this show, there’s an episode dedicated to Yoshihiro Imai, a pizza chef based in Kyoto Japan whose zen-like search for meaning ended with Pizza-making. He found the purpose of his life to be the path of making pizza through which he could “give people the experience of wind blowing in their hearts” – something he felt while first eating a pizza.

In an instant, I could understand the truth of it. For him, pizza-making isn’t merely a job of putting food on the table but an endless path to sharing with others what he once felt about food. For him, the act of excellence is not a “goal” but a “path”.

You will not read 12 books a year by deciding to read 12 books a year.
You will not get a 6-pack of abs by deciding to go to the gym 5 times a week.
You will not wake up at 7 AM by deciding to from Day-1 wake up at 7 AM.

You can however start by reading 30 mins a day. You can go to the gym every day 5 times a week. And you can create and structure your day in such a manner that lets you sleep by 11 PM.

If you couldn’t do any of these, it’s okay. It was only 1 day in the infinite days that lie ahead of you. You are not focused on results but a habit. Try the next day, and the one next to it, and then again – until it becomes second nature to you.

The intent of reading is not to finish a book but to read and gain wisdom. The idea is not to finish a book (asap) but to cultivate the habit of reading. To get out of the loop of instant gratification and calm your mind to expansive wisdom that seeps your mind slowly and deeply.

The intent of going to the gym is not to get a great body but to stretch and flex your muscles and remain healthy. Add fresh oxygen to your tissues so that they can sustain your lifestyle longer.

And waking at 7 AM every day doesn’t entail anything if there’s nothing you’re looking forward to filling that day with. Lack of a purpose should not be a blocker for a lack of plan. Even without a life-changing contribution to society, one can live a fulfilled life of personal growth. All life is sacred, we pay our respect to sacred things by taking care of them.

We focus so much on the end goal and the distance from it that it blinds us to the incredible value of compounding over time.

All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest.
@naval

The intent is not to reach a goal but to follow a path. Ideally, to fall in love with the process but realistically to discipline yourself on the path to incremental growth.

In time all goals change, and your perspective changes but the art of discipline remains that becomes a framework for attempting the unknowns in life.

The Edelweiss Manifesto :cherry_blossom:

2023-03-25T03:12:08+05:30

what is? why, and why not?!

I was first introduced to the word edelweiss in a Youtube video from a channel called “History Buffs’’. History Buffs’ creator Nik Hodges critiques historical movies for their accuracy and fiction – in the process presenting a commentary on the history and culture of a movie. This video was a review of the HBO mini-series The Band of Brother and it made me watch one of the most beautifully created show of our times, but that’s for another time.

Edelweiss is a flower that grows high up in the Alps. Due to its growth in somewhat arid and barren parts of the Alps, it is romanticized to be a symbol of rugged strength, beauty and bravery. Well before the Second World War, soldiers from the German army would climb the Alps in search of this flower and would wear it as a sign of honor – to have made the tiring journey up the hill to get the same.

From this tradition, I draw the inspiration for what I call the Edelweiss Manifesto – a set of goals/milestones that I’d set for myself to become worthy of the human race. I also call it the “The Ubermensch Manifest”; but this doesn’t have a mystique about it as does the Edelweiss.

So, here are the milestones that I’d set for myself back in 2017. People say “aim for the moon and you’ll land somewhere in-between”. But for me the moon wasn’t even in the scope. Mars seemed like a better place to aim for. Or maybe I had more confidence in my abilities back then. Although now I’m convinced that I didn’t know a lot of stuff back then. Infact, I used to think to myself – “Ignorance is bliss, as long as you have a plan”

Anyway, here’s the list:

GitAll was going to be an ed-tech startup that’d solve the tech hiring problem.

Dystanc was going to solve hyper-local e-commerce.

Dholu was going to be a vernacular voice assistance company.

I was going to open an open-college – a place that you could just come and learn whatever you wished to, hung around, and found “your” calling.

I was going to solve traffic. I was going to start a Zeppelin (Airship) based aviation company. :exploding_head:

I was going to do all this because in college, at that age, I had the confidence and a predestined faith that I was going to do all these things, in fact destined for making these things come true. I used to be engrossed with plans, visions, dreams of making all these work. Mundane tasks of the day, the few classes I attended, the walk from my college to the bus-stop, the ride back home – all were opportunities for me to think about the problems and their solutions. I loved it, time was endless and in that eternity I could see it all working out “someday”.

Then, college ended.

Still starry eyed, I had convinced my friends to take a punt with GitAll and make something of it. I think they stayed to be nice.

Reality struck. Things started to not work out as planned. I met people, pickup projects, lawyered up, went to meetings, interned, left, went to more meetings, attended events, networked, created SOWs, sent quotations, designed UIs, made ATL and BTL marketing plans, talked to people, partnered up, met some serious folks, hired, paid folks, emailed folks, potential clients, current clients, asked for the money I was owed, repaid, reinvested, did all that again, for years – but the replies never came, commas didn’t increase, and projections failed.

I made a lot of mistakes along the way, was blocked due to so many mental blockers, and tried ventures I had no belief in, did whatever I could to ensure the survival of the Edelweiss Manifesto – only to end up at a job.

It’s been some years now. I love my job, I get to work with one of the best engineers in the country, work under a co-founder from whom I can learn so much – still.

But in this entire process, the confidence and the grit has died. I’m much more calculated, mallowed, machined human who understands the way of the world, it’s secrets, and I am not sure if I ever wanted to be this bean counter of a human. I don’t have the same zeal that I had back in college. I fear this appetite of having something of my own will die soon too if I don’t act on it. If something burns your soul with purpose and desire, it’s your duty to be reduced to ashes by it – right?

I’m plagued by the idea of building something of my own. All around I see people doing more, going an extra step. I see opportunities that I can’t just shut my eyes to. I see people building stuff, creating things of inspiration, of beauty and of love. The prospect of taking scrum-calls and making incremental changes to a well-made B2B SaaS product doesn’t resonate with me anymore. There can be so much more out there. Something for the soul, and for the arts.

Therefore, this blog and this website are the first steps in that direction. The Edelweiss Manifesto will change a bit. To account for the newly found worldly wisdom but it will remain.

So what’s the Edelweiss Manifesto? It’s a note to myself and a reflection on the wild plans I had for myself. A love letter to myself from my past and a to-do from my future self in hopes that I will not live a wasteful life.

More to come.

Ad Astra. Per Aspera. xoxo.