What follows is the hard-nosed, rigorous, and tiresome execution stage. Sticking to your plan diligently, correcting courses if necessary, and making any changes if unforeseen situations arise. It requires a routine that disallows your vision from altering because of the world's distractions. Doing the same thing over and over again might seem redundant, but it's essential if you trust that a bigger prize awaits at the end of the labor.

It isn't wise, however, to assume that the ideation and execution process can occur in the same place with the same mindset.

Routine automates mundane tasks, trading consistency for creativity. When you put the blinders on, you're blocked from the rest of the world, focusing solely on your goals. You're not interested in what nature has to offer or in the marvels of humankind but in what you're here to do, to make a mark on the world. The passion that your purpose brings suffices and compensates for everything you're missing out on while pursuing something more significant for yourself.

Ideation, however, requires creativity, alertness, and an open mindset, which a routine could never give you. To free the creativity held captive while you were implementing your plans, you must let go of consistency. One way of getting a headstart is by traveling to a new place, where learning, adapting, and engrossing yourself take precedence over completing every little task on your to-do list.

There, your senses heighten, and once that happens, you can see the world around you and your future more precisely than if you were to stay at home or in your city. You meet new people, interact with them, generate ideas that you didn't know were possible, and in the process, widen your horizon to more unique opportunities. There's a reason why some people travel to unexplored territories and end up staying there for the rest of their lives.

Not many are satisfied with the knowledge they possess. True happiness lies in the pursuit of wisdom, and only the wise can confirm that they're anything but wise.

The nakedness of being a stranger in a place where they don't even speak the same language as you instills a sense of being reborn; in some ways, it is a fresh start that you might not even know you needed. There, you realize that any day that passes without you learning something new is wasted.

You mustn't pride yourselves over knowledge, for you know so little of everything. Even an expert is a newcomer in another field. I've resented the words, 'I don't know' for a long time, but if they've taught me anything, the world is craving to help those who don't know, maybe in an even better way than you would've learned.

Ideation is your vision, and execution, your mission. If the sentences used to describe each of these terms differ, what makes you think you can come up with them sitting in the same place?

Think about it.

Cheers,

Aamer

This excerpt from David Brooks’ The Social Animal, provides a compelling exploration of how information is transmitted across generations to reach the newest of the newborns in the world today.

…even before we are born, we inherit a great river of knowledge, a great flow of patterns coming from many ages and sources. The information that comes from deep in the evolutionary past, we call genetics. The information revealed thousands of years ago, we call religion. The information passed along from hundreds of years ago, we call culture. The information passed along from decades ago, we call family and the information offered years, months, days, or hours ago, we call education and advice.

To harness the power of words, they must be articulated perfectly. They restructure the mumbo-jumbo in the brain to guide thoughts into a particular direction. All that is required is repetition and a reference point, of which the latter is already provided in the aforementioned paragraph. Frankly, this newsletter can now be taken willfully in any direction that one pleases.

It can be about how knowledge is poured from one vessel to another, acting as a perpetual source of energy that cannot be depleted.

Alternatively, if you prefer delving into our collective history, take the scientific route into the realm of genetic formation.

How about getting controversial with religion, originally meant to unite, but now dividing us?

Or, perhaps you'd prefer the fun and frolic route, exploring the beautiful diversity of cultures that offer humanity countless ways of living.

And let's not forget the entertaining aspect of exploring different personalities within your family, conquering the ability to handle them all at once.

If four topics weren’t enough, brace yourself for a descend into the treacherous trenches of our faltering education system that’s failing us all by the minute, churning out standardized products of mediocrity because of the lack of attention towards an individual’s unique talents, expertise and interest.

Almost broke the keyboard with that last paragraph… some underlying issue that needs to be patched up. Nothing a band-aid can’t do.

Anyway, the point is, and the direction we’re heading towards is—a million people will have a million perspectives even if they’re looking at the same thing.

It doesn’t mean you’re wrong and the other person is right, neither does it mean that you’re right and they’re in the wrong. Rather, it signifies that each individual possesses a slightly distinct lens through which they perceive the world. Instead of fiercely defending your own viewpoint, consider sneakily peeking through the other person’s lens from time to time.

Keep this in mind the next time your budding artist child isn't acing Math or History, your mother becomes your daily hotline with her opinions, your sports-loving brother can't grasp your literary passions, your success-driven friend questions your pursuit of personal fulfillment, or your practical-minded father raises an eyebrow at your creative career choice. It's a reminder that everyone's outlook comes with its own quirks and perspectives.

It’s never been your place in the world to judge and this newsletter is far from forcing you to oblige to anyone’s whims and fancies. It’s a subtle nudge to expand the angles of the blinders you have on in order to view the world and its inhabitants the best you can.

In an ideal world, the lineage carries the burden of what the ancestors left behind denying those without significant resources the chance to grow. Fortunately, it’s not an ideal world, neither is it a fair one and I’m not here to tell you what a wonderful world it is because it’s not. I’m here to tell you, ‘What other choice do you have?’ Mars is far from being colonized.

Different is what makes us sane. Imagine if everyone in the world pursued the same career path. We'd have an army of generational accountants crunching numbers, a horde of identical lawyers arguing the same cases, and a swarm of carbon-copy artists painting the same landscapes.

It's like a job fair gone wrong! Embracing different perspectives is like assembling a dream team of diverse talents. Just like a successful company needs a mix of skills, ideas, and expertise, our world thrives when we celebrate the unique talents and passions of each individual.

So, whether you're a daring entrepreneur, a creative artist, a logical engineer, or an adventurous traveler, remember that your chosen path adds an essential ingredient to the recipe of success. Together, our varied careers create a symphony of innovation, inspiration, and collaboration.

Because sometimes, in the pursuit of becoming like someone else, we trap our true selves and history is witness to the fact that we do not like being trapped.

Cheers,
Aamer

It’s 3 A.M. and I’ve forsaken my slumber to pen this newsletter down1. There are two core reasons behind the impulsive decision, each weaving a tale of its own.

First and foremost, the ambiance in my bedroom is quite eerie, with a lingering sensation of being watched from the shadows. Secondly, that very eerie sensation sparked within me an idea that quite frankly, couldn’t be contained.

And that idea my friend, stems from the realization that we often see ourselves the least in real-time. Think about it, we don’t see ourselves snoozing the alarm, waking up in a frenzy, haphazardly getting ready for work, driving and cursing through traffic, making up excuses for being late to our bosses, actually getting the work done, driving back home, having dinner while watching our favorite series on Netflix or even sleeping. The people around us, however, they bare witness to us living our lives.

Think about it—while we may have an idea of who we are and how we act, others tend to know more about our outward projection, the persona we present to the world. Some individuals have mastered the art of projection, meticulously appearing like perfect human beings. That’s because they’ve burned the midnight oil to make a mirage of themselves, a personality that fits the crowd and manages to stand out in a way that catches eyeballs.

They don’t do anything that attracts negative attention, instead they win by hearts because they know exactly how they’re being perceived.

There’s a significant difference between hoping to be perceived in the exact manner you view yourself and how you’re actually perceived.

So here's my point: when the eerie sensation of being watched came over me, I altered my behaviour… I got up and started writing. And I’ve done that on more occasions than I could count the hair on my head. Not the writing because someone was watching me part, but altering my behaviour because someone was watching. Perhaps you can relate—I’m willing to go out on a limb and say you’ve done it too.

We tip better on first dates, conduct thorough orientations when our boss is present, summon the strength to lift heavier weights in the presence of a trainer, switch off electronics when our parents are home, behave more conscientiously with our moms around, and become extra generous when our in-laws are within eyeshot. It's what psychologists call the "Hawthorne Effect." When another person's gaze is upon us, our projected selves come under greater scrutiny. We strive to be perceived as better than we may naturally be in that situation, investing extra effort into creating a favorable impression.

Allow me to share an anecdote: once, an investment banker took me to his cherished restaurant, eagerly anticipating the fish he had raved about all weekend. Alas, the waiter made a blunder, serving us cod instead of the promised mahi-mahi. The waiter was scared shitless, whispering to his manager that the last time this happened, the banker had gotten furious. And I bet that that time, the banker was alone. Despite his disappointment, the banker gracefully approached the hesitant waiter, providing sound advice while refraining from causing a scene in front of me.

I often wonder what would have transpired had I not been present in that moment. It's a reminder that our behavior and interactions can undergo fascinating shifts when observed by others.

Share Aamer's Letters

Take celebrities as an example. Notable personalities, who’ve been around in the eye view of the public for most of their lives immediately switch personalities when they sense a camera on them. On a plane from Dubai to Mumbai was my first encounter with a celebrity. Her interviews were brash, her tone was defiant and her behaviour rebellious but she was the sweetest person to talk to when we sparked a conversation. As soon as we landed, she took a deep breath, indicating that it was showtime and returned to her camera personality.

And I’ve been using what she did, i.e. the Hawthorne Effect, to my benefit ever since. I’m more of an introvert than a social animal so playing games to keep my mind occupied helps me in times of necessity. Whenever I feel on the brink of losing my composure, I visualize a camera right in front of me, recording the faintest of expression change on my face. I add on to the story, telling myself that I’m being telecasted live in front of the whole nation and that any wrong move would put me in jeopardy.

At its core, it serves as a tool for enhancing productivity. Its effective application safeguards one of the most valuable assets to a human being: their reputation—which takes years to build and seconds to destroy.

A word of caution: You probably won’t like the original you when you see yourself in third person. So, before you dismiss this game, practice it in isolation a number of times.

Cheers,

Aamer

It was in an old age home that I experienced both, the most profound moments of learning and the saddest of tales.

While my memory of who took me there remains unclear, what’s etched in my mind are the two grandfathers who received me with open arms, treating me as if I were their own grandchild. The child-like excitement they had when they saw me, remains, to this day, a moment that comforts me in the most difficult of situations.

Walt was an American and Bill was from South Africa and by the looks of it, they were best friends. They bickered, but their camaraderie was evident in their playful banter.

I’ve always been naturally curious, and I couldn't help but wonder why they were in an old age home, so it was only obvious that I ask and this how the conversation unfolded after I posed the question.

Walt: Back in my younger days, life was a rat race, a constant pursuit of success and personal achievements. It was a cutthroat world where everyone fought like dogs to get ahead. It was survival of the fittest, and if you didn't eat, you were the dinner at the end of a long day. Let me tell you, my whole life...

Bill: Oh boy, here we go again with the sob story.

Walt: Talk when it’s your turn, will you?

Bill: I've heard it a million times. What more do you want from me?

Walt: The kid asked a question, and I'm sharing my story. So, listen up, kid. Throughout my entire life, I did as I was taught. From the very beginning, it was all about...

Bill (muttering): Me, me, me...

Walt: You got something to say, Bill?

Bill: Nah, go ahead, Walt. Tell the kid your tale.

Walt: It was all about "me, me, me" and no one else. People were obstacles in my path, stepping stones I had to overcome. You know what they call it nowadays? The individualistic mindset… self-interest reigns supreme. And let me tell you, I was neck-deep in it, like a cow in a cornfield. There was a certain thrill in living up to the world's expectations, ticking off every box they set for me. Kid, I lived the so-called American Dream. A beautiful house, a stunning wife, a bunch of kids—I had it all until I realized I didn’t.

Bill: Alright, tell him what happened next.

Walt: Well, here it is. It was still "me, me, me" all the way. Never gave the wife the time and attention she deserved, neglected my own kids in the process. I was consumed by of money and success, always looking forward and never looking back. But when I finally turned around, they were gone. The missus left for someone who could offer her what I couldn't—a connection, quality time, the works… And my kids? They're trapped in the same cycle I was once part of, chasing their own dreams and barely sparing a thought for the old man. Nobody's got time for me anymore.

Bill: You done? Shit. This guy cries a lot.

Walt: Where are the tears, Bill?

Bill: It’s all inside man. Your heart’s aching… it's time to pick up the pieces and move on.

Me: And what about you, Bill?

Bill: Me? Well, I can honestly say I've lived a good life. Ubuntu, ever heard of it?

Me: No…

Walt: Professor’s gonna teach now.

Bill: Our humanity is intertwined and we are all connected in a profound way. We were taught that our actions and choices impact not only ourselves but also the people around us. My old man once smacked me on the head because I stood watching an old lady carrying her groceries to the car and I didn’t rush to help her. “Damn it boy. Go, help her. By lifting others up, you, too, rise to greater heights,” he said. The way he talked sometimes, made me wanna call him a poet.

It was about putting ourselves in another person's shoes, understanding their joys and struggles. What do you kids call it nowadays? Empathy? That’s it. Empathy. It was always ‘I am because we are.’ What Walt did here was ‘We are because I am.’

Walt (nodding): That’s true.

Bill: We all come from one father, kid. We’re kids of kids of kids of kids of the same human being. We always forget that. Ubuntu is just a reminder of the original way of life—treat others like they’re your own and they’ll treat you the same. My kids… they too had a confused look when I told them about it. They thought you could never outgrow your potential if you were so busy taking care of others. So I brought out The Yanomami. You know anything about them?

Walt & Me: No…

Bill: The Yanomami are an indigenous tribe in the Amazon, Brazil. Among other things, they never eat their own catch, you know, the stuff they hunt for. They offer it to their neighbors and in turn, their neighbors offer their catch to them. You don’t wanna offer something bad to others, right? That makes you look bad. When it comes to feeding your own family, you make do. But the moment it’s about feeding another family, you put in your best, isn’t that right? What we’ve hidden over these years is that the altruism in us is far greater than we assume.

Me: But then… why are you here?

Bill: I had nowhere to go. My kids were driving down to their grandpa with my wife in the backseat and uh… a car crashed into them… no one survived.

Walt & Me: I’m sorry…

Bill: Nah, it’s been 20 years and each year, it’s been easier to talk about it. Aye, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t live a good life. Better than Walt here.

That’s about it, to be honest. The conversation continued and I might just share the rest of it some other day.

Cheers,

Aamer

What do three individuals, who differ in age, religion, gender, race, nationality, language, and beliefs, have in common?

95% of their time is spent thinking about themselves.

It’s either about what they have to do during the day, coming up with rebuttals for arguments they should have won in the past, worrying profusely over what the future holds or at times, all three at once; but it’s most definitely about themselves.

Having the realization that the person sitting across from you is not at all concerned about you, provides a notable edge in effectively interacting with them and capturing their attention.

This comes in handy, especially when you’re trying to create an impression. The more you make it about them, the more interested they’re going to be in you.

I, once had the opportunity to pick the brain of the vice president of a prominent corporation. That’s how I landed on a few tips he used to get virtually anyone, to be interested in what he had to say.

• Imagine that the individual you are conversing with is the most captivating person to have ever existed on this planet. More importantly, use words and your body language to make them feel it.

• Be sincere in your appreciation for things you have in common and draw them out to topics that you are well-versed with. If there are no common points of interest, listen intently, jot some points down and be ready for the next time you meet them.

• As the conversation flows, bring out your natural self if you haven’t already. If you’re comfortable, the person you’re talking to will be comfortable.

• Smile and bring your sense of humour out. Laughter is the most delightful way to bond with others, akin to breaking bread together.

• Rephrase and restate some of their comments to let them know that you’ve been listening. It’s disrespectful to make the other person feel like they’re talking to a wall.

• Ask questions that cater to the experiences they’ve had in their lives. Give them a chance to reminisce their past. Secure people don’t mind talking about their failures.

• Remember their names, and any other information they might’ve given you during the course of the conversation.

• Find ways of keeping in touch and message them the morning after you’ve met them, thanking and repeating, in a very short dialogue what you learnt from them.

Not everything will work everywhere. These tips… they're not as important as to know how and when to apply them. The art is in mastering the application of your knowledge. —Vice President, Prominent Corporation

That’s all I have for today. Kept it short and simple this time.

Cheers,

Aamer

Being charming is associated with having the gift of speaking with unparalleled confidence and yet some of the most charming people I’ve met are silent on most occasions. It’s a strategy they willingly adopt to analyze the person sitting in front of them to better phrase their carefully-calculated statement. And I’m not saying this because I’m very quiet when I meet people for the first time, it’s because I’ve borrowed this habit from the people I’ve been charmed by... and they’ve been very successful in their fields.

It was an odd Tuesday and I accompanied a friend for a meet-up with a very successful and respected individual. He was the the crème de la crème of his industry and to get a meeting with him was near impossible for anyone, let alone my friend who wanted to pitch an idea to the mogul.

Anyway, my friend ends up parking outside the hotel because at the time, we couldn't afford the luxury of valet parking nor the luxury of tipping the valet incase valet parking was free. In hindsight, it was very good move.

We were in the café of one of the finest hotels of the region, waiting for this individual to grace our eyes when he entered, firmly shook our hands and sat down. We were ten minutes early and he, five. The impression had been created on both ends as niceties were exchanged. Just as he looked over to the waiter, the latter entered the scene with perfect timing, as if following a cue in a well-rehearsed play.

Here’s how we knew he was a regular there. The waiter solely took our order (2 Americanos, nothing fancy) and returned with three cups—he didn’t say anything but it was an indication that he didn’t waste time, even if it was for ordering coffee.

During the entirety of the meeting, the mogul stayed silent. He listened closely and carefully, maintaining eye contact… not uttering a single word beyond asking the occasional question. Credits to my friend, the idea was good but still, my image of a billionaire was more of interruptions, dominance and gab and I found nothing in this interaction.

Although the idea that was being proposed had nothing to do with the tycoon’s expertise—not even remotely in similar industries, he understood each and every word that was being spoken. His eyes were curious, his ears open and his lips, sealed shut.

We were allotted a quarter of an hour because of his tight schedule and when the time was up, he stood up and asked us to accompany him to his car. His driver brought the car to the entrance and he asked us if we drove here or took a taxi. We told him that our car was outside the hotel and he insisted on dropping us to it.

A few days later, the billionaire’s assistant, who got my friend the meeting in the first place, called. He liked the idea and decided to fund it.

A peculiar look clouded my friend’s face as he asked the assistant, “Did he understand the idea?”

“Nope,” he said, “but he’s got a strong network of people that do.”

“That’s why he was so quiet during the meeting.”

“Nope,” the assistant said, “he’s silent in almost every meeting, even in the ones where he knows more than the person speaking.”

To be quiet is one of the strongest traits I’ve ever come across. It’s the power that one holds concealing their words to understand the matter completely before placing an opinion on it. In this case, we were quite sure he understood what my friend was talking about but he didn’t. However, his silence smoothly cloaked his ambiguity.

Instead, he used certain actions that made him worth the status that he’d risen up to, like not ordering his coffee and very kindly insisting to drop us to our car. Simple gestures made him the person he was. The rest of the work was handed over to people who were smarter than him in that particular field.

It was only later that we found that the meeting was not to analyze the idea… it was to analyze us.

Cheers,

Aamer

“You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” — Jim Rohn

We might be challenging a widely accepted truth—a belief that has led some people to change their social circle entirely, but we’ll break it to you anyway… this statement is not entirely true.

We’ve extensively written in the past about how surroundings shape your future and the significant impact they have on the person you become in life but surroundings don’t necessarily mean the ‘five people you spend most of your time with’.

You might pick up some habits from them, maybe even some tips and tricks, who knows, you might even start speaking like them after a while, but who you become, is ultimately dependent on how they make you feel, not ‘what they do around you’.

The group you’re in or the social circle you surround yourself with, will consist of different personalities that function on very different levels—of motivation, of thought processes, of habits, vibes, mindsets and so on. You don’t become the average of those traits. You become the byproduct of the feelings that generated within you by staying with them.

A leader may emerge out of a group of recessive individuals who will follow the leader because they make for good followers. If you’re the leader in that group, you feel a sense of responsibility towards your tribe. You don’t become recessive yourself. The ability to command, to manage, to set direction, to fight when necessary, just in order to protect those who can’t protect themselves may emerge from being a slightly stronger personality amongst the five. The more time you spend with these individuals, the stronger these feelings get. The stronger these feelings get, the more confident you become to lead from the front.

Now imagine you’re in a group of highly efficient individuals, all of whom have leadership qualities, all of whom are ambitious and all of whom are ready to take on the world. But their toxic traits are visible from a distance. You don’t necessarily become toxic, but you feel burdened with the negativity that ensues within that group.

You might get straight A’s with them, you might take those leaps of faith you otherwise wouldn’t have, you might become someone that your parents or your loved ones wished to see you become but the feeling they’ve left you with, when you venture out into the real world alone, is that of negativity and malevolence. You then remember the feelings and nothing else.

How a person feels when they’re surrounded by the people they spend most of their time with, dictates what their personality outside that particular group will be like.

An incredibly successful entrepreneur will not necessarily churn out incredibly successful mentees. An under-confident parent will not necessarily have an under-confident child. Incredibly ambitious friends will not necessarily rub their ambition on their friends. Surrounding yourself with certain kind of people, is not a confirmed strategy of becoming like them. You ultimately fall back on feelings, not hard facts.

This reminds me of Ken, a friend of mine who spent a considerable amount of time with people that had mastered the the art of gossiping. A large chunk of their discussions was based on the lives of other people and no one had the guts to break this malicious trait because that’s how the group was formed. Ken felt horrible knowing that precious time was being wasted on something that he didn’t even enjoy in the first place.

According to the quote by Jim Rohn, Ken should’ve turned out just like his friends but those friendships had left such a bad aftertaste, that Ken decided to never be involved in any kind of gossip ever again.

At the end of the day, you’re not an average of personalities that surround you, you’re a byproduct of the feeling they leave you with.

However, one thing remains common. In both cases, you ought to choose your circle wisely.

That’s our 4 minutes for today.

See you on Sunday,

Aamer

We’ve all grown up with certain inhibitions that make us tick or force us to crawl back into our shells. It sprouts from our childhood. We compile them overtime, leave them unresolved and let them breed and grow in the untapped corners of our brain.

That’s the equivalent of us shoving all our things in that one drawer we never want to open and cheering ourselves on because we falsely believe that our room is clean, when in fact, it’s not.

But it opens up one day (talking about the inhibitions), and unlike a dirty drawer, it does far more mental and physical damage than we could imagine. Well, if your mom opens that dirty drawer you’ve been hiding for so long, expect some physical damage as well.

Those inhibitions are deterrents in our daily lives as we grow up and even the slightest, most benign comment from a stranger can result in an overflow of negative emotion that frankly, we’re better off without.

We then go on to waste our entire day thinking about that one comment that might’ve taken just one second for the other person to come up with. They don’t know what they did and they couldn’t care less but knowingly or unknowingly, we feed on that negative emotion for a very long time. And God forbid, someone does it again.

That’s a lot of precious time wasted.

So how do we resolve this?

At the risk of this becoming an unlicensed therapy session, one of the ways to take this adversity head on, is to acknowledge your feeling. It’s so weird that just by saying, “Yes, I feel like sh*t now but I’m not going to feel like this later,” you start feeling a little better. Not a lot, and it does not always guarantee results but it does no harm to try it out.

However, it’s all temporary until you really get down to the root problem—the problem you faced earlier in your life that made you feel this way. We all know what it is most of the time but we choose to ignore it because ignorance is bliss. Well, not always and not when it comes to your own emotions.

But this issue was All About Mankind. It still is. This is an ode to what you feel when someone opens the drawer you want closed at all times.

Now imagine how many times you’ve accidentally done it to other people. All it took you was one second to spoil someone’s day. That’s some great power. Use it wisely.

Not everyone has the ability to get over inhibitions, nor the means to resolve them and to be honest, it takes nothing to be nice. Many people would argue that it takes patience to be nice and yes, sometimes it does—learn how to be patient while you’re at it.

A wise person once told me, “If you’re easily upset or ticked by someone else’s actions, you’ve given your power to them. The ability to stay calm in times of distress doesn’t come naturally to everyone and if you have that, there might be smarter people in the same room as you, but surely not more powerful.”

Save that power… don’t just hand it over to anyone. It’s more valuable than you could imagine. And if someone has given you that power:

1. Give it back. It has no business being yours.

2. If it’s a no returns situations, DO NOT misuse it.

3. Send them this newsletter. Maybe there’ll be a Eureka moment.

That’s our 3 minutes for today. See ya next time.

Ciao,

Aamer

We’ve got one more story for you before we continue with our old ways. It’s fiction. It’s gripping. It’s startling and yet entertaining.

A Fictional Story For You

Chaos had spread across the Anderson household.

The family were finally moving and Mrs. Anderson was in no mood to disrupt the smooth flow of events. She made sure of it. Her eyes could shift easily from loving to commanding and that was something she took in her stride often. She was a beautiful woman but her eyes did all the talking for her. She took charge as the kids – Simon, Ashley and Amber squandered across the hallways trying to get up to speed with their mother’s instructions.

“Amber! The trash. Now.” She ordered as Amber set down the pile of boxes to throw the black, smelly pile of garbage gathering dust in the trash can.

As Mrs. Anderson struggled with packing, she intermittently thought about the construction at their new home. It was five bus stops away and there was a bit of work left before they moved in. All the workers had gone home for the day but she wanted to hurry things up. Even the plumber was due to come at four o’clock to brush up on the fixtures in place and make sure everything was perfect. It was mayhem. The clock struck three and she decided to send her husband, Richard, instead. She couldn’t manage everything on her own and it was the best idea at the time.

“Richard, Richard!”

Richard, who was staring into abyss in his bedroom shuddered as his wife called for him. He glanced at his notebook, read thoroughly as he flipped through the pages and started walking down the stairs.

Richard was tall and broad. His sculpted shoulders narrowed down to a thin waist and reasonably strong legs, almost like a rugby player. He had to maintain the physique for his profession, or at least that’s what he thought. In his prime, he was the lead actor for a television series that stretched on for a good six seasons before his character was killed off. He was greatly appreciated for his role. He really brought the character to life on and off screen. Richard, prior to playing  the lead actor, immersed himself into the role a year in advance. The character on the show was rash and abusive and he became the part off screen too. What he was on screen, he was off the screen as well.

It had been two years since he had not acted but that was going to change. He had been offered a role in a crime series in-the-making, right after his exit from the lead actor stint. He was awaiting production to start and had been preparing for the same.  However, a lot had changed since his character in the show before, had been killed. His family was concerned about him and how he was going to play a role in the new crime series. Nonetheless, they supported him and felt no need to discourage him.

“Yes?” Richard answered as he galloped down the stairs.

“Richard, can you please go to the new house to finish up the work the workers have left? Write this down – the plumber will be there at four. Before that, you have to patch up the huge hole in the middle of the garden. Can you do that for me?

“Sure darling.” Richard confirmed as he scribbled down the additional tasks in the To-Do list in his notebook.

“Richard, I’ll send Simon to help you out with the work once he’s done here.”

“No problem darling.” With that, Richard took off with his keys, his wallet and his notebook in his overcoat.

It was a welcoming afternoon. Richard’s morning had been bustling with activities and that’s what he loved most – something to do. Often he thought about his television series and daydreamed about the fame that came with it if they had let him continue. It was nonetheless a bright day and no one could take that away from Richard. He reached the bus stop and hopped on. He kept his notebook by his side on the seat next to him as he sat down by the window. The breeze that blew past him was his meditation, a form of relaxation that he hadn’t felt in a long time. He looked at the different houses on the street as the bus continued on its route.

Winston Ave, the neighbourhood in which the Andersons were setting up their new haven, was a wonderful location. The neighbours were kind and accepting and all the amenities were at a hundred-metre walk, perfect for the Andersons. Richard hurried down as the bus driver called out the next stop – Winston Ave.

Richard, after a short and brisk walk, finally reached his new home. He stood fifteen metres from it thinking about how well-built it was. The care and the precision that his wife and him had put in while making this home was unparalleled which is why Richard played a huge role in actually, physically helping out with the construction of the house. He stood there, starstruck.

All of a sudden, Richard frowned and found himself staring into abyss yet again. He turned around, looking left and right. He checked his pockets only to find his keys and wallet. He couldn’t fathom what was happening to him. He tried to remain calm. The notebook was not on his person and for some reason, Richard was not worried about the book at all, in fact, he had forgotten that he ever carried anything with him apart from his keys and wallet. In all the mess that was going on, Mr. Wesley, Richard’s neighbour walked out of his house and into the front yard.

“Hey Richard, how are you? The house you guys built looks amazing. It has been under construction for a long time.” He complemented.

“Ah! Yes. Thank you so much. Ready to shift in right after some tweaks.” Richard responded graciously, still perplexed.

Richard walked into the house and started looking around. He appreciated the finesse in every detail as he wandered about. He walked up and down the stairs frantically, trying to recollect what his next move was going to be. He walked out to the garden and saw a huge hole in the middle of it. On the side of the hole, there was a mountain of soil with a shovel pierced through. In the midst of it all, the doorbell rang. Richard darted to open the door. On the other side of the door, stood a man with a toolbox. He was dressed in a blue jumpsuit and a matching cap.

“Hey. Aaron,” the man said as he extended his hand in anticipation of handshake, “here to make sure everything’s good with the taps and whatnot.”

Richard shook the man’s hand, his eyes still bewildered, “So you know what to do right?” Richard was trying to make sure he did not look like a fool.

“Yeah sure. They sent me instead of your regular man, what was his name? Oh yes, Shaun. But I’ll make sure everything is fine, no worries.”

Richard let the man in and sat on the chair, trying to recollect his thoughts. Aaron strolled around the house trying to find the bathroom and the kitchen, not asking Richard questions to look a bit professional. It was his first day on the job and he did not want to look like a newbie.

“So, how long you been doing this?” Richard asked.

“So long, can’t even remember.” Aaron swiftly replied as he fumbled on the steps.

Richard and Aaron found a starting point to their conversation as they talked and talked. Richard really embraced the young man as there was a lot in common between them. He too, was an electrician once upon a time and knew the struggles of life before he made his mark through the series.

“Oh yes! You’re Richard Anderson. I thought I’ve seen you somewhere. Big fan, Mr. Anderson. Really loved your character on the show,” Aaron complemented as the conversation continued.

“Thank you Aaron. I’m glad you liked the show. There is a positive aspect to everything. After I left the show, I really started to spend some time with my family. It has been wonderful. My son just turned 17, growing into a fine young man!”

“I’m sure, Mr. Anderson. I would love some pointers. My wife’s pregnant. Could be delivering any moment now. After finishing up here, will rush to the hospital to check on her.”

As Aaron started rounding up his work, Richard felt it necessary to offer the young man a beverage before he left. The stove had recently been set up and it was a great opportunity to make some coffee.

“Let us chat some more over coffee before you set off to the hospital, is that okay, Aaron?” Richard asked.

“Sure, sure Mr. Anderson.” Aaron hesitantly accepted.

As Richard stomped towards the stove with his hefty body and brewed some coffee, Aaron explored and applauded the detailing and delicate work of the house. Richard poured the coffee into two mugs and carefully walked, calling out to Aaron. Aaron’s phone started ringing. It was wife. She had called to inform Aaron that her water broke. Richard could hear Aaron letting out a cry of excitement as he jolted from the inside of the house to the garden. Richard continued walking slowly to the garden when he heard a loud sound. The kind of sound made when someone falls into a pit. He presumed Aaron had not seen the hole in the garden and had fallen into it. He placed the coffee down and ran to see if he was okay.

“AARON, Aaron,” He called out but it seemed that Aaron had hit his head and fainted, “let me call for help.” Richard thought to himself as the hole was deep. Richard was having difficulty even seeing Aaron, given how narrow and sunk the hole was. It was as if the darkness had swallowed Aaron.

The doorbell rang. Suddenly, Richard frowned and found himself staring into abyss yet again. He turned around, looking left and right. He checked his pockets only to find his keys and wallet. He couldn’t fathom what was happening to him. He tried to remain calm.

He staggered across the garden and into the hallway. He opened the door with a puzzled expression.

“Dad, are you okay? I found your notebook on the bus. You must have forgotten it. You must have had an episode.” Simon claimed.

“Episode? What kind of episode?” Richard questioned.

“Oh, come on!” Simon sighed.

“Hey, you’re seventeen. With respect, Simon.”

“I’m nineteen, dad. Sit down, this is not going to be easy. Two years ago, after your character was killed off, you got into a car accident. You hit your head bad. We took you to the hospital. After you came back home, you started forgetting things. You have short-term memory loss. Here is your notebook. Read it. You’ll know what you missed,” Simon confirmed as he glanced back at the garden and the mountain of soil and mud, “Oh no. You didn’t patch up the garden? Mom is going to kill both of us.”

Simon rushed and picked up one shovel. Scouring and finding another one, he gave one to his dad. Both started the task that Mrs. Anderson had assigned them to do… Meanwhile Aaron lay there, unconscious, unable to cry for help, while his wife waited for him, for the birth of their first child.

“It’s weird, right, dad? The role in the new crime series also requires you to play someone who has short-term memory loss.” Simon mentioned.

As Richard shovelled the first scoop of soil and mud, he thought about the first call he received for the new crime series role and how he wanted to prepare for the role. It was his method acting that made him reach places. The car accident he had was to make everything look believable. He had been living a lie for the past two years, even lying to his family about having short-term memory loss. He did everything to prepare for the new role and he could not let that go. He had to make sure everyone believed he had short-term memory loss, even if it was at the cost of somebody getting buried alive.

With a heavy heart, he mumbled, “Can’t break character. Cannot break character,” as he continued shoveling dirt over Aaron, the plumber.

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Until next time,

Aamer

We might proficiently write about a category called ‘All About Mankind’ in our newsletter, but we’re far from knowing all about mankind. In the past, we’ve scoured the internet and written about true stories— ordinary people that have managed to cement their place on the internet, to be rewritten about at least once every 3 years, if not more, because of the extraordinary things they’ve done.

However, today, we look toward fiction to delve into a different facet of the human psyche, i.e. how people can surprise you in the most unexpected way. Fasten your seat belts and make sure you read till the end.

A Fictional Story For You

“Change takes time, honey. It took a while for me too, you know?” Norman’s husky voice engulfed the room as they continued setting up the table. His coughs had aggravated but he controlled them around Hannah to avoid the questions.

“It’s been six months Norman… and it’s not about that. He’s becoming someone I can’t recognise. This is not the boy I raised. After his father’s death, he has…” Hannah’s voice cracked as she continued, “He has never been the same.”

Norman placed the last glass on the table before turning to Hannah and giving her a reassuring hug. She needed it. She had finally found love again after her husband was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago. All she wanted was for her only son, Alvin, to accept him so she could move on from that stage of her life. It was difficult, for both, to bounce back after he passed.

Alvin had been quiet and rebellious for the most part. He was stuck between seeing his mom happy and looking at the man who would eventually replace his father after all this time. The process of acceptance wasn’t easy, even after Norman’s repeated trials of befriending him. The sight of Norman made Alvin cringe and Hannah noticed that.

“ALVIN… ALVIN,” Hannah called out as the dinner got served.

“Coming,” Alvin mumbled.

Alvin dragged himself downstairs and sat next to his mom. He had really hoped for one thing at that moment—for everyone to eat in silence so that he does not have to make conversation with Norman. He was bottled up. He could implode at any moment.

“So, Alvin, how was school today? How is Max lately, have you guys been playing after school?” asked Norman.

“We don’t have to do this. Just because you’re with my mom doesn’t mean we get to be whatever it is you want.” Alvin snapped.

“Listen, Alvin! You are only fifteen. You don’t get to talk to Norman like that. We have been trying very hard with you. It’s time you lived up to your side of the bargain.” Hannah defended.

“My side of the bargain? What happened to your side of the bargain when you pulled the plug on dad? Yeah, I know!! My side of the bargain would be complete when I see this man dead.”

“ALVIN!” Hannah screamed before slapping him and sending him to his room.

Alvin could not feel a thing. He finally let out what he felt, and the thought of his mom being upset did not disturb him anymore. He called his neighbor and best friend, Max and told him about what transpired at dinner.

Alvin met Max for the first time when they were 6. They grew up together. He confided in Max like no other. He had someone to share his pain with. Often, Max would jump the fence and hangout in Alvin’s backyard. The backyard that had seen everything. It was their hideout from the rest of the world. They would sit in the corner of the lush green, trimmed backyard, and talk to each other about everything. They were accompanied by noisy squirrels who made their presence known as the two young boys accepted their rowdy friends from time to time.

The next morning was quite tense in Hannah’s household. Alvin was getting ready for school and Norman for work. The television in the background was reading out the news for the members of the family, “Another theft at Smith Pharmacy…” Hannah set up the table for breakfast and called out to both of them. Hannah was prepared for another heated encounter when there was a knock at the door. Max was on the other side of the door ready to diffuse the situation.

“Hey Mrs. Agnor! How are you? Is Alvin around? We’re getting late for school.”

Hannah disproved of Max’s friendship with Alvin. She could never know the real reason behind it, but she did not want another dent in her relationship with Alvin. She let him in as he looked around the house with his gauging eyes. He was an inquisitive child, which is also the reason he was brilliant at school. He looked up anything and everything on the internet.

He wanted to know everything. Everything about everyone. He roamed around the house, playing with furniture, new crockery, asking questions about the medicines that were on the countertop. Hannah was growing tired of his questions. Alvin rushed downstairs and Max’s eyes brightened just looking at him.

“Bye mum!” Alvin hesitated eagerly waiting for a reply from Hannah to make sure she was talking to him before he left for school. His chat with Max the other night calmed him down and he started realising his mistakes. There was no reply from Hannah. Dejected, he left for school anyway.

“It wasn’t her fault too. She had to do what she had to do to make dad suffer less.” Alvin introspected.

“I get that, Alvin. But they still didn’t give him a chance to fight the cancer. You must understand that. I’ve read cases where they’ve got up from their coma. And Norman is just the worst.” Max interjected.

Alvin thought about his behaviour at school in depth. He missed lunch and the snack break sitting alone at the cafeteria thinking about how Norman, even after dealing with his rash behaviour came up to kiss him goodnight. Norman thought he was asleep, but he wasn’t. It were the little things that were making the difference for Alvin. Max noticed Alvin’s distance from the crowd at school. He couldn’t stand the sight of Alvin like that. He didn’t leave any chance to make Alvin smile. Alvin chuckled to himself internally, but the happiness was draped by his scrutiny of what happened last night. He wanted to make amends. He wanted to just go home and apologise and admit that he was at fault, that he was sorry for everything.

Alvin walked home, all alone. Max did not like it one bit. He had never seen Alvin so quiet with him before. Alvin’s distance from him is what he despised. Little did he know, Alvin had set his mind to make amends with Norman.

“It is all Norman’s fault,” Max thought to himself.

Alvin reached home to notice that all the lights were switched off except one. He stepped on the porch, making a creaking sound which he flinched to. Hannah opened the door, her white dress drenched in shades of black from her makeup. Alvin could only think of one thing, and he wished it to be something else.

“Norman got into a car accident,” Hannah sniffed as she tried to hold her tears, “he is no more Alvin.”

A fifteen-year-old Alvin hugged his mom tightly. Hannah’s world was crumbling right in front of her as Alvin picked up the pieces that could still make her whole. Amends were due by Alvin, but it was too late. Norman had gone and there couldn’t have been anything that could bring him back.

Hannah had found Norman’s reports. Norman’s coughs were at their worst. He was on medication to handle the pain but tussive syncope – a syndrome that causes you to lose consciousness after coughing violently could happen at any time and the doctors presumed that an episode of violent coughing hit Norman when he was driving.

Alvin, in some way or the other, felt responsible for what he had said. He didn’t know any better. He intermittently slept, comforting his mom. His eyes lazily opened as he remembered what he said to Norman. In his state of sleepiness, he could hear noises from the backyard – the squirrels must be looking for their friends that night.

Alvin had disassociated himself from the world. He became more focused. His purpose was centred around his mom’s happiness and nothing else. He helped his mom around the house, with the dishes, laundry, trimming the backyard and everything that she wanted help with. The only constant were Max’s calls to Alvin and his mom to make them feel alright. He was doing his part.

A few days had passed by, and Alvin wanted to liven up the backyard to surprise his mom. She had gone out with Max’s mom to take her mind off the tragedy of losing her husband again. Alvin bought his mom’s favourite, tulips to plant around the backyard. He started across the backyard slowly making his way to the corners. As he reached the corner of the backyard, he left a little space for Max’s and his spot. His eyes wandered around a small bump in the soil where they sat and found it peculiar for a bump to be there, given there was nothing that was planted before this.

As he approached the uneven bump to uncover what was beneath, he could hear the front door squeaking open. It was Hannah and Max’s mom. Alvin rushed inside to make sure the surprise was not spoilt.

“Hello Mrs. Smith, how are you?” Alvin panted and asked politely.

“Alvin, my dear. I am good, you? I was just telling your mom what a fine man you have grown into. Summer is around the corner; do you want me to put in a word with Max’s dad for a job at the pharmacy? Max started about 2 weeks back and took a break right after what happened. It was unfortunate. How are you holding up?” Mrs. Smith was warm in her approach.

“Max had joined his dad at the pharmacy?” Alvin surprisingly asked.

“Oh yes. He joined the day before the theft at the pharmacy. We still joke about the fact how it could have been him. The poor boy took all the blame to himself. He never meant to leave the pharmacy door unlocked.” Mrs. Smith chuckled.

Alvin thought about the night that he complained to Max about Norman. He had told Max that he wished Norman was dead. Alvin’s eyes widened and his face turned white. He rushed to his backyard and started digging the uneven soil aggressively. He found a small bottle. A small bottle that contained a high dose of sleeping pills. Pills that looked exactly like the ones Norman took. There was a note inside. Alvin slowly took the note out, his hands shaking and his mind not being able to digest what he was thinking.

The note read, “Now, he won’t trouble you ever again.”

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Until next time,

Aamer

We’ve taken a rather novel approach with the delivery of this newsletter. Instead of a story, we present1…

An Article For You

In the recent past, there has been a surge of millennials and post-millennials in the workforce. For easier reference and because they cannot be easily comprehended, let’s call them the ‘young outsiders’. So why this surge? While on the surface it may seem related to a demographic rapidly reaching retirement age, or even employers bringing in new blood and fresh ideas in to the office but this isn’t the case. One of the most important reasons for this infusion of young talent surge is that over 70% of Indians are under the age of 40, and of these  35% are working age population—making this particular segment critical for the growth of the country.

These young outsiders are inquisitive questioners and norm challengers who see past daily grind. Employers are keen to understand what makes this generation tick and many of them are eager to include their thought processes in their team, not that employers have an option. However, this demographic cohort isn't like any that came before. Millennials and post-millennials, like any other generation, have expectations of their employers. They come with a unique, quirky, and often confusing (to generations past) set of expectations before they would even consider joining a company.

One would argue that not all of the young outsiders are the same and one would be right in saying that. There is no doubt at that, but all this article says is that some of their expectations are similar.

Witness of change

Both generations have grown up in a digital, hyper connected world and as a result, seek instant gratification in everything they do. While older millennials have experienced the before and after of the digital revolution, Gen Z knows no other way of life. The biggest example is Google—everyone depends on it for information they seek. A young outsider has no comprehension of how easy it has become to accomplish tasks today as compared to the past. From spending hours with a dictionary trying to find a word to googling it in seconds; from breaking heads in libraries looking for research material to finding multiple sources online, from filing important papers to storing them in the company drive on the web. They have gone through that change and are the ones that are using it to their advantage the most. They are not just participants in this change but have emerged leaders of it.

Listen to their ideas

When they contribute ideas in meetings or discussions, they might occasionally think impractical but never will they think impossible. Their only limitations are their thought processes and abundant imaginations. They want to be heard and acknowledged. The workforce and most companies are, in fact, in dire need of out-of-the-box, revolutionary ideas that no one has thought of. So pay attention to what they have to say. Just like IDEO, a US-based global design company did. When designing a product, the top management at IDEO takes a step back and lets the employees of the company come up with product ideas. The best ones are then selected with votes and a prototype is developed within a day or two. At this stage, the leader of the process or the top management steps in and decides which prototype will be used. The concept adopted by IDEO is simple, effective and one that taps maximum creativity from employees. The end result? Happy employees and a successful company. And all it takes is for someone to listen.

Trust wins over anyone

I’d like to illustrate this with a story. I was chosen to intern with a company I had wanted to for the longest time. It was a relatively small company and probably why there were no gaps in  communication between the ranks. A week before I joined,  I received a call from the CEO himself. He said he wanted to meet me. I was surprised and hesitant, but agreed to meet at a nearby mall.  We met and talked for close to two hours in the crowded food court. After we were done with lunch and his welcome, he explained his request. He wanted the meeting to get to know me. He said, “There is no hierarchy as such as there is no control over another in our firm. However, there is one thing common between me and all my employees, be it an intern or a known associate - I trust them. This meeting has confirmed that your ideologies match ours and that I can trust you. I am ready to share whatever information you request about the company, even monetary.” As he said this, a sense of loyalty towards him set in. He did not make me sign a contract. This was the level of trust we had in each other and I still feel very close to the company, despite my internship taking place 2 years ago. Trust wins over anyone and it has been proven several times over in history.

Freedom, guidance and path

If you capture their interest, young outsiders will seek to be involved in as much as they possibly can in the company they work for. They want to be able to make a significant and meaningful change in their organization if they are given the liberty. They want to rise and fall with a firm. Everyone works for their own betterment at the end of the day but here is the twist. If you manage to make a young outsider realize that they are a part of something much bigger than themselves, they will devote all their capabilities in helping you achieve your goals. They need a mentor, a person to give them the right direction. They want guidance but at the same time the freedom to carve their own path. Give them their time and only be there to course correct when they go astray. Give them freedom, and watch them soar.

Work and social life balance

Millennials and post-millennials love to have a balance between work and social life. Gone are the days of companies and bosses insisting on 10-12 hour workdays and 6-7 day weeks with the odd grudging holiday thrown in. Young outsiders won’t tip the scales of work-life balance in either direction but will always chase balance in both. Earning money at the job they love and having the ability to spend time with their friends and family is what they want. Personally, it is the best choice anyone can make. They want to avoid more than anything else, a life filled with regrets. So, how does an employer deal with this? An adequate amount of responsibility is what is required. Not more work and definitely not less work. The right amount. The right amount to get the recognition so work-life balance is not just words on paper. If you are able to offer them flexible timings or even remote work opportunities, even better. Give them their creative space and channel their energies to get the most out of them. Long gone are the times when it was necessary to come to the office to get work done. Change with the times, be a bit more open to the idea of being able to work from the comfort of your own home. Even great people started from their own garages, not offices.

At the end of the day, make sure these young outsiders start thinking as entrepreneurs in your company.  Make them intrapreneurs. They will bring about the change required. It is a fact, not an opinion. They view your company from a different perspective, probably one conventional wisdom will never be able to see. Make sure you nurture them enough for you to reap the benefits. It is your job as an employer to make sure they stick around. It is not giving in to their needs, it is catering to your own.

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Regards2,

Aamer

This one is about purpose, contentment and hard work.

A Story For You

Nestled in a lush valley, surrounded by towering mountains on all four sides, lay a small but rapidly advancing village. Amongst the varied inhabitants of the village were four unique individuals—John, Sarah, Alex, and Emma, each of whom possessed distinct traits and personalities that could summarize the vast majority of the village’s remaining population. It was as if they were the pioneers of these characteristics and that others, had simply followed suit.

John was a man of great ambition and an unyielding work ethic. Diligently rising before dawn, he labored tirelessly until the stars adorned the night sky. He had started his own business in the village itself, far from the city, because of the lack of infrastructure to commute daily. However, that was not a hindrance to John’s dream of making it big. He believed that success is attained through unwavering determination and tireless effort. And since his family had been in the village for the past three generations, he wanted to pay homage to his birthplace and help in its advancement and recognition across the country.

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John was far from content in his journey, but he wasn’t dissatisfied either. He was happily dissatisfied, if anything. He was motivated to do his best, never hesitating to put forth the necessary labor to achieve his dreams. John was at a stage in his life where his efforts weren’t matching the results, but he could’ve been least bothered because of his belief that hard work eventually yielded results.

Sarah, on the other hand, lacked ambition, preferring to spend her days sleeping in and lounging around the house. She held no aspirations or goals in life whatsoever and was content with living a simple life. She worked part-time at the local grocery store and showed no interest in advancing her career, believing that life was meant to be savored.

Sarah was content, more so than John. If John was happily dissatisfied, Sarah was completely and unapologetically satisfied. She enjoyed life to the fullest and only worked when required, not exhausting herself too much because she had found the meaning of her life—and that wasn’t necessarily synonymous with the word ‘ambition’. Her efforts matched the results she got. What more could she ask for?

Emma was an individual of hard work, but she didn’t necessarily have an ambition. However, she didn’t look at herself as someone who lacked direction, she just stayed in the moment and loved the ‘grind’ because she couldn’t possibly laze around the house all day. She needed to be active, even if it wasn't towards a specific purpose. She took up several jobs to keep herself busy and excelled greatly in everything she put her mind to. She didn’t care about being recognized, revered, or successful because her meaning of life was simply to live and be proactive and engaged at all times.

Emma too, was content. She was ignorant towards the future because she believed that thinking about the future made her elude the present. She lived life as it was passing by, utilizing each and every second in the process. Her lack of ambition didn’t stop her from progressing though, in fact, it was a bonus. “Sticking to the process without having an end goal, also gets you somewhere,” she always said.

Alex was a curious amalgamation of John and Sarah's personalities, being ambitious yet inclined towards laziness. He had lofty dreams and aspirations but lacked the drive to actively pursue them. Alex was a skilled musician, yearning to perform on stage, but never took the necessary steps to make his aspirations a reality. He frequently procrastinated, putting off his work until the last moment, but when he did work, he worked diligently. One could only wonder what he could’ve achieved if he started on his tasks sooner.

Alex had it the worst. The concept of being both ambitious and lazy at the same time was an interesting one. On one hand, he possessed a strong desire to achieve great things and make a significant impact in the field of music. On the other hand, he lacked the necessary drive and motivation to take action towards achieving his goals. Alex spent most of his time in frustration and dissatisfaction because he felt like he was capable of so much more but unfortunately, wasn’t able to realize it.

The Aftermath

John went on to achieve what he had hoped for—his business took off and he brought recognition not only to his work but also to his village. The result finally matched the effort, and John, who had been slogging for a very long time, was content at last.

Sarah, who was nonchalant in the first place, embraced life without falling into the rat race. She went on to join John’s business as a part-time employee, doing and earning the bare minimum. The minimal effort she put in always yielded a minimal result, but she was happy staying put.

Emma, who loved the ‘grind’, eventually partnered up with John. While John dreamt, made plans and goals, and worked towards a purpose, Emma simply worked every single day without having to worry about what was next. Even John admits that without Emma, the business wouldn't have reached where it was. He needed someone to work without caring or bothering about what the future held.

And Alex, well, he remained frustrated and discontented. His ambition and efforts were disproportionate; while one was exorbitantly high, the other was inversely proportional and that’s a recipe for a very unhappy life. He never achieved his dream because he was too lazy to take the required steps. His talent, skill, gift, was underutilized and all that remained was a man who never realized his own potential.

A Story From You

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being content without being ambitious. Some people live a very beautiful life, not having to worry about becoming the next stalwart, millionaire or billionaire. They too develop meaningful connections with the people around them; they too find happiness in the little things and they too are successful because the amount of effort they put in equals the the result perfectly.

But to assume that you can be ambitious, lazy and happy is a bit much.

Which category do you fit into and why?

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Until next time,

Aamer

We’ve written extensively about how humans love patterns in one of our issues that was published a couple of months back. Today, we’re going to take it up a notch and delve deeply into just one of the many patterns we love falling into…

…and that’s the never-ending cycle of acquiring more possessions. We’re hoarders, ladies and gentlemen, uncontrollably splurging on belongings that we conveniently forget about in the two years after the purchase; which begs the question - How many of these possessions do we actually care about?

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If you just murmured, “Nah, that’s not true,” to yourself and scuffed at our sheer audacity, we prod you to take up this exercise.

Gather your memory, family, friends, spouse, or kids and make a list of all the things that have been collecting dust in your back closet. Then, dig up the bills or estimate the prices of each item. You'll be shocked at just how easily you'll hit the five-figure mark.

And after you’ve completed this benign exercise, you’ll sulk in guilt about how much money you could’ve had had you not indulged in your fancies at the time.

It's a tough pill to swallow, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Our constant quest for more has left us with cluttered homes and cluttered minds, and it's not bringing us the happiness we thought it would.

But, there’s a glimmer of hope.

Many people are starting to realize that true happiness and fulfillment cannot be bought with money or acquired through material possessions. In fact, studies have shown that people who focus on accumulating worldly possessions often experience more stress, anxiety, and depression compared to those who prioritize non-material things.

That may seem like a paradox, given that some of us believe in doing the complete opposite—we buy things to overshadow feelings of anxiety and depression, in efforts to fill certain voids. But little do we know, that only intensifies those feelings.

Letting go of worldly possessions induces a greater sense of freedom. When we're not tied down to material items, we can focus on what truly matters in life, i.e. relationships, personal growth, and experiences. Believe it or not, this can lead to a more fulfilling and purposeful life— because we can devote our time and energy to things that bring us joy, and no, it’s not the cliché Amazon product that we absolutely need in order to make sense of our lives.

Simplifying our lifestyle can also help in reducing stress and improving our overall well-being. Owning fewer possessions means having less clutter, both physically and mentally. It means living a less worrisome, more organized and peaceful life, allowing us to give things that matter, our all. Imagine waking up in the middle of nowhere, starting afresh; a clean slate knowing all that you know now, that’s what minimalism gives you—living with the bare minimum, yet feeling like you’re living large.

Ever heard the old adage - less is more? Lesser words spoken makes you listen more, lesser unnecessary actions taken saves you energy, lesser thoughts in your mind increases concentration, lesser tasks at hand decreases worry and the lesser you worry, the happier you are therefore, lesser possessions means making space for things that matter. And it’s only things that matter that can give you the happiness you hopelessly look for in material possessions.

We’re not suggesting renouncing everything from the get go. It’s a step-by-step process because any immediate action not backed up by unmitigated will, will result in a relapse. It’s like any drug that’s gotten you into its tangles—the withdrawal can be drastic.

Well, drastic for some but not for the upcoming story’s protagonist - Daniel Suelo.

A Story For You

Daniel Suelo was not your average man, for he had taken a path that was considered to be unimaginable by most. He was born as Daniel Shellabarger and spent his early years in Arvada, Colorado. But then, something remarkable happened. At the age of 38, while working as a cook in Utah, he made the bold decision to abandon money, forever.

One day, Daniel walked into a public telephone booth and took out his entire life savings, all $30 of it. He left it there and never looked back. He also tossed his passport and driver’s license, and changed his name from Shellabarger to Suelo, which means ‘soil’ in Spanish. From that day on, Daniel became a free spirit and a nomad, traveling to different places, staying in communes, camping in the wilderness and even sleeping in the homes of strangers.

Despite living an unconventional life, Daniel refused to accept charity, government assistance, or even food stamps. He lived by foraging for wild berries in the mountains, eating roadkill and dumpster diving. His home base was a cave near Moab, Utah, but he was far from a hermit or a hobo. He was a college-educated man with a good Christian upbringing, who refused to receive or spend money.

Daniel’s story gained national attention and was featured in well-known publications like The Huffington Post, The Guardian, and The Denver Post. In 2009, publishing giant Penguin Books approached him to write his autobiography, but he refused to accept payment for it. Instead, he asked that the book be given away for free, and when Penguin declined, his friend Mark Sundeen wrote his biography, ‘The Man Who Quit Money’ in 2012.

Daniel’s philosophy about life was simple yet profound. He believed that money represented lack, and that it represented things in the past (debt) and things in the future (credit), but it never represented what is present. His words were enough to make one stop and think about their own life and why they have become so consumed by materialism, instead of spirituality.

And so, Daniel Suelo’s story serves as a reminder to us all, that happiness and fulfillment can be found in the most unexpected places.

Having said, the purpose of this story wasn’t to show you the right or wrong way of doing things, it was to show you another way.

A Story From Someone Else (ChatGPT)

There was a wealthy king who ruled over a vast kingdom. He had everything a person could ever want – riches, power, and possessions. But despite all of his wealth, the king felt empty and unfulfilled. He was constantly searching for something more, something that would bring him true happiness.

One day, a wise sage visited the king and offered him some advice. The sage told the king about the power of minimalism, and how letting go of material possessions could lead to greater fulfillment and peace. The king was skeptical at first, but he was desperate to find happiness, so he decided to give it a try.

The king began to sell off his possessions, one by one. At first, it was difficult for him to part with things that he had grown attached to, but as he continued to simplify his life, he began to feel a sense of liberation and peace. He realized that he didn't need all of these possessions to be happy – all he needed was the love and support of his family and friends.

As the king continued down the path of minimalism, he found that he was able to connect more deeply with his spirituality. He meditated, prayed, and studied spiritual texts, and he found that his soul was finally at peace. He no longer felt empty and unfulfilled – he was filled with joy and contentment.

Years went by, and the king became known as a wise and spiritual ruler. People from far and wide came to seek his guidance, and he shared with them the teachings of minimalism and the power of letting go. The kingdom flourished under his rule, and the king lived a long, happy life, filled with purpose and meaning.

That’s all we’ve got for you today!

See ya next Tuesday,

Aamer

This is a revelation more than anything.

We’ve each been gifted a superpower—something that’s so natural to us and yet people laud us for it in disbelief. A math genius, able to dissect the toughest of equations in their mind in seconds, might consider it a piece of cake but the world stands in awe, applauding them for their brilliance. A writer, who can effortlessly touch the right chords and immerse you in a world created by them with the power of the word, is met with a bewildered and inspired reader. A businessperson who’s built an empire across countries, by appropriately using their gift of gab, is revered for their excellence.

There are several gifts, scattered randomly across the world that are waiting to be discovered and that’s the catch. Not the discovery part of it, but that it is random. You don’t choose what you get which is why it’s been gifted. The ‘Who Am I?’ of it all is already answered for you—you just have to find it.

Once you’ve found it, you can either sulk for not getting what the others have, or you can build on it and become the best in the world. Imagine if Lionel Messi decided to become a motivational speaker or if Meryl Streep wanted to become a businesswoman, Albert Einstein a lawyer or J.K. Rowling an actress; all of this knowing that they’re better at something else. They would’ve risked becoming good instead of becoming great.

People call it luck, fate, destiny, god knows what else and guess what? They’re right. It is. The scary part is, only you can decide how to move forward with it. And there’s a lot banking on your future, if you choose wrong. Having said that, it’s not difficult to choose, because you know what it is. If there’s anything stopping you from going down that path, it’s others—others, who visualize your future for you without knowing what you know.

There are times, however, when your gift, your superpower is supernatural. Not voodoo, magic supernatural but out-of-this-world nonetheless. You don’t know how to utilize it but it’s going to be there whether you like it or not. And in the spirit of stories that ought to live on forever, here’s on that’s going to be repeated for ages to come.

A Story For You

On the 14th of June, 1929, when the stars were aligned just right, a mother who was in her 7th month of pregnancy, prematurely gave birth to Frane Selak on a boat, as her husband helplessly rowed the watercraft back to the shore. What started out as a fishing expedition soon became a frantic sprint to the hospital.

Frane Selak has had bizarre encounters on almost all modes of transportation, barring a boat, a vessel in which he was birthed. He’s been written about in numerous newspapers, articles, blogs, magazines, LinkedIn posts and newsletters and the tradition will continue till the world ends, primarily because there are some stories that the world will never let go of. And because there are several renditions of his life published haphazardly on the internet, we’ll break it down with the most credible stories we could find about him.

Throughout his lifetime, the Croat has been an a part of 7 fatal accidents and how he managed to escape from them, unscathed each time, is beyond us.

In 1957, a 28-year-old Frane was on a bus that veered off course and found itself submerged into a river within a couple of hours. He and the driver, Ahmet, the only two passengers onboard, were unharmed. It was later found out that Ahmet, whose driving skills Frane vouched for, was fond of a Serbian drink called rakija, so much so that he wouldn’t get behind the wheel without one. Rakija’s alcohol content is 40% ABV but that can vary depending on the source—and our guess is, Ahmet didn’t care much for rules. As a matter of fact, the purpose of their journey was to get some rounds of the fruit brandy when tragedy struck. Fortunately, they lived to down another drink.

In 1962, Selak, a music educator by profession, hopped onboard a train from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik with an acquaintance. It was a smooth ride until, out of nowhere, a boulder struck the train tracks, demolishing it to pieces. The train skid off the rails and crashed into the icy river Neretva. With his past experience in river crashing, Selak broke open the compartment window and slid out of the coach, helping his acquaintance in the process. The nearby village came to their aid as Selak merely suffered a broken arm and hypothermia. The rest of the passengers—17 in total—met their maker that day.

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In 1963, an emergency family visit compelled Selak to convince the crew of a fully booked charter flight to give him a seat. They reluctantly agreed, seating him in the rear, with a flight attendant called Rozika. A technical malfunction, right as they were about to land, swung the plane downward. The plane, which lost altitude at an alarming rate, soon crashed into a boulder (perhaps the one that fail on the train tracks in 1962—a rock with vengeance), killing all of the passengers in the horrific incident. The plane door which tore off right before the collision, sucked Selak and Rozika out and as if there was some divine power in function, they landed on haystack, suffering minor injuries.

In 1970, Selak was driving his car when it suddenly caught on fire. He managed to escape right before the flames reached the fuel tank.

1973, another car accident. A defective duel pump conveniently suffered a leakage with hot oil pumping into the engine. Flames made their way to the air events balding Frane in the process but he left the scene unscarred.

1995, hit by a bus and he survived, yet again.

1996, a UN truck smashed into his car on the side of a mountain. Selak, who’d worked up quite a resume in accidents, relied on his instincts and drifted at the very last moment to crash into the guardrails. The car plummeted into the canyon for a 100 meters before getting caught up in a tree. Frane jumped out the windshield, clung on to the tree and watched powerlessly as his car continued its descent downward.

That was the last of major accidents.

Frane Selak had created such a reputation for himself that no one in his neighborhood, or within his circle, would travel with him. In fact, they would go out of their way to cancel tickets if he was onboard.

He’s known in history, as the man who cheated death.

But fate owed him. And it repaid him.

Frane’s luck turned around, right after his 73rd birthday when he won a $1 million lottery. Clueless on what to spend his newly received fortune on, he bought a mansion and distributed the rest of the earnings with his family and friends. He lent the remainder to people in need.

Apart from having regular appointments with death, Selak’s personal life was focused on music and remarrying. He passed away in 2016, at the age of 87, leaving behind his 5th wife. Yes, that fact is really undermined with all the other stories.

Frane’s superpower was getting out of situations that could have easily ended his life. While some are as unfortunate as to have died by slipping on a banana peel, Selak managed to get out of trains, buses, planes and cars without so much as losing any major body part.

Luck might be a byproduct of hard work but it was in endless supply in Frane’s case. He didn’t choose his superpower, nor could he use it at will—he was born to have lived the life that he did. He continues to be identified as either the luckiest unlucky man or the unluckiest lucky man to have ever lived.

Until next time,

Harsh & Aamer

Only non breathing infants don’t cry at birth and that’s problematic. From the moment we’re brought forth from our mother’s womb, we cry; some of us may take our time, but we do cry. The squeal, at the very beginning of our lives is symbolic to why we’re born in the first place—we all have a voice. A voice that is distinctive and unique, that which differentiates us from the pack, enabling us to forge a path for ourselves. We might be moulded by our surroundings and taught to live in a society that’s largely unified in their ideologies, but it’s our voice that commands us to be the change we ought to see.

The presumption that the discovery of our voice is dependent on factors like age, maturity and time is a fallacy. Finding your voice has got more to do with your freedom of using it, than with its discovery.

Freedom of expression bestows upon us the right to be who we are; and who we truly are, is the voice inside us. Some of us bludgeon our voice to death in hopes of being accepted by the people around us, be it friends, family or work colleagues and that's when we end up imploding. To pretend to be someone else is exhausting and it’s a farce that unfolds later on in life, in the form of regret.

We’re all undoubtedly born with a purpose, we’re just naively unaware of it when we’re young. Having a grip on our voice, which ultimately shapes our personality and identity, speeds up the process of finding our purpose. Our journey is predominantly about zeroing down on the voice that is ours, amongst the barrage of other voices that society dumped on us.

Once discovered, the art of showcasing it is easer now, than ever before in history. Unlike the colonizers who traveled long distances to conquer regions, we can capture people’s attention with a couple of clicks—(and we can’t believe we’re saying this) through social media. Granted, the internet is filled with people who use social media to spread propaganda, incite malice and hatred, and to brainwash others, but if it weren’t for social media, there would be some voices that would’ve been silenced without ever been given a chance.

A Story For You

The Arab Spring of 2011 comprised of a string of erratic group protests that led to a regime change in countries like Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. The successful outcome of the protests induced confidence in pro-democracy activists in Syria, hoping to overturn the dictatorship in their country. They weren’t, however, met with the same fate. In March 2011, a couple of schoolchildren were arrested and tortured for defacing a public wall with graffiti inspired by the Arab Spring. One of the boys was killed.

That was the beginning of the Syrian revolution. The brutality of the government sparked an outrage across the nation; citizens stormed the streets to revolt against the arrests of the children, demanding their freedom and the nation’s freedom from the regime. President Bashar al-Assad’s response? Mass prosecution.

Over the course of the Syrian Civil War, hundreds of thousands of people were killed and many millions sought refuge in other countries. While the rest of the world turned a blind eye, using their voice and freedom for other issues, Syrian voices were muscled down and crushed.

This is the story of a child who used her voice and managed to escape from the war-stricken city of Aleppo in Syria. Her name is Bana Alabed.

Bana was only three years old when the war began. She and her family, (her mother Fatemah and two brothers, Mohammed and Noor) had been under siege, like a million others, up until 2016. She even witnessed the death of her best friend Yasmine, in one of the numerous air attacks that the country’s citizens had accepted in their daily routine. She was devastated, weeping and mourning her friend’s demise, unable to do anything to improve the situation around her. She, like many others, had her hands tied.

In 2016, roadblocks in the city cut off food and supplies to Aleppo. Bana, who begrudgingly nibbled on stockpiled rice and macaroni, with the help of her mother, started sending out messages on Twitter. She documented the events of the country’s condition and her feelings on the platform, seeking help from the outside world at every turn.

Harrowing messages and videos were published on the platform showcasing the daily struggles of the family and their glimmer of hope faintly extinguishing.

Sometimes, her tweets were simple messages, like "Please stop the war, we are tired" or,"Speaking for the children of Aleppo, I demand peace for us." 

Sometimes, she tweeted songs or short videos — sharing her family's plight. 

"I feel happy that the world listen to me," Bana says.

(Credits: CBC)

The incessant call for help caught the attention of netizens across the globe, amassing her thousands of followers in a very short period of time. The prospect of her family’s death angered people who questioned dignitaries and authorities of their neglect towards the war-ravaged country. Bana, however, needed someone in the spotlight to respond to her for her story to be heard, shared and spread and that came in the form of J.K. Rowling.

In November of the same year, Bana, who enjoyed any form of recreation to keep herself distracted from the happenings of the country, started watching Harry Potter movies. But the continued power cuts and dropping temperatures in the Aleppo didn’t allow for any entertainment whatsoever. She wanted an alternative and looked to read the books instead, to fully immerse herself in the world of the boy who lived.

Her mother typed a note to the author J. K. Rowling, inquiring about the books, and posted it to Twitter. “We don’t have it here,” Fatemah wrote. “How do we get?”

Rowling quickly noticed Fatemah’s appeal. “I would love to send Bana a book,” she replied. But smuggling paperbacks past government checkpoints was foolish to attempt, and impossible to achieve, and so the author resigned herself to sending Bana “lots and lots of love.”

(Credits: New Yorker)

After several futile attempts of smuggling in paperbacks, the author’s agent—Neil Blair, sent digital copies to Bana’s mother’s phone for her to read. The exchange with the revered author, however, made Bana a worldwide phenomenon. In an interview with a Danish reporter, President Bashar al-Assad dismissed the 7-year-old’s account, labeling it as “a game of propaganda”, but that didn’t shake the belief of her followers, who were hell bent on helping the little girl.

On the 19th of December 2016, it was reported that Bana and her family were airlifted to safety in Turkey.

Speaking to Qasioun News Agency, she said: "We are happy because our voice reached all the world.”

(Credits: BBC)

A Story From You

We couldn’t help but think about Anne Frank’s diary when writing about Bana. How different would her story be if Twitter existed then?

February 3, 1944: “I’ve reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, and I can’t do anything to change events anyway. I’ll just let matters take their course and concentrate on studying and hope that everything will be all right in the end.”

March 29, 1944: “Just imagine how interesting it would be if I were to publish a romance of the "Secret Annex." The title alone would be enough to make people think it was a detective story. But, seriously, it would be quite funny 10 years after the war if we Jews were to tell how we lived and what we ate and talked about here. Although I tell you a lot, still, even so, you only know very little of our lives. “

July 15, 1944: “It’s utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too will end, that peace and tranquillity will return once more. In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I’ll be able to realise them.”

(Credits: Alpha History)

We’ve been given a great responsibility with the power of technology today.

How are you using it?

Leave a comment

Until next time,

Aamer

In a battle between environment and genetics, the former always emerges victorious. Case in point, if you were a native of France but raised in America, you’re more likely to be American, in values, beliefs and fries, than French; and you’ll be missing out on the third sexiest accent in the world.

We’ve said this time and time again—we’re social creatures who want to belong. We want to be accepted, acknowledged and respected. Your surrounding, your external stimulus shapes who you eventually become and the only factor you control is who you choose to belong with. This phrase might ring a bell:

Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.

Well, it’s true, to some degree. A group of stellar individuals were responsible for creating companies like Tesla, LinkedIn, YouTube, Yelp, Yammer, SpaceX, Founders Fund and many more. All of them had one thing in common—they were ex-employees of PayPal. The PayPal mafia, as they’re prominently known today, have a combined net worth of $310 billion and it’s bizarre to even think about what must have ensued at PayPal for it to produce billionaires with such ease. It’s safe to say, they had beside them, the right company.

Now, we’re not here to laud a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of brilliant people because them building great companies might not have been luck but them being in the right place at the right time, i.e. PayPal, definitely needed certain stars aligning. It could’ve happened to anyone but alas, they were the chosen few. No, we’re here to build on the topic of our environment and its influence on our future.

Granted, we’re not always able to choose the household we grow up in or select gifted friends that we’ll learn from or love the person voted most likely to succeed. But what if, to a certain extent, we can control the creation of external stimuli, i.e. build our surroundings according to what we want, but in our minds.

And before you label this as hocus-pocus, we’re here to tell you that it’s not only possible… it’s been done before.

A Story For You

The year was 1948 when 24-year-old Helen Barbara Daeschel (Hadsell post-marriage), started participating in sweepstakes, lotteries and consumer skill contests (known today as giveaways), as a family hobby. The winner of these competitions was chosen at random but some of these contests required entrants to submit a reason for their participation in the first place—extolling the product being offered in ‘25 words or less’.

Needless to say, luck didn’t favor Helen all that much during the initial years of participations. The odds are almost always stacked up against you in such cases—it’s you against thousands of others, competing for the same thing. It started as a family hobby for the Hadsell household and would’ve remained one, had Helen not stumbled upon Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking.

Things took a turn after that. During her lifetime, it is reported that Helen Hadsell won more than 5000 contests. And this is what she did.

In Norman Peale’s book, the mind is described to be a powerful tool that has the ability to produce results with the power of thought alone.

Helen used that thought and devised a technique that allowed her to attain everything she ever wanted. This is just one of her crazy stories.

Helene wanted to meet Art Linkletter, a popular television personality at the time. She was in line, waiting to enter the studio where Art Linkletter’s show was being filmed, but she was the last person to reach.

There was only so much room so the seats were limited. The young man in charge of the seat allocation closed the door after the venue reached capacity.

He started offering tickets to another show, to the people that couldn’t get a seat at Art Linkletter’s, which included Helen. Helen refused the tickets, stating that she wanted to meet Art Linkletter.

He apologized and closed the door as the rest of the people proceeded to the other show. Helen neither yielded, nor budged. She stayed put until 10 minutes later, the young man came out once again, surprised to still see her waiting.

“You’re still here?” He asked.

“Well, I’m here to meet Art Linkletter.”

He told her to wait and checked if there were any seats available. He found one but it was all the way up in the balcony. She didn’t mind.

Art Linkletter made a grand entrance and said, “Today is our Christmas show and somebody in the audience is going to win a fabulous prize.”

He greeted a few people as he looked around and after walking past a bunch of men and women, he stopped, looked at Helen and squinted his eyes.

“Do I know you?” He asked, clearly perplexed.

“No, I’ve never been here.” She replied.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes".

Linkletter held her hand and charmingly said, “Well, you’re the one who’s going to win the grand prize.”

He gave her the $1500 LeCoultre diamond watch. Helen, who’d already won several prizes before, kept watching the show, unfazed.

During the break, Art Linkletter walked up to Helen and asked her again, “Do I know you from somewhere?”

She politely refused because she didn’t think he would believe her.

The night before she walked up to Art Linkletter’s studio, she profusely thought and repeated the same statement to herself.

“Art Linkletter, I’m going to be on your show and when you see me, you’ll know me.”

Luck. Fate. Fortune. Kismet. Magic. It’s beyond all that.

Inspired by The Power of Positive Thinking, Helen coined the S.P.E.C formula and later, wrote several books about it, including ‘Contesting: The Name It & Claim It Game.’ The S.P.E.C technique may fool you with how easy it sounds but its implementation is key to be able to milk the most out of it.

• Select It - It is imperative to know what it is you exactly want. There must be no doubt in your mind whatsoever about your requirement. Define it, date it and make sure there is no ambiguity.

• Project It - Now that you have chosen what it is you’re after, best believe you already have it. It may feel silly but you must behave like it’s already in your possession. A new car—start visualizing its interiors, how the new car leather smells like, the feeling you have when you’re driving it. $100,000 in your account—walk with security, start spending time in places where you would want to feel like you’re arrived, believe that the amount is already in your account. You’re creating it as you think more about it.

• Expect It - You’ve ordered something on an online marketplace and you’re anticipating its arrival at any moment—use that feeling and anticipate your desire’s arrival. It’s on the way, you’re just expecting it to reach any second.

• Collect It - Be ready when it arrives. You may expect some action to be taken for it to truly arrive and now that you’ve come all this way, what’s a little action to stop you? Take what’s yours and don’t budge till you do.

Helen wasn’t born with a silver spoon. She neither had the environment nor the upbringing to be able to win so many contests, based purely on intelligence or personality. She didn’t have the connections to collude or bribe the decision-makers. All she did was create her own surrounding—her external stimulus. She visualized what she truly wanted and behaved like it was already in her possession. A toaster, a new apartment, a trip to Paris, yes, even a trip to Paris!

Helen was about to turn 40 when she wanted to go to Paris with her husband. She had read that Paris was a city filled with light, love and a child-like excitement. She started imagining herself spending her 40th birthday there.

She imagined sitting in a café right by a sidewalk, drinking wine and taking in everything that the city of love had to offer. She started entering contests that were offering trips to Europe.

The 25 words she wrote for those contests were always the same: “I’m a pooped couple, with three kiddos, and I’d like to go to Paris, France to recapture the rapture of Springtime ecstasy in my fat, forty frustrated years.”

She won 3rd place in a contest that had a trip to Paris as the grand prize but she did not get the trip to Paris.

After that, she won tickets to Venice but she told the representative that she wanted to go to Paris. The first-class tickets were changed to Paris.

Shortly after, Helen and her husband, Pat, left for France. She was sitting in a café right by a sidewalk, drinking wine with her beloved husband, taking in everything that the city of love had to offer.

It is a perfect story, if you read it again. The one thing Helen didn’t have is doubt. She always believed in the end result, and never let pessimism get the better of her. Even in her book, she revealed that results were always guaranteed—the sole factor that wasn’t in her control was the time it took for the results to come by and like everything in life, you can expect just a bit of delay for things to eventually work out.

A Story From You

Helen Hadsell was named the legendary contest queen.

But you take the power of her mind out of the equation, and she’s just another person who participated in these silly contests.

The mind is a powerful organ, that stands unrivaled in its ability to do more than its descriptions in Biology books.

Do you have a desire, a goal, a product, a vision that you’re aiming to achieve? And if yes, what’s your timeframe?

Leave a comment

Creating an external stimuli,

Aamer

The theme of the week seems to be shades of rebellion. China holds it second set of military combat drills near Taiwanese airspace while Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, faces the wreckage of ex-president Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters’ failed attempt to overthrow the week-old government.

A Story For You

A close friend of mine has had spontaneous annual outbursts for as long as I can remember. He usually reaches this tipping point at the end of the year and although I don’t have the forecasting power of The Simpsons’ writers, I’m not taken by surprise when a normal conversation turns into an impromptu monologue of pent up frustration.

The topic of discussion last year was his incessant need to prioritize his relationships over his mental health. The inability to communicate this to the people around him made him feel trapped and that took a toll on him. The oasis of having a healthy work-life-mind balance, turned out to be a mirage after all.

It goes without saying that when you’re mentally drained, you involuntarily neglect other aspects of your life that truly matter. You’re unable to think freely, unable to enjoy the things you normally do, overthinking becomes an unwanted partner and you eventually give in to the notion that life is a drag.

My friend and I eventually came to the conclusion that he was too close to the picture. Not to take away from my deductive skills but I think he murmured, ‘I’ve got to look at he bigger picture’ during his rant; even though he knew what was wrong, he couldn’t see a solution in sight but for some reason, I could.

Grabbing a pen and notepad, I listed down everything that was disturbing the equilibrium he was trying to maintain. It wasn’t that complicated—he just had to establish boundaries, communicate his feelings and slide in some ‘me’ time in his schedule. He was wary of not picking up 2 AM calls just because his friends would feel abandoned but I emphasized that if they were truly his friends, they would appreciate the efforts he was taking to improve his lifestyle.

The situation wasn’t as complicated as he was making it out to be and the analysis and solution had been simple, even in the years that preceded the last one. It was always the same process—he was vexed with one specific problem every year and one venting session with me used to lead him to answers. And I’m far from expert in such matters. It could have been anyone in my place and that person would’ve still been able to find an apt solution to his issue.

That’s when I started to reflect on my life. I’ve been an ardent advocate of waking up early and I’m the first to tell you that it comes with its fair share of sacrifices—having a cut-off time of 10 PM, cancelling plans with friends, not being able to wish them on their birthdays, hurting them in the process while they’re unable to understand why I do what I do. When I first took the decision of being an early-riser, I wasn’t strong enough to confront my friends about it.

I hurt several of them because I was unable to explain my side to them. But, in my defense (as weak as it is), I was too close to the picture and couldn’t see a solution in sight at the time.

Why was I was wise in my friend’s story and a fool in my own?

And thus we introduce Solomon’s Paradox.

King Solomon, the third leader of the Jewish Kingdom, is considered the paragon of wisdom and sage judgment. It’s said that during his long reign, people traveled great distances to seek his counsel. Yet it’s also true—and much less well known—that his personal life was a shambles of bad decisions and uncontrolled passions. He kept hundreds of pagan wives and concubines, and also loved money and boasted of his riches. He neglected to instruct his only son, who grew up to be an incompetent tyrant. All these sins and misjudgments contributed to the eventual demise of the kingdom.

(Credits: Association For Psychological Science)

Solomon’s Paradox, in the simplest of terms, is the ability to reason sensibly with other people’s problems but not being able to use the same sensibility when the issue is yours. A psychological scientist at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, Igor Grossman conducted a series of experiments to prove or disprove Solomon’s Paradox and in an ode to the King himself, this experiment looked at the concept of infidelity among test subjects.

To test people’s wisdom, he ran an experiment with a cohort of people in long-term romantic relationships. He split participants up into two groups. The first group imagined that it found out that their partner had cheated on them. The second group imagined that their best friend’s partner had cheated on their best friend. Then everybody answered a series of questions about the future of the relationship that measured these key components of wisdom: the ability to take others’ perspectives, recognize the limits of one’s knowledge, and search for compromise.

And what did they find?

Sure enough, the group that imagined their best friend being cheated on scored much higher on these measurements of wisdom than the group who imagined themselves being cheated on. They had a clearer sense of self-awareness and a better ability to empathize; they could step back from the situation and think about it from a wider perspective. They were, in several key ways, more emotionally intelligent as it related to the situation.

(Credits: 6seconds)

The next time your friend gives you an apt solution while you stare dumbfounded at their inability to utilize the same wisdom in their lives, the phrase ‘coaches don’t play’ will start to make a whole lot of sense.

A Story From You

How about this for a conversation starter:

Is there a way to bypass Solomon’s Paradox, wherein you start looking at your problems from a third perspective?

Leave a comment

Let us know,

Harsh

What a week it’s been.

With Dubai slashing the 30% alcohol tax, Russia using made-in-Iran Shahed drones to avenge the attack on Russian-occupied Makiivka, Hawkeye in need of healthcare and Rishabh Pant rummaged through the remains of a road accident, Bankman-Fried expected to plead not guilty and Prince Harry not wanting an institution, 2023 doesn’t feel all that different.

However, at the risk of professing our clairvoyance, 2023 might just be the year of change for you. Don’t read Monday’s issue, we’ll come off as contradictory.

Hey, we’re not pompous. On the contrary, we’ve been dazzled by the voodoo of marketers creating a ‘marketing hype’ at every turn. Did it work? Did it?

A Story For You

There are two ways of perceiving social obligations:

• Whinging about the very fact that they exist and avoiding them till death do us part OR

• Mastering the art of interacting with your fellow humans.

Robert W. Sussman, Ph.D., professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences has found through his examination of primates that while the animals are very close as a group, active social interaction takes up a mere five to 10 percent of their average day.

“So 90 percent or more of primate behavior is maintenance behavior in a social context,” Sussman said.

He said animals, and humans for that matter, benefit from being social. And if that’s true, he argued, there should be evolutionary evidence to back it up. And there is.

“There are two areas of the primate and human brain that are stimulated when we cooperate. We’ve evolved to get pleasure from cooperation,” he said.

The hormones serotonin and oxytocin also play a role in social recognition and trust.

(Credits: The Source, Washington University in St. Louis)

Before you probe alternatives for serotonin and oxytocin i.e. supplements, on the World Wide Web, hear us (yes, read, we know) out.

While we’re not skeptical that all the ways catalogued above will help you in being perceived as more likable, we always have a yearning for making things simpler. Paying homage to the culinary world, if we were to make a reduction sauce with the methodologies above, it would simmer down to the Dale Carnegie-approved ‘Be interested in other people’, primarily because it perfectly incorporates all the other points and shoots six birds with one stone. Easy, right?

Not really, no. It was actually easier when we were young. We all had this stupefying ability to just say, “Friends? Friends,” without beating around the bush or carrying the burden of being judgmental. And it’s not because we were gullible or innocent - at that age, the majority of us are, so the characteristic gets nullified (like a math equation cancelling out the x on opposite sides). It was actually because we were curious. Say what you would about schools, it was a multicultural hotpot at the time - a place where you were exposed to different people, cultures, ways, religions, sometimes even languages.

The “Aargh, something new to learn again?” was “Really? Ooh, that’s new to me,” at the time. We all were genuinely interested in other people and with that came - listening intently, smiling often, forcing ourselves to remember people’s names, emulating and talking in terms of the other person and in the process, making them feel important.

It was only when we put on a few years that we started to gauge the world differently. The ability, and more importantly the patience to be interested in things, let alone people, slowly dissipated because of our preconceived notion of knowing everything. Now, more so than the 1970s or 80s, because of the internet. Information had to be sourced from fellow human beings or books before but now, we all know where we go for information. Thank you, Google.

On the rare occasion, however, you come across one person that really stands out from the crowd. Their ability to gel with anyone is uncanny as they win hearts, respect and admiration. You’re baffled with their aura and are inquisitive about their methods when all they’ve done is preserved their child-like instincts of really wanting to know more about the people around them. More importantly, they’re able to put aside everything they know, sit quietly and bask in the knowledge that you’re bestowing upon them as the seamless conversation moves forward. It’s not always that they will agree or remember everything you blab, but that isn’t critical, is it? What’s significant about the interaction is that they showed interest. They leaned in, smiled, nodded in confirmation and put their point across when you guys reached a cul-de-sac.

On long trips to Europe and Asia, I have sat next to a blind Olympiad gold medalist swimmer, the third most famous jazz tap dancer in the entire world and a young member of a special forces unit who spent an entire weekend in a box as part of his training! And the only way I learned who these people were was by asking them questions about themselves.

(Credits: LinkedIn)

With attention span taking a serious blow, genuinely being interested in someone else and climbing Mount Everest are at par in terms of their level of difficulties. But it’s not always the case, there are exceptions. All of the above practices come into play when we are interested in mating with someone. Our attention spans get a mammoth dose of adrenaline, we implement every single technique in the book and we’re completely different individuals when we compute the possibility of copulation.

If only, we could do all of that without an agenda. It’d be a different world, wouldn’t it?

Regardless, channelize your inner child. It starts with you. The mind is powerful tool - if you radiate positivity, that’s what you’re going to get. If you’re genuinely interested in other people, that’s exactly what you’re going to get as well - friends who are genuinely interested in you.

It’s quite simple. Every time you meet people you imagine one of the two following things:

1. You are Sherlock Holmes. Every person is the most interesting person in the world. Your job is to figure out why.

2. Every person is an expert in something you are not. Learn from them.

(Credits: Arsalan Ahmad on Medium)

A Look Into The Past

Zed Letter Day

Curious Case Of The Mentor-Mentee Relationship

Hey Zedites, Look, we endured the ups and downs of yet another year! Who else thought the world was ending on the 21st of December, 2012? As we pen down the first issue of 2023, we wish everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year! A Story For You…

Read more

3 years ago · 5 likes · Aamer Khan

LinkedIn is a great place to start conversations and a comment on our page, in regards to our previous issue, nudged us to delineate the domains of a coach and a mentor. And while we’re not experts on the topic, we’re good researchers.

See ya,

Aamer

Another day, another quote and another story.

A Story For You

“Work hard in silence, let your success be your noise.” - Frank Ocean

Ever so often, we are met with yet another life-changing quote that we offhandedly skim through, halfheartedly implement and belligerently disregard. While the aforementioned quote embodies a beautiful sentiment, its application is a little more complex than what meets the eye, even with the help of context. Regardless, we’re going to give it a go - there’s a story incoming.

The clichés of universities being the best time of one’s life always made me sick to the stomach. Over the years, I grew pensive about the fact that every teenager infatuated with the idea of an idealistic university experience, was in for the biggest disappointment of their life. Not because I wanted their time at the university to be dismal, but because their expectations seemed to surpass reality.

Even though I wouldn’t use the word ‘best’ to define my university experience, I would definitely give it the credit of being ‘unique’ and ‘worthwhile’. It was the first time I was leaving the nest; though I was booted up and ready to face any obstacle that life hurled at me, I didn’t know what to expect. I remember walking through the magnanimous gates of the institution, only to meet a sea of new faces, beaming with the same excitement I had.

The feeling of being a know-it-all seemed to fade away as the realization of being just another fish in the sea struck me. It was an odd moment - a moment of unlearning what I’ve known, and familiarizing myself with that very feeling, like a blank page desperately waiting for words to wisdom to be penned.

The first words, however, took a while to compose. The inaugural lesson I learnt wasn’t something I wanted to write down on the blank page that I envisaged myself to be. And that’s because one of the first things I noticed, and this was relatively alien to me, was my peers announcing everything about their lives. Their goals, their ambitions, their game plan and how they had everything drawn up, down to the T.

It was amusing and motivating but not something that could be taken away as a positive. ‘Maybe, that’s how extroverts behave,’ I thought to myself, so like any oblivious kid who wanted to be a part of a group and feel like a social animal, I joined in on the action. And thus, time was spent in endless conversations about reaching different levels of success without any decisive action being taken.

What was noise to the outside world, was music to our ears. Backed up by affirmation, encouragement and pointless nodding, we discussed ideas like we were going to change the landscape of the world the very next day. We scoffed at the billionaires of the world, judged them for their practices, found faults in their journeys like ours was perfect, and vowed to topple their dynasty if we were given the opportunity. It was fun. It was all really fun.

A few months later, nothing had changed. We were the same university students, talking about making it every single day but we couldn’t see any change. How could have we? Even after all those talks, our routines remained the same. Our goals got bigger verbally, without any visible result. We all were stuck in an infinite loop that couldn’t have been broken because there were no efforts put in place in order to so. But why were there no efforts?

That’s because talking about your goals in public doesn’t actually help! Let me break it down for you -

Researchers have described the difference between people’s plans and people’s actions as the ‘intention - behavior gap’. The gap is the difference between what we intend to do and what we actually do. Announcing your goals seems to widen that gap.

The gap widens because when you tell someone and they give you that positive response, you feel like you’re already on the path of your goal and that gives you a dopamine boost.

You cheat yourself. In a very physical sense, you reduce your drive to achieve that goal, and you do this chemically. - Peter M Vishton - (Professor of Psychology at William & Mary)

(Credits: Wondrium Daily)

The fog was starting to dissipate and I took a step back from engaging in meaningless conversations. Instead of the goal talk, I started journaling in my secret diary. The reduced influx of affirmations and positive reinforcement made me want to work harder. It made me want to work in the first place, which was a good way to begin this journey.

And I’m still on it. By no means have I accomplished what I set out to do but I’m getting there. There are days when I want to overshare with a social circle and let them know about my goals as they let me know about theirs but I’m pulled back by my diary. The urge to spill the beans is shadowed by the vision of letting my actions speak louder than my words.

At least, it’s better than going on and on about how Elon Musk should’ve handled Twitter or how Mark Zuckerberg did nothing by changing Facebook’s name to Meta or how Warren Buffett’s diet is crap.

A Story From You

We’ve all encountered this at least once before. Not being able to control the excitement of sharing your goals with others and then regretting the decision of ever talking about it out loud.

Share your experience with us! Let’s guide whoever’s not been through it.

Leave a comment

Scribbling in my diary,

Harsh

It’s a bittersweet end to the week, for we no longer have the FIFA World Cup to look forward to. But it would be wrong to leach the excitement out of an upcoming celebration, the origins of which far predate the inception of the World Cup.

A Story For You

On Sunday, the world arose to the resounding cheers of Argentinians and Argentina supporters across the globe. La Copa Mundial de Fútbol had finally returned to La Albicelestes after a wait of more than 13,321 days and boy, was it entertaining.

Exhilaration, exultation and euphoria for Argentina.

Anguish, agony and abjection for France.

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In what could only touted to be one of the best games of football ever played, Argentina finally bested France (after a heartbreaking defeat to them in the Round of 16 match in the 2018 World Cup), adding the coveted star on their federation’s emblem. What made this game nerve-wrecking, were the goals scored and the order and time in which the players netted the ball far past the respective goalkeepers. Argentina sealed the deal in the first half of the game, breaking the deadlock by scoring two, just about placing their pinky finger on the trophy to lift it, when the French wreaked havoc.

This win, however, is more memorable than any in the World Cup before, purely because of context. It was the crowning moment of one of the greatest players to ever grace a football pitch and it took a while - it took a while of pain, dejection, criticism, despair and failure, before the moment finally manifested itself.

As Peter Drury rightly said, this is the story of the little boy from Rosario, Santa Fe with only one dream - to win the World Cup.

And that man is Lionel Andrés Messi. He dreamt one of the wildest dreams there ever was because he wanted nothing more than what is depicted in this video.

But it wasn’t easy… it rarely is. In the past 18 years, Messi had accumulated every accolade that football had to offer, cementing his name in history books as one of the best. Many people view this as exaggeration and discontinue the conversation due to disbelief but it’s the truth. Wherever he played, he won. There was nothing in football that Messi hadn’t won at least once. Here you go, check it out for yourself.

However, he couldn’t get his hands on the one thing that he wanted the most - his dream cup.

"I would prefer to win a World Cup rather than five Ballons d'Or if I had to choose," Messi said at a news conference.

"I have always said that I prefer team achievements and the World Cup is the biggest trophy out there."

-Messi

And he came close. The FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brasil saw Argentina make it to the final after winning on penalties against the Dutch. There were billions of people banking on the little Argentine winning the trophy and bringing it home but fate had other plans. More than a billion hearts were broken that night. Messi had to accept the gut-wrenching truth and move on but what followed in his international career was nothing short of disaster.

Copa América, formerly (until 1975) South American Championship of Nations, quadrennial South American football tournament that is the continent’s premier competition in that sport. The Copa América is the world’s oldest international football tournament. (Credits: Britannica)

• 2014: Lost the World Cup Final against Germany.

• 2015: Lost the Copa América Final against Chile on penalties.

• 2016: Lost the Copa América Final against Chile on penalties.

Messi lost three consecutive finals, failing to secure an international trophy for his nation and in 2016, he quit.

That was short-lived however. In August of the same year, Messi returned to the international team, this time with the grit and determination required to do what he hadn’t done in 12 years. And after the 2018 World Cup, the tides turned.

• 2021: Won the Copa América against Brasil.

• 2022: Won the Finalissima against Italy.

• 2022: Won the World Cup against France.

Messi is 35-years-old and almost at the end of his footballing career. After all these years of doubt, debate and deliberation, there is one thing that no one can take away from him - the transition from the best to the greatest football player to have ever played the game.

Messi completed football.

He’s risen above and beyond the rest by quite a margin, proving once again, that there isn’t going to be another like him. His legacy is unshaken and will remain so until the end of time. Lifting the cup on the 18th of November made all the other greats more relatable while he basks in a league of his own. Seldom are stories complete and this is but a rare example of what a complete journey looks like.

And if you’re thinking of why this article is in the category ‘All About Mankind’, it’s because more than half the world smiled when the little magician kissed the golden trophy, finally making it his own.

Argentina celebrated this week but it was a celebration enjoyed, appreciated and applauded by almost everyone in the world.

Lionel Andrés Messi’s dream was one, not for himself, but for others to take a moment out of their grueling lives and see what the word ‘complete’ actually looked like.

This isn’t another LinkedIn article scrutinizing, analyzing and breaking down leadership strategies, teamwork and goals. It’s a story - a story that unites billions of people, regardless of nationality, religion, caste, creed, sex, language or culture to take joy in a little boy’s dream come true.

A Story From You

A video is a string of pictures in motion and a picture is a worth a thousand words.

Of all the videos that broke the internet on the eve of the World Cup Final, which one touched your heart the most?

Leave a comment

From yet another boy who dreams,

Aamer