Have you ever been treated unfairly? Have you ever been hurt emotionally by another person? Have you ever felt powerless? Have you ever felt - “What’s the point of life?” Can travelling just two kilometres in a different direction completely change your life?

I was 10 when I read the following quote:

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

- Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher

I was lucky to have a father who taught me through stories and led me through his actions. He never told me what to do, he just nudged me on the right path. This was his uncanny ability. He had a way to change the track you were on, with minimum resistance - he would string a chord in your heart and you wouldn’t realise it. He knew no hypnotherpy or psychology - a natural talent. He has guarded me, without guarding me. He has taught me lessons that I would have taken years to learn through a single story.

My mom, a gentle and sensitive mother always looked out for me.

Me? An extremely demanding child. That I want the best from my family. There can’t be a single moment that they say the wrong things to me, or not understand me - I was extremely demanding. All this led to a complete synergy - A friend, a healer and me - the jury - keeping them in check. It also led to fights.

Now, I am on the other side, getting him to set up his consultation business. And do world-class marketing for him - marketing that is so sticky, you can’t ignore it.

My girlfriends taught me more than I could have learnt otherwise.

All thanks to my curiosity and the hunger to learn - I was able to squeeze lessons out of each of my experiences and I got really good at understanding patterns and breaking them. I was able to predict outcomes and results quickly and could course correct quickly. I thought to myself - Hot Damn! I could sell on this to companies.

I was able to secure the highest paying internship in my college through this one strategy alone. And I was able to secure the highest paying job in my batch. All because of an Idea that wasn’t even connected to the job. That is the power of an idea - to identify patterns in a company and present that to the founder and show how you can change these patterns for more success. It’s the most sure-shot way of getting a founder invested in your thought process.

I was so obsessed with perspectives, I would stick to the most depressing perspectives hoping to learn something new:

1. There is quite honestly, many times, just a single chance to success in life. There’s just one decision that can make or break your fortune. You can be the smartest or the dumbest - your intellect hardly decides if you will make the best decision in your favour always. Because decisions are taken on half data or heck, lesser than half data - because how do you even verify if what you have is actually “half”? - Expand this to the unfortunate reality in our day and age - inspite of a constitution that says “Freedom to Opportunity” - how many are deprived on grounds that make no sense? We all tread forward hoping that our decisions work in our best favour - but it’s just one or two decision that ultimately decide the fate. Decisions are the most powerful tool and that everyone must get really good at it. The truth is, I didn’t realise the power of it until I made some bad decisions - maybe you have done too - the good part is you can still change and make amends. Think about the ones who are not privileged - who have one single chance to make it or break it. For example someone who has money for just a single attempt to an examination. Don’t run your intellectual brains - if the smartness of our analysis turned into the results we think they do - we would be far better off. That person loses that attempt and it’s probably game-over. It’s brutal but it’s true. Our parents want us to make the best decisions and it’s again dependent on their own perspectives and way of looking at the world. And there’s no single framework to make decisions that always lead to the best result - think the Afghanistan (Taliban) issue or the Saddam Hussain. You make it or break it - and that’s the truth. Heartbreaks - a bunch of decisions leading up to it. You can apply this to any area of your life and you will understand what I’m saying. One thing is for sure - you have to be pretty darn good at this.

2. Life is unfair - Life is so unfair. Better than complaining about how unfair it is - take it for what it is. The top 1% of the world holds most of the world’s wealth. And the bottom 50% hold less than 0.9% of the world’s wealth. It is a true statisic and whether we like it or not, that is the reality. NGOs don’t change as many lives as corporates do. The invisible hand of capitalism as it’s said. Bottom line is - life is unfair. You might not have the money, you might not have the family, heck you might not have most of the things the masses take for granted. But you also don’t have the burden of being where you currently are. If you are in a free country - you genuinely have the tools and resources to turn your fortunes around. I wish I could help everyone - but life is unfair and even when I do my marketing, some people will just not receive my message.

3. Paradoxes - To become highly successful you have to think beyond yourself. To become an independent person - you have to think without external influences. Life is unfair and in our current world success is defined by who goes to the top - yet the top performers don’t compete with others - they just compete with themselves. Life is unfair but you find more success and joy by being grateful for what you currently have. Anyone who expects a single path blueprint is sorely mistaken - life just isn’t like that. Even the harbinger of capitalism - America had turned Socialistic for a few years. Don’t be married to your beliefs - understand that there are many angles to the same thing.

4. Beliefs are lies - Beliefs are generally not true. Doesn’t mean that beliefs that are not true - don’t serve any purpose. Ask any ISIS person and they will show you how the dream of killing multiple people will take that person to heaven with god knows how many virgins. It’s not verifiable, yet it drives people like crazy. At the end of the day - your beliefs need to serve you. Your beliefs are the map of reality. There is no human rights when you cut open a body - yet it genuinely guides us to make more compassionate decisions. Hence, beliefs are often lies. But that is the most liberating thing because you can pick and choose your beliefs. Your beliefs are up to you - you can make your identify of a ballerina dancer or an author - it’s up to you - and you can point your life in any direction you want. Isn’t it great that we have such a brilliant device - like a compass in our minds and heart, that can guide us in any direction we choose?

5. Don’t go long on any decision that’s against human behaviour (unless with good reason). Because it simply won’t last. Humans generally fall back to their core nature. Whatever that might be. Instead, bet on who they are. Do you know why we love authenticity so much? It’s because we know who we are getting - that there are no filters. Which is why we love people who are congruent - who do exactly what they say they are going to do. That congruency can’t be ignored because your whole body is in sync.

6. Ideas hold no value in and of itself - Actions do: No one cares if you are the greatest undiscovered talent in the graveyard. If you want to be a musician, put a song out. If you want to be an author, write a book and get it published. If you want to make an organisational switch - just do it. Ultimately, that’s what drives results. We hold the greatest creation tool among all the creatures on earth today - Influence Alchemy. We can take what’s in our minds and create it. I had all these thoughts in my mind, and now they are on paper and you’re reading. It would have meant nothing if I had kept them to myself and never did anything useful out of it. The biggest problem with procrastinators is - and trust me I was a great procrastinator - is that they are lost in their own thoughts. You need to get out to think. You need to take action to see the result. You cannot know if a song is a success or a failure without actually putting it out there. There’s no way your brain is a simulation of the world in which you can run any program you want without actually taking any action. You are bound to earn more money by setting up a lemonade stand than by imagining a vaccine that could save the world from any disease.

7. Being real has nothing to do with how fake the world is - Being real is not blaming someone else for not being vulnerable and then shutting yourself up. It’s true, you can lead, but ultimately being real gets you seen and recognised. It’s the only guarantee that people will not forget you. No one forgets a person who is completely authentic. A person who acts as he speaks, is extremely admired.

The friend who never left my side. God gave me fake friends but my dad was my friend from when I was a kid.

“How I minted a job one year before the placements took place.”

Always provide value more than what you ask for. Be so good at your job, that it naturally happens. That’s the standard. 5x more than what you asked for.

As Jim Rohn said - Work on yourself harder than at your job.

My dad taught me a skill without even me realising - the ability to make people reflect.