Entrepreneur, Author, Content Creator with 9M+ followers across platforms. I share this newsletter every Friday around personal growth, books, quotes, pictures - it is the most personal version of me online.
Do quotes motivate you?
warikoo Wanderings
You can share this newsletter on WhatsApp, Twitter, LinkedIn, or view it on the web.
You can view all previous newsletters here.
15 QUOTES I OFTEN GO BACK TO
I am not who I think I am
I am not who you think I am
I am who I think you think I am
"She must think I'm stupid."
"They must think I'm petty."
"He must think I'm fat."
Our entire identity is woven around what we think others think of us.
We may never get to know what they think.
Yet we never fail to form an opinion.
And live our entire life, on that opinion of ours.
Fear has led to more procrastination than laziness ever will.
The biggest reason for our inaction is not our laziness.
It is our fear.
The fear of what if this doesn't work out.
The fear of what will people say.
The fear of missing out on something else.
This fear paralyzes us.
Engulfs us.
And the next thing we know, it has become a habit.
Look at the mirror.
The strength is you.
The competition is you.
The enemy is you.
We can be our greatest friend.
Also the one that inspires us everyday to be better than who we were yesterday.
And we can definitely be our worst critic. The one who constantly tells us that we are not worth it.
We are the stories we tell ours.
Nothing happens if I cry. It only happens if I try.
We will all fail. It is inevitable.
But we won't all succeed.
So when we are told that failure is the stepping stone to success, that is a lie.
It is not failure that leads to success.
It is wiping your tears after the failure, getting back up and entering the arena.
Don't get comfortable!
Everything in the world today is designed for our comfort. So it tricks us into believing that life's goal is comfort.
But the one who make change happen are, on a daily basis, pick discomfort.
Knowing they might fail, they chase it, because that's their way to grow.
You are what you do.
Not what you say you'll do.
Everyone has a map.
Few set out on that journey.
Even fewer reach it.
But the ones who set out, have the story to tell.
That is who we become.
Being calm is a skill.
The world thrives on our reactions.
It feeds off our emotions.
It wants to provoke us.
In such a world, being calm is a an act of rebel.
And it comes with practice.
We aren't born with it.
We choose it.
Consciously.
Spend your life exploring. Not settling.
Everyone wants you to settle.
Finish your education and settle.
Get married and settle.
Have kids and settle.
Buy that car/house and settle.
But what are we giving away, in this attempt to settle?
Explore your own self.
Your own hobbies, interests, choices.
Your life.
Life's worst tragedy is not death.
It is what dies within us while we are still alive.
Regret is the worst form of dying.
And we die everyday because of it.
Because of "what if".
"What if I didn't listen to them?"
"What if I did?"
"What if I have listened to my own self?"
Most of us are not making a living everyday.
We are dying everyday!
If you don't ask, the answer is always no.
We weave these stories in our head of all that will happen once we ask.
But the person opposite isn't living these stories.
They are unaware of the turmoil in our head.
So when we ask, it is a BIG deal for us, but something they have rarely thought of in their head.
Just ask!
If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole.
If you ran into assholes all day, you are the asshole.
It is easy to blame the world and say "they don't get it."
But if no one gets it, then maybe it is us who doesn't get it.
This level of objectivity, once found, is a precious discovery!
If you truly know yourself, NO ONE can defeat you.
Many of our insecurities in life come from a bleak understanding who we truly are.
We are not sure if we are truly what we think we are or are we faking it?
Hence, the small provocation from the world perturbs us, because there is a small chance what they are saying might be true.
Respect doesn’t come from title.
It comes from conduct.
When people respect you for your title or position, it is not you who they respect.
They respect that title or position.
When they respect you irrespective of your title or position, they respect you for who you are and how you make them feel.
Saying thank you is manners.
Feeling thankful is behavior.
We are taught to say thank you.
But we are rarely taught to be thankful.
Thankful for what we have, what we were born into, the opportunities we take for granted, the privilege we have.
Gratitude is a super power, when deployed by someone who has been blessed with a lot.
DO EPIC SHIT
Life is all about doing, about motion.
About doing something that is bigger than you.
And having fun while doing it.
We all will be forgotten years after we die.
Might as well enjoy it while we live!
A lot of people dismiss quotes as motivational garbage.
But for me quotes serve as reminders.
Mental models of how to think about different situations, about your own self, and about the world around you.
In the absence of quotes, we are left with sentences and explanations.
And the longer the sentence, the widely varying inferences it will draw.
Making it hard to absorb or relate to at the right time.
These quotes have worked for me.
I will encourage you to find the ones that work for you.
A powerful quote at the right time can change your life.
BOOK I AM READING THIS WEEK
Finished reading Cold Steel - the takeover story of Mittal Steel (Lakshmi Mittal) taking over Arcelor.
I am waiting for someone to make a movie of this - what a story!!
Picked up Uncanny Valley - absolutely brilliant book from Anne Wiener, on her journey of breaking into the tech industry in the US.
It speaks about how siloed Silicon Valley is, where they believe they are the only thing that exists in the world.
Anne is a brilliant writer, very funny in her writing and I am sure you will love this book if you love memoirs.
Do Epic Shit is FINALLY in audio (yay!).
adbl.co/doepicshit
If you prefer printed books then pick up the book in English (Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle) Hindi, Marathi and Tamil.
200,000+ copies sold.
5 more languages coming up! (Including Portuguese)
QUOTES TO SHARE
If you have walked away, but your emotions haven't, you haven't walked away. You are still there!
(Share on Twitter)
If you do not want to be like this at 40, do not be like this TODAY!
(Share on Twitter)
Don’t let yourself get so focused on winning that you dread losing!
(Share on Twitter)
RESPONSES TO LAST WEEK'S QUESTION
Last week I asked you:
Which is the best quarter of the year for you, mostly?
- Jan-Feb-Mar
- Apr-May-June
- Jul-Aug-Sep
- Oct-Nov-Dec
Here are the responses:
Observations:
- For below 18, Apr-May-June is a good quarter because annual exams get over and this is the quarter to chill.
- Rest for everyone, Oct-Nov-Dec progressively becomes the best quarter of the year. This is largely because of festivals and year-end holidays (if any).
- This is the time when families when together, we travel back home, there is good food, good weather, etc. - things we begin to value as we grow older :)
PS: One of the big reasons why people like a certain quarter is also because their birthday falls in that quarter. How cute :))
My response?
It is surely Oct-Nov-Dec. I love the Delhi winters (not the smog though) and the festivities :))
PICTURE OF THE WEEK
This Saturday I was in Mumbai for the IFP (which was previously India Film Project). I spoke about unlearning the hustle culture.
The vibe was out of the world! This pic was clicked right before I stepped on stage.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Which school medium did you study in?
- English medium
- Hindi medium
- State language medium
Click here to let me know your answer (anonymously)
CONTENT I SHARED THIS WEEK
Podcast:
Shared experiences
Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcast, Apple Podcast, JioSaavn, Gaana or YouTube.
YouTube:
Chat with Samay Raina
You can watch it here.
Instagram:
3 kinds of people
You can watch it here.
Twitter:
25 career advice, I wish we were given
You can read it here.
You can, of course, always write to me by simply replying to this newsletter.
I love reading all your emails, even though I may not be able to reply to them all.
Yes! I READ ALL MY EMAILS. ALL OF THEM.
(Dilli mein shuru hoti hui meethi meethi thand ki kasam!)
You can share this newsletter on WhatsApp, Twitter, LinkedIn, or view it on the web.
warikoo Wanderings
by Ankur Warikoo
Entrepreneur, Author, Content Creator with 9M+ followers across platforms. I share this newsletter every Friday around personal growth, books, quotes, pictures - it is the most personal version of me online.
I had to ask! When I met my current wife, Ruchi, at the age of 19 while in college, she was way out of my league! I was the super geeky and serious kid.I had strong notions about what is right and wrong.I was too uptight.I would even call myself sad at that point.Too serious. And took myself too seriously. She, on the other hand, was the Shahrukh Khan in everybody’s life.Happy and going with the flow :))Forever smiling.Everyone adored her.Her happiness made everyone else happy around her. We...
If it's just hard work, why wouldn't you do it? Our colony had the Tennis Singles Finals this morning. I lost. While I feel slightly bad about it, I am happy about 2 things: 1/ I didn't play it safe. I played aggressively and took my chances. It's another thing that most chances did not work out :)) But I tried! 2/ I know exactly where I went wrong and what I need to do to fix it. The distance between where I am and where I wish to be can be covered by hard work. You see, a lot of us are...
5 things I believed to be true when I was a kid; only to realize they are not! Money is finite. If one becomes rich, someone else becomes poor. I was convinced that there was only a limited amount of money in the world. And that the rich make money by taking it from someone else. Wealth is only distributed. Today, I know wealth can be created. By adding value. I shared an example of Maggi in my book, Make Epic Money. A pack of Maggi costs 10/20 rupees. But open it, cook it, add some veggies...