Hello, hello!

I have locked myself in a room till I am able to come out with this post ready. Unlike most days, I am not worn out. Slept good, ate well and nice day overall. Broke my glasses, have a make-do fixed up version right now. Will have to go get new ones — not complaining, I was growing weary of my old jelly-like green frames anyways. Have a few work-errands to run. Read Show Your Work. Get dinner and call it a day. Simple, little day. Will be seeing KP tomorrow — always excited for that. On to some thoughts from the day.

One. What did I even write about before? And how?

I do not understand why this writing habit has started to cumbersome. Thoughts just don’t come to me. Am I not doing enough? Am I not thinking enough? Know what — I even looked at some older blogs to figure out what was I thinking and how I would go about them? And nothing. I’ve also stopped showing up on LinkedIn. Somewhere along the lines it stopped feeling authentic. I mean, all I see there is a pool of Chat-GPT, agenda-driven content. Now I can’t exactly pin-point what feels wrong about it.

Anyhow, I would like to call out a ye-sab-bahane-hote-hain on me. Building distribution is almost mandatory in this day and age. I don’t get to and must not crib about what the world is up to or how I feel about it. My job is to get out, do something, write about it. As many times as I can. So I will do that.

Thanks to AI and all the cool tools on the Internet, blasting content is easier than ever. Must make use of it all. In fact, I have decided, every time I like something on the Internet, I will write a tiny note about it and share with everyone I know. Instead of just saying a see-this-link on Twitter. Learnt this from Saurabh honestly — if you ever write a note, put it out everywhere.

Two. On not making people feel stupid.

I am no business thinker or executive coach. But I am woman building a business with decent thinking faculties. So I shall take pride in my opinion. A mark of a good leader is how comfortable your team can be when they have to ask you stupid questions. And not feel wrong about it. Now, I am obviously a huge advocate for Googling things and figuring stuff out yourself and all that. That is not what I mean. I still think there are stupid questions. The ones you can Google your way out of. But what I mean by this is giving people the space — to come out and be able to say I-don’t-know-this, tell-me-how.

Most people I have looked up to or learnt from have given me that space. They have belief and conviction in my abilities, but neither assumptions nor reservations. My math tuition teacher who practically taught me all the math I know. My school Principal who taught me कौआ vs कौवा. Faizan, my trainer. Rita ma’am who endlessly helped me fix my handwriting. My accounting professor, Sumit Pareek. My innovation professor, Mezzy sir. Etc etc. I only give you academic examples but there’s more. Not the point.

The important thing is: None of these people ever made you feel stupid. No well-actually’s (hello Recurse), no that’s-pretty-obvious, not even a joke, nothing. They’d often show me how much I don’t know, but they were always able to get me excited to learn more. To go find out. And I can see how giving people that space is so important for them to grow. And how important has it been for me to grow. And learn. And be. This is the kind of person-mentor-leader that I want to be.

Three. I have cracked healthy eating. Or so I think. (Once again)

In the past year, I have learnt that there is no plug-and-play eating well program that works for me. One day I will write a book about all that didn’t help. But for now, here’s what I do. Order one source of each – protein, fibre and carbs every single day. And finish that. Instead of stocking up on a ton of grocery and not eating any. Or just losing interest. With this, I can be excited about my meal for the day and actually enjoy it. Rather than ordering in or snacking later.

So yes, this is my latest experiment. Let’s see where we go with this. I already have my next one planned: Get Food Darzee. Phew!

Anyhow, time to go. And oh, here’s my Rule-of-thirds sheet for the day.

Anshika – on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Ps: I share interesting links and stories that tickle my brain through the day on this WhatsApp group. Most of it doesn’t make it to these blogs, but should you like to join — here.

And oh, write back. I love getting messages 💌