Are you listening?​

Effective communication is the foundation of any successful relationship, be it personal or professional. And one of the most crucial components of communication is listening. However, merely hearing what someone says is not enough; to truly understand and connect with others, I must practice active listening.

Active listening involves not only hearing the words someone is saying but also understanding their message, emotions, and body language. It requires focus, attention, and an open mind.

Listening with body scan​

Body scanning involves paying attention to the speaker's nonverbal cues such as facial expressions, gestures, and tone of voice. The benefits of active listening are numerous. Firstly, it helps build stronger relationships by fostering trust and understanding. When I feel heard and understood, I am more likely to open up and share my thoughts and feelings.

Listening and devices​

Use of devices has made it increasingly difficult for me to practice active listening. With iPhone, laptop and TV always turned on, I am easily distracted and disengaged during conversations. Not only do these devices divert my attention, but they also send a message to the speaker that I am not fully invested in the conversation Additionally, in the past, practicing mindfulness has helped me improve my ability to focus and be present during conversations.

Holiday - what?​

Today was Good Friday and it was a working day for many of us.

Entrepreneurship is a 24/7 job, and entrepreneurs are always on call, even during holidays. Unlike traditional 9-5 jobs, entrepreneurs must always be available to their clients, customers, and employees. This means that entrepreneurs may have to sacrifice holidays and personal time to meet business demands.

Additionally, entrepreneurs often wear multiple hats, taking on several roles in their businesses simultaneously. As a result, it can be challenging to take time off from work without impacting the company's operations.

Balancing Work and Personal Life​

Entrepreneurs must learn how to balance their work and personal life to maintain a healthy lifestyle and prevent burnout. Here are some tips on how to manage the balance:

1. Prioritize Your Time: Entrepreneurs must prioritize their time to ensure that they're meeting business demands while also taking care of themselves and their loved ones. Create a schedule that includes time for work, family, and personal activities, and stick to it as much as possible.

2. Delegate Tasks: Entrepreneurs must learn to delegate tasks to employees, contractors, or freelancers. Delegating tasks frees up time for entrepreneurs to focus on essential tasks while also allowing them to take time off when needed.

3. Set Boundaries: Entrepreneurs must set boundaries between work and personal life. This means avoiding checking emails or answering phone calls outside of work hours and learning to say no to work-related requests that interfere with personal time.

4. Plan Holidays and Time Off: Entrepreneurs must plan holidays and time off in advance, allowing them to inform clients and employees of their availability. Scheduling time off also ensures that entrepreneurs can disconnect from work and recharge their batteries.

5. Make Time for Social Obligations: Entrepreneurs must make time for social obligations, such as attending family events, meeting up with friends, and participating in community activities. These activities provide a break from work and help entrepreneurs maintain a healthy work-life balance.

Microbes in our gut​

The human body is a miracle! There are roughly 40 trillion bacteria in human body - roughly equal to the number of cells in our body. Some studies suggest a higher number but. Most of these stay in our gut and are called the gut microbiota.

This microbiota plays a crucial role in maintaining our immune and metabolic systems and protects us against pathogens. I did try to listen to Giulia Enders in her audiobook Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ talking about the importance of our gut in our overall health.

Similar to bacteria, fungi reside in our intestine and gut. These fungi change our immunological responses by dampening or promoting local inflammatory responses. The bacteria and fungi live together in the gut and they compete for nutrient sources present in our gut. Watch this short video - You are your microbes - to understand the role of microbes.

Effect of Antibiotics on gut​

Antibiotics, as the name suggests. are medications that destroy or slow down the growth of microorganisms or bacteria. Antibiotics are prescribed commonly in India - eg. Azithromycin during the Covid19 waves, Augmentin during flu or fever.

A single course of antibiotics in adults causes change in both the bacterial and fungal microbiota and it is know to cause persistent changes in the fungal microbiota. Some microbial groups disappear, and the metabolic activity of others increases. This unbalance can lead to various health issues.

Probiotic foods​

Yoghurt, buttermilk and raw cow milk are two good and easily available food options in India. Many cabbage based foods like Sauerkraut and Kimchi though not easily available in India are also good for your gut.

Focus during illness​

The body during routine illness like flu is under stress. Usual symptoms like sneezing, cough or body ache - though routine - lead to a dip in focus. The ability to focus on a complex topics reduces and deep work is difficult. A lot it can be attributed to the medication which induces drowsiness and lack of quality sleep.

Hacks that work for me​

If working from office, the following helps:

• Cut short your work day by 50% i.e. take a half day and focus only on urgent and important work.
• Start after breakfast and delay the lunch a bit. Avoid coffee is you can.
• Take break every 30 minutes and reorient towards urgent and important work.

If working from home, the following helps:

• Do not work from the bed, only work from a table and chair.
• Keep a clip pad or notebook and strike off things that you complete.
• Put on some music and ensure adequate sunlight.
• Work in a one burst of 6 hours and then do not open laptop unless the world is falling apart
• Be gentle and kind, enjoy the sick leave.

Body and symptoms​

Our body is a really complex system and is at times ahead of our mind. It warns us of upcoming downtimes and issues. It is an art to listen to your body and respect its limitations.

Today morning at 5:30 am, I woke up with a sore throat - most likely flu with the changing weather. I heated some water with salt and gargled. I had a similar feeling on Sunday after exercise and exertion.

Enjoying a sick day​

In the last few years, I have started enjoying sick days. I differentiate the day by reading something new on Kindle, ordering a bit of junk food and mostly making it a point to satisfy my sweet tooth. Looks like today is one of those days where the second half is all about resting and shutting the body down.

Out of sight​

Our routine is sacrosanct. We regularly do activities with the same set of people - meal with family, evening walk with your dog, watching netflix with your significant other. Such activities become a highlight of our day - and a disruption in the activity for even a few day disturbs our balance.

Heart grows fonder​

Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.​

Absence or distance from an activity or a person can make you feel relieved or anxious. You might be left with a feeling of respite or longing. Focus on when you are longing for an activity or a person. Appreciate it and show your gratitude.

You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day, unless you're too busy, then you should sit for an hour. If Tetris has taught me anything, it's that errors pile up & accomplishments disappear. Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

Tetris revisited​

Today morning, I decided to do 4 km swim. This is my first 4 km of 2023 and I had done one in 2022. I took ~97 minutes to complete it and had a phase of thoughtlessness in between.

When you are in water for so long in a swimming pool, you think about many things and once out of topics, you really observe. The pool where I go has tiles (colors blue and dark blue) on the floor. Organized they look like a game of Tetris.

Making pieces fit​

In life, the circumstances change every month and year. First you want something, then if you get it, you include it in your entitled list. With all the moving parts, it is in a way a big game of tetris. Not all pieces are the same color, nor are they the same shape or size, but they need to be in sync and balance. Juggling with pieces, the constant move is what makes life beautiful.

100 hour rule​

Put simply, the rule or observation implies that if you put 100 hours to a new activity, you will become quite good at a new activity after 100 hours of deliberate practice. Ofcourse, it’s just an approximation, but a different approach to explore new activities especially the ones that you have pushing under the carpet.

For most disciplines, it only takes one hundred hours of active learning to become much more competent than an absolute beginner.​

This observation gives us the 100 hour rule: someone with 100 hours of deliberate practice in any field will appear impressively good at it from the perspective of someone who’s never practiced it at all.​

New Financial Year​

Like a calendar year, a financial year is a reset of metrics - a clean slate. Celebrate endings - for they precede new beginnings.

My 100 hour activities​

I have found committing to activities by keeping a written record as a good way of getting things done. I am adding 2 activities to test the ~ 100 hours observation over a period of 4 months (i.e. April 2023 to July 2023). This implies a commitment of 50 minutes a day for each of the activities.

The activities are:

1. Understanding new developments in AI and coding a project
2. Understanding new developments in Product Development

I will do a review of progress in the following sequence from the beginning - 2 days, 5 days, every 10n days.

Slow it down​

Slowing things down and reducing the pace is a conscious and effective way to enjoy. Such slowing is usually accompanied by reducing the number of activities you have planned. Enjoying the now, especially slowly, is very satisfying. It helps you focus on the present atomic moment and experience life as you truly should.

You are always in a rush - wanting to be elsewhere. Slow it down, relish what you have now. Be like a child, enjoying the now.​

When to slow it down​

If you listen to your body and mind, it tells you when to slow down. When you experience fatigue, slowness or burn out - listen to it and take a day off. Sit in the sun or curl in your bed. It is okay, be kind to yourself and switch things down.

You cannot win for long by fighting against your body and mind. Listen to them closely and you will know.​

How I slow things down?​

I like to do the following to slow it down and energize. They invariably help me in orienting myself:

• Start a new book.
• Speak to family over a video call.
• Go for a long walk and listen to my Liked Songs

serve: to be useful or suitable for a particular purpose

Service and life​

All the macro systems around us are build with the objective of rewarding people for activities that they are good at. In other words, human beings - in groups - have since time ago have created systems, customs and rituals such that people who are good at serving other human beings get rewarded. In the modern economy, the equivalent is that if you have skills or resources or capital which serves others around you (or the globe), you enjoy status, power and wealth.

I have deeply thought about the purpose of life many times - 2nd year of undergrad and year 2021 were phases of longer deliberation. I have concluded that serving others is a primary purpose of our life. In the process of doing that, you discover your quirks, strengths, weaknesses and what you enjoy. In fact, how we enjoy giving the service changes with age and the definition of others also changes with the environment.

Secluding from serving others​

For a variety of reasons, many a times we resist serving our purpose and get stuck in a rut. These situations aggravate when we are stubborn about what we do not want to do. Resolving by excluding things not do is a valid strategy but applying it in serving others becomes a long frustrating process of brute force experiments. In such times, look back and think about the enormity of life around you and realize that service is the constant companion of the living being. When you stop serving, you stagnate and stop living life in its full sense.

Stagnation is the enemy of sanity.​