Weekly Recap: A Cheerful Kickstart

My Week Wrapped Up

• Inspiring things I’ve seen

• Music that makes me smile

• Tools I’ve used

• Quotes I love

• Things I’ve written

Inspiring Things I’ve Seen 

The Idea of “Three Stages of Life”

In his most recent newsletter issue, Sahil Bloom talks about the idea of three stages of our professional life discussed by Chris Vasquez. He describes it this way:

Stage one, where you get fed. Stage two, you feed yourself. Stage three, you feed others.

Starting out, you are a complete stranger to the capitalist world around you. You are naïve, inexperienced and unfamiliar. So you take up the opportunities you get and run with it. You engage in what you’re provided. You observe and learn. You get fed.

You advance further in your career. Now you’ve sailed far enough to understand well the entire ecosystem, even eye it from the top. You’ve got adequate experience to claim a share in the economy. This is when you create opportunities for yourself; when you feed yourself.

Lastly, time comes when you’ve wrapped the vast biome in your embrace that you’re flooded with opportunities. This is when you give out opportunities to others needing them. You feed others. Result? You’ve triggered a flow. An endless system that functions in your favour.

Overall, this could the most rational and wise manner of walking your career path. Gain. Create. Provide.

Mushin: The Beauty of Being in “the Zone”

Reading the book “Don’t Believe Everything You Think” by Joseph Nguyen, I came across the Japanese concept of “Mushin”.

Do you think elite athletes in Olympic ever “think” during their peak performance? No. Because the moment they begin to analyse and plan, their flow is disturbed. The graceful pattern breaks. Nguyen describes “the zone” as the state of non-thinking. The Japanese call it mushin.

When you indulge your deepest self into the work you’re doing, you slide into a flow state. You break free of the chains of hindering thoughts. Anger, grief, fear, worry, stress, all fade away. Your conscious is calmer than ever while your subconscious directs your body. This is when you achieve mushin.

Music that makes me smile

• The Lady Don’t Mind by Talking Heads - I’m writing a series of fiction books at the moment, this track has been on repeat for almost two days.

• Next To You by Charlotte Cardin, a track we’re going to use for another up-coming series. Incredibly powerful

Tools I’ve used

This is not sponsored - it’s an exploration of what’s out there.

1. Pika Labs - Pika 1.5 introduced an enhanced model packed with eye-catching, physics-defying effects, dubbed "Pikaffects," which can turn subjects in images into surreal, flexible versions of themselves.

   These animated effects, accessible through the newly added Pikaeffects button, come with presets like "Explode It," "Squish It," "Melt It," "Crush It," "Inflate It," and "Cake-ify It."

   I tried it myself. Fun but terrifying.

2. Kling AI- Another cool video generator. Here’s a demo video I created using the tool- a fusion of the worlds of the Shire and Winterfell with a Futuristic touch.

   

Quotes I love

1. Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." —Thomas A. Edison

2. "Out of clutter, find Simplicity. From discord, find Harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies Opportunity." —Albert Einstein

3. "With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts." —Eleanor Roosevelt

4. "Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence." —Helen Keller

5. "Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground." —Theodore Roosevelt

Things I’ve written

Creation and the Void Whispered

Creation and the Void whispered in each ear, “Come to the cliff.” I heed the call and jump, and they guaranteed me neither safety nor finality.

It’s a repeated waking dream. I heed the call. Repeatedly. Sometimes I fly, sometimes I fall.

Fly or fall, in the peace and in the chaos of life, I find myself meandering around paths of colour, sometimes direct, sometimes a maze. Some see a chaotic disconnect of disparate distractions, but I see a rich exploration of the human experience. I’m a founder, an entrepreneur, a designer, a storyteller, a traveler, a foodie—labels that only scratch the surface of who I am becoming— or more correctly, unbecoming.

The Journey of Unbecoming

As I navigate through the vast realms of technology, design, spirituality, self, writing, creating, mindfulness, and community building, I'm not merely stacking ideas, projects, roles, titles and notions. What seems like add-on after add-on is in fact a peeling back of layers, stripping away all identity until I reach the core of my being.

It’s through the exploration all my interests, all at once, and pushing my mind beyond the limit of the known that I force myself to detach the chains of identity.

Who am I when all labels of identity are removed? Who am I, uninterrupted? I'm still looking, still uncovering, still peeling back the layers until I strip my sense of “I” so bare that all I'm left with is nothing but my raw, undefinable, naked, pulsating soul.

This paradoxical journey isn't about addition; it's about subtraction. It's about finding that unique signature that is quintessentially me, unadorned neither by worldly conditioning nor self-imposed limitation.

Read the article here.

What we’re working on

🧞Your wish is my command