There is only one way to build true leverage.

This is not just a post. I am instead sharing my morning journal. (cleaned up.)

This is  reminder to myself. this is addressed to me.

But If this helps my reader, then you are welcome.

Most people spend their lives trading hours for dollars. 

They work, they procrastinate, and they repeat the cycle. 

Me too, to some degree.

But the wealthy and the influential focus on a different metric: The Body of Work.

This is a concept I learnt a while ago.

A Body of Work is the only asset that grows while you sleep.

• It Scales: A single note becomes a post. a post becomes a video.

• It Compounds: One article is a drop. 500 articles is an ocean.

• It Validates: Your body of work, your experiences are your resume.

I have done that on linkedin. I started to do that with YouTube, and lost my way in between.

Have I gotten any returns out of it?

Nothing tangible. No job offers came because of it.

No sponsortships. Nothing.

But, it taught me skills, and gave me confidence.

When you know you have written several hundred posts on linkedin, its a different level of confidence.

Similarly, when you create videos, how to record, how to edits, how to post, how to package. There are like hundreds of small decisions you need to make.

The "Generic" Trap 

Many writers freeze because they fear being "average." 

I feel this every time.

But on a good day I ask, "Who decides if my work is inferior?"

There are only two filters that matter:

1. The Internal Filter: Are you writing from a specific perspective? You must choose your positioning: are you the Guide (teaching those behind you), the Explorer (documenting your learning), or the Authority (sharing hard-won expertise)?

2. The External Filter: The market eventually tells you the truth. But remember: in a distracted world, silence isn't always a critique of your quality—it’s often just a lack of volume.

Ultimately, If you aren't building media, you are actively squandering the opportunity of a lifetime.

This is the only way to build leverage.  The economy has shifted. 

Permission is dead. Leverage is free. Stop overthinking the quality of the first brick. Just build the wall.

Your Push for Efficiency is Killing Your Bottom Line

Process improvements create process bloat.

It sounds counterintuitive. 

Having a clear process is the foundation of scaling any business. 

It helps you stay focused, build repeatability, and transition away from relying on a few heroic individuals.

Process matters when you need to scale.

Done right, clear processes deliver predictable outcomes, accurate cost forecasting, and the elimination of friction. 

But in most organizations, the process itself becomes the friction.

Here is how process mutates into a margin-eating monster, and exactly how to fix it:

1. The Illusion of Value 

Activity does not equal value.

For a multi-billion dollar company, process bloat might look like a rounding error. But when you zoom in on operations, the reality is staggering. You stop building products and start building bureaucracy.

Suddenly, your payroll is consumed by:

• Teams hired to unify messaging.

• Teams tasked with building checklists.

• Teams dedicated to writing documentation.

• Teams acting as mandatory review tollgates.

• Teams formed to cross-qualify opportunities.

• Teams building processes just to review Statements of Work.

• Teams existing solely to bless the processes of other teams.

• Teams managing RFPs, who manage other teams writing the RFPs, who then wrangle technical teams to approve the responses.

Every single person in that chain thinks they are adding value.

They are doing exactly what they were hired to do. 

But if you take one step back, the truth is glaring. Managing paperwork is a massive cost center eating away at your margins.

2. Death by Tollgate 

Startups win because they have no tollgates.

They move fast, break things, and ship products. 

But as companies scale, fear creeps in. To prevent mistakes, leadership adds layers of approval. 

Every decision now requires a blessing from three different process teams.

Speed slows to a crawl.

The very system designed to streamline the business paralyzes it. 

You trade market agility for internal compliance.

3. The Expiration Date 

Companies must scale and build processes.

But every new process must be tied to a clear, time-boxed objective. 

If a process isn't actively protecting your margins or accelerating your output, it isn't an improvement. 

It is just bloat.

and that process review should be time boxed too.

In fact, the team that owns the process, should bear the cost of process improvement.

The solution is simple.

Give every internal process a six-month expiration date. 

When the timer runs out, the team must prove the process still adds measurable value to the bottom line. 

If they cannot prove it, the process dies.

Force your company to justify its bureaucracy.

Watch your margins grow.

Nvidia's $1 Trillion Translation Problem

Nvidia stock is stuck under 190.

In the latest GTC keynote, Jensen Huang announced a $1 trillion pipeline and 30x performance leaps.

The backlog projection jumped from $500 billion to a trillion dollars.

Yet, the market yawns.

Analysts connect the dots. They say the growth is already "priced in."

But if the growth is priced in, these same analysts wouldn't be setting price targets of 260. 

The truth is much simpler.

The market isn't bored by the numbers. 

The market is confused by the narrative.


My belief is Nvidia’s communication is holding the stock back.

Here are three reasons. 

1. The Translation Gap 

Jensen’s presentations are built for engineers. (sort of)

He showcases teraflops, graphic quality, and processing architecture. 

Wall Street doesn't speak silicon. 

Investors speak cost savings, customer stickiness, and profit margins.

The market doesn't know what to do, when a presentation fails to connect technical leaps to tangible business revenue.

2. The Fragile Trillion 

A trillion-dollar pipeline sounds invincible.

But it isn't locked in a vault. 

Hyperscalers can walk away from capacity commitments if their returns fail to materialize. 

The entire pipeline depends on Nvidia's customers actually making money off these massive investments.

If the end-user doesn't see a return, the hyperscaler stops buying, and the trillion dollars can evaporates.

3. The Predictability Premium 

This is why traditional giants like Costco and Walmart keep winning. 

Their business models are universally understood. 

You buy a membership, you buy bulk goods, the company makes money. 

There is a clear differentiator in the business.

People have to eat to live.

Predictability breeds investor confidence. 

Wall Street prefers a boring, predictable dollar today over a complex, theoretical hundred dollars tomorrow.

Nvidia is selling the future, but explaining it like a science project.

The Fix: 

If Nvidia wants to unlock its next massive run, the communication must change. 

This is where Steve Jobs set his own legacy.

To make the presentation palatable for Wall Street, they need to check three boxes:

1. Show the graphic quality and innovations, but prove the cost savings. 
2. Highlight the processing speed, but demonstrate the revenue generation. 
3. Break down the stickiness of the businesses fueling the pipeline. 

Smarter investors will always figure out the underlying value.

But if the world's most valuable company makes the math just a little bit easier for the rest of the market to understand, the tailwinds will be unstoppable.

What is your Strategy?

 Strategy is not a boardroom presentation.

It is the allocation of two finite resources: time and money. 

Infrastructure, headcount, and intellectual property all reduce to these two buckets. 

The rules of corporate strategy apply directly to your life too.

Resource allocation is the only true metric of a strategy.

Look at the evidence:

• Selling a new product: Track the hours spent meeting customers and refining the pitch.

• Landing a high-impact role: Measure the daily minutes spent mastering the industry and publishing insights.

• Being a generous person: Count the exact dollars donated and the hours volunteered.

For months, my goal was a career pivot.

I wanted a role with massive impact. But complacency crept in, and the status quo felt comfortable. 

The realization hit this morning: a personal strategy fails without dedicated resources.

Without action, a strategy is just ink on paper.

So, I pivoted.

Instead of squandering the morning, my time went toward dissecting the Nvidia ecosystem and mapping the market's future. I listened to the keynote yesterday, and wrote some insights about it. 

The final outcome remains unknown. 

But the daily habits, or todays actions matched the ambition.

The strategy is in motion.

Building product catalog & offerings is easy but getting it right is complex

Most companies build services the wrong way—and it’s why they fail.

They start with a list of ideas. They collect buzzwords. They ignore the data and spend months building things no one wants (may be, you don't know yet).

Stop that. 

Build from the outside in.

If you want to create an offer that sells, follow these three steps:

• Solve one specific pain. Don’t build a big menu. Build a clear solution.

• Start small. Build a simple version first.

• Test it. Sell it before you build it. If no one buys, you just saved yourself months of wasted work.

The Million-Dollar Question: What problem do you solve?

You don’t guess the answer. You find it in the real world. Here are four ways to find it:

1. The Side-Step: Look at what you already sell, then add a simple fix that makes it better.

2. The Door-Opener: Offer a quick check-up or audit that leads to bigger work later.

3. The Best-Customer Filter: Ask your top 10% of customers what they struggle with, then build the fix for them.

4. The Campaign Test: Send an email or run a simple ad to see if people want it before you spend time building it.

Who should lead the build?

There is a common trap here.

If Sales builds it, they promise a perfect world that the team can’t deliver. 

If the delivery team builds it, they get stuck in fear and add too many rules.

You need both sides to work together in a short window:

• Sales must prove there is a buyer before the work starts.

• Delivery must make sure the process actually works.

Don’t build in a bubble. Build with the market.

The problem with tracking online news

I have to rescue myself from the news cycle.

Every few weeks, I have to intervene with my own patterns.

I cut the cord on online news, and almost immediately, the anxiety and the hunger for a continuous feed vanish.

I’m no saint. 

I fall for the trap just like everyone else. 

But after years of watching the decline of digital media, the problem is clear. 

We aren't being informed. We’re being harvested.

Here is why I see modern news cycle as a threat:

• The Opinion Factory: News agencies are no longer in the business of information. They are in the business of building an Opinion. Every "report" is wrapped in a layer of inherent bias.

• The Search for Truth: Platforms like X (Twitter) try to verify the truth, but they are losing the race. Fake information travels faster than the truth.

• High level points, repeated everywhere: You seldom learn anything new. Outlets regurgitate the same three talking points because that’s what triggers the algorithm. That is how it feels like. Depth is missing on any topic.

• Engineered Negativity: The news cycle grow by creating uncertainty. It is a machine designed to highlight what is going wrong, keeping you in a state of continuous negativity.

• The Opportunity Cost of our time: We consume "information" that feels productive but contributes nothing to our actual work or lives. It is the illusion of being "informed" without the benefit of being "educated."

• The Booby-Trap: Platforms have become notorious for "content traps." You go looking for a headline and end up stuck on an escalator of rage-bait, ads, and explicit content.

If you want to understand the world, stop looking at the feed.Pick up a book on the subject. 

Find a verified source like the Associated Press that still preserves an iota of journalistic integrity. The feed is designed to keep you scrolling. A book is designed to let you think.

I am trying too.

Your attention is your most valuable asset. Stop letting algorithms spend it for you.

The magic of deliberate effort and serendipity in career and life

Life is mysterious and magic, and we are always trying to find that shortcut, but there are none.

I am reading "how will you measure your life".

One of the chapter talks about deliberate planning and serendipity.

It is a topic that hits home.

The author says both of those approaches apply in different conditions. 

They can be suitable for building a career and outside when applied right.

My experience is a tad different.

I have applied both of them together.

In fact, even when I am not watching deliberate short term planning & long term serendipity is the answer.

At times, you need to work on a specific swim lane, and keep your head down.

but in the larger scheme of things, that is a blip. One doesn't need to worry too much.

If you don't close yourself off, other opportunities will show up.

They may not look like how you thought.

Be deliberate on your swim lane, while keeping yourself open. 

That is how life uncovers.

We build career and life over long periods.

Building with a deliberate mind and focusing on the end goal is a sure shot way to failure.

Here is my biggest argument.

The deliberate way of life assumes that you know what you want. and That it is right for you.

But, we are malleable. We are ever changing.

It may surprise you if you look back and see where you are today.

This is where you wanted to be. 

This was the target, may be.

But today, it feels like you have further more miles to go.

That is how our mind is. 

So, starting with end in mind, forcing yourself into a deliberate path is a recipe for disaster.

The best model in my mind is 

1. Stay Open. Opportunities may not look like how you have envisioned. Entertain possibilities.

2. Spend more time in evaluating opportunities than ignoring.

3. Once you commit, put deliberate action in the short to medium term. Fail fast if you will, but put everything in it.

In my career this is how I have played out. and I have done well.

I am not CEO of a multi-billion dollar company, but this has served me well.

Wastage within large companies in name of alignment

In large organizations, alignment is the primary objective, but synchronous communication is the primary waste. 

We are witnessing a culture that confuses "presence" with "productivity." 

To lead a P&L effectively, both must be decoupled. 

High-performing companies do not achieve alignment through more meetings. 

They achieve it through better systems.

Amazon banned PowerPoint for a reason. 

it's performative and low-density. 

Instead, meetings begin with 20–30 minutes of silent reading of a "6-page narrative." 

This ensures everyone has the same high-resolution context before speaking. 

It eliminates the "lofty, meaningless conversations" you noted, forcing logic and data to the forefront.

Now, do they not do large town halls, but those should be highly specific and fewer in numbers.

GitLab operates with a "Single Source of Truth." 

Every process, goal, and decision is documented in a public handbook. 

If a message needs to be "communicated over and over," it is written down once and linked forever. 

This eliminates the need for 90-minute "kick-offs" because the information is always accessible and searchable.

Stripe uses "Transparency by Default." 

Most internal emails and documents are searchable by any employee. 

Alignment happens through passive absorption—people can observe the decision-making process without needing a "checkpoint" meeting to be told what happened.

Basecamp treats real-time communication (Teams/Slack) as a secondary tool. 

They prioritize long-form writing for significant ideas. 

This gives people the "time and space" to think deeply before responding, preventing the day from becoming a series of fragmented, 90-minute interruptions.

To stop the "energy suck" you must audit the communication ROI of your team.

• Any meeting where the primary goal is "info sharing" should be an email or a recorded video. Synchronous time is for conflict, complex problem solving, or final decisions.

• If a meeting is necessary, start with 10 minutes of silent reading of a prepared document. If there is no document, there is no meeting. This stops people from "flaunting a busy day" with aimless talk.

• Force your direct reports to categorize their meetings as "Productive" (Decision-making) or "Performative" (Information-gathering). If the latter dominates, their role is overhead, not an asset.

• Remind your team that a packed calendar is often a sign of poor management, not high performance. In a P&L-driven environment, "busy work" is a liability that gets cut when the numbers don't add up.

Alignment does not require more talk. 

It requires more clarity. 

Move your team from a culture of "talk and review" to a culture of "write and execute." 

Productivity is the only real job security.

Everything we do in real life, works against us in Trading

 I have been trading now for over a month and there is nothing yet to write home about.

Its been a roller coaster of emotions.

In trading - our notions and beliefs turn upside down.

The biggest of them which I am realizing is - hard work.

The more manical I get about my strategy, the more difficult it becomes.

The state of moving averages, news, index, stock specific news, RSI etc.

The more data points we include, the confusing it gets.

We are trying to tell ourselves that there is "this" data point that tells us what will happen.

We are searching for certainty. 

We hope that a combination of indicators, news can some how provide us with that edge.

But, unfortunately that is far from the truth.

Days where i have been certain on what a stock will do, it doesnt work 60% of the time.

It has worked, but not so well that you can say that the method or analysis is good.

Its a coin toss. 

If I didnt judge it and went in as is, there was still a high chance of the play working out, or failing.

and this is the hardest part.

We untangle the biggest challenges in front of us, by paying more attention to it.

Working hard on them, putting our mind on it.

But with trading, that may work against us.

Too much espresso was hurting my Eye

 For months, my right eye wouldn't stop twitching.

It happened during runs, meetings, and showers. 

It started as an annoyance. It turned into a constant companion.

I looked up the symptoms. 

Online medical resources are designed to convince you that you are dying of a rare neurological disorder. 

I ignored the panic and looked at my inputs instead.

My sleep, screen time, and diet were constant. 

Only one variable had changed: The Espresso Count.

I had ramped up to three double espressos per day. 

Two in the morning, one after lunch, followed by evening decaf.

I decided to test the caffeine variable. I changed my routine for two weeks:

1. Morning: Two glasses of warm water immediately. No coffee on an empty stomach.

2. Delayed Input: First coffee 30 minutes later.

3. The Cap: Maximum of two double espressos per day.

4. The Cutoff: No caffeine after noon. Earl Grey or decaf only.

The Result: The twitching stopped within 48 hours.

The medical "limit" for caffeine is roughly 400 milligrams (about four cups of brewed coffee), but biological limits are personal, not statistical. 

I may have been operating at or just above the limit. It is hard for me to say how much caffeine is in my Espresso. My double espresso portafilter takes about 15 grams of espresso grinds.

My system was signaling a breach of its specific tolerance.

If your eye is twitching, stop reading WebMD. Check your inputs first.

Trading Isn’t Hard. Changing Is.

 Trading has taught me something profound: The markets aren't the problem; we are.

There is a level of skill involved in developing a strategy with an "edge." You have to put in the work to backtest and validate that the strategy actually works. 

But once the math is proven, the weight of the work shifts entirely to the operator.

If we were robots, trading would be easy:

1. Identify the strategy.

2. Establish position size and risk per trade.

3. Execute on parameters.

4. Reconcile the outcomes at month-end.

But we aren't robots. 

We get in our own way. 

Over the last few weeks, I’ve made my share of mistakes, and I’m learning that human nature is immensely difficult to override. 

Identifying why we sabotage ourselves is one thing—

actually changing that behavior is a completely different hill to climb.

The Internal Saboteur

Despite having clear entry criteria and confirmations, I still find myself:

• Jumping the Gun: Entering trades before the setup is fully formed.

• Lacking Patience: Failing to wait for the market to come to my criteria.

• Predictive Arrogance: Operating with the mindset that I know exactly what will happen next.

• Trading Casually: Losing the professional focus required for high-stakes execution.

These aren't platform issues or market issues. They are ramifications of who we are.

It is easy to blame "over-trading" on a platform because it makes execution too seamless. While partially true, the reality is that the tendency lives within us—driven by vengeance, greed, or boredom. 

The screen is just a mirror.

The Reality of the Game

You don’t control the markets. you adapt to them. 

There are no certainties—only probabilities.

When a trade works as expected, that is simply probability working in your favor. 

It doesn’t mean you predicted the future. There are scenarios where that same trade could have gone against you through no fault of your own.

Having a plan (entry, exit, and risk) is only 20% of the game. 

Following it is the other 80%. 

That is where the battle is won or lost.

The Hard Line

Risk management must be your only "fixed" variable. 

In my first few trades, I told myself I’d manually cut losses at a certain level. 

It didn’t work. 

The ego is too loud in the heat of the moment. It is always better to hard-code your stops into the system so they don't require your intervention.

Over-trading is a trap that never leads to the original goal: more money. 

It only leads to more noise and less discipline.

The Only Security is Agency

We spend 10 hours of our awake time on work. this must be the most important thing in ones life.

So, It has to be more than "paying bills." 

It should be a source of fulfillment. That pulls you into a state of flow. A meditative space where the outcome vanishes and the act itself becomes the prize.

but life and realities collide.

I see executive teams frozen by the risks of AI, and people layoffs. Recent Amazon, UPS, HD and several brands laying people in thousands is one of many rounds of layoffs. These have been going on since 2022 and ramping.

Some say that in this environment, one should be grateful to have a job.

That is a negative way to look at life and your capability. 

It puts the focus on external factors. 

A Company direction, business unit pivots, or market shifts. 

These are beyond your control.

The magic happens when you shift your focus to the only thing you own: Your Agency.

At a few points in my life, I found myself in positions that weren't at the scale I wanted. 

I was being asked to engage at a granular level I felt I had outgrown. 

My ego hated it. I felt like I was moving pebbles when I wanted to move mountains.

One evening after a long run, I realized - fighting the situation was a waste of my energy. 

I put my head down and immersed myself in the work. It was a choice.

That passion and all the experience I had opened bigger better doors soon. 

I led a massive data lake transformation. I stepped into security leadership when a CIO needed it most.

Heck, I even got myself a AWS Certified SA Certification.

I want to be clear: none of my experience matches the pain of a layoff.

I haven’t had the rug pulled out from under me.

But the whole point is to remind, to believe in your own skills and capability.

Roles and titles are temporary. 

A board meeting or "strategic restructuring" can take it away. 

But the skills you build when you immerse yourself are yours forever.

all the best

Saurabh

My trading progress

I haven’t written for some time, but I have been journaling consistently.

A few weeks back, I wrote about trading and how my mind gets pulled toward it during days when work is slow or during periods of a lull. 

This happened again at the end of this year.

My first instinct was to reject it and think that this was just inaction. 

But a little later, I realized that a lot of people approach this systematically and have done well.

While it is said that most people lose money, why do hundreds of thousands of people work in this area? Many are wealthy, and millions of trades take place every day. Volume on a single stock like Apple averages around 50 million shares per day.

Yes, institutional investors are there. They are the biggest buyers, looking to increase their investments and profitability. They are highly sophisticated and deal in large volumes.

But there is a way retail trading can be done sensibly too, isn’t there?

I got burned in the past with options trading. It’s like bringing in a blowtorch and playing with it. The risks are massive—bigger than simply the fun of burning something.

So, I decided to learn the ropes and go the safe way: understand the forces at play and how the markets work, especially from a day trading perspective.

I am happy to share that I have found a good balance for myself. I have started trading small amounts with small position sizes, and I have been decently successful so far.

In future posts, I will share the lessons I have learned from it.

Cheers, Saurabh

Your ability to create emotion and expressing with you personality will be the only differentiation left in the future

Quality is dead.

AI has democratized competence.

In the past, high-quality content meant you possessed three things:

• Exclusive Data: Deep, gated research.
• Polished Prose: Writers who prioritized syntax over soul.
• High-End Production: Expensive cameras, software, and pixels.

If you had those, you won the attention game. 

But AI erased those moats. 

Now, speed, scale, and polish are simply table stakes. 

In fact, "perfect" has become a liability. 

You can spot AI content specifically because it is too clean, too symmetrical, and utterly devoid of friction. 

It is boring.

The new bar is not about the pixels—it is about the person.

To win in this new environment, your content must do more than inform. 

It must provoke. 

Your goal is to inspire, surprise, and move the reader. 

You want them to feel something, because an algorithm cannot replicate the jagged edges of a human perspective.

The future of content isn't found in a prompt. 

It’s found in the person behind the screen.

My Struggles with Isolation: Why Networking is My North Star for 2026?

During my year-end analysis, I realized a huge gap lurking in my life. 

For some reason, I hadn’t addressed it. 

It wasn't a big deal—I could grow and succeed without paying it any attention.

But, like the book title What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There, I realized I must fix this gap. otherwise I will be stuck,

That gap is- the lack of a strong network.

I am good with people, and I enjoy being around them. 

But I refused to socialize "unnecessarily."

Unless we were making magic and getting work done, or unless we were on the same wavelength, I wouldn't engage.

and if I engaged, I would withdraw as soon as the work was done.

I developed standards for my time, and as a result, I unintentionally filtered everyone out—neighbors, colleagues, and potential friends.

My personality shifted to "business only."

• In my running club: I would run, chit-chat briefly, and leave.

• At the gym: Headphones on, finish the workout, leave.

• At conferences: I arrived with clear agendas, hated letting random interactions play out. I would get bored quickly.

It has been like this for years. 

When I reflect on the early years of my career, I was social, but I wouldn't spend time with people just for the sake of it. 

It was about respecting my time and engaging so, I could learn or have fun.

Moving to the States hardened this trait.

It helped me succeed tremendously. For a long time.

Books and high-performing individuals became my mentors. 

I learned from them. The Solitary pursuit moved me in the right direction.

Even recently, this has been my default.

But, this isolation eventually began to hurt. 

In my past role, where I was leading the company's growth, it got too lonely.

I had no relationships where I could bounce ideas, share the issues I was facing, or just go grab a drink to decompress.

I discovered I was doing everything alone—training for a marathon, learning music, writing for LinkedIn, creating YouTube videos, and editing. Everything by myself, from my basement.

Looking back across the last few years, I see this was a huge handicap developing.

Being comfortable with yourself is a superpower.

Many people lack the ability to sit with their own thoughts. 

But I have drifted onto an isolated island where no one knows I am here. 

That is borderline harmful.

I realized that in all spheres of life, I need company.

So, my North Star goal for 2026 is to fix this. 

To become a network magnet in my area and activate a strong community.

Here is what I am doing to open myself up to opportunities:

1. Connect locally: Reach out to folks in Naperville on LinkedIn. Offer to meet over coffee.

2. Don't just work—network: Staying in the basement is no longer an option. I need to get out of the house and work from libraries or coffee shops where people actually are.

3. Fix the body language: When working remotely, I need to stop walling myself off with headphones and closed-off posture. I want to be open to meeting people—smiling, saying hello, and signaling that it is okay to talk to me.

4. Give first: Offer to help or do something for others without any agenda and without expecting anything in return.

So far, so good.

Since starting this shift, five days ago, I have worked outside the home several times. 

I have exchanged messages with several people I hadn't touched base with in a long time. 

I’ve even had coffee meetings with a couple of folks right here in Naperville.

The book Never Eat Alone has played a big role in this realization. 

As Keith Ferrazzi says, "Don't build a network when you need it."

I am building an enormous network in 2026 to create a massive breakthrough.

If you read this, and it resonates with you, I would like to hear it from you. 

Comment below, and tell me if you have felt this way too. 

If so, did you overcome it? how? 

If not, do you want to join me in overcoming it?

-Saurabh

Here is the right way to look at "Gratitude"

The conventional way everyone talks about gratitude, feels like a transaction.

"Pay" gratitude so that we can receive more. 

Is it a vehicle for success? Is it an an insurance policy. 

The logic goes: 

"If I am thankful now, the Universe/God/Life will guarantee me more blessings later."

We are trying to empty our cup so it can be filled again.

But today, a different realization dawned on me. I was at the gym.

Gratitude isnt a strategy to get more.

It is humbleness. It is a realization that we have received far more than the math suggests we deserve.

The Uncertainty of It All

Life is fundamentally unfair and wildly uncertain.

 There is little that is guaranteed, regardless of our effort.

We like to think we control the outcome, We don’t.

* Accidents happen to good people on their way to sign billion-dollar deals.

* Championship games are lost by the best players in history due to a single bad bounce.

* Brilliant lives are cut short simply because a rare disease expressed itself in the DNA.

Gratitude is the realization that, despite this chaos, you are still here. 

You have received something, when there was a very high statistical probability that you wouldn't.

Sure, you can flip the equation.

You could argue that you *should* have received more, or that you’ve had bad luck. 

Both can be true.

But gratitude is looking at where you are today—standing, breathing, capable—and realizing that in a world where millions struggle for clean water or shoes on their feet, you have won the lottery.

The Anxiety of "Potential"

I struggle with this.

When I look at my life, I see gaps.

I see the capabilities I’ve have, and the opportunities I want. 

I am constantly working on self-improvement.

 Lately, I’ve been transitioning into a new role at an acquiring organization, and I’ve been plagued by anxiety.

Am I expressing myself fully?

Am I realizing my full potential?

I look at the CEOs of Amazon, Microsoft, or the Fortune 50, and I think:

I could do that. I could lead at that level. I am ready to put the work and 100x more.

The gap between where I am and where I think I *could* be makes me uncomfortable. 

It drives a restless anxiety.

But then I return to this new definition of gratitude.

I look at the places I’ve been. 

The small wealth I’ve been able to create. 

The books I’ve read. 

The countries i've visited.

I look at the family I came from, and the family I’ve built—my wife and two beautiful girls. 

I look at the support structure around me.

When I look at the data honestly, I can not help but accept that I have received a return on investment that far exceeds my input.

 Yes, I have ambition. 

Yes, I could lead a massive company and amass 100x of this. 

and I should continue working towards it.

But the point I have reached today is no small feat.

Gratitude isn't about asking for the next thing.

It’s a reflection on your own life, realizing that you have enough, and acknowledging that—despite the odds—you have been rewarded for your efforts in a fantastic manner.

Life is mysterious and we dont know where and when it ends. Gratitude is realizing you did your best but received far more. So many people, work hard even on the right things, and never get the results.

Here is a punch list to think this morning.

• If you can take a deep breath without pain, be thankful.
• If your body parts are functioning and you can move freely, be thankful.
• If you have a clear mind and the agency to think for yourself, be thankful.
• If you have a roof over your head to sleep under tonight, be thankful.
• If there is food on your table today, be thankful.
• If your parents are still alive to speak with you, be thankful.
• If you have brothers or sisters who care about you, be thankful.
• If you have a partner who understands you and stands by you, be thankful.
• If you have children who love you, be thankful.
• If you have even just two friends you can call in a crisis, be thankful.

and you have all of the above, you should be exceptionally thankful, because you a lot of people dont have these.

To grow in career, clarity is king

It is very easy to be stuck in your own stories and routines. It’s almost like you are fooling yourself.

My year in review for 2025 had a few breakthrough moments.

 I came completely undone, realizing I was holding onto things that were not serving me well.

It started when I asked Gemini for self-reflection questions. One question startled me:

"If nobody saw your title on LinkedIn, would you still do the work you are being positioned to do?"

The more I sat on it, I realized that the title and how things "appear" had become bigger than what I actually do.

The answer was an emphatic YES—but only for the hands-on work.

This drove me to realize that I love being in front of customers, solving technical problems, and understanding use cases. 

I love it. 

Not the managerial stuff, and not the internal politics.

If growth means becoming a manager of managers of managers, it is the wrong direction for me.

Managing a team isn't bad, and I’m not bashing it. 

But it comes with overheads and activities that are just soul-sucking for me.

I would rather be working with customers, hearing their challenges, and delivering value. 

Then I as I went on to document my thoughts, I realized there are a few other things that are either not serving me, or killing my gains on where I could be (sitting in front of my computer as a way of procrastinating, and lacking a social network). I will touch on these in different posts.

But, I feel I am in a much better place to make a subtle shift in 2026.

Welcome 2026 - my list of things to focus on in this year, and everyday

Welcome to the New Year.

The date changed. The clock ticked. And absolutely nothing happened.

When I was younger, I celebrated the arbitrary changing of a number. Now I realize that time is just a collective hallucination we agree to share. The only real clock is biology: Sun up. Sun down.

If the "New Year" gives you a burst of fresh energy, use it. But don't rely on it. Motivation is fickle. Systems are permanent.

This year, I am ignoring resolutions. I am building a machine.

Here is the system I am programming into my daily routine for 2026:

The Energy Protocol

• The Currency: Time is the only asset. Spend it or lose it.

• The Biology: Work out daily. Drink 4 liters of water. Eat slightly less than I want.

• The Mind: Re-read the best books (mastery) rather than skimming new ones (novelty). write everyday.

• The Soul: Play music. Intentionality beats talent.

• The Tribe: Take care of Dipti. Inspire Umika. Spoil Seerat. Call my parents more.

The Glitch in My Matrix During my yearly review, I found a fatal error in my programming.

I have operated as a "Lone Wolf." Head down. Focus on the work. Ignore the room.

In 2021, when I launched Brilliant Digital, it struggled. I analyzed the failure and realized it wasn't a product failure. It was a network failure.

I have thousands of connections on LinkedIn, but in Naperville, I am effectively alone.

The Math of Success Success is not just [Skill]. 

Success is [Skill] x [Network].

If your Network is zero, your total output is zero. At least in the field of business I am in.

I have spent years optimizing my skill stack (Generalist vs. Specialist). 

But I ignored the multiplier. You cannot build a castle on an island.

The Patch for 2026 My North Star is no longer just "output." It is connection. I am abandoning the strategy of "get in, get it done, get out."

I am going to build one of the strongest networks of my life. Not because I need something today, but because you don't build a network when you need it. You build it when you don't.

My Ask If you are reading this, you are part of the simulation. Leave a comment. Tell me one part of your "System" for 2026.

Cheers, Saurabh

The Day Trading Trap

I’ve been analyzing why I feel the urge to day trade. It’s a difficult question, but if I deconstruct my own psychology, the pattern is obvious.

1. The Boredom Trigger The urge only appears when I have downtime. My brain isn't looking for money. it's looking for dopamine.

2. The Freedom Illusion I rationalize this boredom as a desire to escape the 9-to-5. My brain tells me that trading is the "exit key" to dependency on a salary. The internet also confirms that if you search for day trading on YouTube or anywhere else.

The Guru Ecosystem The "Traders" on YouTube all follow the same script.

• The Hook: They show you "unusual gains" (Lamborghinis and screenshots).

• The Relatability: They admit they lost money at first (just like you will!).

• The Pivot: Then, they sell you a course.

You have to ask yourself: If they found a magical money-printing machine in the stock market, why are they hustling $49 e-books? The likely reality is that their "edge" isn't the market. Their edge is selling the dream to you.

Mathematically, trading looks solvable. If you maintain a 2:1 win/loss ratio and strictly adhere to stop losses, you profit. But that assumes you are a calculator. You are not. You are a "moist robot"—a bag of chemicals and emotions. The 95% failure rate in retail trading exists because panic and greed override math every time.

Day trading is a zero-sum game. For you to win, someone else has to lose. Who is on the other side of your trade? It is likely an institutional algorithm running on a supercomputer, managed by a team of PhDs. Does a retail trader really have an edge against that?

Let's look at the "System" of trading vs. the "System" of Career.

The Trading System: You deploy $10k, and make 2% from it(which is about $200 per trade) when you win, and loosing 1% from it (about $100 per trade). You take 15 trades where 10 were winners, and 5 were losers. you have made yourself $1500. This is a decent outcome. that is 15% return on the money and extraordinary returns. But  bought yourself a high-stress job, at least in the beginning.

Someone can also say that if they can replicate the same maths on $100k or $1M, the numbers are massive. 

The Passive System: I put that same money in an index fund. It makes 10-12% historically for me. 

Effort: Zero minutes. Stress: Zero.

I realized that if I take the energy I would have wasted staring at charts and apply it to my actual job—getting better at sales, building a scalable product, or improving my "talent stack"—the returns are exponentially higher.

Ultimately everything needs efforts and expertise. unless we commit to trading and ready to pour a few years in learning the skill, looking at it as a money printing machine how YouTubers make you feel is wrong. It is just like professional value, and you need to make yourself valuable and skillful to gain the best outcome.

What are your thoughts?

The Continuous cycle of upgrades

The Upgrade Trance

I’m seeing a lot of people in my gym carrying the latest iPhones. Same with the newest Nikes and Jordan hoodies. It’s that time of year.

Living in America means living in a continuous cycle of "new." The observation here isn't just that people have money. It's that they have a burning biological need to exchange that money for the latest shiny object.

While the culture of "showing off" isn't as blatant here as it is in India, the result is the same. I have yet to see a pair of shoes in my gym that looks worn out. You almost never see utility in the wild. You only see status signaling.

The Persuasion Game

This cycle is fantastic for the economy. Companies are motivated to make marginal improvements because they know you can’t help yourself.

As a marketer, you have to admire the elegance of it. Look at the trends for Hydroflasks and Stanley cups. There is no logic there. A cup is a cup. But if you can convince a population that owning a specific metal tube is a personality trait, you have won the game.

UX designers and product teams are essentially hacking the wires in your brain. When they tweak an app and usage goes up, that’s not "improvement." That’s successful hypnosis. They figured out which buttons to push to make the moist robot (you) respond.

The Guinea Pig Problem

Great for the economy. Bad for you.

When you chase the upgrade, you are a guinea pig in a lab who thinks he’s the scientist. You are trying to fill a psychological hole with a physical object. That never works, but it’s profitable for Apple to let you keep trying.

There is a difference between Vanity and Utility.

In my family, we have a system: We buy high quality, and we run it into the ground.

• My last phone: Galaxy Note 9. I used it for 8 years. I only changed it because my wife wanted us to upgrade together.

• Current phone: S23 Ultra. It runs like a tank.

• My laptop: A 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro.

• Previous laptop: A 2011 MacBook Pro that we still own. It’s slow, but it works.

The Output Filter

Most people use a $1,200 phone to scroll Instagram and get angry at strangers on Facebook. You can do that on a potato.

My criteria for an upgrade is simple: Will this significantly improve my workflow and output?

If the answer is no, I don't care about the thinner bezels. I don't care about the titanium finish.

If you aren't upgrading based on a cold calculation of utility, you aren't a consumer. You're the product.