How to be lucky?

Topic A

For fighter jets landing on an aircraft carrier, it is a standard procedure to advance the throttle to full power as soon as the aircraft's wheels touch the deck. This is a safety measure to ensure the aircraft can quickly go around again if the tail hook misses the arresting cables.

Similarly, are we ready for spontaneous things in life?
What if an interesting concert / show pops up next weekend in your city?
What if you get an opportunity to meet you always wanted to in the next couple of hrs by waiting at the hotel? Do you have the questions ready to ask him/her?

What if someone wants to connect you to someone worthwhile which was not in your near term radar?

Are you ready for these spontaneous 'chances'? Are you adequately prepared?

Topic B

Another aspect of living a full life involves 2 things: Discipline and Spontaneity.

How both of these seemingly contradictory words can work well, is very well written by Naval Ravikant.

"Live a Disciplined Life, Spontaneously"

In brief, Discipline creates the conditions for spontaneity to thrive.

If you want to live spontaneously, to seize unexpected opportunities, follow your energy, or create freely, you need discipline to handle that freedom. Otherwise, spontaneity becomes chaos.

Without discipline, spontaneity is just distraction.

Topic C

Today, I learnt the simple equation of Luck.

Luck = Randomness * Readiness

Are you ready and doing enough random things for luck to strike?

Have you systemised the process of doing random things?
Have you become observant to things to spot new interesting random things?

The above three topics are tied together as such:

Discipline leads to Spontaneous time.

We need to be ready for things.

When the 2 combine, we get lucky a.k.a happy and successful.

My first full day leave for the year

Sometime in Dec 2024, I noticed that I am spending much of my time on the work on a weekoff and that was causing some anger in me at times as it was mostly not planned. Despite being at home, I sometimes used to have over 120+ calls (a bad day) with no breaks. I used to get restless of being on my table and working full day with no outing and the day ending. Not even an hr to spend with my family over anything without multiple phone calls interrupting in that duration.

I also knew that there is a massive amount of working on the business that was needed to automate the business as much as possible.

So, I decided to work all days without a leave and take breaks as and when required (a half day rest after working for 20-36 hrs shift) or an early logout for a planned family outing once in a few months.

Thanks to this one decision, I am now happy while working on all days with no cribs. This daily working has removed the high backlogs of the days not working and caused a more continuous flow of work without much disruption.

I have started enjoying work more and get more output than before. I have started pursuing more books, posts, ideas and have started implementing them in the business.

9 Aug 2025 is the first full day break in this calendar year thanks to Rakshabandhan and the chance to meet my 2 sisters.

The day was planned full of new experiences for the people involved.

The new experiences are what I actually look forward to. This day made me realise that all the hard work we put in throughout the time is worth it for having these memories / days of new experiences.

These days are the ones worth living and working for.

Stacking experiences

I am a huge believer of stacking of experiences. The experiences can fall under the following categories: Adventures, Nature, Relaxation, Events & Sports, Cultural & historical, Food & drinks.

What does stacking of experiences mean?
It means just doing one experience of (2-3 hrs) a day is not enough for the day. It means doing back to back different experiences all in the day while enjoying each of them to the full extent without being tired in the same alert and excited mode all day long. It means not getting satisfied with just one experience when you can have multiple in the single day and create multiple memories on multiple days at a stretch.

Stacking of experiences comes as a result of multiple things:
1. Being an experience junky a.k.a. addiction to stacking of experiences.

2. The belief that life is short and there is so much to experience and learn.

3. The knowledge that experiencing more allows you to learn more and quench the thirst of curiosity.

4. Maximise the sunk cost (the amount of time and money spent to go a place)

For this, you should insatiable appetite for new experiences and understand the natural limitations of ones thinking of the number of experiences one can have.

One needs a curious mind to unearth experiences from people, be observant and alert of things around you, be research oriented to find out everything about anything new you hear about, be imaginative to concoct and create new experiences, persuade people to make people give you unique experiences.

You open your mind to possibilities, the chances, the pollination of different ideas.

"Die with memories and not dreams!" is the motto for a true experience junkie to live by.

From allies to individuals

Idealogies and what they stand for are getting split decade by decade:

Once upon a time, the West included USA, the Eurozone, Israel.

Then USA, Europe, Israel and the UK post the Brexit.

Now, after the Israeli non-stop attack on Gaza, France is the lone 'West' country that has come in support of Palestine.

So, USA, UK, Israel, Europe (excluding France) & France.

On the other side of the world too, the bonds are breaking.

India-Russia relations are lesser.

USA-India strategic relationship against China (and USA military sales) are now down and USA and India are more self interested.

The trend is reversing only in small places. North Korea-Russia relations have improved. India-Philippines relations against the bullying of China.

On again-off again relations are continuing. USA-Pakistan, India-Maldives-China, India-Sri Lanka-China.

On love

People usually "fall" in love due to 3 reasons:

1. Love at first sight (including the vibes of the person)

2. Physical attraction

3. Caring provided by the other person

Recently, came across a fourth reason:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMIcBsOICOd/?igsh=YnYyanVzNTBmaWt3

An unexpected and rare way: Sharing vulnerabilities may lead to trusting each other, meaningful connections and even love.

The secret combination to success

Intent, Capabilities, Courage.

One needs all these 3 together to make things happen. Period.

Without Intent, but having the other 2, you are likely to do wrong or sub-optimal things.

Without Capabilities, but having the other 2, you are likely to crash and burn.

Without Courage, but having the other 2, you are not going to do anything about it.

The spectrum of characteristics

Successful entrepreneurs need a hell lot of skillsets.

The most talented are usually not business oriented and usually the business people lack talents.

The detail oriented people lack creativity, while usually the creative people lack focus and perfection.

Where are you on these 2 spectrums of these characteristics?
Or are you one of those who is across both the spectrums?

Conflicts & Conflicts of Interests

The world has never been this multi-polar as ever before.

Many countries are working with countries who are fighting against each other pursuing their own agenda.

Lets have a look.

USA working with both parties of India - Pakistan conflict

China working with both parties of India - Pakistan conflict

China working with both parties of USA - Russia conflict

China working with both parties of USA - North Korea conflict

India working with both parties of Russia - Ukraine conflict

India working with both parties of Israel - Iran conflict

Azerbaijan working with both parties of Israel - Pakistan conflict

Turkiye working with both parties of NATO - Iran conflict

Taking any side is very difficult in this multi-polar world.

Asymmetricity

Case A: 

I have heard of Asymetric warfare multiple times. Mostly used in the context of Guerrilla warfare and drone warfare. 

Why is this asymetric? 

Because low cost things and tactics can overcome high cost professional things and tactics.

The cost and the results make the investments asymmetric.

Case B: 

Private equity takes asymmetric bets knowing very well that only 1 or 2 companies in the portfolio gives outsized returns and makes far more money than the losses incurred in the other companies.

Case 3:

A 10 X thinking involves taking calculated risks where the upside far outweighs the downside.

10x thinkers know not every bet pays off, but one great one can change everything.

Case 4:
Usually, for a company out of all the products, there would usually be 1 or 2 product categories that gives disproportionate profits or are asymmetric.

The pattern across things is that Asymmetric investments yield outsized returns.

It takes a lot of research, knowledge to identify asymetric opportunities.

In conclusion, asymmetric thinking is a way of thinking or provides a framework to think.