Today is 150th edition of Raw and Real. Yayyy!

Doing this constantly for 150 weeks straight (I think I had skipped one week in between). But other than that, a streak of almost 3 years. Wow.

Today I want to let you know I am taking a small break from this weekly Raw and Real.

I have been meaning to do this for the last 6 months, but I kept pushing myself, mostly because I did not want to disappoint people who wrote “please keep doing this, never stop”.

I promise I’m not stopping. But I need to pause.

Wish there was a reason I could point fingers at, that I could give you right now. But if you have known me well over these editions of Raw and Real, you sort of know how I operate with intuition.

Whenever I have prolonged working on something and delayed taking a pause, it has always robbed me of the love for that task. Something I do not want to be doing here, for what we have built.

No idea when and how I will come back. Maybe I should think of doing Raw and Real like seasons of Friends, with ~23-25 episodes per season, which amounted to half the weeks of the year.

While half remaining the weeks where there was no output was exactly where the magic happened.

I hope you’d respect my decision and also continue pouring your love when I do come back.

Btw, a few things:

1. I am never stopping writing. The daily blog will continue as it has been. You can come read there if you wish to. It’s crisp, punchy, and it’s strange that writing ~3,000 posts over the last 10 years has never drained me.

2. Every other thing I do in writing and work remains BAU. Just that this Raw and Real required a different level of thinking and planning, for which I want to pause.

3. It is intentional to make a specific post like this instead of disappearing without notice. If you are also planning to pause something you love but cannot because “you love it”, maybe this inspires you.

4. Please keep reading good books, going for nature walks, meditating, exercising, and doing excellent work. (At this point I have become your mom :))

5. And, lastly, here are some of my instant access ebooks. At a very special discount as my (temporary) parting gift for you. Read these any time you miss Raw and Real.

See you soon. Keep walking <3

Nishtha Gehija

See you next week, which is going to be the 150th edition of Raw and Real, where I will share a bittersweet announcement.

Thank you guys.

Nishtha Gehija

LinkedIn | X | Daily blog | Weekly newsletter

Instantly access my ebooks:

20s versus 30s: The strange and unique differences between the two most important decades of your life

The Corporate Life Handbook: If you are in corporate job and struggle with daily humdrums of it, one-pagers with harsh truths are something no one is going to tell you :)

The Career Changing Guide: If you are looking for a sign, this is it :)

How to Deal with Heartbreak: A book almost everyone needs but no one gives you right in your hand. If you don’t need this, get this for a friend you know certainly needs it.

Every Writer Needs to Read this: A book I wish I had 11 years ago when I was starting out as a writer

Two weeks back, I was miserable for something I had never expected.

I had had one of the best days at work. Life was going better than planned. A project that made a lot of things difficult was now coming to fruition.

Later in the day, as I spoke to my parents over the phone, my father told me he had a headache.

Now let’s be practical, we are not fools here. Who gets miserable on their father having a headache?

But the reality was that he had started having these headaches as a result of his acidity. Which is a result of lack of movement and irregular meal timings.

It honestly made me scared. I had the worst case scenarios in my mind. I even ended up crying in my meditation later that evening. (I almost never cry.)

It also made me play a “what-if” game.

What if he had taken care of his health better?
What if he lived for himself as much as he lived for everyone else?
Why does self-care feel like crime to Indian parents?

Also the other area of what-if’s:

What if he could just sit with me for 5 minutes when I was younger?
What if he for once could stop being so nostalgic and look at the present?
What if he smiled with joy because of his kids, and not out of responsibility?
What if he focused on building his wealth for himself, if not for us?
What if I failed as a daughter?
What if he failed as a father?

It was an internal battle that I hadn’t even thought I’d fight in those 2-3 days.

But it was a phase.

I decided to have a clear communication with him. That was the only way to solve it. Over the call on the third day of misery, I politely told him, “To me it looks like you are waiting for your death. You have always lived for us, do you not think you should really live for us, and not wait for this living to get over?”

I think it reinforced a belief in himself too, that we are not waiting for his death!

Gosh, the whole world could be so much better if we replaced non-communication with communication.

One of the best decisions I did was to speak with my father.

He has now started taking care of his health by bringing some changes in his lifestyle. At least he claims so :D. He now has also gotten regular with his medicine. You know, the good old nuskha where Indian parents would do anything but never get an “operation” done :)) I guess it was enough to get him to work other things out.

After that conversation, by a turn of fate I was reading Zarna Garg’s memoir, “This American Woman”. She lost her mother at 14. Her all-time angry cum frustrated father gave her the ultimatum, “Get married now or leave the house.”

She did not want to get married. She wanted to study. So she lived on the streets of Mumbai for almost two years. Taking charity from friends, relatives of friends, and everyone she could ask.

After those gruelling two years of stinking, sacrificing self respect, and at a point of running out of money, she finally gave up and returned home. Forget education, now she was 16 and getting married to a 25 year old business tycoon’s son.

All this while, her sister in the US was pushing her to come to the States. Zarna even appeared for visa interviews, only to get rejected.

As life would have it, maybe two days before her “marriage”, she got her US visa approved. She went straight to the airport, lest she could be caught.

When she made herself comfortable with her sister, brother-in-law and nephew in the US, her brother in law told her something that brought everything home for me:

"You can stay here as long as you ant. Get your degree. Get three degrees. Get ten. Study as much as you want. Take as much time as you want.”

It made me think, I might have held several things against my father in the past, but the one thing he never ever ever compromised on was education.

I think I have shared this before, but in 2007 when my eldest sister was at our home after her delivery, I had lost my study room (which was also a bed-room) to her. I was now studying in our tiny drawing room (a term only used in Indian homes), making my studies work out on the rectangular centre table.

One of those days, my father saw me crying in the drawing room when he had come home for lunch. I was crying because my massive study table had been taken away from me.

My father consoled me, hugged me, and then went off to his shop.

Apparently.

Well, it turns out, he had gone to his shop, picked up an employee from there, and went straight to get a new study table for me. In less than an hour, he was home with a new desk and a chair, perfect for study.

I can never forget what that table and chair meant for me. I was sixteen then. I went on to study on that desk for the rest of my student years, for the next seven years, till I went on to become a CA and move out to Delhi.

After reading Zarna’s memoir (and watching some of her podcasts too), I have figured that this rich, super successful, famous woman would have given an arm and a leg to have a father like mine.

A father who prioritised her daughter’s education.

And make no mistake, my father comes from a conservative family. A family that once used to worship sons and give zero impetus to a daughter. He does not have any son. We are four sisters. Still he never said no to any education we all wanted to have.

My eldest sister has a postgraduate degree as well as a Commercial Arts Diploma. My middle sister also has a postgraduate degree as well as an O’level diploma (which was hot back then). The sister just older than me is a triple post graduate.

Never said no to education.

From 2020 to mid 2023, I used to work with Ankur Warikoo, leading his entire content vertical. One of the best performing quotes of his back then (now I don’t have access to data, obviously) on all platforms was:

“If your parents are not rich, but you got a good education, be grateful for their sacrifices.”

I never understood this quote back then. My lower self would always think “But what about the times he was not present?”

Little do I realise now, that my silver lining could have become someone else’s joy of a lifetime.

We always think our parents could have done that, should have done that. I have done that too.

But if you got a good education (of course you did, otherwise you won’t be reading till here), everything else is solvable. Of course you would have to solve and it in most cases no one would understand you, I still think education opens doors for growth as well as gratitude.

Whenever I write about looking at a silver lining with your parental trauma, someone invariably says, “BUT YOU DON’T KNOW, MY GRUDGE IS BIGGER. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH THERAPY I STILL HAVE TO TAKE BECAUSE OF MY PARENTS.”

I’ll leave you with two things here:

One, because I love my parents, I stay away from them. To protect the love as well as myself. Not everyone has to do that. For me, this arrangement works best.

Two, Oprah shared this line from the book “Kin” by Tayari Jones, which I want you to reflect on:

“What if we had been so carelessly raised because (our parents) were just too exhausted to dote on us. What if it turned out that it wasn’t personal after all?”

It wasn't personal, my friend. I promise. I truly wish neither of your parents have to come up with a diagnosis for you to understand this.

2 Raw One-Liners:

• The most important skill is to learn how to listen to a no.

• Home is where there is no phone.

3 (for) Real nice books I have been reading and re-reading lately:

1. Of course, This American Woman by Zarna Garg. What a story of hard work and resilience. And once you watch her podcasts too, you might conclude that life is so different from what we all project in a reel.

2. Tools of Titans by Tim Ferris. If you like to read shorter yet meaningful stuff, this is your go-to. I cannot even begin to tell you how much my life gets better after I randomly pick one chapter and put it back. It is costlier than the usual book prices, but absolutely worth the price. Cut your pizza and Starbucks and that H&M tee, but please get this book. I don’t say this for a lot of books, but this one has to be on your bookshelf.

3. Why the Poor Don’t Kill Us by Manu Joseph. It’s bizarre how so far nonfiction had only meant self-help or business books or memoirs for me. This one is none of those. I find it amusing, yet the satire is on everyone who does find it amusing. Not something I’d actively look for, but a good change I liked what this book brought up.

Alright then my friend, enjoy the weather. Fun fact: For the first time in my existence, I wore a light jacket yesterday during the Navratri’s. We might like this weather, but I think this is Mother Nature coming back at us for what we have done to it.

I wish you all stay safe, have supplies to cook your food, and are grateful for your food as well as your father :)

Nishtha Gehija

LinkedIn | X | Daily blog | Weekly newsletter

Instantly access my ebooks:

20s versus 30s: The strange and unique differences between the two most important decades of your life

The Corporate Life Handbook: If you are in corporate job and struggle with daily humdrums of it, one-pagers with harsh truths are something no one is going to tell you :)

The Career Changing Guide: If you are looking for a sign, this is it :)

How to Deal with Heartbreak: A book almost everyone needs but no one gives you right in your hand. If you don’t need this, get this for a friend you know certainly needs it.

Every Writer Needs to Read this: A book I wish I had 11 years ago when I was starting out as a writer

Almost everyone has a difficult time saying no.

The ones who are good at saying a polite no, I have learned, have developed an important side skill, which we are going to talk about today.

The skill to listen to a no.

If you are organising a house party at one of the friends’ places and one friend does not come, we must develop the skill to be okay (and absolutely okay with it).

Or the fact that someone does not want to be a part of a project.

Or the fact that someone does not want to go out on a weekend and chill, and do nothing at home.

Our subconscious makes us think saying no is the biggest crime in the history of the world.

So we take ourselves on a self-sponsored guilt trip when we want to say no. (And rarely say it.) Or we loudly and vocally judge someone who said no. (How could they say no when I can’t say it when I want to?)

While saying no is an important life skill, an equally important one is to listen to a no. To respect someone’s no without judging or, more importantly, souring your relationship with them.

Some ways to develop the ability to stomach a no:

1. Please know that no one, absolutely no one, is operating based on your operating system. They are operating based on theirs. So their no is not a reflection of your lack of love or lack of intent. They might want to spend time with themselves, have some space, or maybe have 983 things running in the back that you might not be aware of.

2. Someone who truly has self respect (not the fake confidence donned with charisma but the real respect for themselves) is absolutely okay with someone else’s no. We love you. We respect you. Peace.

3. Others saying no should inspire you too, to put your foot down, stop being a people pleaser, and say no when you want to. It should drive you forward instead of driving you insane.

I am certain if we started accepting the “no’s” of people, we’d build a healthy culture that promotes speaking the truth. Otherwise people would continue burying themselves in non-existent meetings and family gatherings just to escape a group that only accepts yes-people.

Saying no is a complete sentence. You know that already.

Accepting a no gracefully is complete self-respect too. Only the rich of heart can afford it.

2 Raw One-Liners:

• Your life affects your family. Break some rules, but be a little cautious before breaking some hearts.

• People are scrolling on social media because they do not have good books to read. (Fun fact: I always keep a stack of books in front of me/on my desk/on my bedside so that I always have sources of good dopamine.)

3 (for) Real things to be grateful for:

1. Cooking gas that cooks our food. So little do we realise how blessed we are until a crisis hits our doorstep.

2. On that note, I was wondering this morning that having necessities like water, electricity, fruits, food grains — all of these are such massive privileges. None of our fame, fortune, fossils would be able to

3. Your mindset. A mindset that can handle almost any uncertainty. I know like I know like I know God will never keep me hungry or starving or sad. We just need to trust God more than anyone else, while we continue taking wise actions.

On that note, wish you a peaceful weekend, my friend.

I’ll see you next week.

Nishtha Gehija

rawreal.in || nishtha.blog

Anyway, let’s begin.

But before we do, here is a little deep dive into who I am and what I do:

I am a CA, now a full-time writer. I write columns for publications and ghostwrite books for CXOs. I have ghostwritten 12-14 books so far, several of which have gone on to become bestsellers.

Why are others not bestsellers?

How is a bestseller even made?

What is the biggest mistake an author makes?

Also, a lot of behind-the-scenes confessions that you are going to love.

First things first, I am not going to be sharing gossip about my clients, “you know what once what he/she did to me…” Nope. That is never the agenda here.

The agenda is to share some inside tropes into my life and career that I believe would be helpful in your life too, even if your life and career and entirely different from mine.

Let’s go, ladies and gentlemen!!!

1. The number one thing I must do as a ghostwriter is speed. People who write books along with their main job usually take a year. So since I do this as a full-time profession, I must get it done quickly.

2. Speed comes from focus. Focus comes from blandly being unavailable on Instagram, X, doing very little things on LinkedIn, and most importantly, working in uninterrupted blocks of time.

3. Focus also comes from concentrating most meetings into one or two days, so that I have the rest 3 days to myself writing. Because on days there is a meeting, you have to centre your entire day around that meeting.

4. A bestseller has two components to it: A good book + great marketing. By bestseller, I mean something that stays on the bestseller list for several weeks. It is very easy to put a book on bestseller list at the time of its launch, mostly by unethical ways. Unfortunately a lot of people do that. The real game is to be sustainably bestselling, which only a few books achieve.

5. You will be even surprised to know that there are some really excellent books out there in the market that never reached the bestseller status, yet are building a wonderful customer base of their own.

6. Bestseller, thus, is a very poor criterion to pick up a book as a reader. I have picked up tens of “bestsellers” that were yikes. I have also come across books that were not bestsellers but deserved to be. Marketing and product, though help each other, but at some place are also mutually exclusive.

7. The biggest mistake any author makes is that they can pay their way to marketing. It is like paying your way to raising your kids. No matter how many tasks you outsource, the task of raising your kid has to be done by you. So is the marketing of the book. No matter if you are picked by the best publisher or are self-publishing, it is always and always your responsibility to market your book.

8. No self-publishing package is worth the value. Self-publishing is free or at best in less than four digits of pricing. Run away from everything else. I am pro self-publishing, but anti self-publishing packages.

9. Having a following certainly helps in the initial sales of books. But every single day I come across great books (that are also long term bestsellers) from authors that do not have an iota of social presence. The world gives you evidence of what you are looking for.

10. At this stage in my career, I get a fair idea of how a book is going to turn out in the writing stage itself. I was once speaking to a client of mine who was on the call from the airport, unable to dig time in her office hours due to extensive travel. It was our third consecutive call where she was on the road. But the eloquence, the clarity, the depth of content that came out of her mouth when we were interacting made me ultraconfident that the book is going to be magnanimous. The book is something that ebbs and flows in her day in and day out. She is passionate about it and can speak about it for hours without thinking. THAT, my friend, is the biggest sign of a great book.

11. I have also come across instances where the author is forcing themselves to “write more content” to cover a wider audience. That is the most fatal mistake. Your audience is the smallest, viable audience. If you focus on just them, they are going spread your word on your behalf. If your product (book) is for everyone, it is for no one.

12. One of the biggest lessons for me is to draw fences around my time. I will do 200% to make the book excellent, but I will always walk away from a publisher conversation the author is having. I don’t join zoom calls with the publisher, nor do I read the client’s publishing contracts. Not my business. Not for my time. I respect the fact that the author is going to give me credit in their book, but my time and commitment is to ghostwriting, not the publisher conversations. Time is my biggest ally, and I have to be very certain on what I am going to be generous on (writing an excellent book) and what is an absolute no-no.

13. My job is not just a ghostwriter. It is a miniature version of the grand job that is often hidden. So technically my job is also to extract stories, anecdotes, life lessons, content from CXOs who have it subconsciously in their mind, but not at the surface. When I was in my first year in college (and in hostel), my roommate (who was in her final year) dedicated a song to me, “…tere maasoom sawaalon se pareshaan hu main.” I used to ask her a LOT of questions about how everything worked, in the hostel, in that city, in this new world. Now I extrapolate this to life and as I ask endless questions to my clients, they often say, “Talking to you I end up sharing things I had totally forgotten about.” Life has its own unique way of coming full circles.

14. I am also a consultant on how everything around a book functions. And fun fact, I have to share every suggestion as if it is the client’s suggestion, even though it was not :) In another context, at this moment I only share consultation on what is the part on writing a book. There are 100 branches of consultation that come from it, and I stay quiet. You put money on the table and then you get my opinions. And yes, all you people judging me, you’d be applauding for me if I was a man.

    

15. Everyone has a unique journey, even in similar professions. I think what really works for me is clarity of heart and intent. I would do nothing other than writing books, and that passion as well as clean heart undoubtedly translates itself into great work. There are 10,000 opportunities for me to cut corners and deliver shabby work to the client. But my work is my signature. I get to go to bed with myself every night. There is no room for betrayal in that relationship.

16. Lastly, I say this often that nothing is going to fulfil you if you leave your inner self unfulfilled. And if you tend to your inner self daily, it will guide you home. True for writing. True for books. True for everything you do and don’t do.

Hope you had fun reading this, as I had fun writing this too :)

The picture above is a good spin on what Women’s Day would look like too.

Chalo chalo, have fun, have a great weekend.

Nishtha Gehija

LinkedIn | X | Daily blog | Weekly newsletter

Instantly access my ebooks:

20s versus 30s: The strange and unique differences between the two most important decades of your life

The Corporate Life Handbook: If you are in corporate job and struggle with daily humdrums of it, one-pagers with harsh truths are something no one is going to tell you :)

The Career Changing Guide: If you are looking for a sign, this is it :)

How to Deal with Heartbreak: A book almost everyone needs but no one gives you right in your hand. If you don’t need this, get this for a friend you know certainly needs it.

Every Writer Needs to Read this: A book I wish I had 11 years ago when I was starting out as a writer

Earlier this week I ordered some 4-5 books from Amazon. It was my stock for the long weekend reads.

One of those books was a very popular book that some influencers on LinkedIn had recommended. Alright then, let us give this book (that I am not at all drawn towards) a try.

As I flipped the book to the back cover, the author’s picture was also there.

Exactly at that moment I knew the book is going to be blah, meh, ew.
Which is what it was. I have now put it in my car boot for my car cleaning bhaiya to carry it for his daughter.

Please note that this is not a comment on the looks of that author. I don’t care how anyone looks.

Instead, what is very much visible through anyone’s face is who they are as a person.

It is not about the high resolution picture, make up, lighting, some face mark or some other mark that the world identifies as “less beautiful”. Yet the in someone’s face, their inner being is clearly visible. They might not certainly be “bad” or “evil” but you clearly know they are not your type.

It is visible in people’s LinkedIn pictures, their “happy” Instagram carousels and WhatsApp DPs clicked candidly at the perfect golden hour.

The best part is we all have this ability and this intuition to gauge people.

The worst part is some of us are too engaged in hating on others, giving people the needless benefit of doubt and ignoring the obvious behind what is said. It is a habit because we are too scared to trust ourselves. So we trust someone who does not need to be trusted. At least later we would blame them for messing up and not ourselves for making the wrong decision.

Take a deep breath bro.

For example, when I get LinkedIn connection requests, I can tell clearly from the sender’s picture if they genuinely intend to connect or they are simply here to spam or meander around.

I even did 2-3 experiments where the other person’s profile was good but DP told me they are not a good person I would want to be connected with, yet I accepted the connection request. Never, never once did they disappoint me. Status quo is a state well reflected in the face.

See this uncle in the picture. He was one of those 2-3 shady people whose connection request I accepted. My (internal) response to the first message: “Bhai it is none of your business how I am doing. Especially if you are not following that up with a work line.”

Then I removed the connection request, and lo and behold the true colours ladies and gentlemen. It makes me wonder people are even keeping track of who they are connected with. Even in my most free and time-wasting moments I have never gone down that ditch.

Obviously I have now blocked him (after taking this screenshot of course).

Not because he was coming to do some dirty talk with me. But I honestly am not that person who talks to random strangers on the internet about anything other than work. This person might be a diamond for some. For me, it is simply an unwanted rock.

What I am trying to tell you is a border thing, that we are interacting with people all of the time.

If you hire the wrong person who is right on paper, you have a daily headache.

If you join the wrong company where your manager is apparently successful yet political, you will suffer daily.

Even if you hire the wrong house help who is visibly hands on, they are going to cause you a lot of unwanted pain.

If the intuition says someone might not be your type, they are not worth even a dime of your time. Your life is not a guinea pig where you allow all kinds of people to come experiment with your mindset and energy.

This means that you have to keep looking for the right person. With the right person, you will always know. They say this with marriage however you live your life with other people too. Pick those people really well. You are not here to change everyone with your goodness. Over time their internal Komalika will rob you of your goodness.

Have more options. The first one is not the last one. Especially at all the relationships you have chosen (which is everyone other than your blood relatives).

If you have a “chalta hai” attitude towards yourself, the universe will replicate it with people exactly like that.

You have a class. May you bring only people who match that.

2 Raw One-Liners

• I have 10 books inside of me, but I am too tired to write them…

• Maybe the endgame is not to visit as many places in the world, but to sit along with your cousins and jam to Kun Faaya Kun in your real voices.

3 (for) Real nice quotes I found that you might love:

I keep an excel with some good quotes I come across. Here are some from the archive which I added last week:

1. “There’ll be happiness after me/But there was happiness because of me” —Taylor Swift

2. “We are embarrassed about things we should be proud of, and proud of things we should be embarrassed about.” —Jerry Seinfeld (His TED talk at Duke is WOW. Along with the content of course, he is self-assured and loud without being demeaning. I don’t remember the last time I saw someone so dignified who wasn’t putting a facade.)

3. “You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.” ― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

That is it my friend.

Have a great long weekend.

Wish you have all the fun with the right people :)

Nishtha Gehija

LinkedIn | X | Daily blog | Weekly newsletter

Instantly access my ebooks:

20s versus 30s: The strange and unique differences between the two most important decades of your life

The Corporate Life Handbook: If you are in corporate job and struggle with daily humdrums of it, one-pagers with harsh truths are something no one is going to tell you :)

The Career Changing Guide: If you are looking for a sign, this is it :)

How to Deal with Heartbreak: A book almost everyone needs but no one gives you right in your hand. If you don’t need this, get this for a friend you know certainly needs it.

Every Writer Needs to Read this: A book I wish I had 11 years ago when I was starting out as a writer

If there is anyone that spreads hate in any comment or response, they are straight away blocked. Even if they might be someone who might benefit my business.

The same treatment goes for “Hi Nishtha, how are you” OR “I am in awe of you” kind of men. I am not here for dating or becoming your extra-marital thing, and no content of mine has ever pointed at that.

It makes life peaceful beyond measure.

Simple mantra that works:

You cannot come to my home with your trash and litter all around.

Rule 2: Don’t follow ANYONE

Think of the most influential person you can think of. I am personally inspired a lot by Virat Kohli, Roger Federer and Taylor Swift.

But the admiration is for the work they do and the kind of human beings they are.

I do not become their worshipper or an angry human on the internet to everyone who is not pro these people, because none of us is here to follow anyone.

Pick the best of everyone who think is good, and then go create your own self.

At this opportune moment, let us all remember what Taylor Swift said:

“You’re the only one of you, baby that’s the fun of you!!!”

Rule 3: No mood off season

Of the 1,000 benefits of reading daily and spiritual classes, one of the biggest benefits is to learn how to change your mood.

We feel the world owes us something when we are upset.

It doesn’t.

Day in and day out I have also experienced that the universe keeps getting rigged in your favour if you go out into the world with a lit up mood, not an angry burden of resentments and regrets.

Might as well talk to ourselves, switch up our mood, and learn the lessons for the next time.

Rule 4: No negativity rule. Especially no negativity to yourself.

Something I would never say to myself “I just cannot do _____”

This does not mean I do not face any difficulties in life.

What I rather do is tell God about my day every night, and every day multiple times during the day. And then go about my day.

I either land up with a solution at the right time, or I gather the courage to take myself to the solution, or I learn to live with it.

That is all you can do. That is all I think we need to.

Rule 5: No gossip rule

Gossip is like chatpata chat. You are drawn to it more than well-cooked and boiled meals. It seems tasty, attracts more people towards it, and irresponsible humans love being victims.

My fundamental rule is do not talk about people at their back, if you would not speak the same thing when they were around.

It takes effort and a ton of discipline. It also leaves me with so few friends. But I am left with the right friends, so to say.

Saves your energy for the rest of your life. And saves yourself too from the tyranny of loathing your own brethren.

…

I am sure you live your life by some rules too, that make it 5X better. Let me know which one is it, so that I could also learn from it.

Last week when I was at my parents’ home I was going into the kitchen, when my father stopped me to share some wonderful news about our nation’s development that he just saw on TV.

I politely said, “I would love to chat with you (and I crave for that) but I do not want to put news about the world into my mind before sleeping.” And then followed that up with, “Koi satsang ki baat hai to chalo donon saath mein karte hain.” The tonality was soft, because he is father.

I am glad he understood and did not take it to the heart.

At the same time, you have to be the one protecting yourself. No one is coming to save you. But if you are there for yourself, everyone is coming there to support you in ways unlimited.

That is all for this week my friend.

See you next Saturday. Enjoy the long weekend.

Nishtha Gehija

LinkedIn | X | Daily blog | Weekly newsletter

Instantly access my ebooks:

20s versus 30s: The strange and unique differences between the two most important decades of your life

The Corporate Life Handbook: If you are in corporate job and struggle with daily humdrums of it, one-pagers with harsh truths are something no one is going to tell you :)

The Career Changing Guide: If you are looking for a sign, this is it :)

How to Deal with Heartbreak: A book almost everyone needs but no one gives you right in your hand. If you don’t need this, get this for a friend you know certainly needs it.

Every Writer Needs to Read this: A book I wish I had 11 years ago when I was starting out as a writer

Hello hello my friend,

In December last year, I was reached out to by an incredible company for a phenomenal one-time writing project.

It is stuff of dreams. Like by the end of this year I would have called it one of the top 10 projects of my year.

Though I have done projects like that in 2025 and 2024 as well, and it is always a wonderful feeling to get work that brings out the best in you.

Just that, something about that project was just not working out. I was supposed to be happy after our conversations but I always left drained and doubtful. Something that does not happen on my other projects that make me happy.

On paper, on the outside, from the point of view of logic, everything was just perfect. But after the first 2-3 conversations I knew in my heart this was just not the right project for me.

I would purposefully not go into the details because I always assume everyone in the world is reading what I write. And if I share the details even without sharing the name, they won’t feel very good about themselves.

Anyway, right before the time I was supposed to send them a formal agreement and begin our work together, I decided to send them a polite email with a respectful no.

But why am I telling this to you?

To gossip about them? Absolutely not.

They were doing something that works for them. They have built an enterprise that works for them. And a wonderful one so to say.

What I am trying to say is that sometimes the people you intend to work with are not the people who bring out the best in you.

Read that again.

Sometimes the people you intend to work with are not the people who bring out the best in you.

Or worse, they bring out the worst in you.

Thus, along with loving your work you also must actively scout for people whom you absolutely enjoy working with.

People that do not diminish you.
People that know what they are bringing to the table.
People who are mature enough to understand that constructive feedback does not have to be a cruel feedback. That we are on the same team. And when we operate from that perspective, we create magic instead of crying each other miserable.

I have come to understand that every work has two elements to it:

1. Do you love doing that work? (Yes/No)

2. Do you really enjoy working with the people you work with? (Yes/No)

Based on the intersection of the two possibilities of these two questions, here is a 2*2 matrix that every management consultant is taught in B-school:

Let me explain what it means to you:

Quadrant 1 (Q1) (top right):
You love your work. You enjoy working with the people you do.
Translated: You have hit a jackpot. You must strive to do that in everything you do.

Q2 (bottom right): You love your work. But you do not enjoy working with the people you do.
The example I gave above falls in this quadrant. Which is why I respectfully did not pick up that assignment.

The best part is you are blessed with the work you love. With that Brahmastra, you can legit move mountains and pick people you want to work with.
I once heard in a Mel Robbins interview where she said something similar, that of course at the start you want to pay your bills, you have responsibilities to take care of, and you always cannot control the people you work with. But at certain point of time in your career you have to be willing to take a bet on yourself.

What she means is that at the start of a career you love, it might be important to focus on work itself, maybe not so much on people. Been there, done that. But till when, is a question you might want to ask yourself later.

Because if you ignore the quality of people you work with and what they bring out in you, over time you start diminishing your own potential. Something that takes years to get back. Why would you want to do that?

Q3 (bottom of left): You don’t love your work. And you do not enjoy working with the people you do either.
This is something I call a self-created hell.

Why self-created? Because I understand that at some point you cannot find the work that you love on Day 1. I get it. Sometimes you need to work for 365 or 730 or a 1000 days at a work that doesn’t bring you joy because you want to make money too.

But it is here that you should be careful about people you are working with. If you surround yourself with people who invent pessimism in the middle of possibility, you would end up becoming one of them.

The world might conspire you into “adjusting” and taking up a job offer/assignment with energy drainers and evil doers, but if you are determined to make the best of your life, you will land yourself in a place that makes you a better version of yourself.

Surround yourself with 5 positive people, and you are one of them.

Surround yourself with 5 people who workout, and you become fit.

Surround yourself with 5 people who have an excuse for everything, and you see your life become a self-created hell.

Q4 (top left): You don’t love your work. But you are surrounded by really good people.

Now this is what I call a smart move. Our environment and the energy of the people around us affects us in ways invisible.

If you are someone who is still working hard to do what they love as their full-time thing, this is the place you should at least begin with. The right people.

You will feel more secure as a human. You won’t want to pull anyone else down. And who knows, your vision for yourself inspires others instead of you wanting to kill your love for the work you do.

Please re-read the above again my friend.

It is so important that we understand the importance of the collective forces of people and the work we do, and how it impacts our professional life, our personal life, and even our spiritual life.

The world talks about the things you love.

It does not talk about the people that draw your carriage miles away from the thing you love, one day at a time.

It is high time wise people recognise that.

Love the work you do AND the people you work with.

What is a better gift to yourself on this V Day <3

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2 Raw One-Liners:

• Some of us need a spotlight to shine, some of us need a spot where there is no light shining on us.

• All you need is just three hours of a block every day where nothing and no one can touch you. And you will surprise yourself with the mountains that you move.

3 (for) Real fun and free goodies for you:

1. 1-min blog: Ambition is a beautiful thing

2. 1-min blog: The anti-rot solution for your brain

3. I was going through the ancient pictures on my iPad and found this picture from one of our team offsites in Pondicherry. March 2022. 10.29 pm is the time :) The team were clicking pictures and they woke me up too to click pictures. Chho sweet <3. (L-R: My then colleague Keyi, Ankur, and your girl). The best part of this hotel was that the pool was right outside our rooms. To get out of your room and sit and see something that is not concrete is always soothing.

Alright then friends, I hope you love yourself well this V-day. That is the only way you’d be able to love others too.

And please know that just because you are single, does not mean it reduces your worth. Your worth is always and always decided by what you think. Don’t let any folklore affect you ever.

I’ll see you next weekend my friend.

Nishtha Gehija

LinkedIn | X | Daily blog | Weekly newsletter

Forward? Sign up here free

Instantly access my ebooks:

20s versus 30s: The strange and unique differences between the two most important decades of your life

The Corporate Life Handbook: If you are in corporate job and struggle with daily humdrums of it, one-pagers with harsh truths are something no one is going to tell you :)

The Career Changing Guide: If you are looking for a sign, this is it :)

How to Deal with Heartbreak: A book almost everyone needs but no one gives you right in your hand. If you don’t need this, get this for a friend you know certainly needs it.

Every Writer Needs to Read this: A book I wish I had 11 years ago when I was starting out as a writer

When I was in college, the college would get over around ~4 pm.

Because the CA classes were yet to begin, for a month or so I had some time on my hand.

So a college friend took me to the nearby Crossword book store. This is the year 2011. The city is Ahmedabad.

Located in the Himalaya Mall, not too far away from college, just an ₹8 bus ticket from right outside the college.

“You can also sit there and read books for free,” 2-3 friends from college gave me this interesting bit of info, which I was not aware of.

So every day right after college, I would go to Crossword and read books. I remember reading The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari and Women and the Weight Loss Tamasha just during those visits. The latter was also the one which transformed my relationship with my health, for the better.

And now, I had fallen in love with Crossword.

But a few days later I was back to my hometown Kota, to prepare for my CA IPCC exams.

Within a year, a Crossword opened in Kota as well. In the December of 2012, I was roaming the aisles of that Kota Crossword, when I stumbled into the book “The Magic”.

That was the beginning of my reading journey. Since that day in December 2012, over more than 13 years now, there has never been a time I am not reading a book (or three) at a time. Sometimes I am reading too fast, sometimes way too slow, but a book and a notebook have become parts of my body just like phones have become for a lot of us.

I have reflected on some life lessons from reading books, which I would want to share with you here:

1. When you have nothing, you have books. When you have everything but not books, you have nothing.

2. “The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”

   ―Mark Twain

3. People leave you. Books never do.

4. A right book is something that meets you exactly where you are. The best thing is there is a different right book for different phases of life. And there is a different right book for different people.

5. If someone gifts you a book, thank God that they did. They could gift you all the vanity in the world but they chose to give you the gift of loving your inner self. There is no better gift than this.

6. “I don’t have time to read books” is the fakest excuse in the history of excuses. If you can scroll the internet for hours, you can certainly read one page of a book a day.

7. Most people do not read books because they put the pressure on themselves of finishing it. Guess what? What if you chose to be okay with whatever you read? You are in competition with no one. Read just one page, but please please read.

8. Another reason why people do not read books is because they got bored/did not like some book, but because we have been conditioned since childhood to not waste things/finish our books to the end, they unconsciously drop off from those books. And I am here to tell you that you can drop books in the middle if you find them uninteresting or not appealing to you. You might end up “wasting” ₹200-300 on that book, but you will save your time, and use that to read another book. The love affair of you and books continues, which is the most important thing.
   
   For example, a year back I had picked up “Days at the Morisaki bookshop” based on the zillion positive reviews the book had gotten over the internet. But within the first two chapters, I just could not resonate with the protagonist. She was uncommunicative with her ex but super communicative with her uncle. I could not go beyond this duality. So I put it away. (Weee…are never ever…getting back together.) As simple as that.

9. One method that I have invented (if you can say so) to stop dropping books mid way is to read first page in the bookstore itself/read the first page sample on Amazon. That mostly gives an overview of the book. But still, sometimes a book is meant to be dropped. It is a judgement-free zone you have to enter at eventually, if you really want to enjoy books.

10. There is no restriction on reading the kind of books you want. I have been a self-help girl, a business books girl, a philosophical books girl, last year I was also a fiction girl (not anymore), and so many more avatars. Read what you like. Naval or Nicolas Sparks. Robin Sharma or Rhonda Byrne. Cal Newport or Chetan Bhagat. But read bro read.

11. We humans are so fragile that someone else hurdling insults at us makes us lose our temper and dampen our mood. I have always chosen to not be that person. So I read books to lift my mood again. No one should get the taste of a dark side of you, especially if they did not sow the seed to it. If you give the fruit to someone who did not sow it, it is not the right karma my friend.

12. In spiritual class we are told that you became lawyer, doctor, etc., only because you read books. Now to become a better person every day, you should study about becoming a better person every day. (Note to myself: What an absolute clarity!)

13. I failed twice in CA IPCC, which is the second stage of CA. But I cleared the most difficult stage (CA Final) in the first time itself, with decent marks (AIR 99 if you think, but official ranks are awarded only till 50th). How was that possible? Only because I read books every day. Did not miss a single day. Ever.

14. Bob Proctor once said that you create what you think. The only problem is that 99% of most people’s thoughts are the same as yesterday. A book shows you possibilities of what someone else could be, and you could be too.

15. You can get all the gyan on the internet too. But reading a book is a communication medium that does not entice your senses. Even though it is written to make sure it is interesting to you, a video platform is a place with 20,000 notifications, each vying for your attention. And it is usually not possible to focus in the midst of so much noise and voice. Also, a book is great escape from the massive social media time.

16. A book is not a hobby (even if it is). It is a choice to put the content in your head that you wish to. If you look at your YouTube history for the last one month, that is what you have become. Time to alter your content history through books now.

17. Books teach you to be humble. And not complain. I once watched a vlog of two celebrities, who said they have to go from Mumbai to Thailand, Maldives, etc. because Mumbai’s beaches are so dirty. I agree to that. But when you are someone who is reading a book, you realise you have to go to Thailand, Maldives, etc., but you would never complain about what’s not working. If you can change it, awesome. If you cannot change it, you go inside a book instead of complaining on a vlog.
    
    A lot of our social media content is raising us this way. We must be very aware of what we are letting inside of us.

18. The world would never want you to read a book. They would take you to parties, to malls, to restaurants, to everywhere but never inside a book. It is your job to go inside a book. Because that is the only way you go inside yourself too. Everything else is a conspiracy theory. (PS: Fun carpool story for you)

19. Not all readers are leaders but all leaders are readers. I have not seen one person whom I admire not read books. Books are as important as oxygen for the wisest people.

20. Some influencers also tell very confidently that they do not read books. And I have come to understand that overconfidence and charisma can never compensate for intellect and competence.

Now at this point it would be a great foolishness on my part to not offer you some reading suggestions. So here are a few pictures of a few of my bookshelves. It’s a tiny slice of the entire pie, but really good ones. Pick whatever you like. Or whatever social media/your friends suggest you. Over time, just like your style, you will also develop your own taste in books.

But it all begins with the step one to save yourself.

Read, my friend. Because if you are not reading in your life, you are merely dragging yourself. You deserve better, don’t you?

2 Raw One-Liners:

• People don’t care about you because they don’t care about themselves either. It is impossible to disrespect someone else unless there is a seed of it within oneself too.

• A clean room and a clean desk is the solution to 95% of your problems.

3 must-have things for every sane person

1. A diary/notebook. Just start keeping one. You will figure its functionality later on.

2. A park nearby. Many countries prescribe time outdoors as a necessity for healing.

3. The art of letting go. Because you are not a dustbin that carries everyone’s trash.

PS: Starting today so many people feel bad for being single/not having someone to “love”. What’s worse is I see these capable, smart people could use their energy to become so much more creative than crying over rocks. Thus, if you are dealing with a heartbreak, this ebook is for you.

Get instant access here. 50% off for the V-day week. Just for you :)

I’ll see you next week.

Love yourself <3

Nishtha Gehija

LinkedIn | X | Daily blog | Weekly newsletter

1. Infinite content creation to increase my “views”.

2. Clicking pictures of every moment of my life to share as “content”.

3. Corporate rat-race for measuring success.

4. Getting my nails done before any gathering. (Fun fact: Last I got a facial done was January 2015. I still glow better. Meditation is the best facial :))

5. Getting new clothes on every occasion and festival.

6. To build a home for myself.

7. To do things to gain validation of others

Games I have purposefully decided to play:

1. To work in a manner that I am able to take at least 15 days off every half-year and at least a week off every quarter and go for meditation retreats.

2. To not touch internet on weekends (still working on it).

3. To write from my heart and on things I want to write instead of following “trends”.

4. To create a writing space that makes me jump to come to my desk every morning.

5. Making time for an evening walk daily (along with daily morning workout).

6. Having enough disposable money so that any time I hear Maa or Papa talking about making a big purchase, I make an instant transfer to their account while they are still on the phone with me.

7. To be kind to people, all of the time. Even when I am struggling.

Back in the days around 14-15 years ago when Facebook was at its peak, there was an oft-shared quote over there that said:

“mah lyf mah rulzzzz”. (Haha, yes a lot of people actually wrote like that.)

It’s time you start playing your life by your rules and your games, even if that means everyone else is sitting on the sidelines chuckling at you instead of cheering for you.

So, what are the games you are going to not play in 2026 and what are the games you are going to play?

Let me know in the responses to this email/in comments. I’d love to be inspired by you :))

(PS: This is part 4 (and final part) of a 4-part series of shorter Raw and Real editions in January 2026. We will get back to deeper Raw and real conversations, Raw one liners and Real funsies starting February 2026.)

Nishtha Gehija

LinkedIn | X | Daily blog | Weekly newsletter

Instantly access my ebooks:

20s versus 30s: The strange and unique differences between the two most important decades of your life

The Corporate Life Handbook: If you are in corporate job and struggle with daily humdrums of it, one-pagers with harsh truths are something no one is going to tell you :)

The Career Changing Guide: If you are looking for a sign, this is it :)

How to Deal with Heartbreak: A book almost everyone needs but no one gives you right in your hand. If you don’t need this, get this for a friend you know certainly needs it.

Every Writer Needs to Read this: A book I wish I had 11 years ago when I was starting out as a writer

In the year 2025, Taylor Swift released her 12th studio album, whose track #5 (the track number in every album of hers that has a sprinkle of a heartbreak/vulnerability) was of “Eldest Daughter”.

In the year 2016, Lisette Schuitemaker wrote a book called The Eldest Daughter Effect. The book talks about, “…(eldest daughters) seriously doubt that they are good enough. Being an eldest daughter can have certain advantages, but the overbearing sense of responsibility often gets in the way.”

I also came across a clip from Mel Robbins podcast talking with an Ivy League psychologist about the eldest daughter syndrome and how it shapes us.

On the contrary, I am the youngest daughter to my parents and I have something to share.

Across the globe we talk about the eldest daughter. I agree on that plight. I have seen my elder sisters sacrifice massively throughout their lives.

So as you read this, I suggest you keep an open mind. Towards the end, I will share why I wrote this piece.

We are four sisters. I am the youngest one. They are 13, 12 and 8 years older than me respectively.

By the time I was 20, my third sister had gotten married.

Now I was the only child that used to live with our parents :)

The sisters would visit often, as they all lived in the same city. But then go back home. At the start of their marriages it felt like a dopamine burst to me when they would come home. And that dopamine taken away when they went back. However, all they spoke was of how their life had become a treadmill of never ending responsibilities. I was now only a side character in a movie that had initially signed me up as a lead.

As years passed by and they started having their babies, I even saw a side of life I had never seen before.

My sisters kept leaving their kids with my Mom to babysit them. Or came to stay at our home for their deliveries and postpartum care. I think that is fine too, as long as all parties agree. Almost everyone leaves their kids with their Moms and rarely with their Moms-in-law.

In this process, I saw my Mom getting massively tired. Yet she never spoke up for herself. That she could not take care of the kids because she was often tired enough to properly to take care of us too.

After her marriage, along with the task of taking care of us four sisters, my Mom also took care of my chacha (and my father got him married), my Mom took care of another chacha’s kids, a neighbour’s kids, and all the family responsibilities because my father was the eldest son (ah, the irony in this very post).

So looking at my sisters thinking my Mom was free and my niblings could be left with her led to a lot of resentment from my side. I used to think my Mom was being used. And in my heart I kept getting distant from my sisters.

In this game of raising their kids, they even forgot they had a younger sister to just be with, and nothing else. Someone with whom they could have kept up with.

This inner and unspoken resentment within me kept getting so big that I forgot to see the rational side, that Mom could even speak up for herself while loving them. Yet this broken puzzle with no apparent fix created a crater in my heart that eventually only kept getting bigger.

——

I recently watched the 6-part docu-series of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, and concluded that the reason this woman is ultra confident is because she has the backing of her family. Her brother legit travelled with her from the stadium (where her show was) to the hotel back with her.

My sisters don’t even know exactly what I do for a living. Or what I do in general. Or why I did not really enjoy the trip whose pictures were extensively shared in our group and on the internet. Or why I got the delivery of my car on my own, with no one from my family around. Or why I disliked that they gossiped about my pyjamas and crocs, and loved me when I was polished and crafted; when they were supposed to love me regardless. Or that no matter how much money you make, you always need your family.

Each time I share this with my Mom, she says “they have a lot of problems in their lives.”

I get it.
I do get it that I might not even understand most of their problems.
But I still wonder how many of these problems allow you to perpetually be unavailable in person and on phone every with your youngest sibling.

——

I remember last year I went to Mumbai to stay with my cousin bro and bhabhi for three days. And I was so delighted by what I experienced there. Not because of his luxuries (he has the best of those luxuries, he lives in SoBo to begin with), but because standing in his office overlooking the Mumbai city while he was sipping tea and he did not offer me like a true brother (because he knows I don’t drink tea), we spoke about absolutely random things in Mumbai. Or that he went for a walk with me to the beach near his house because he knows I love walking after dinner. For those three days I got to experience an elder sibling that I had forgotten how to experience for so many years.

Or when I used to live in Ahmedabad at my Bua’s home during my college days. My elder cousin bro would come back from his work (and he already had a family at that time), but there was no day I did not talk to him. I am sure he would have his own share of life problems at that stage, but I must confess it was a good dopamine boost to see my bro come home. My sisters come home so many times when I go home. I do not remember a single instance of a meaningful conversation yet. Maybe not even a meaningful conversation, but I don’t remember a time when they were not on the go.

They always have some place to go, and never have I ever been that place.

——

Which is why, this mystery of the youngest daughter.

You have your siblings taken away from you.

You see your parents go through so much pain that you become an Oscar winning actor at hiding your own.

You learn the art of not asking your family for your time. (Even if they do, you don’t want to be sitting in a round table conference with fingers firing at you instead of hugs hurdling at you.)

You are so grateful for the sacrifices of your elder siblings that you got an excellent education only because of their sacrifices, that you do not ask your siblings for anything ever again. Not even their sisterhood.

You are the youngest daughter. Who isn’t free from slaughter either.

——

Coming to senses and sensibilities, why am I sharing this with you?

The youngest daughter perhaps faces nothing as compared to the eldest daughter, as the data and experiences suggest.

I would never be able to experience what an eldest daughter experiences, obviously.

But that does not take away from me having to share what I have experienced as a youngest daughter. I am allowed to express the loneliness I felt despite being surrounded. I have the highest gratitude for the life I live. Let me be clear, my sisters and I would stand for each other any day. No one could ever speak a word against one of us in front of the other. Anyone raise a finger against them and I am standing for them before they even ask.

At the same time, when I share this, maybe one of the thousands of people who read it would be present to their younger sibling(s) even when the younger sibling is apparently thriving.

Success is one part of life. Having family to do random things with — be it chatting around life, be it cook a meal together, be it choosing to be present with your sibling over a phone call maybe 5 minutes a month, is another success that we need to be speaking more about in 2026.

If any one of us is able to be present like a human being to anyone else around us regardless of their position, power or paisa, we might create a little more happier world.

If this piece helps us get there, I’d be glad the mystery and the loneliness of the youngest daughter helped feel someone else a little less lonely :)

——

To summarise:

I know you are busy.

I know you can see someone around you who is apparently happy.

But for every single one around you who looks cool and thriving, they sometimes need family too. May we choose to not forget that.

Everyone needs someone to play with their balloon, even when they got what they always wanted: the balloon. People, not to please. People, not to be please with. People, because we need a peep in.

2 Raw One Liners:

• When you start losing internal battles, you start creating external ones.

• Girl to girl: A rich girl is a witch girl as per society’s norms. Worry not, sweetie. Keep making that money while they keep thinking they are funny.

3 (for Real) “Blast from the past” pictures:

My parents had their 49th wedding anniversary yesterday. Talk about compounding :) My eldest sister wanted us to look into our camera rolls and send her our family pictures so that she could produce a collage to gift them.

In that searching, I also found some other pictures from my past too. Enjoy :)

1. April 2012 — final year exams in college. Chinar and I would eat breakfast somewhere out before reaching college by 9.45 for our exam to begin at 10.30. This was one of the days we went to a restaurant for our expensive breakfast, instead of the usual ₹10 poha. (Back when I would still do outside food :))

2. Around the same time — studying for college exams. In the final year of college I studied the least of all three years (no more than 2-3 hours per day, because after the exam Chinar and I had to go visit somewhere together in Ahmedabad and return home that night). And secured the highest marks in that year of all three years :)

3. At this time I’m realising it has become too much of “me me me”, so here is a pic of my late Nanaji (he passed away in 2014). He was admitted in hospital for the last 2 months of his life due to heart attack. But other than that, lived a very fit life. Had his breakfast every day around 8 am, lunch at 12.30 and dinner around 6.30. Even when his sons in law (and their parents) were invited for lunch, my Nana would accompany them for their lunch at 3 pm, but always always had his meals at his own timings. He also never ever had a vehicle. Cycle was his only means of transport, even though he was pretty middle class and able to afford it.

   True influencers have been all our grandparents tbh.

On that note of sharing a blurry (and only) photo of my Nanaji, let us bring this to an end.

I hope you shine and bloom like flowers, wish you a belated Happy Basant Panchmi, and may your life always bring flowers to everyone else’s lives.

I’ll see you next weekend.

Till then, stay raw, stay real my friend.

Nishtha Gehija

LinkedIn | X | Daily blog | Weekly newsletter

Instantly access my ebooks:

20s versus 30s: The strange and unique differences between the two most important decades of your life

The Corporate Life Handbook: If you are in corporate job and struggle with daily humdrums of it, one-pagers with harsh truths are something no one is going to tell you :)

The Career Changing Guide: If you are looking for a sign, this is it :)

How to Deal with Heartbreak: A book almost everyone needs but no one gives you right in your hand. If you don’t need this, get this for a friend you know certainly needs it.

Every Writer Needs to Read this: A book I wish I had 11 years ago when I was starting out as a writer

For the record, I write my books and ghostwrite books on behalf of CXOs. Written 7 ebooks, 2 paperbacks, and ghostwritten close to 12-14 books so far. Also in my past life I was a CA.

Because a lot of people use AI to write, this is a natural question.

Here is what I think:

1. A writer never becomes a writer to write well. A writer’s life has already made her a writer. Her putting words to paper is simply bringing heart and head out of hiding.

2. Humans love real connections, real thoughts, real vibes more than something that is artificially generated. Which is why we were all stuck during Covid even though we had all the internet. Which is why we still crave for going out, whether it is nature walks like me or concerts for others or even catching up with friends for a coffee that costs 15x of what it would cost making at home. Good writing does exactly that.

3. When a writer sits down to write, she herself doesn’t know where will we end things. A lot of the times. So there is no way you could prompt AI to do that on your behalf.

4. A writer who truly truly loves her work does not write to help the audience. She writes because she needs to clear the mess in her mind, share her life lessons and bring coherence to her thoughts. The only reason others resonate with it is because the audience needs that too. When you write through AI you are not even thinking, let alone thinking coherently. So the writers that think through their writing are the real writers. Everyone else I guess is a factory worker playing the game of inputs and outputs.

5. Readers are already hating on books that are written through AI. I am so so glad I never went down that path and will not either. A book is not a vending machine with answers to your life’s questions. A book is the journey of procuring raw materials and building answers to your life questions. AI is the vending machine, real writing is procurement.

6. I am also not a fan of editing through AI. There are tools like Hemingway app or Grammarly (though real writers do not need these, they only need the books like The Elements of Style and 100 ways to Improve your writing). Editing through AI or an app sometimes conceals your emotions.

   A perfect example is the song “Enchanted” by Taylor Swift. There are two lines in the song that go:
   ”Please don’t be in love with someone else
   Please don’t let somebody waiting for you”
   The first line says “someone”, the next one says “somebody”. The correct usage is “someone” in both lines, but she used “somebody” in the next sentence because it fit the rhythm of that music there. Songwriters create this magic all of the time that could never be possible with AI.
   While writers like me (who write books) do not change such elements of style, they do change elements of mood that only humans could generate.

7. The goal is not to discard AI. The goal is to use AI to automate our manual tasks. I think about this often, that the goal of a smartphone was not to make us sit more, watch more content or put our heads down and get headaches. The goal of smartphones was to help us do our tasks on the go, which include sending messages, emails or access to apps that do not require us to sit at a desk. We could give a thought to how could AI automate our manual tasks. For example, I use ChatGPT for the following:

   

70% of these chats are useful, 30% are my random conversations, 0% are for writing.

AI is still useful. But in a world of abundant AI, intuitive, authentic writing is going to be a bigger winner.

Now, here is a ChatGPT generated picture of today’s post. The irony is not lost on me that I designed this using AI, but my goal is to think of writing, it is a specialist designer’s role to think of the role of AI in their designs :)

Also, this image could be better in so many ways, which honestly only a human designer who loves their job could do.

To summarise:

1. A writer becomes one because of life circumstances, rarely out of beautiful circumstances.

2. Humans love real thoughts more in the world of AI.

3. Often a writer does not know where things would end at.

4. When you write through AI you are not even thinking, let alone thinking coherently.

5. Readers are already hating on books that are written through AI.

6. Learn to edit through the right books instead of using AI or even other tools.

7. The goal is not to discard AI altogether. The goal is to use it as a tool to support your mundane tasks instead of it taking the main stage and allowing all your audience to run away.

(PS: This is part 3 of a 4-part series of shorter Raw and Real editions in January 2026. We will get back to deeper Raw and real conversations, Raw one liners and Real funsies starting February 2026.

This one became longer again, but, because it was about a writer’s love for writing I guess :))

Nishtha Gehija

LinkedIn | X | Daily blog | Weekly newsletter

Instantly access my ebooks:

20s versus 30s: The strange and unique differences between the two most important decades of your life

The Corporate Life Handbook: If you are in corporate job and struggle with daily humdrums of it, one-pagers with harsh truths are something no one is going to tell you :)

The Career Changing Guide: If you are looking for a sign, this is it :)

How to Deal with Heartbreak: A book almost everyone needs but no one gives you right in your hand. If you don’t need this, get this for a friend you know certainly needs it.

Every Writer Needs to Read this: A book I wish I had 11 years ago when I was starting out as a writer

A newbie writer would want to look up to an established writer.

A new founder would want to look up to a startup founder who just got an IPO.

A new content creator would look up to someone with 20 Mn+ followers.

While I am aligned with looking up to people, I don’t think access to these people is going to change your career trajectory.

Just because someone more successful knows your name, it hardly changes anything for your career.

You still have to do the work. You still have to build a ritual. And most importantly, the only thing that matters is how much you love your work while still being detached from it. When people see that vibe, you create unparalleled change in your axis through your work.

That is when you create access that will eventually change your axis.

Do the work. Then the work will do all the work.

(PS: This is part 2 of 4-part series of shorter Raw and Real editions in January 2026. We will get back to deeper Raw and real conversations, Raw one liners and Real funsies starting February 2026)

Nishtha Gehija

LinkedIn | X | Daily blog | Weekly newsletter

Instantly access my ebooks:

20s versus 30s: The strange and unique differences between the two most important decades of your life

The Corporate Life Handbook: If you are in corporate job and struggle with daily humdrums of it, one-pagers with harsh truths are something no one is going to tell you :)

The Career Changing Guide: If you are looking for a sign, this is it :)

How to Deal with Heartbreak: A book almost everyone needs but no one gives you right in your hand. If you don’t need this, get this for a friend you know certainly needs it.

Every Writer Needs to Read this: A book I wish I had 11 years ago when I was starting out as a writer

Today I want to begin with a quality of a lot of people, that eventually becomes a flaw:

The quality of keeping your commitments.

If you are an A-type person, or someone who respects your time, you will make sure you honour your commitments.

That said, sometimes it is wiser to also not honour your commitments. Especially if they drain your energy.

For example, a couple of months back it was an extended relative’s birthday. I was having a very busy day so I texted them, saying I will certainly call them later. But I did not call them later, because they always drain my energy. At least it has been happening a lot lately. I legit ghosted them, if you can use that term here.

So here is a thumb rule I have come up with:

If it is a professional commitment, take 20% more time and always fulfil your promises.

If it is a personal commitment, make time and fulfil your promises.

If it is any sort of commitment that drains your energy, then:

• For a personal commitment, it is okay to not honour it. In an ideal scenario and if possible, please have a conversation.

• For a professional commitment, try communicating what you are thinking. And think better the next time.

In life, your goal is to find out the exceptions to the norms you have set for yourself. While you continue to honour those norms.

When was a time you wanted to break a commitment but could not, because you always keep your promises? What did you learn from that and today’s post put together? Do let me know in the email responses/comments. I read every one of them.

Happy new year again, my friend. I’ll see you next week.

(PS: This is part 1 of a 4-part series of shorter Raw and Real editions in January 2026. We will get back to deeper Raw and real conversations, Raw one liners and Real funsies starting February 2026)

Nishtha Gehija

LinkedIn | X | Daily blog | Weekly newsletter

Instantly access my ebooks:

20s versus 30s: The strange and unique differences between the two most important decades of your life

The Corporate Life Handbook: If you are in corporate job and struggle with daily humdrums of it, one-pagers with harsh truths are something no one is going to tell you :)

The Career Changing Guide: If you are looking for a sign, this is it :)

How to Deal with Heartbreak: A book almost everyone needs but no one gives you right in your hand. If you don’t need this, get this for a friend you know certainly needs it.

Every Writer Needs to Read this: A book I wish I had 11 years ago when I was starting out as a writer

Hello hello my friend,

As this is the last edition of Raw and Real for the year 2025, I wanted to take a minute to share my top posts of 2025. These are the posts that were loved and read the most by you all. Here you go:

Protect your Sundays at all costs: Treating your Sundays like your working days has led to so many joys being shattered, most of which arise in boredom. I truly truly wish more people read and applied this in their lives. I have now started taking Sunday as a day that does not exist, when it comes to any commitment. Someone wanted to meet on a Saturday but cannot, sure, let’s do Tuesday? Someone else wanted me for a meeting because “Sundays are free”, for them, I have a meeting so I’m busy :) TL;DR: Protect your Sundays at all costs, from almost everyone.

35 unique lessons from 10 years of my career: One of the biggest lesson that I am reflecting on now, is that the days are long and the years are short. Which is why it is important to protect your Sundays too. So that you can reflect and change the course of your life, one week at a time.

10 years in Delhi: With 10 years in career, also come 10 years in Delhi. I promise most of these lessons would be unexpected, which is my job here at Raw and Real :)

One of the most read posts was also “Why I never got married” but because it is only a month old, I think most of you would have already read it. Btw, you know something, a weird thing I noticed with this post was most people hating it were men, and most people agreeing with it, especially in DMs were women. Of course I am blessed with exceptions to it too, but a certain rigging of the data tells us the fact that life after marriage gets better only for men and only worse for women. (I know so many millionaire women who have all the money they need yet it is their responsibility to make sure the home gets decorated on Diwali or the kids get picked up from their classes on time. Even if something else is doing it, the onus is on the woman, which is why I wrote this post. Sad.)

My favourite blog posts of 2025

Your anti-scroll solution

Now that we are done with Raw and Real top 3 editions, if you are someone who likes bite-sized yet valuable wisdom, here are my favourite blog posts from my daily blog (most are less than 100 words) from the year 2025.

I legit scrolled through all the blogs from 2025 (and some from previous years that popped up) and am sharing my personal favourite ones. Hope you get lost reading them that you forget scrolling :)

Here you go. Just tap on the title and you’ll be taken there. (I picked no more than 2 from each month, to keep it short for you. But if you want to read all the blogs of a month together, go over to nishtha dot blog and on the right side you can pick a month. Thank you so very much :)

1. Virat, Taylor, Martin, Messi, and Mom

2. What’s your greatest fear?

3. Ah, the irony

4. If you continue doing genuine work, right people will seek you

5. We eventually move on

6. Stay away from practical people

7. After your first Crore, you are unstoppable

8. Why books matter

9. If you can’t send an email about it

10. Shivers down my spine

11. The colour White

12. The corporate suffering

13. 23 unusual lessons on life, books and people

14. If you are a freelancer. Side note: You can just do things

15. The older I get, the more I realise this

16. Don’t listen to a NO

17. 6 quick truths about epiphany

18. Nowhere (one of my early sonnets of 2025)

19. 11 unspoken, unusual, unreal reasons why we read books

20. 4 short pieces of advice for every girl and every boy

21. Beauty that camera cannot capture

22. The answer to the productivity question

23. How do you part your hair?

24. The trifecta reasons of “bad luck”

25. How I celebrated my Christmas (also this happens to be #25 :))

Hope you enjoy reading them, as much as I enjoyed scrolling through them (and remembering the reasons why I wrote them).

PS: For the next 4 weeks, you will be getting a shorter version of Raw and Real, instead of a longer version. Think of this as my break, but instead of taking a full-fledged break, I am sending shorter versions. The quality will still be the same, that is something I cannot compromise. And let us see how I feel after this tiny break while I continue writing and thinking deeper :)

Alright then my friend, thank you so much for giving me your time. It means the world to me.

Happy New Year to you and yours. I’ll see you as usual, the next Saturday.

Nishtha Gehija

LinkedIn | X | Daily blog | Weekly newsletter

Instantly access my ebooks:

20s versus 30s: The strange and unique differences between the two most important decades of your life

The Corporate Life Handbook: If you are in corporate job and struggle with daily humdrums of it, one-pagers with harsh truths are something no one is going to tell you :)

The Career Changing Guide: If you are looking for a sign, this is it :)

How to Deal with Heartbreak: A book almost everyone needs but no one gives you right in your hand. If you don’t need this, get this for a friend you know certainly needs it.

Every Writer Needs to Read this: A book I wish I had 11 years ago when I was starting out as a writer

In 2021, I was hospitalised to get my appendix operated. (Side note: I have lost count of the number of times I have been hospitalised, so let’s move on from there :))

It is usually a one day procedure. Easy peezy lemon squeezy.

Except, mine was an unusual case.

I was hospitalised for 6 nights and 7 days (looks like a tour package :))

I was on my Day 3 and my body still showed very little to no signs of being discharged. So when the doctor came on rounds I sulked a bit and I asked him, “I wanna go home, when can I go home?”

That statement irked the doctor. He probably took it as a remark on his competence whereas I was trying to be a responsible patient who wants to recover fast. I guess maybe we got lost in translation, maybe I asked for too much…

The doctor retorted, “Had I been in a big corporate hospital, I would not even be speaking to you now. Assistant of a junior doctor would be the one you would be speaking to.”

I stayed calm on my bed as I listened to him. And the calmness was not just external, I had zero disturbance inside of my head too.

Here is why:

I think the very competent doctor whom I was talking to did want to join a big corporate hospital.
Maybe he had a massive dream for himself which went way beyond being a specialist and being excellent at what he did, which he was already.
Maybe there was a part of him that touched a nerve of the betrayal of dreams that we sometimes do to ourselves or have to do to ourselves due to situations beyond our control.

Which brings me to you, my friend.

Which is a dream of yours that is still unfulfilled?
What is an area of your life where you feel you have betrayed yourself?
When was a time when life flipped all its gears and landed you in a place you never bought a ticket for?

I am not going to ask you to abandon everything and go fulfill that dream. You are smart and wise enough already to do that. And there is a lot of useful, valuable content available on the internet that will ask you to do just that.

What I will ask you, though, is to sit with yourself and arrive at an answer.

To take this example of my wonderful doc, if you had a career ambition that did not materialise, sit with yourself like a best friend would, and tell yourself all that you need to hear.

I did with myself when I was once fired and being shattered was an understatement, I kept repeating things like these each time a void of that job popped up in my head. Here is what I would tell myself:

• You did your best. You really really did. You did better than what was the best that was defined of you. (Which I did).

• It is natural for a boss to have a problem with you. If he had so much problem, the solution lied in not expecting me to get better but communicating with me. I am not going to kill myself for someone else’s poor communication skills or just because they mentally moved on from me.

• Look at how much your life got better when you got out of the prison you didn’t know you were in. Sometimes you need a push from the cliff to remember you are meant to fly.

• No matter what job you are in, we are all in a job of listening to each other and uplifting each other up. You were never someone running away from constructive feedback, but if someone did not summon the courage to construct a feedback, their loss.

• Sometimes it is important that you move on from a (work) relationship. It is especially important for workoholics like yourself who define their identity by the work they do.

• Even though the end was something you last signed up for and even though firing is normal in corporates, if someone was disgraceful while doing a “normal” thing, you need to give them an apology they didn’t ask for.

After so much mental operation time and again, my mind would sometimes go to creating thoughts of “but if someone has gone from a great work relationship to firing me one fine morning, there must be some mistake of mine, isn’t it?”

To which I would again answer myself:

• Let us admit you made a lot of mistakes. Not a fact, an assumption. So let us make the worst case assumption that you did make mistakes. First thing, you were always willing to correct them. You showed that through your conduct. Secondly, who in the whole wide world forgets the work they have done for so long and so well, and acts completely out of character? They did not have the emotional maturity every manager must have.

It took me months, I guess more than a year to move on from that job. But once I did, I was done. Actually, I was done the next day of my last working day of that job. Never ever missed it. But for the few times that sinews of the conversation of being fired would come over, I would talk myself out of it.

Not just “move on.” Because never in the history of moving on has moving on happened by using the words “move on”.

Rather whenever you have thoughts that your mind does not know how to move on from:

1. Sit with yourself

2. Answer every question your mind has

3. Do it over and over again each time the mind gets confused

Over time, the confusion will vanish and one fine day there would be a clarity you didn’t know you could ever get to.

Because my friend, you must know that while some people may not react to your instant outbursts of unattended past that wasn’t your choice, the one person that gets harmed the most is you.

When you simply suppress and don’t process, your mind chooses to regress when you least expect.

You have to reach to a place where you are in complete control of your emotions and feelings. And the way to that destination is laid with dealing with all the murky roads life has created for you.

2 Raw One Liners

• The point of a discussion is not to win. The point of a discussion is to be open to listening everyone else too.

• A good life requires effort. A bad life requires more effort.

3 thigns I wish you did before 2026 begins:

1. Go for a walk in a park without a phone. It will make you think, be at one with yourself, and has benefits that won’t ever fit into a page.

2. Please write what all good game and what were the lessons from 2025. A great life is always an examined life. Even if you don’t publish it anywhere, do it for yourself.

3. Let go of that one person whom you wish was different. You cannot fly while being in a mental prison.

That is it my friend. I wish you the best of next week and next year.

Keep rocking, I’ll see you next week.

Nishtha Gehija

LinkedIn | X | Daily blog | Weekly newsletter

Instantly access my ebooks:

20s versus 30s: The strange and unique differences between the two most important decades of your life

The Corporate Life Handbook: If you are in corporate job and struggle with daily humdrums of it, one-pagers with harsh truths are something no one is going to tell you :)

The Career Changing Guide: If you are looking for a sign, this is it :)

How to Deal with Heartbreak: A book almost everyone needs but no one gives you right in your hand. If you don’t need this, get this for a friend you know certainly needs it.

Every Writer Needs to Read this: A book I wish I had 11 years ago when I was starting out as a writer

One of the (false) beliefs I have had for a long time is people mean what they say. Especially when they say it in anger.

I used to believe that “in anger you are not thinking and filtering, so what comes out of your mouth is pure truth.”

I think a lot of us have considered this to be true at some point in our lives.

Now that I know better, I guess I was wrong.

I think when people are under the influence of anger, they simply lash out an incongruent, untrue, incoherent blabber that they themselves don’t think about, let alone believe it.

As a matter of fact, this is the reason why learning how to communicate is so important. Because you can not and should not say everything that is on your mind. Especially for relationships you care for.

This is something I have learnt from Christopher Voss:

“Communication is a form of respect. If you respect someone, you will work on the way you communicate with them. If you don’t, you will be careless. If you want to know if you respect someone, just look at the way you communicate with them.”

So at work when someone wants you to get into a quick meeting, instead of telling them “go to he**, I am not going to get into an hour long mental torture with you for a useless thing” which you want do to say (I get it), you would say “could you send me an email on this? By EOD please. Thank you.”

That brings me to the point when people just blurt out.

They do respect you, they care for you, they will fight the world for you, but right now…right now they are under the influence of their emotions. They don’t know how to stop themselves. And if they cannot control themselves in the moment, how will they care for you in the same moment?

So my friend, when someone you care for has said something you did not expect, take it easy.

Do not make it a gospel to live with for the rest of your life. You do not want to be at the end of 2026 thinking “I will never forget what he said to me on one grimy winter afternoon of 2022.”

You deserve better.

That said…

When do people really mean what they say?

I think when people are consistenly showing you through their actions, words or conduct that you mean far lesser to them.

The first instance above was giving people around you the benefit of doubt because they are consistently a good human being who care for you.

However, if something in someone is a pattern of demeanor and not a point of delusion, you now have to make a decision of either calling it out or changing what you bring to the table.

I remember I used to be this person who would give people in this second category (consistently I-don’t-care-kinda’s) incessant benefit of doubt. “He didn’t mean it.” “He must be busy, that’s why he was rude.” “He does something different that is why I do not understand what I go through” and so on. I shut down my power to judge because I was constantly fighting the case for them.

Don’t be like me. Have the wisdom to see people for who they are, and then see if you want to hang around with who they are.

The bottomline is two-fold:

1. Do not get married to one-time acts of people acting out or living out of character. We all deserve forgiveness we don’t have the fortitude to ask for.

2. Do not blindfold when one-time acts of people are all-time attitudes. See people for the best they could be, yet protect yourself from the worst they are right now consistently.

2 Raw One-Liners:

• If you continue lying to yourself, eventually it becomes a self-fulfilling truth.

• The joy of being at home and reading instead of going to a movie theatre is the richness we don’t speak about anymore.

  ---

3 (for) Real quick blogs that you might like (instead of doomscrolling) :)

Please tap the titles and you’ll be taken to the short blog. Direct read, no subsription needed.

1. How to deal with dilemma

2. It’s hard to go outdoors for a walk

3. The bittersweet time at parents’ home

Alright my friend, this is it for this week.

Next week I will come with a quick thing you must do before 2026 begins (something that will stay with you all your life, as it has with me).

See you then.

Till then, keep reading, keep rocking :)

Nishtha Gehija

LinkedIn | X | Daily blog | Weekly newsletter

Instantly access my ebooks:

20s versus 30s: The strange and unique differences between the two most important decades of your life

The Corporate Life Handbook: If you are in corporate job and struggle with daily humdrums of it, one-pagers with harsh truths are something no one is going to tell you :)

The Career Changing Guide: If you are looking for a sign, this is it :)

How to Deal with Heartbreak: A book almost everyone needs but no one gives you right in your hand. If you don’t need this, get this for a friend you know certainly needs it.

Every Writer Needs to Read this: A book I wish I had 11 years ago when I was starting out as a writer

No matter what you and I do, we all get into meetings for our work.

What makes me wonder, is how many of those “important work meetings” are really important?

At least once a week I will get a DM with something like, “I need your help. Can we get on a quick call please?”

My response is, “Happy to help. Could you send me an email? Here is my email ID.”

99% of the times the email does not arrive.

This double whammy of human beings’ eternal love for infinite meetings and the extraordinary optimism to take on the world with the solutions we will have through “a quick call” never ceases to make me wonder.

But here I am to tell you, that having too many meetings is ruining your productivity, your creativity, and also your overall well-being.

The last thing you signed up for, when you signed up for your work.

How are too many meetings are ruining your productivity?

Here is how:

1. Meetings reduce your focus.

In a meeting, you are speaking and/or listening. You are discussing but it is not moving any needle forward. It not only visibly takes away your time to do meaningful work, it also reduces your energy to focus because you have expended that energy on a meaningless task already.

It is like Anushka asking Virat when he has already secured 90+ runs in an inning, about what furniture they want for their bedroom. Important question, but absolutely diverging from the focus at that time. It’s sad as a nation we understand and respect Virat’s focus, yet slaughter our own almost every day without even being aware of it.

2. Meetings interrupt a flow of work.

Let’s say you have blocked 3 hours on your calendar to work on an important report. And then you receive a ping from an important client for “getting on a quick call.” Let us say the call lasts for 10 minutes. But you are not back to focus immediately. Here is an insight about “first awkward 30 minutes” btw.

Also, unless you are a medical doctor, not all calls to be attended immediately. I am in year 11 of my work but I was like this in year 1 of my work too, despite my boss thinking he “needed to be available always”. My bonus was skyrocketing in that year too.

3. When you won’t have so many meetings, you will leave work on time.

That in itself is an insult for so many people. Leaving work late is an honour most of us quietly carry. It is a badge that we think that will yield us more respect and love from others.

Little do we realise the only thing that leaving late gives you is bigger body (because you will now have dinner late), little to no time to spend with yourself and of course, going to bed late, thus, leading to waking up groggy the next morning. The dominoes is so massive that we even stop thinking about it.

Why do we get into so many meetings?

We will get to how to reclaim your time from meetings in the later part of this article, but before that we need to get into why people even get into so many meetings in the first place, even sometimes against their own will. Here is why:

1. We don’t know what to do when we get bored.

So we subconsciously fill all our time with meetings. Parkinson’s Law states that work expands or contracts in proportion to your time. So if you have an entire working day of 8 hours with you but the work is for 3 hours only, your mind will manufacture meetings or figure how to be wasted on the internet, before finally getting to work in the final 3 hours.

Most people have no idea what to do when there is no work. Whether it is 5 hours or the 2 days of the weekend.

2. We all like feeling important.

When we are in a meeting, we are either making our juniors listen to your blabbering, or we are listening to a senior’s blabbering. Both useless, yet we collectively feel important.

It is a fake sense of importance, but a human caves in for fakeness only when it cannot give itself the real one. Which brings me to the next point, i.e., we all have no idea how to make ourselves feel important.

3. We don’t take care of ourselves/treat ourselves like the most important person.

Few ways to take care of ourselves are working out, meditation, reading good books, spending time alone (sans phone), going for a long walk, etc., which most of us are too busy to take time out for. At this point do you want me to say where we are even busy? :)

4. Human brain is designed to take things out.

When Ed Sheeran was writing “Shape of you”, which is one of the top 10 viewed songs on YouTube EVER, it was his usual days of going to the studio from 9 am to 5 pm, and writing songs. He often talks about how the first few songs are not worth it, but when the pipe is clear, good stuff emerges. “Shape of you” was the third song of the day, and most people in the world know Ed only by this song.

For you and I, what it means is we do “morning pages”. In her remakable book “The Artist’s Way” Julia Cameron talks about writing all that is on your mind for 3 pages straight. Even when you have nothing to write, write “I have nothing to write.”

Tim Ferris, who is the author of 5 NYT bestsellers, goes on to say this about morning pages:

5. Lack of responsibility.

“Hey let’s get on a quick call because I cannot take out 5 minutes out of my time to write 2 sentences coherently on an email so I better blabber 20 sentences to you over a short 10-minute call, and then you go figure.”

It makes me sad so many people live their years in this trap unless they realise the value of their time (and energy and focus).

Let me tell you a secret btw:

No matter what you do, no one has this much work that they are always busy. After 3-4 hours of meaningful work, everyone is pretending, mostly without being aware of it.

But our own company scares and scars us so much that we meaninglessly meander around in meetings. Please don’t do that to yourself.

When is it ideal to have meetings?

Does all of the above conversation mean that we should stop having meetings altogether?

Ah, what an ideal world. <3 We are creating, sending emails, closing things, and having conversations just to chill out or for tea but never to blabber. What an ideal world…

That said, of course you should have some of those meetings, such as:

1. Where we haven’t gotten to a conclusion after 4-5 email/text exchanges. It does circle back to “lack of responsibilty to coherently type an email” but it is up to you to learn to communicate effectively. This article from Wes Kao, or her newsletter in general is great help in formal, real, get-to-the-point-politely communication.

2. I usually get clear on the agenda before the meetings + also ask the other person, “what needs to happen in the meeting for us to have a successful one”? This reduces meetings by 50% by clearing agenda on the email, remaining 30% have clarity on agenda, and the 20% that get angry and run away, I am glad because I do not have to waste my future time on meaningless meetings with them.

Before we move on to the last part, hand on heart, do you not think that 60-70% of the meetings could have been an email?

If you think so too, here is how we are going to fix our incessant urge for meetings:

What do we do now?

1. Firstly, figure out what non-screen activity would you do when you have nothing to do. It has got nothing yet everything to do with meetings.

Some things on my list are obviously walking, cleaning bookshelf, cleaning kitchen (while listening to an inspirational YouTube video on speaker), reading, looking out of the window, or even making notes for an article like this.

But to have a business out of your core business is the only way to sanity in 2025.
If you won’t have these, you will automatically attract more merciless meetings into your life. Phew.

2. First two hours of your working day, no meeting.

Get your most important thing done, that clearly shows progress to you. It only takes courage to say, “Hey, could we move our meeting to 12 instead of 9.30?” At least 2-3 days of the week if not all.

3. Get into every meeting with an agenda.

If you are a senior, people would respect you for not wasting their time. If you are a junior, people will respect you for respecting your time.

4. Each time you have the urge to say “Let’s get on a quick call”, take out 5 minutes with yourself and write that coherent email. Don’t be so cheap that you are always reachable.

5. Schedule at least one of the above activities in point 1 in your calendar next week. Talk is cheap, doing is what moves the needle. Protect your Sundays at all costs and do things that aren’t “productive” to actually do productive things during working days.

I get it that today’s entire article was a bomb.

But my friend, 2025 went away in a wisp and most of us do not even know where it went. We all know now where it went — in meetings giving importance to people who never gave themselves any importance, and of course screen.

In 2026, you claim your time back from both of these.

If we want to get to a magical 2026, it won’t just happen by making New Year Resolutions that will go away by max January 8th, it would happen by getting out of our own way (and most meetings).

I know you can. We all can. We all must. We will.

2 Raw One Liners:

• We all would do so well if we stopped having opinion on things that we cannot change.

• All you have is your energy. People know what you bring to the table even before you bring yourself to the table.

3 (for) Real books you could pick this vacation that have at least changed my life (and would change yours too):

1. The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron: Even if you pick up the “morning pages” from that book, it would be so so useful.

2. The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz: Books like these are not written anymore. To the point. In short chapters. Filled with big changes.

3. Quit by Annie Duke. In a world that says “winners don’t quit” this book helped me the most when I needed to quit.

At the end, I really hope this article helps you make one small change in your relationship with meetings. And with yourself too.

I will see you next week my friend. WIth something lighter, I promise. <3

Loads of love for reading this long newsletter :))

Nishtha Gehija

LinkedIn | X | Daily blog | Weekly newsletter

Instantly access my ebooks:

20s versus 30s: The strange and unique differences between the two most important decades of your life

The Corporate Life Handbook: If you are in corporate job and struggle with daily humdrums of it, one-pagers with harsh truths are something no one is going to tell you :)

The Career Changing Guide: If you are looking for a sign, this is it :)

How to Deal with Heartbreak: A book almost everyone needs but no one gives you right in your hand. If you don’t need this, get this for a friend you know certainly needs it.

Every Writer Needs to Read this: A book I wish I had 11 years ago when I was starting out as a writer

In the December of 2019, I was hospitalised because of an emergency. A severe gastric issue. Eventually discharged within 3-4 days.

My Mom travelled all the way from my hometown of Kota to Delhi (by getting tatkal tickets booked by an agent, who only does AC tickets) just to take care of me. One of those mornings in the hospital, she said to me, “You are getting ill often. I think you should get married.”

This was my third emergency hospitalisation in the last two years. One of those years that made me remember the route to the emergency ward of the hospital.

My response: “I am hospitalised 5 days of the year. What do I do to the husband for the rest 360 days?”

We both broke down laughing.

But as I think about that instance today, I am glad I never made the decision to get married. Even though I was 28 at the time and my Mom was right as per societal norms.

Now that I am 34 and happily single on choice, here are the reasons I think I never got married:

I am my best self alone. I am jumping around. Or sitting very quietly on a couch with feet on the ottoman. Or just being. I know like I know like I know that I could never be this person with anyone else. I even cry while watching “I can do it with a broken heart” Eras tour performance or listening to “All too well 10-minute-version” or listening to even this meditation song, something I could never do around anyone, not even my Mom or siblings or niblings.

A marriage is a life full of compromise. Even the apparently happiest people are compromising every day in their marriage. Their garden of roses is no short of thorns too, which is a part and parcel of that garden of roses. What if I do not want to compromise? What if I want to do yoga at 5 am because I want to, and there is no need to compromise for a “spouse’s timings” or “adjust as per kids’ school”? What if I want to take an instant flight or train and not worry about anything other than informing my parents about it?

I really really do not understand how as adults we grow up to become connoisseurs of compromise just because we accept it as a default.

Do not want to share my life with anyone. Why should I tell someone why I ordered something. Or why should I show my shopping haul to someone? Or why should I consult someone before making a financial decision? Or why should I commute/not commute/work from home just because it makes anyone else’s life easier?

On the face of it it looks like a selfish thing to do to not adjust with others. And I am here to tell you that I do adjust a lot. It’s not worth blabbering here. But that does not mean you add a whole another family and responsibilities to compound that, especially if that is something you don’t want.

Never understood the lore of marriage as a kid. A lot of girls dream about their wedding from early on. Or manufacture such dreams as they become adults. I was never fascinated by this concept. The very thing of leaving your own comfort zone to go build with someone else never ever entered my mind, let alone grow. Many many many years ago I had made a paid shaadi dot com profile on the insistence of my Mom. One guy asked “so you are ready to move to Mumbai from Delhi after marriage?” When I told this to my Mom, “Itna padha likha kar aapne bada kiya, kaam ke liye apne dil ke tukde ko Delhi bheja, aur ab koi aapki beti ko apne sheher le jayega…kya ye zindgai hai?” This one statement, inter alia, perhaps convinced me as well as my Mom that I would never get married.

Of course spirituality has helped. It’s been 11 years since I go to Brahma Kumaris center daily. They prescribe celibacy as one of the core tenets of life. We are a soul, not a body. Since we are not a body, what is the point of being attracted towards other human bodies for our needs? Especially the needs that make us need more? Pavitrata sukh shanti ki janani hai, is the principle they teach. Translated: Purity (celibacy) gives birth to happiness and peace in life. I know this is not for everyone, but this has made sense to me more and more every single day. So why not make it a life principle?

(Side note: Even in layman terms, physical intimacy is referred to as “dirty talk”, because that is what it is — dirty.)

As you read this and as I tell people of this in bits and pieces, here are some of the frequently asked questions:

Q: How did I convince my parents?

Actually I didn’t. Unfortunately none of my three elder sisters is in a happy marriage. So since I am financially and emotionally independent and my parents see that, along with having no example to give me of a “happy marriage”, I think that was enough. Also early on I have had conversations with them with all of the above reasons, especially celibacy.

At this point, for the last 5-6 years, no one in our family or even extended family have touched the topic of my “marriage”. They are over the fact if I would ever get married. Everyone has happily moved on to discuss marriage of my younger cousins. I am unquestioned on all family functions. They even don’t mind me cooking/eating at home and not eating the restaurant food :)

Q: Life is big, what if I need someone else?

I think even if you choose to get married, you should never do that for a reason of wanting or needing someone. You should be happy within yourself no matter what, which is only when you would really enjoy the company of anyone, be it friends or family or a potential partner.

Q: What do I do when I need someone?

Actually I have found myself to be a loner since always. I can be in my own company for days, weeks, months; do my writing, and never feel the need of needing anyone. As a matter of fact, during Covid when all trains stopped functioning in March 2020, I was glad that I could not go back from Noida to my hometown in Kota, since I would get a lot of alone time. It’s a different thing that my parents arranged for a chauffeur driven and shared car in May and got me there, yet you get the drift :))

Q: How do I shut up naysayers?

I am very selective about my company ever since 2012, when I actively got into the habit of reading self-help daily. So I anyway keep myself miles away from naysayers. Not because they will bring the “marriage” question, but because hanging around with naysayers is anyway harmful for your mental and emotional well-being.

Q: What if…

I know there are many questions, but if you choose to walk on a path on your own accord and are determined to stick to it, every way opens up. Nonetheless, if you have any other question, please feel free to ask as an email response or in the comments section.

At the end, though, I would like to suggest you to never get married just because biological clock is ticking or there is family pressure or to satisfy your physical needs. If at all you do it, it should never be a compromise. But if you choose to never do it, you will unlock a degree of internal joy and freedom you didn’t know existed.

It might also seem like this is an anti-marriage post. Nope. I dance the most at weddings of cousins/friends. If you go get married, I’m happy for you. But for the small bit that has been oscillating between this decision, I think this piece would help them.

2 Raw One-Liners (of others that I loved):

• “Sometimes you need to allow life to save you from what you want.” —Brandon Stanton

• “The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.” – Dumbledore

3 (for) Real fun pictures/videos that I’d like to share with you:

(PS: We won’t make it a regular feature because then I’d be performing for the social instead of living my life. But as a rare occurrence, here you go :))

1. We had a pizza party at our spiritual class last weekend. We procured it from someone who comes at the spiritual class daily and runs a baking biz. A friend clicked this picture of me being engrossed in it. In my defense, I never eat junk but a party with a friends once a rarity is acceptable. Still, your girl skipped the patty and gave it to the colony watchman (it was not jhootha).

   

2. Cut my hair short. Please like, share, subscribe :)

   

3. In my Dubai trip last month, I took just one video during our long drive from Dubai to Abu Dhabi. It coincidentally captured some Dubai specific stuff. Watch till the end :) We also need to give credit to the driver for Atif songs only throughout the period of the drive <3

Alright then boys and girls, I quite liked how today’s newsletter turned out. I’d been missing this element of honest conversations for quite some time over here, but I guess oscillation is the law of creativity. We just need to keep showing up.

Thank you for reading.

See you later, alligator.

Nishtha Gehija

LinkedIn | X | Daily blog | Weekly newsletter

Instantly access my ebooks:

20s versus 30s: The strange and unique differences between the two most important decades of your life

The Corporate Life Handbook: If you are in corporate job and struggle with daily humdrums of it, one-pagers with harsh truths are something no one is going to tell you :)

The Career Changing Guide: If you are looking for a sign, this is it :)

How to Deal with Heartbreak: A book almost everyone needs but no one gives you right in your hand. If you don’t need this, get this for a friend you know certainly needs it.

Every Writer Needs to Read this: A book I wish I had 11 years ago when I was starting out as a writer

• The day you start walking consistently is going to be the best day of your life yet.

• Get lost in the woods. Walk on the beach (if you are around one). Walk around at least one park in every city/area you visit.

• Walk from the parking lot to the upstairs mall. Walk on the sidewalk next to the escalator at the airport. Walk to get your groceries. Walk from one building to another in societies instead of taking a golf cart. Walk even when there is no reason to walk.

• Walking is not a substitute to exercise. It is an activity, super useful nonetheless.

• Walking consistently makes you have better digestion.

• You walk and you let go of that one person one day you had least expected to.

• You walk and you let go of work stress that has been eating you up.

• You walk right after a meeting so that your mind can bring back your focus for better productivity.

• Best ideas enter your mind while walking.

• When you are walking you are one with nature. You are moving, you are going with the flow. Not running, not staying still, but going with the flow.

• Walking may not take away all your problems but it gives solutions to them when you simply go on a random walk.

• Walking for 10 minutes after dinner helps regulate fasting sugar. (H/t Rujuta Diwekar).

• A middle of the walk is where you truly write great books, build spectacular businesses, execute flawlessly at your job, make decisions you have never been able to make off late, and also just calm yourself down in general.

• Those who want validation, post gym pictures. Those who crave for inner stability go for a walk despite gymming daily.

• The life you get after walk

• The winter walks in the sun.

• The summer walks post dinner.

• The monsoon walks any time of the day.

• The crescent moon. The gorgeous sunset. The spectacular sunrise. The petrichor. The yellow carpeted ground during autumn.

• For running and gymming you might get buddies or perhaps go solo, and you find good friends. For walking, you often go solo and you become your best friend.

• Walking together is great to have meetings.

• Walking with friends is the best way to chill around.

• Walking tells your body that you are the boss, not the other way around.

• Walking heals you, and we are speaking not of body.

• God wanted to give you insights it has been wanting to give you every day. The wise ones go for a walk to receive them.

• Walking is best when you don’t carry your phone. Or at best, allow it to track your steps but don’t use it even to click pictures.

• For the last 4-5 years I have been investing in a nice pair of crocs (OG, not first copy), something I can get into easily before I have to go for a walk. I also make sure to look polished even while working from home. So there is absolutley no friction of changing into shoes or changing your clothes before going for a walk.

• Your mind makes stability and calm as your default state, once you start walking daily.

• You make random strangers as friends whom you wouldn’t ever speak to. But you know who is who. Also walking makes you understand these people’s nature even though you have never spoken with them.

• “Never trust an idea that does not come to you on your walk.”

• You see clouds while walking, as the rest of the world is handling the internet’s clouds.

• In my hometown where it is still not the best to go to a park for a walk after sunset, I go to the terrace.

• Before lunch, a tiny walk inside instead of a long scroll on the internet.

• For the initial 10 minutes of the walk you want to go back. But from the 11th minute, you never want the walk to stop.

• You learn to talk to yourself, and get yourself out of your bad habits while walking.

• For sustained energy during a long walk, best to eat a banana 10-15 minutes prior to taking off.

• Trees teach you the art of detachment (fallen leaves), the art of holding together (leaves and roots), the art of giving (shade), the art of self-love (taking water from underground), allowing a home (for monkeys, squirrels, etc.) and so on, just by quietly walking around them.

• In your walks in the park, you see homes celebrating marriages and homes mourning a loved one’s death. And you still keep walking.

• Early in your college days you walk to metro or public transport out of lack of resources. Later in your career you make sure to walk despite a car, out of love of rumination during walks.

• You get your life changing epiphanies during a walk.

• The best walk is the one that you take for yourself without posting it on social.

• A walk is life’s healing force. Physically, mentally, emotionally, even financially.

• Walk is like coming home. The world makes your head spin and a walk restores its centre.

• A walk is your therapist.

Walk is like investing money. When you explore and experience it yourself, you are unstoppable.

Start small (I started with 5K steps because for me 3K was normal. You do you. But walk. So you get to your internal real talk.)

Start walking yesterday.

2 raw one-liners:

• Girl to girl: If you order a piece of clothing online, and it fits you well and you wear it often, please order 2-3 more copies of it. Because later when you need it and you go back to order it, the brand would have certainly discontinued it.

• Girl to boy: Belated happy men’s day, to each one of you. It is not easy to be a man.

  Last month I was on a trip with my elder and younger bro (cousins) and bhabhi, and my elder brother was looking after so many things. He did not allow me to cross the road at Delhi station while we were waiting for our cab, did it himself. Forwarded all tickets to me again, right before the trip started. I was giving my phone number somewhere, when he popped out of nowhere and started narrating his.

  I am in a habit of living and doing all this by myself and have no complains about it, but to all men who assume responsibility of girls around you even when they don’t ask, in a world of boys you’re a -- gentleman :)

3 (for) Real beautiful lessons I have learnt from my spiritual class:

1. Keep doing good deeds and it would negate the effect of your past invisible bad deeds.

2. To bend yourself to adjust with others is only the quality of the strong. The weak cannot bend.

3. The future is a product of the present. Fix your present for a precious and powerful future.

That is it, my friends.

There is a song “Ekla cholo re” sung by Mr. Bachchan, which was a favourite of mine during that era. The ad-lib of the song is “Walk alone…” I’d rather add that when you start walking every day, you’d never be alone despite being alone.

I’ll see you next week.

Nishtha Gehija

LinkedIn | X | Daily blog | Weekly newsletter

Instantly access my ebooks:

20s versus 30s: The strange and unique differences between the two most important decades of your life

The Corporate Life Handbook: If you are in corporate job and struggle with daily humdrums of it, one-pagers with harsh truths are something no one is going to tell you :)

The Career Changing Guide: If you are looking for a sign, this is it :)

How to Deal with Heartbreak: A book almost everyone needs but no one gives you right in your hand. If you don’t need this, get this for a friend you know certainly needs it.

Every Writer Needs to Read this: A book I wish I had 11 years ago when I was starting out as a writer