Jawad Khan's Quest for a fulfilled life (Mind, Body and Spirit)

I was thinking about making a video to mark the end of the year. It seemed apt to talk about goal setting since this is what I (and I am sure many others) are thinking about this time of the year. However, instead of talking about what goals to set in 2023, I want to talk about what 2022 has taught me. Here are the lessons. 1. The magic of thinking small Over the years, I used to set extraordinarily difficult goals with the mindset that even if I don't reach the goals, I would have made significant progress. Unfortunately for me, that would usually turn into an intimidating goal. I would procrastinate and the more I ran away from it, the scarier the goal became. Long story short, I would feel bad at the end of the year and set even more audacious goals - hence repeating the cycle. 2. Doing less, not more I, like many others, have a lot of interests. There are many things that I think are cool - so many books to read, courses to attend, Youtube, Podcasts, Blogging. In a burst of...

Daniel Day Lewis is one of my favorite movie stars. The authenticity he brings to the characters he plays makes it hard for me to fathom that he is “creating” - it feels more as if he is channeling someone. His acting skills are not the only reason I find him inspiring. He has finally retired now but during his acting years, he was on and off making movies taking long breaks of retirement. It is rumored that the actor interned with a Florentine master craftsman and learnt how to make bespoke shoes during one of his retirements. For his last movie, The Phantom Thread, he played a designer and learnt how to cut, drape, and sew - and even recreated a Belanciaga dress on his own.  Daniel is an exceptional mind and a curious soul, but being able to delve into your curiosities like he is able to is a privilege. For most of us mortals, life seems to get in the way. Perhaps your version of living your best life fulfilling your desires and following your passions does not involve shoemakin...

The Creator economy is booming! They are about 50 million creators that exist and the number is going up. The size of the creator economy is estimated to be more than $104 billion. It is amazing to see Entrepreneurs from all over the world, of all ages and socio-economic backgrounds create entire businesses with content as the front end. The general business model is to create engaging content that add values to consumers and then monetize it through various means including the platform where the content is hosted (e.g. Youtube), affiliate marketing (promoting products from Amazon etc.) and direct advertisement partnerships with other businesses. The created content is front and center of this business model and is either hosted or promoted throug different social media channels. If one is to get started - they would want to create visual (images/infographics), written (blogs, articles, ebooks), audio (podcasts) or video (Youtube videos/ Online courses) content and then promote it thou...

Deepwork  a term coined by Cal Newport is referenced multiple times by Lex Fridman in his podcast. In fact, one of the youtube videos where Lex Fridman is explaining his daily routine, it is clear that Deepwork is central to his day. I admire Lex Fridman for his philosophical outlook on life, the knowledge that he conveys to the world through his podcast and his love centered worldview. So I picked up Cal Newport’s Deepwork and took some notes to share with friends and family. Cal Newport is a seminal and authentic thinker — his philosophy towards work and learning is laid out in the series of books he has produced. TL;DR The idea: Deepwork is valuable Deepwork is rare Deepwork is meaningful The rules Work Deeply Embrace Boredom Quit Social Media Drain the shallows In the first part of the book Cal lays out the foundations of why working deeply is becoming more and more important in today’s world. Most people today are bombarded by information and distractions making the abil...

I saw the question "Why am I unproductive?" and other variations of it a lot on Quora. I have compiled my answers into the blogpost here.  Please enjoy and leave your comments! Take a step back and zoom out. You can look at time management as a 3 step process: Plan Execute Analyze Plan Clarify your values, think about what’s really important for you and why. How would you imagine things would be if you were reasonably productive? Also, think about the negative outcomes if you don’t - try to really imagine that outcome and see how that makes you feel. Set your goals. Try and be as specific as you possibly can. What do you want? What do you want it? Explicitly state the outcome/result you want to achieve. Execute Remove distractions. Work aggressively towards saying “no” to existing and probable distractions and carve out time slots in your day that you would protect at all costs. Most distractions are our mobile phones so definitely keep it away during this time. Exhibit unyie...

I can’t help but feel that there is always way too much to do and too little time. The amount of books that have been written on the subject indicate its not just my problem. (Here’s a short list of 1 00+ books curated by BookAuthority.com ). Adding further to my misery is the fact that the list of things that I want to do keeps getting longer while the time and energy I have seems to shrink. In my quest to address my temporal sorrows, I have attended time management courses, watched a ton of Youtube videos, and yes, read many books but there are two quotes from Tim Ferriss; who is one of my favorite authors, podcasters, and human beings; that I end up returning to time and time again. In fact, for a long time, I had written these down on sticky notes and made them a permanent feature of my working desk. They are: “What you do is more important than how you do everything else, and doing something well does not make it important.”   “Being busy is a form of laziness — lazy...