"Embracing Self-Worth: Prioritising Your Feelings Amidst Bullying and Discrimination"

I wanted to share a personal story about overcoming bullying and finding inner strength:

- Growing up, I faced discrimination from classmates and even my own cousins.

- My mother, sister, and dog Brownie were my support system.

Bullying in school is sadly common, but I hope millennial parents teach their children to be kinder. What truly hurt me was my cousins' behaviour. However:

- As I grew up and started helping my father with chores, our conversations changed my perspective.

- I gained confidence and stopped seeking validation from others.

If you've faced bullying, remember:

- You are important and deserve respect.

- Confidence isn't about success or failure; it's about believing in yourself.

- Express your feelings and don't try to please everyone.

- Forgive, but don't forget, so you don't fall prey to the same misfortunes again.

I hope my story helps you find your inner strength. Let's support each other and create a kinder world.

How to Become Your Best Friend - Tips for Improving Your Relationship with Yourself

Do you tend to ignore or take yourself for granted? In today's world, it's easy to get caught up in the busyness of life and forget about the most important person - yourself. However, the relationship you have with yourself is one of the most important relationships you will ever have.This Blog post is a quick summary of my YouTube Video my YouTube video "How to Forgive Yourself and Move On". In this post, I will discuss how you can become your best friend and improve your relationship with yourself.

Why Should We Become Our Best Friend?

• We often focus on our shortcomings and forget to appreciate our strengths.

• We can't change ourselves overnight, but we can gradually become our best friend by improving our relationship with ourselves.

How to Become Our Best Friend?

• Journaling: Writing down our thoughts and feelings can help us process our emotions and understand ourselves better.

• Be more open with yourself: Practice letting go of your negative thoughts and understand the root cause by talking to yourself while solving problems.

• Pursue your passion: Spend some time doing things you love.

• Learn new things: Learning new things and reading books can be an excellent way to improve our relationship with ourselves.

• Talk to friends: Talking to friends can help us gain a fresh perspective on our problems.

• Spend some alone time: Spending time alone can help us reflect on our thoughts, emotions, and experiences.

• Come to terms with the past: Accept your mistakes, learn from them, and move on.

Conclusion

• Becoming our best friend requires effort, patience, and self-awareness.

• By following these tips, we can improve our relationship with ourselves and become our best friend.

• If you want to know more about this topic where I shred my personal story of how I build a good relationship with my self, and also went a bit deep into this building a good relationship with yourself. Do check my YouTube video "How to Forgive Yourself and Move On".

Artificial Intelligence: The Next Revolution

I'm writing this blog to share my thoughts on the future of artificial intelligence (AI).

I've been exploring AI for a while now, and I'm amazed by its capabilities. AI tools can learn and process information at an incredible speed, and they're already being used to automate tasks in a wide range of industries.

For example, AI is being used to:

• Write news articles

• Generate marketing materials

• Diagnose diseases

• Drive cars

• And much more.

As AI continues to develop, it's clear that it will have a major impact on our lives. Some people are concerned that AI will lead to job losses, but I believe that it will also create new opportunities.

For example, AI will be needed to develop new products and services, and it will also be needed to manage the increasingly complex systems that we rely on.

In short, I believe that AI is the next revolution, and I'm excited to see what it will bring.

If you're interested in learning more about AI, I recommend following thought leaders like Varun Mayya and reading about AI online. There are also a number of free resources available, such as the LLa newsletter.

I encourage you to try out some of the AI tools that are available today, and share your thoughts on this rapidly advancing technology.

If you want to learn more than Ai, Do check my letter about Exploring the Impact of Artificial Intelligence(click here) where I wrote

about this topic in a bit detail.

Sincerely,

D.S.S.R. Anirudh

Money lessons from Monopoly Game

I am sure that everyone wants a good and well-balanced life, everyone wants to have the freedom to buy whatever they want and be in a position to handle emergencies effortlessly without panic, but all of this requires good money management skills. The problem with money is that we genuinely don't know where we go wrong. We think we are doing it right, and we think we are on the right track but only realize that we are deep down the rabbit hole after losing many opportunities. This happens because we are not thought about money formally; we subconsciously pick up what our parents did and repeat the same patterns. This gap can be bridged only through Personal finance books and talking to people who have built some wealth in their life. The worst ailment is when we don't know we are sick. I am sure that everyone wants a good and well-balanced life, everyone wants to have the freedom to buy whatever they want and be in a position to handle emergencies effortlessly without panic, but all of this requires good money management skills. The problem with money is that we genuinely don't know where we go wrong. We think we are doing it right, and we think we are on the right track but only realize that we are deep down the rabbit hole after losing many opportunities. This happens because we are not thought about money formally; we subconsciously pick up what our parents did and repeat the same patterns. This gap can be bridged only through Personal finance books and talking to people who have built some wealth in their life. The worst ailment is when we don't know we are sick. In this video, I tried to highlight six very important things about money which we can learn from our childhood favorite game, monopoly. Monopoly can teach us many things about money and society, which our parents and the school do not teach us formally. So, hit play to get into this world.

Journalling tips for beginners

Journalling is one of the best practices that helped me become a better person. There are many advantages of journaling. It helps us become smart, helps us become more introspective, helps us become more aware of ourselves, allows us to enjoy our own company. I already have a podcast episode where I spoke about journaling at length. I also discussed about it in detail in Sophia's uncomfortably comfortable podcast. In today's blog, I will share some tips that help you make journalling a more pleasant experience and allows you to stick to it without adding too much pressure.

* So, let us get to the basics and try to understand the meaning of Journalling. So what is journaling?

Journalling or diary writing is similar. Journaling in plain language means having personal notes. It is a space where you pen-down thoughts about things you want to write, an extremely personal and very private space. If I have to explain in one sentence, then Journal is a personified version of your brain.

* So the main confusion comes from the choice we have concerning journals our there, its very easy to get overwhelmed with kind of options we have with journals.

There are so many Journals in the market like

1. Dream Journal

2. Gratitude Journal

3. Daily Journal

4. And God knows what more, you can add the word journal to anything, and bam, you have a new journal hand.

* The ideal thing to do is not to focus on all of these but concentrate on what you feel like writing every day. Despite being into journaling for quite some time now, I am not entirely aware of all the journaling formats. So don't worry about all these different formats, and go with your intuition. Whenever you have decided to Journal, there will be something you want to write about, and you will at least have some vague idea of what you want to do with it. So go for it, write about that, and after giving it a try, you can always try another format if it is not exciting for you anymore. You can always have a Google or YouTube search for different recommendations.

* One thing we all forget is that Journal is a very personal space that helps improve our relationship with ourselves. It makes us comfortable with our thoughts and more appreciative of our beliefs, growth, and achievements. It's like that one good friend who will never judge no matter what and always give you some insightful advice and help. So our relationship with this habit has to be very organic you don't want to force yourself to Journal, or you don't want to blame or curse yourself for missing to journal one day, you can always do it whenever you feel like doing it, you can always do it when you have some excellent free time in hand. Take my case, for example. What I do is freestyle Journaling. I fill my Journal with significant life events, events that I think have taught me something or moments I want to relive, and random thoughts or different perceptions about life that hit my mind. If I think they will go into my Journal, they will help me navigate through my life. I don't journal daily though I want to get into daily journaling. It is genuinely time-consuming. Do I constantly blame myself and cuss myself for not making it? No, not at all. I am happy with my present frequency of Journalling. For me, to have a positive outlook is more important than to have a coercive one and to journal; ha, if you are not Journalling forever, then I believe you should force to start. Still, mostly it has to be organic, and it will be organic eventually because there can be no better person who loves you more than you.

* One of the things I want you guys to remember while Journalling is not to filter your thoughts, not to sugar coat your thoughts. If you have a darker side that you are not proud of, use journalling to acknowledge it instead of being in denial mode. If you don't acknowledge that you have issues you are not proud of, there's no way we can come over it. As I always say, acknowledging a problem is the first step in solving it. Use journalling for your advantage here be true it. You can come over it slowly. The mere fact that you are not happy with your darker side is an indication that you are on the right track

* However, saying this, I don't want you to focus on those darker aspects, write about healthy things, things that make you happy, a thing that keeps you excited about the future. When it comes to negative aspects, The main idea should be to write and move on. Let me give an example. Let's say you want to consume less Sugar to become fit but eat a lot of Sugar, and you are not very proud of this. This might sound small, but something as small as this can annoy people in real life. Now write it down in your journal and move on. What I mean by it is now don't just keep focusing on Sugar on every page of your Journal. Journal is just a place to acknowledge your issue. If you have a recognized problem in hand, take some time off of 15-20 mins from our routine, spend some alone time, and brainstorm ideas to solve. In this case, Don't cuss your brain or yourself, forgetting that urge. Have a more balanced approach, look at the situation without preconceived notions or bias like how an outsider would look at it. If you have Sugar daily, then that urge to consume Sugar is a natural reaction of our body. Your cussing or disappointment will not change the basic mechanics of the human body and human psychology. Understand the root cause, now the solution you can have is to reduce your daily sugar intake proportionally. Eventually, you will end up having no sugar. There's no deadline or a hard and fast rule for which you should trouble your body. Take your time in solving problems.

* Practice Let-go. Let me share one of my personal stories with you, I started playing badminton matches again, and I didn't want to focus on the score while playing the match. I just wanted to focus on the opponents and understanding their strategic weaknesses. I wanted to stay neutral to both winning and losing points, except I wanted to keep in mind the mistakes. I cannot completely get rid of my urge to focus on points while playing the game. After a certain point, I concluded that a part of me is going to focus on score anyway let us not make a big deal out, of it, let us move on, it will be something going on the background, instead of struggling with my mind to eliminate that thought I allowed it stay there but dint pay much attention to it because the idea is always to focus on the game and the opponent. I decently would recommend you guys to check out Headspace. If you are into introspection, Journalling you would be someone who cares about mindfulness. So do try out Headspace. Andy(meditation tutor in Headspace and the co-founder of Headspace) did help me a lot in the concept of let-go. It's something that I keep in mind all the time these days. Do try the basics course in Headspace, which is free.

* Journalling is for long term benefits, this is something that is going to stay with you for a very long period, after to 6-7months(though 6-months is not a long term period) when you go back to the initial pages of your Journal, It will allow you to relive those moments and see your growth and how you have evolved in front of your eyes. You will become more aware of yourself your thoughts, which will help you make smarter choices in life, making you highly comfortable with yourself. So always remember that you are here to play the long-term game. So stick around with it.

-By D.S.S.R.Anirudh

My Most Favourite Traveling Memories

Traveling is a very refreshing hobby to have. We can have some great habits like journaling, reading books, punctuality, etc. But, traveling is a hobby which gives us fresh perceptive by introducing us to new people and new cultures. Only traveling can provide us the first-hand experience. I like to travel, especially with my parents, and it just brings back a nostalgic feeling and revives all my memories of childhood trips. In this blog, I'll share my most favorite traveling memories. 

1.  Srinagar Trip:- Srinagar is a place full of beautiful landscapes and incredibly welcoming people. Contrary to what we hear in the media, Kashmir is one of the best places to visit. The Kashmiri people are very hospitable and welcoming. Delhi to Srinagar fight was the first flight I ever boarded. That itself made the experience wonderful. Gazing at the sky all the time from the window, I  kept my mouth open in awe, looking at clouds so closely. When the flight landed in Srinagar, we had our lunch after finishing all the formalities and checking into the room, In a vegetarian restaurant which has been our go-to restaurant for the next five days of our stay. There are many places which we covered in Kashmir, but the most memorable among those are 

•  Boat ride in Dal Lake:- A small bot ride in Dal lake was such a memorable experience that I would fail to describe it precisely in words. The ride shows us the city's beauties, and the ride on the water with our loved ones feels surreal and incredibly peaceful.

•  Mughal Garden:- Again, Mughal garden is one among many gardens in Srinagar, but the Mughal garden is the most memorable one for me, which has some beautiful flowers and aesthetically placed waterfalls. The water in the garden is sweet and tastes good; people say that this water was supplied as drinking water to the late Mughal Rulers of India. 

•  Pahalgam:- Another memorable experience, Pahalgam, also called mini Switzerland locally, here we have to get on a horse to reach the top of the mountain. The area has not become memorable because of the place's scenic beauty, which is a feast for our eyes anyways. It is a special place because of my horse. The horse I got to board is the star of the show. I will never forget that cutie. He was a wild horse and a very young one, but still, he was so precise with the route that he took me to the top by taking different shortcuts and taking me away from the crowd sometimes. Throughout the journey, he was in the lead and utterly independent no one to watch out for and give any directions. That probably was the best horse ride in my life till now.

2.  Rohtang Pass(Manali):- I have always been fascinated with the idea of snow and going to snow mountains is something I was excited about. Rohtang pass was the first snow mountain I ever visited, and the excitement was at another level. I was probably around ten at that time and was so excited to get into snow finally. I was making snowballs and throwing them on my mom and dad, clicking photographs of the snow hills, and trying to capture the beauty of the place. Constant efforts to build something from the snow and requesting my father if we could stay in that place for more time has been my routine for the brief period we have been there. 

3.  Tirupathi to Tirumala (45mins drive):- Tirumala abode to the wealthiest god on the planet. Coming from a traditional South Indian family. Tirumala holds extraordinary importance in our household. Tirumala is one of the temples we try to go to whenever any special event happens, such as clearing the exam, my father getting a promotion or a salary hike, etc. Likewise, we started to Tirupathi from Hyderabad via train. Finally, when we reached Tirupathi, we had to book a taxi to take us to the Hill(Tirumala), where the lord stays. I have never realized until that day that drive to Tirumala is one the best we can have. Elegant Road led us to the top, cutting through a dense forest on both sides. The whole place is spiritually enriched by the presence of the lord and devotees. There will also be a stop where you could feed deers of the forest, which are being protected by the temple authorities. 

By D.S.S.R.Anirudh

(Do check out my Podcast episode on traveling, where I spoke about my favourite tourist places at length.)

Using iPad as a primary device for 9 years

In this blog, I'll try to give a glimpse of my experience of using the iPad as my primary device for the past nine years. I'll try to explain how exactly I use my iPad,  the features I like, things in which the iPad is good at, and areas where it's not so great.

I'll just give a general list of what I do with my iPad.

1. Video Editing 

2. Browsing through Safari

3. Photo editing 

4. Planning the day 

5. Journaling 

6. Writing scripts 

7. Joining Zoom sessions 

8.  writing and publishing blogs  

9. Reading books  

10. Attending courses 

11. For Media consumption(Netflix,prime video)

-It's a great Note-taking device

One year back, I was binging all iPad videos on you-tube when I was deciding whether I should be upgrading to the iPad Pro or not. I came across an interesting argument "instead of looking at iPad as a laptop replacement look at it as a creative tool in its accord." This point of view completely changed my perception of the iPad.

I look at the iPad as a very powerful notebook & this is where the iPad stands out. A notebook that unlocks my creativity and helps me create stuff  & organize my life  

I am someone who loves to write, and I write many things. I take handwritten notes- whenever I attend any class. Journaling, and I  love to write my daily entries rather than to type. I also pen down some random thoughts that hit my brain sometimes. There's no competition for iPad on this accord, things like remarkable 2 come close, and it's a concept I do like, But my vote at the end of the end would still go to iPad because of these functionalities. 

•  120 Hz promotion display 

•  Multi-Tasking 

•  And its ability to connect a keyboard 

-Let's try to answer the  big question 

Can I pad be a good laptop replacement?

Well, for this question, it depends on your use case or what functionality of your Laptop you intend to replace with your iPad. One of the main things I want to replace with the iPad would be Video Editing. 

Video editing is a use case iPad doesn't get enough credit for; video editing is very processor oriented, and an extremely demanding task, but iPad handles it just fine. Of course, LumaFusion, the software I use on the iPad, doesn't have every feature that Final Cut or Premiere Pro offers, but it is a good video editing software.   

-Now let us talk about the things the iPad nails. 

1.  Note-taking (as I already mentioned )

2.  For Organising or  planning  our day  in the calendar, things, or Agenda (this you can even do on your phone, but the iPad's bigger display makes it more continent) 

 3.  Entertainment hub., It's a great media consumption device. 

 4.  It is a fun device to use, maybe because of the size or maybe because of its intuitive  UI its a fun experience, not just with an iPad. That would be the case with any tablet.

-Finally, things I don’t like:-

When I say iPad can replace your Laptop, indeed I mean it. But the catch here is it can be a decent laptop (especially when you couple it with a keyboard case) not but not a very good Laptop. 

The main reason for this is that it seems as if Apple and other app developers are restricting us from taking full advantage of the iPads hardware. 

1.  We don't have many pro mac apps or Windows PC apps available on iPad like Final cut, X-code, or Vs-code. Even for those available like Lightroom or zoom, these are only the mobile versions of these desktop apps, don't get me wrong, Apps like Lightroom cc mobile are great apps, but they don't offer every feature in their mobile versions.

2.  When you connect a monitor and try to use  it as a desktop 

There are two disadvantages with this, 

•  -The 4:3  aspect ratio makes it annoying by creating blank bars on both sides. It is a  great bummer and a big turnoff from using this as a desktop computer.

• There's no sleep mode, which means we should be keeping the iPad on when using it with a monitor; this obstructs our view of the monitor.

By D.S.S.R.Anirudh

How to achieve our Goals ?

Most of us lead multi-faceted lives. We all have different goals, different ambitions, and long wish lists to fulfill. Most of the time, in our hurry to accomplish these humongous tasks, we end up focusing only on the outcome or the final result. In our obsession with the end goal, we might not pay the attention it deserves to the process or the means to achieve our goal; there could be instances where we might even want to omit few steps in the process or see the process as a barrier to our goals. However, such an approach is very counterintuitive and fundamentally flawed. Goals or accomplishments are natural by-products of an effective and adequately nurtured process. What makes all the difference between a successful person and an unsuccessful person is the process followed. It is easy to fall prey to this result-oriented mindset, but having a deep obsession with results will not bring success. "It is journey before the destination that takes us to the destination." 

If you plant a rose plant and want to get lovely, fresh, and colorful roses from it, constantly thinking and raving about the rose will not get you the flower. You have to plant seeds properly, check the soil's nutrient levels, use good fertilizers, water the plant regularly, and care for the plant daily to ensure that inspects are not eating it away. It is this process that is going to give a beautiful flower. Success is a natural product of an effective strategy. Sometimes there would be some external factors that decide success. However, as the name suggests, it is something external and beyond control, so even for that reason, we should be more concerned and focus on the process because that is entirely in our control. One of the things we end up forgetting is that success is momentary; the joy or happiness we will get out of success is momentary, which stays just for that moment or two. But our association with the process is a long one; we will spend more time in the process of achieving our goals. It makes more sense to make it a more fun-filled experience and find happiness in every part of the process than to postpone it for the final result, which is temporary and short-lived.   

-Written By D.S.S.R.Anirudh

How do I finalise my Podcast episodes ideas?

If you have a you-tube channel, podcast show, blog or weekly newsletter, you would be familiar with the struggle it takes to come up with a new idea every week. I am someone who suffers from the same problem and goes through the same battle. However, lately, it has become much easier for me to decide on an episode topic than it was earlier. All thanks to the simple process Matt D’Avella shared in his slow growth master you-tube course for new video ideas(by the way, if you are considering buying the course, go for it the next time it’s live). I’ll try to break down the whole process into five simple steps

1. Going through my Content pillars:- Content pillars are the sub-categories of the large and broad categories we decide to make our content on; for example, my content categories are self-development and philosophy. So, my content pillars are Books, Mindfulness, Productivity, Travel, Personal finance and Tech. The first thing I do is take a blank page and write down the content pillars.

2. Checking the answerthepublic.com:- The second step is to type my content pillars in answerthepublic.com to find out what exactly people are searching for and the issue they want to solve concerning our content pillars.

3. Rapid fire round:- Next step is where all the fun begins, after going through the results of the answerthepublic.com. I set a timer for 10mins and start writing every idea that strikes my head on the same sheet where I have written my content pillars.

4. Filter the bad options:- Once I am done with my 10mins rapid-fire session, I take a photo of the sheet to have all the ideas safely stored for future reference. After that, I strike out all those options, which I think are not a perfect fit.

5. Select the best one:-After filtering the ideas, I will select the best option from those topics depending upon my interest, the previous week’s episode, and my strong inclination towards any one of them. 

This 5 step process is helping me in coming up with new content ideas both for you-tube and podcasts and making content creation more fun.

-Written By D.S.S.R.Anirudh 

How to read more books in 2021?

Reading books is a hobby which can completely change our life. Once someone develops the habit of reading, it's impossible to separate him from his newfound joy. People read because it allows them to learn new things and increases their exposure. A simple turn of the page can make them friends with Sherlock Holmes or take them to the magical world of Hogwarts.

However, despite the sheer urge to read as many books as possible, many people fail to read or finish their wish-list because of the time it takes to read one book. For someone who has been into reading for quite some time now, this might not be a limiting factor because it would be effortless for them to get into the flow and finish the book in no time. Still, it might be Hercule's task to finish one book and jump into the next one for someone who has just gotten into reading. If you belong to the second category, then don't worry. We can fix that problem and increase our reading speed in this digital age very quickly. One of the pieces of advice I give to every reader is to get into digital reading.

E-books and audiobooks can change our reading environment and make reading more efficient. If you only like to read physical books, I get it; I understand from where it is coming. I have a small tip for you as well. One of the best ways to improve reading speed is to use a pointer while reading books; you can use your finger as a pointer and move your finger as fast as you want to read. Many other tips on the internet could help you read more books like skimming, Ali Abdaal made a whole video about this topic on his channel, and a simple google search could land you "n" number of tips. My focus mainly in this blog is for people who like or don't mind reading books digitally. As I said above, technology helps us in improving our reading speed. The best way to read books in today's day and age is audiobooks. If you are new to reading or someone who has a big-time crunch, then audiobooks are your thing. Audiobooks provide you with the same immersive experience without occupying any time on your calendar. You can just hit play and continue with your work while the book will be playing in the background. It is also very easy to finish audiobooks quickly.

      All you need to do is toggle the speed to your convenience 1.5x or 1.75x, whichever speed suits you. Now lets come to e-books, the pointer tip which I gave for physical books also works for e-books, and all other tips which work for physical books work for e-books as well like skimming (if you got the gist of what the author is saying, you skip those bits and move forward). There is another powerful tip when it comes to e-books if you are using kindle or the kindle app for reading books. Whenever you pause your reading session for some work, all you need to do is go to Alexa App on your phone(or the Alexa dot) and ask Alexa to read the book, and it will continue reading precisely from the place where you stopped. You continue with your work, and Alexa will be reading the book for you in the background. Later, when you are done with your chores, you can go to kindle and resume precisely from the place where Alexa stopped reading the book. This single tip helped in improving my reading speed and eventually in reading more books. I hope these tips will help you in your reading journey for reading more books.

-written by D.S.S.R.Anirudh