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The victim mindset

Received an email from a 21-year-old.
Well-to-do family.
But parents didn't allow her to venture out much.
She agreed.
She only studied.

Took science when she didn't want to.
Worked hard.
Got through a Canadian university.
Went for Comp Sc but changed majors to Business without informing her parents.
Now - she is scared of what will happen to her life.

Her email ended with, "I'll be fine because I always do. But the thing is, who do I blame?"

We exchanged a few emails, and I noticed that her pattern of wanting to blame her parents for her current state did not seem to end.
I asked her permission to share candidly what I felt, even though it might hurt.
She said she was okay with receiving the feedback.

Here is what I told her exactly (straight talk alert!):​
You have a victim mindset. ​
Which is to blame someone else for where you are. ​
Because it feels powerful at the moment. ​
It feels like you have done what you had to do, and only if something or someone else had done their bit, things would have been fine.

At 21 this is a very dangerous mindset to have. ​
It will never make you grow. ​
Never make you succeed.

You say you have tried to change yourself.
​But you really haven't, <her name>. ​
Because where you are right now is far more comfortable. ​
You have someone to blame. ​
You have an excuse for not winning in life. ​
You have an explanation.

But if you were to actually do it on your own and then fail, you would have no one to blame. ​
And that scares the shit out of you. ​
Because you know at that point, you will have nowhere to hide; nowhere to run to.

You are young. ​
You have a beautiful life in front of you. ​
Don't F it up.

Get up. ​
Get outside of your head. ​
And take responsibility for yourself.

You got this!

Vote for Make Epic Money

Make Epic Money has been nominated for book of the year by Crossword in the Business & Management category. It would mean the world to me if you feel it deserves to win and vote for it :)​

Book I am reading this week

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Still reading Behave: The bestselling exploration of why humans behave as they do by Robert Sapolsky. Quite intense, but frankly, I feel guilty if I want to drop it. After so many years, there is a book that I think I SHOULD read and I am finding it hard to read. Let's see how long the battle continues :))

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My 3rd book, Make Epic Money, has sold 1,31,000+ copies in India with a 4.4+ rating. You can buy it in Hindi, English, Marathi, Audio, and Kindle here.
The book has also been converted into a video course (in Hindi and English) - that you can check out here.
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Here is an alphabetical list of all books I have shared in this newsletter so far.

Question of the week

Tough question: Rate your parents on a scale of 1 to 10, on how good of a parent have they been (or were)?

• 1 being terrible parents
• 10 being wonderful parents

(and see the results of others, too)

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Results of last week's question

For most people, their birthday is okay-okay.
What is interesting is that the ones who find it extremely special reduce linearly with age and the ones who find it not special at all increase linearly with age.

​My response?​
Not so special; okay-okay :))

3-2-1
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3 pics from last week

Met with my favourite founders - Shobhit and Supriya from Josh Talks. Their Hindi channel recently hit 10M subscribers!
I am holding the platinum YouTube button in my hand (which is what you get on reaching 10M subscribers).
Look at the Gold and Silver play buttons behind us!

Vidur (our 13-year-old) ran his annual Diwali mela stall - and it was a hit again.
13K of profits in a single evening! He is thrilled :))

My brother-in-law, sister, Ruchi and I at a wedding last week. Rare are such family pictures, haha :)

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2 quotes I wish to share

If your fitness lifestyle doesn't allow you to eat whatever you want on special days or festivals - then it is not a lifestyle.
It is a cage!

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You are lucky if you have someone who tells you the truth, especially when it’s hard to hear.

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1 new thing I learnt this week

Our mind can't create new faces in dreams - everyone we see in our dreams is someone we've encountered in real life, even if just in passing.
Clearly, our minds are not GenAI :))
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🎙️ My top content from last week
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📹 YouTube:​ Money and relationships​

📱 Instagram: Your mistakes​

🐥 Twitter: Our son's yearly Diwali Mela Stall​

🎧 Podcast: Above 31​
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You can, of course, always write to me by simply replying to this newsletter.

I love reading all your emails, even though I may not be able to reply to them all.
Yes! I READ ALL MY EMAILS. ALL OF THEM.​
​(Patakhon ki awaaz aur pollution se nafrat lekin khushboo se pyaar ki kasam)

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