Issue 23 October 25th 2025 Enduring the uncomfortable middle where growth actually happens. ↓ Have you ever wondered what really makes you feel satisfied in the work you do? Lets say you are a data analyst. At what point do you consider that the dashboard you have created is a job well done? Not the satisfaction that you have completed a task that your manager has given to you, but the feeling of pride you get looking at the output you have created. Or if you are an architect, would you be...
17 days ago • 2 min read
Issue 22 October 18th 2025 The moment your skill feels effortless is when others start questioning your value ↓ I recently read an interesting story and a concept which I thought I would combine to one in this week’s reflection: The story: In 1998 the largest financial services firm in the world, Citigroup, came into existence with the merger of Goliaths of the industry Citicorp and Travellers Group, with a valuation of $140bn and assets under management of $700bn. Considering the scale of...
24 days ago • 4 min read
Issue 21 October 11th 2025 In a world optimised for visibility, the rarest thing left is something made for its own sake. ↓ I was in Prague last week and it was a trip I was longing to go for the past few months. I last visited the country in 2017 and it was one of my most memorable trip. It was my first solo trip and as a student who was determined to save every penny possible, I couchsurfed with 3 different hosts in the country. My travel mostly revolves around two things - Food & History....
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Issue 20 October 4th 2025 Rethinking how we measure progress in our careers ↓ The messaging app Arattai, developed by Zoho, is making the news recently for all the right reasons. The messaging app went from 3000 downloads per day to almost 350,000 per day over the last few weeks. The growth was so rapid that the app reached the top position in Apple’s App Store charts for the “Social Networking” category in India What caught my attention was not what caused the surge in traffic but how this...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Issue 19 September 27th 2025 How busyness became a status symbol — and why it’s burning us out ↓ In 2019, I started working in Mercedes Benz at their Headquarters in Stuttgart. Stuttgart is a city known for 3 companies - Mercedes Benz, Porsche & Bosch. The trio are the main employers in the Swabian region and working in one of these three companies is a Swabian’s dream. The city and its suburbs are dotted with offices of these three companies and it’s subsidiaries. During the first week of my...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Issue 18 September 20th 2025 Layoffs, AI, restructures — you can’t dodge them forever ↓ Imagine you are walking peacefully on the road and suddenly a car races towards you out of nowhere. You start running but realize you can never outpace the car. You see a fence nearby and decide to jump over it so you can be safe. But a few minutes later, the car appears on this side of the fence too and throttles towards you. With no other way, you start running again but not for long. The car catches up...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Issue 17 September 12th 2025 Why some careers collapse in layoffs and others take off. ↓ I’ve realized that over the last two weeks, my newsletter eerily depicted a gloomy picture of the corporate world and our relationship with it. But the fact remains. Many employees confuse their identity with their job title and struggle when that title is stripped away. The solution often starts with a shift in mindset. Because the reality is simple: there are two broad kinds of people in the corporate...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Issue 16 September 6th 2025 Climbing the Corporate ladder feels like progress, but at what cost? ↓ I recently came across the news of a Bengaluru man spotted near a traffic signal holding a handwritten note in English and Kannada that read: “I don’t have job, no house, please help me. I have 14 years working experience in banking.” This act in general is not new to me. In a world of LinkedIn “Easy Apply”, where candidates just press apply even without going through the entire job advert, the...
2 months ago • 3 min read
Issue 15 August 28th 2025 How over-identifying with your skillset makes you fragile in the age of AI. ↓ One of the biggest traps of modern work is mistaking a job title for an identity. Ask someone ‘Who are you?’ and most will answer with their job title. We do this because we want to make it easier for the other person to recognize the skills we bring, what we do, who we represent, and what could be common points of interests to discuss further. The job title is a mask that makes you...
2 months ago • 4 min read