This week, I was listening to a conversation with Michelle Obama, and she shared a moment that made me think.

She described the time her mother was close to the end of her life. And in that moment, her mother said, “This went by fast.”

Michelle asked, “What did?”

Her mother said, “Life.”

Even she felt it went by quickly after living an incredible life. And she said it with peace, not regret. That hit me deeply.

It made me want to pause. So I went through my photos over the years. And it put a real smile on my face.

Here’s what I noticed: around my birthday, I usually feel this immense pressure. The weight of getting older, of goals I haven’t reached, of time passing. There’s a quiet shame that comes with that.

But this time, something shifted. When I changed how I looked at things, I stopped measuring what I hadn’t done and started seeing everything I had actually lived. The moments that were never on any goal list. The things that happened anyway, and mattered.

And I smiled.

It might seem morbid to think about death. But thinking about death makes you think about life, really think about it.

A life that feels like it went by fast is a life worth living every single day.

So take time for gratitude. Spend your time with people who care about you, and who you care about.

Make your life worth living.

What I’m Reading

Grit — Angela Duckworth (Finishing)

This one really stays with you. It breaks down the idea that success isn’t just about talent; it’s about consistency, resilience, and showing up even when it’s hard. What I’ve been reflecting on most is how grit isn’t always loud.

Caste — Isabel Wilkerson (Starting)

Starting this next. It dives into the hidden structures that shape inequality across societies, beyond race or class alone. I’m curious to see how it reframes the way we think about systems, identity, and power, and what it reveals about the world we move through every day.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

How Melissa Built a Beauty Brand for the People the Industry Overlooked

Under the Hood

The Quiet Profit Machine: How Store Brands Are Reshaping Retail

On My Reading Desk

1. Shoe brand once worth $4B closes all stores, avoids bankruptcy

2. The secret to mastering AI is getting the division of labor right

3. When AI Vendors Fail: Lessons From The Sora Shutdown

4. Apple’s ‘Nice Guy’ Heir Apparent

Note to My Future Self

Look at the photos. Look at the moments that never made it onto any goal list, yet there they are. That is your life. And it is more than you gave yourself credit for.

That’s what you want. A life that moves. A life that, when you look back, makes you smile without even trying.

So on the days the pressure creeps in, come back to the photos. Come back to the people. Come back to the moments that weren’t planned but happened anyway.

Those moments are not detours. They are the life.

You are not behind. You are exactly where you are supposed to be.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

I finished The Next Day by Melinda French Gates last night, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.

The book touches on the end of marriage in two different stories. Once through death, and once through divorce. They’re not the same kind of loss; the pain is different, the aftermath is different, but in both, life continues. You move on. What stayed with me is how honestly she sits with that.

It got me thinking about my own culture. Divorce isn’t common where I come from (it’s becoming more accepted), slowly, but the older generation, especially, a lot of those marriages probably should have ended, but didn’t. Not because things were good, but because nobody wanted to put that on the family. I used to understand that reasoning. Now I’m not sure I agree with it. Staying in something that isn’t working isn’t protecting anyone, not the people in the marriage, not the people around it. I think choosing to leave, when that’s the right choice, takes its own kind of courage.

But honestly, what I kept coming back to wasn’t even about marriage specifically.

It’s this: you can’t lean too heavily on anyone. Not your husband, not your kids, not your friends. Not because they don’t matter, they do, but because people change. Everyone is, in some way, a passing cloud.

The only person who is always there is YOU.

So I keep coming back to this to find the quiet. Sit in it. Listen to yourself. What do you want? What are you feeling? What are you becoming? Because here’s the thing, even you change. You’re not the same person you were five years ago, and you won’t be the same person five years from now. So self-knowledge can’t be something you figure out once and set aside. It’s something you have to keep coming back to.

That’s what this week has been for me. A reminder to check back in with myself.

Methods to Find Yourself

I started thinking about what it actually means to check back in with yourself, as a practice. Something I can do regularly. Because the noise doesn’t stop on its own. The world doesn’t pause and say, take a moment, find yourself. You have to carve that out.

So here are the things I’m bringing into my life, as commitments.

Write

There is something that lives underneath your thoughts that you don’t know is there until you start writing. Journaling isn’t about documenting your day. It’s about excavating yourself. You put pen to paper, and things surface feelings you hadn’t named, patterns you hadn’t noticed, truths you’d been too busy to sit with. You don’t know what you actually think until you write it down.

Try it. You’ll surprise yourself.

Meditate

Meditation is another way to listen to yourself. Or maybe more accurately, a way to stay still. We are so used to moving, filling, doing. Meditation is the practice of stopping and just stopping the running. That capacity to just be to sit inside the quiet without immediately reaching for a distraction, is rarer than it sounds.

Read

Reading is solitude that doesn’t feel lonely. A good book pulls you out of the noise of your own life and somehow, in doing that, helps you see it more clearly. It slows things down. And right now, slowing down is exactly the point. It has transformed me.

Walk Without Distractions

Just walk out into nature. There is something about moving through the world in silence that shakes things loose. Some of the most honest conversations you will ever have are the ones you have with yourself on a quiet walk.

Sit in the Quiet

This one is the simplest and somehow the hardest. Just sit in the quiet. We have trained ourselves to fill every gap, to reach for something the moment stillness arrives. But the quiet is where you hear yourself. Really hear yourself. What you want. What you’re carrying. What you’ve been avoiding. It’s all in there.

What I’m Reading

The Next Day— Melinda French Gates(Finished)

I recommend this book; it’s an easy read. Personally, I found it enlightening to see how someone like her can embrace change and go through it so publicly. She has written about her experiences beautifully.

Everything Is Tuberculosis— John Green (Currently reading)

This book explores the history and global impact of tuberculosis (TB). The book explains how TB has shaped societies, medicine, and public health, while also highlighting the inequalities that affect who gets treated and who doesn’t. Excited to dive in.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

How Priya Built Punar with Purpose — and Took It to the Oscars

How to Turn Strategy Into Action, Natalie Trotta on Building a Consulting Career

Under the Hood

The Art of the Brand Collab: Why Some Partnerships Work and Others Blow Up

On My Reading Desk

1. Every AI gives you the same answer—that should worry you

2. How Apple became Apple: The definitive oral history of the company’s earliest days

3. AI is creating the first generation of cognitively outsourced humans

4. How This Founder Grew Her Brand’s TikTok Shop Revenue 10x in Just 1 Year

Note to My Future Self

No matter what happens, no matter what ends, what changes, what catches you off guard, you have to move forward. That part isn’t a choice. But whether you move forward knowing yourself, whether you stay connected to who you are along the way, that part is entirely up to you.

I’d rather move forward with myself than leave myself behind in the process.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

This week, one question kept sitting with me:

how much discipline and consistency is actually normal?

It started with a post I came across online. Someone had written that sticking to a routine at every moment is neurotic. And honestly? A younger version of me would have agreed.

There was a time when I saw structure as a kind of rigidity. Something that got in the way of being spontaneous, or flexible, or just easy to be around. So when the late night came around, I’d stay. When someone needed me to show up somewhere I hadn’t planned for, I’d rearrange. When the choice was between my early morning and someone else’s comfort, I usually chose theirs.

Each compromise felt small. Collectively, they added up to something I didn’t have a name for at the time. Now I do:

I was consistently putting myself last and calling it being easygoing.

Protecting My Habits

The habits were always there. Protecting them was the hard part.

Waking up early. Sleeping early. Eating well. Moving my body. Simple things, but they require guarding. And guarding them comes at a social cost.

Being disciplined means being the person who says, “I can’t make it, I have to be up early for my workout.” It means declining invitations. Being unavailable. Sometimes being misunderstood. And when you’re younger, that friction feels too expensive.

So you give in. You show up to things you hadn’t planned for. You skip the workout to prove you’re not rigid. You break the sleep schedule so no one thinks you’re antisocial. And each time, it feels like a small sacrifice for the sake of the relationship, not a pattern.

But it is a pattern.

If I can show up for other people without question — rearrange my day, lose sleep, push through why can’t I show up for myself with that same reliability?

We extend enormous grace to others. We honor their time, their events, their needs. We rarely question it. But the commitments we make to ourselves? Those are the first ones to go.

That asymmetry stopped making sense to me. And once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.

Skipping an event to stick to your routine is not antisocial. It’s self-respect.

I don’t mean this as an excuse to be rigid or unavailable. I mean it literally: keeping a promise to yourself is an act of respect toward yourself.

People who don’t have structure often find it threatening in others. Not maliciously, but your consistency holds up a mirror they weren’t ready to look into.

You don’t owe anyone an explanation for going to sleep early. You don’t need to justify prioritizing your health. And you don’t need to frame your own self-care as an inconvenience and then apologize for it.

What I’m Reading

10% Happier - Dan Harris(Currently Reading)

The book follows journalist Dan Harris after a live-TV panic attack prompts him to explore meditation and mindfulness. He shows that training your attention helps quiet the constant chatter in your mind, making you calmer and slightly happier about “10% happier.

This American Woman - Zarna Garg (Currently Reading)

The memoir is a sharp, funny, and deeply personal reflection on identity, resilience, and what it means to claim your own voice in a country where you’re constantly told who you’re supposed to be.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

How Shai, One of the Youngest U.S. Diplomats, Became a Startup Founder

Under the Hood

You Don’t Need VC Money. You Might Need VC Money. Here’s the Truth.

On My Reading Desk

1. Forget KPIs: Vibes, community, and culture are how to build a brand in 2026

2. Adobe CEO to Step Down as Company Faces Intensifying AI Battle

3. Create & Cultivate Founder Jaclyn Johnson Opens Up About the Hidden Costs of Scaling Too Fast

4. Replit CEO Says Its New AI Agent Can Vibe Code a Startup From Scratch

Note to My Future Self

Discipline is not the enemy of freedom. It is the structure that makes freedom possible.

And the next time someone implies your consistency is excessive — pause and ask yourself: who does agreeing with them actually serve?

You showing up for yourself is not neurotic. It never was.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

Thanks for reading this week’s debrief. If this resonated, share it with someone who needs the reminder

This week, a question has been sitting with me, the way a pebble in a shoe makes itself known on a long walk. How much of who I am today is actually me?

We are born, arguably, the most ourselves we will ever be. Unfiltered. Unapologetic. Loud when hungry, soft when held. And then slowly, gently, relentlessly, the world begins its work on us.

It starts with parents. The first mirrors we are ever handed. Their fears become our caution. Their love languages become our emotional vocabulary. Their silences teach us what is too heavy to name. We absorb so much before we even have words for what we’re absorbing.

Then come friends, the ones who laugh at your jokes and teach you which version of yourself is worth performing. Partners who soften certain edges and sharpen others. Children who demand a kind of selflessness that quietly, permanently rewrites you. Each relationship is a new layer. Each layer is a small departure from whoever you were before.

How much of who we are today is us and how much is the accumulated sediment of everyone who has ever loved us, needed us, or shaped us?

The Archaeology of Self

Think of identity like layers of sediment. Each year, each relationship, each role we take on, parent, partner, daughter, colleague, deposits something new. And here’s what unsettles me: the original rock, the bedrock self, becomes harder and harder to reach.

The influences arrive uninvited and often unnamed.

Parents. Friends. Partners. Children. Workplaces. Culture. Time. Grief.

None of these are villains. This is not a story about damage. It is a story about permeability, the fact that we are, by nature, porous creatures. We seep into each other. We take on the colours of the rooms we spend the most time in.

Is the Chipping a Loss or a Becoming?

Part of me mourns it. The girl who had opinions before she had an audience. The version of me that hadn’t yet learned to edit herself before speaking. There’s something in that unguarded self that feels like the truest version, or at least the most original one.

But another part of me wonders if the chipping is the point. A sculptor doesn’t ruin a block of marble by chipping at it; they reveal something. Maybe the people in our lives are doing the same. Not taking from us, but uncovering us. Even when it hurts.

Perhaps we don’t disappear into the people we love. Perhaps we expand into them and lose track of where we end.

Still. There is value in the audit. In pausing long enough to ask:

Which parts of me feel chosen? Which parts feel inherited? Which parts would I keep, if I were starting from scratch?

Identity isn’t a fixed object to protect. But it isn’t nothing, either. Somewhere between the self we were born as and the self that’s been shaped by decades of love and loss and compromise, there is a thread. A continuous note running through all the versions.

This week, I’m just trying to listen for it.

What I’m Reading

Mattering- Jennifer Breheny Wallace (Finished)

Mattering examines how the need to feel significant shapes our ambition, relationships, and identity, and why true confidence comes from knowing we matter beyond achievement.

10% Happier - (Currently Reading

The book follows journalist Dan Harris after a live TV panic attack leads him to explore meditation and mindfulness. He shows that training your attention helps quiet the constant chatter in your mind, making you calmer and slightly happier about “10% happier.

What Else Dropped This Week

Under the Hood

How to Think About Funding Your Business: A Founder’s Guide

Skin Deep

The Beginner’s Guide to Moisturizing: Everything You Need to Know to Start Your Skincare Journey

On My Reading Desk

1. The Estée Lauder Companies and Forest Essentials to Enter a New Chapter in Their Long-Term Partnership

2. Brands Are Ditching Purpose. Rare Beauty Is Doubling Down—and Winning

3. This CEO explains what’s really behind layoffs—and it’s not AI

4. Jamie Dimon Says These ‘Dumb Things’ in Our Current Economy Could Point to Another Financial Crisis

Note to My Future Self

There will always be people who come into your life, and there will always be reasons they do.

Let them in. Let them change you in the ways that matter.

But hold on, quietly and firmly, to the part of you that existed before any of them arrived. The part that is not a reflection of someone else's needs, not a response to someone else's presence.

The part that is just “YOU”. That part is worth protecting.

Don't let it get so buried under layers of love and adaptation that you forget it's still there. It is. It always has been. Keep it close.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

There’s a phrase we’ve all heard at some point: live like today is your last day. It sounds motivating on the surface, but when you really sit with it, it falls apart. If today were truly your last day, most of us wouldn’t be doing much of anything productive. We’d be in a panic, calling people we’ve lost touch with, abandoning every responsibility, and probably eating a ridiculous amount of dessert. That’s not living, that’s reacting.

This week has been a reminder of a different kind of philosophy. Not everything-on-fire urgency of “last day” thinking, but something more grounded and more powerful: do what you can today, because you don’t know what tomorrow holds.

The Procrastination Trap

Let’s be honest, procrastination is one of the easiest habits to fall into, and one of the hardest to shake. There’s always a reason to wait. You’re tired. You’re not in the mood. The task will still be there tomorrow. And sometimes, that’s true. But sometimes, tomorrow looks nothing like you expected.

You might wake up with the flu. A family emergency might call you away. Life has a way of rearranging your carefully laid plans without asking for permission. The small things you kept pushing, the email you meant to send, the conversation you kept putting off, the trip you said you’d book “soon”, they pile up quietly until they become regrets.

This isn’t about catastrophizing. It’s about a simple truth: the most certain time you have is now.

A Better Framework: The Five-Year Window

Instead of the anxiety-inducing “last day” mindset, try this: imagine you have five more years, and picture everything you want to have done, seen, and felt within that window.

Five years is long enough to be realistic. It’s not a countdown to disaster; it’s a planning horizon that forces clarity. When you think in five-year terms, the travel you keep postponing stops being a vague “someday” dream and starts being a decision. The time you want to spend with family and friends becomes a priority you can actually schedule. The work you keep pushing gets assessed honestly. Is it worth your time, or has it been weighing on you for reasons you’ve been avoiding?

That timeline helps you see life in a much sharper sense. The five-year lens also turns abstract desires into real questions you have to answer.

If you’ve been thinking about quitting your job, would you still be there in five years, or would you have finally made the move? If you want to go skydiving, what exactly are you waiting for? If there’s something you’ve wanted to say to someone, what are the chances the moment will be more convenient later?

These aren’t questions designed to create pressure. They’re questions designed to create honesty.

What I’m Reading

Raising Brows - Anastasia Soare (Finished)

The story of how Anastasia Soare arrived in the U.S. without speaking English and built a billion-dollar global beauty empire by mastering a single, overlooked detail. This is a book of inspiration.

Mattering- Jennifer Breheny Wallace (Currently Reading)

Mattering examines how the need to feel significant shapes our ambition, relationships, and identity, and why true confidence comes from knowing we matter beyond achievement.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

Why Deepa Walked Away From Corporate to Build Her Own Brands

Under the Hood

The Sephora Paradox: One Brand Sold for Millions. The Other Just Shut Down. Both Were in 600 Stores.

Skin Deep

The Beginner’s Guide to Moisturizing: Everything You Need to Know to Start Your Skincare Journey

On My Reading Desk

1. They were about to shut down their business. Then a raw TikTok changed everything.

2. Update is Skims, you can drink

3. Reese Witherspoon Has Some Surprising Career Advice: Stop Chasing Your Dreams — And Do This Instead

4. Science Says Rich People Aren’t Inherently Smarter. Mark Cuban Agrees

Note to My Future Self

Enjoy what you can today. Do the things you’re capable of doing now. Say the things you mean to say. Take the steps you’ve been circling.

Not because the world is ending. Not because you should live in a state of urgency or fear. But because the present is the only moment where action is actually possible. The future is where we store our intentions. Today is where we act on them.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

I recently listened to a podcast where the speakers talked about drawing their self-esteem from work and parenthood. It got me thinking — where does mine come from?

Growing up, it came almost entirely from academics. I remember tying even something as small as wearing makeup to how well I studied. The logic was simple: if you performed well, no one could judge you for anything else — what you wore, how you behaved, who you were. Beyond that, my parents played a huge role. They consistently made me feel like I was no less than anyone, and I think that gave me a quiet, steady confidence I carried into adulthood.

But now, in my 30s, that definition has shifted. Especially as I watch people around me lose jobs, question their identities, and rebuild from scratch.

In my early 20s, I tied my self-worth to money and education — not wealth in the deeper sense, but the more surface-level markers of success. And I don’t think I was alone in that. It’s precisely why a sudden job loss or a major life change can shake someone to their core — because they’ve anchored their worth to something that was never fully in their control.

Which brings me to the definition itself. Self-esteem: a confidence and satisfaction in oneself. In oneself. So if it’s fundamentally about how we see ourselves, why do we keep handing that power to the outside world?

That little girl who equated her grades with her worth was chasing external validation — looking for permission to feel good about herself. But the grades were never fully in her control. Teachers, circumstances, bad days — those things all play a role. What was always in her control was the effort, the curiosity, the showing up. That’s where the worth should have lived.

And that’s the shift I’ve come to believe in: our self-esteem has to be rooted in things we actually control. When we tie it to people, or to roles that could disappear overnight, we’re always one change away from a crisis of identity.

Take parenting. I can be proud of the effort I put into being a mother — the thought, the patience, the love I show up with every day. But my self-worth as a parent can’t depend on my son’s verdict. If he tells me someday that I wasn’t a good mom, that’s his experience — and I can hold space for that. But it doesn’t change what I know to be true about myself. I know the mother I am.

That distinction — between effort and outcome, between internal knowing and external approval — took me a long time to really internalize. But once it clicks, something changes. No person, no job loss, no outside shift can truly touch your sense of worth, because it’s no longer in their hands.

And honestly? I have my parents and my husband to thank for laying the foundation. They reflected something back to me so consistently that it eventually became mine — so solid that even if they said otherwise tomorrow, it wouldn’t move me. They built something they can no longer take apart.

They created the monster.

Practically Speaking: How to Build Self-Esteem From the Inside

One of the most powerful habits is effort journaling — writing down what you did, not what you achieved. It trains your brain to find value in the process over the outcome. It’s also worth asking, whose voice is my inner critic? More often than not, it belongs to someone else — a parent, a teacher, a peer. Separating their opinion from your truth is quietly liberating.

Social media is worth naming too — it’s essentially a machine designed to make you outsource your self-worth. And then there’s “role collapse” — that moment when someone loses a job and says, “I don’t know who I am anymore.” That’s a sign they were in the role. The antidote is asking yourself, before life forces the question — Who am I outside of what I do?

And on parenting, children don’t learn self-esteem from being told they’re worthy. They absorb it by watching a parent who actually believes it about themselves. This inner work isn’t selfish. It’s generational.

How Do You Know Where Your Self-Esteem Actually Stands?

Most of us have never stopped to audit this honestly. A few ways to find out:

Notice what consistently shakes you. That pattern usually points directly to where your worth is anchored. Ask yourself where your good mood about yourself comes from today. If the answer is almost always external, that’s worth sitting with.

Pay attention to your automatic self-talk — not the curated inner voice, but the reflexive one. And try the subtraction exercise: remove your job, income, relationships, and achievements one by one. What’s left that you still feel good about? Whatever survives is your real foundation.

And finally, what would you still be proud of about yourself if no one ever found out? Whatever comes up is probably where your real self-esteem lives.

What I’m Reading

Grit — Angela Duckworth (Currently reading)

A quieter, deeper read about perseverance, effort, and what it actually takes to stay in something long enough for it to matter.

Raising Brows - Anastasia Soare (Currently Reading)

Raising Brows tells the story of how Anastasia Soare transformed a single, overlooked beauty detail into a global empire by mastering her craft, leveraging precision and education, and turning expertise into authority.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

How Mayssa Chehata Built Behave Through Life’s Hardest Season

Why Deepa Walked Away From Corporate to Build Her Own Brands

Under the Hood

Disney: The House That Bob Built (Twice)

The Baby Food Gamble: How Two Moms Built a $845 Million Company From Scratch

Skin Deep

How Your Skin Changes as You Age

On My Reading Desk

1. Microsoft AI chief gives it 18 months—for all white-collar work to be automated by AI

2. AI’s biggest problem isn’t intelligence. Its implementation

3. How emotional intelligence can help us overcome imposter syndrome

4. 6 in 10 People Regret Their Careers — and This Legendary Investor Spent a Decade Finding the Fix

5. My Business Did $1 Million in Sales in 4 Minutes With This Underrated Strategy

Note to My Future Self

The little girl who earned her worth through grades grew into a woman who knows better. My value was never in the result. It was always in the showing up.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

The Grammys happened this week. They happen every year, but this year felt different. This year, Bad Bunny’s story cut through the noise.

Ten years ago, he was bagging groceries. Last Sunday, he was holding a Grammy.

Ten years.

I needed that reminder more than I realized. I’ve been consumed lately—consumed by my timeline, my milestones, my metrics. Obsessed with where I should be versus where I am. Calculating the gap, feeling its weight, letting it dictate my days.

But Bad Bunny’s decade is a different kind of math. It’s a reminder that your life has its own plans, operating on a timeline that doesn’t care about your quarterly reviews or your five-year projections. The trajectory isn’t yours to control.

The only things you actually control? Your effort today. Your presence right now.

That’s it. That’s the whole list.

The Problem with Time

Here’s what I’ve been getting wrong: I’ve been measuring transformation with a stopwatch when I need a calendar—checking for fruit when I should be tending roots.

The past is gone. There’s no point living there, replaying the mistakes, tallying the regrets. Learn from it, extract the lesson, and move on. It’s a fixed dataset, useful for pattern recognition, useless for anything else.

The future is equally out of reach. You can worry about what’s coming, plan for it, or obsess over it. But worrying is just suffering twice. The future is a probability cloud you can influence but never command.

What remains is today. This week. This hour. The present is the only point where force can actually be applied.

So the strategy becomes simple:

Show up. Do the work. Be present. Let it compound.

Maybe it takes a year. Maybe it takes ten. You never know, so you keep showing up.

The Japanese Methods

I’ve been trying to practice two Japanese concepts lately: Kaizen and Ikigai.

Kaizen: The 1% Rule

Kaizen means “continuous improvement” in Japanese. It’s the philosophy that small, daily improvements compound into massive change over time.

The core idea: Don’t try to transform overnight. Just get 1% better today than you were yesterday.

In practice:

• Don’t aim to write a book—write one paragraph today

• Don’t overhaul your fitness—add one pushup to yesterday’s count

• Don’t reinvent your career—learn one new skill this week

Kaizen rejects the dramatic transformation narrative. Instead, it trusts that tiny, consistent improvements stack invisibly until one day you turn around and realize you’ve climbed a mountain.

The question Kaizen asks: “What can I improve by 1% today?”

Ikigai: Your Reason for Being

Ikigai is the intersection of four questions:

1. What do you love?

2. What are you good at?

3. What does the world need?

4. What can you be paid for?

Where all four overlap—that’s your ikigai. Your reason for getting out of bed.

Why it matters: You can Kaizen yourself up the wrong mountain very efficiently. You can improve 1% daily at something you hate, something the world doesn’t need, or something that slowly kills your soul.

Ikigai is your compass. It ensures your daily improvements are pointing you toward a life worth living, not just a life that looks productive.

The question Ikigai asks: “Am I climbing the right mountain?”

What I’m Reading

Crushing It! — Gary Vaynerchuk(Finished)

I recommend this if you’re building something on the side and need a reminder to keep going. The most valuable part isn’t the tactics—it’s the stories. Real people who kept showing up, long before it looked impressive.

Grit — Angela Duckworth (Currently reading)

A quieter, deeper read about perseverance, effort, and what it actually takes to stay in something long enough for it to matter.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

Jessica Williams of Shopify on How Culture, Community & Psychology Shape the Brands We Trust

Aparna Piramal on Ambition, Mental Health & Crafting a Life That Fits

Under the Hood

The Rise and Fall of Sprinkles: What Brand Builders Must Learn from a 20-Year Journey

The $16 Salad Problem: What Sweetgreen’s Rise and Fall Teaches Us About Building a Real Business

Skin Deep

Serums, Essences, Toners, and the Rise of Multitasking Treatments: What Actually Goes on Your Face (And In What Order)

On My Reading Desk

1. 7 Game-Changing Business Lessons Every Entrepreneur Can Learn From the Super Bowl

2. Starbucks’s CEO announced a huge change to win back customers

3. Bob Iger just left his Disney successor a disaster in the making

4. The hidden risk of building a leadership team with people you know

5. Your Customers Are Constantly Sending You Vital Signs on the Health of Your Business. Are You Listening?

Note to My Future Self

The hardest part isn’t the philosophy. It’s the surrender.

What I’m asking of myself—what Bad Bunny’s story is asking—is to give up the comforting fiction that I can control outcomes through planning. To choose faith in process over certainty of result.

That’s genuinely difficult, especially when the culture worships measurable progress and quarterly returns. When everyone around you is optimizing, projecting, and forecasting.

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe the people who compound into something meaningful are the ones who can trust the process enough to stop checking the score every five minutes.

Who can make showing up today enough, even when they can’t see tomorrow’s results?

That’s the game. That’s the whole practice.

Your past is gone. Your future is unknowable. Your present is waiting.

So keep showing up.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

New Debrief is out every Friday

We talk about home like it’s a fixed point on a map. But for those of us who’ve moved countries, home stops being a location and becomes a question you carry everywhere.

I’ve lived least in the place that claims me on paper—India. The country that shapes how others see me, that lives in my accent and my family’s stories. It’s my origin, but not my daily life. And everywhere else, no matter how long I stay, I remain slightly translated. Always explaining. Always code-switching. Always aware of the invisible border I crossed to get there.

This is the paradox of living between countries: you belong everywhere and nowhere simultaneously.

Maybe the real answer is this: for people straddling multiple worlds, home stops being external and becomes something you carry inside yourself.

It’s the accumulation of all the places you’ve been. The person is shaped by constant negotiation between cultures—the ability to feel multiple belongings without any single one being complete.

That in-between space, that permanent state of cultural translation, becomes its own kind of home. Not because it’s comfortable, but because it’s authentically yours.

What You Gain in the Displacement

There’s something you develop in this homelessness: perspective.

You see how arbitrary borders are. How do national identities come to be? How similar people’s fundamental hopes and fears are across geographies. You learn to read rooms that others can’t even see—the unspoken rules, the cultural currents, the thousand small adjustments that turn foreign into familiar.

You become fluent in adaptation. Not just moving between worlds, but translating entire ways of being. Knowing when to code-switch, when to explain, and when to stay quiet and observe. You develop a kind of social intelligence that people who’ve never had to learn it don’t even know exists.

This is your superpower: the ability to belong partially everywhere, to bridge gaps others don’t notice, to make people from different worlds feel understood.

What I’m Reading

The Mindset - Carol Dweck (Still Reading)

This book explores how our beliefs about ability shape the way we learn, grow, and respond to setbacks. It’s less about motivation and more about awareness, noticing when we see effort as failure instead of progress. Reading it right now feels grounding. A reminder that growth isn’t about proving yourself, but staying open to learning as you go.

Crushing It! — Gary Vaynerchuk(Currently reading)

I’m genuinely enjoying this one. It’s all about execution. No fluff, no over-intellectualizing. Gary calls out your BS in a way that’s grounding, not performative. A reminder that clarity comes after action — and that most progress is just doing the work consistently, even when it’s uncomfortable.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

Farah Meghji on Building Change Inside Healthcare—and Learning to Advocate for Yourself

How Kaylee Lieffers Built Blanka and Learned to Scale Intentionally

Under the Hood

Coach’s Comeback: How an American Heritage Brand Became Cool Again

Skin Deep

Serums, Essences, Toners, and the Rise of Multitasking Treatments: What Actually Goes on Your Face (And In What Order)

On My Reading Desk

1. We’re in a Golden Age of Founders Taking Back Control of Their Companies

2. Inside MrBeast’s biggest mistake

3. How Amazon’s Big Box Store Plans Will Hit Local Businesses

4. I Hid Behind My Brand for a Decade. Here’s How I Unlocked Real Growth When I Became the Face of It.

5. 6 Daily Rituals to Help You Stay Human in an AI-Driven World

Note to My Future Self

You don’t need to belong to one place to belong.

Your belonging isn’t broken because it’s scattered across continents, held in different languages, split between versions of yourself.

Nothing is wrong because you can’t point to a single map and say “there.”

Home isn’t something you lost.

It’s something you’re building quietly, across borders, among the people who see all of you.

Let go of the belonging you think you’re supposed to have.

Trust the one you’re creating.

You are enough.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

New Debrief is out every Friday

We start the year with anxiety. A new year feels like both a reset and pressure; you begin tallying everything that came before. All your yearly goals start piling up: “In 5 years I wanted this... in 10 years I wanted this...”

The truth is, it’s just another day. But because it feels like everyone is going through this change together, it becomes amplified. Comparison breeds more anxiety, and the focus turns inward in an unhealthy way.

Let’s take that away. This isn’t about anyone else but YOU.

Ask yourself these fundamental questions:

• What made you happy last year?

• What made you unhappy last year?

• What would you like to change?

Answer in the most basic way, not in sections like career, work, or health. Just basic, honest answers. That will give you simple insight. You can dig deeper later, but this is a great start.

CARE FRAMEWORK

Now, I use a framework that has helped me get clear on how to achieve each goal.

Don’t overcomplicate it. Just write down your main goals and use the CARE framework to get them done.

CARE stands for:

• Clarity

• Alignment

• Reduce entry cost

• Evidence

Example: “I want to read more”, using the CARE framework

Clarity
Decide once, not daily.
“At 9 PM, I will read one page before I plug my phone in.”

Alignment
Choose a time that fits your real life.
If nights are chaotic, move it to the moment you’re least pulled—morning coffee, lunch break, or bed.

Reduce the entry cost
One page is the goal.
Opening the book counts. Starting is the habit.

Evidence
Don’t track streaks. Track returns.
Proof looks like: “I came back after missing a day.”

That’s it.
Small. Specific. Sustainable.

Consistency isn’t about pressure.
It’s about creating something you can return to.

The Moment You Stop Forcing It

I recently read an article on Taoism that shared a story about French artist Fabienne Verdier, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it.

She spent ten years in China in the 1980s studying calligraphy. In her book Passenger of Silence, she describes her master’s teaching style: repetitive, ascetic, almost brutal. The same strokes, over and over, for months—sometimes years—with progress deliberately withheld.

At one point, she collapses. She admits she can’t go on. She doesn’t know where she is, where she’s going, or who she is anymore. She can’t even tell the difference between “me” and “nothing.”

And instead of reassuring her, her master responds with joy:

Good… even better… bravo.

Because to him, that breakdown wasn’t a failure. It was the threshold.

The moment her certainty, her ego, her need to “get it right” finally fell away.

The lesson wasn’t “push harder.” It was that scarcity and constraint can be teachers—that real learning, and real endurance, often begin when you stop trying to control the outcome and let the process change you.

What I’m Reading

The 5 Types of Wealth — Sahil Bloom

This is the first book I finished this year, and it was the right place to start. It challenges the version of wealth we’re taught to chase and asks us to look more honestly at what actually matters. Too often, we follow a definition that isn’t ours, only to realize it too late. This book helps you pause and question that before you commit your life to the wrong pursuit. Highly Recommend It!

The Mindset - Carol Dweck (Currently Reading)

This book explores how our beliefs about ability shape the way we learn, grow, and respond to setbacks. It’s less about motivation and more about awareness, noticing when we see effort as failure instead of progress. Reading it right now feels grounding. A reminder that growth isn’t about proving yourself, but staying open to learning as you go.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

Why Most Goals Fail — And the Framework I Use Instead

Under the Hood

Shop-in-Shop: How Starbucks, Sephora, and Ulta Make Billions Inside Other Stores

Skin Deep

Start Fresh: A No-Stress Guide to Building a Skincare Routine That Actually Works

On My Reading Desk

1. How the ‘Rule of 3’ framework simplifies tough decisions

2. This AI Startup Just Landed a Deal That Could Transform Newsrooms

3. 5 Steps Founders Can Take to Protect Their Businesses During a Major Tech Outage

4. Amazon And Google Are Fudging With Agentic Shopping Already—Hold On to Your Wallet

5. This Husband-Wife Duo Started Their Business As a ‘Massive Gamble’ in Their Garage. Now They Run a Bestselling Brand on Amazon.

Note to My Future Self

You don’t need to arrive this year.

You just need to stay at work.

Let go of the timelines you inherited.

The pressure to know.

The urge to prove you’re “on track.”

Nothing is wrong because it feels small or uncertain.

This is how trust is built — quietly, through return.

Choose what fits your life, not what looks impressive.

Decide gently. Begin honestly. Come back when you drift.

That’s enough.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

New Debrief is out every Friday

This week, I’ve been thinking about how we perceive ourselves and what we truly want from the one life we have.

Steve Jobs once asked:

“If today were the last day of your life, would you want to do what you are about to do today?”

It’s a confronting question. Especially when you pause long enough to really hear it.

The last few months, after some health setbacks, I was forced into that pause. And what came up wasn’t fear, it was clarity. A realization of how much of our identity we quietly outsource to our roles, our titles, our relationships, our work.

Founder. Partner.Father. Mother. Leader.Daugther.Son

Useful. Needed. Productive.

But underneath all of that—who are we?

My conversation with Cici brought this home for me. She said something simple but powerful:

Supernova is only the beginning. It doesn’t define her.

That stayed with me.

Because we come into this world alone, and we leave it alone.

Everything in between, the work, the labels, the applause, is temporary.

And yet we spend so much time building lives that look good from the outside, without always asking whether they feel true on the inside.

We often tie who we are to what we do or to the people around us. But what happens if the job disappears? If the company gets acquired? If we’re laid off? If our kids leave for college? If the thing we built no longer needs us in the same way?

What would still matter to you?

Legacy isn’t what you achieve. It’s how you move through the world. How you treat people.How present you are in the moments that don’t come back.

As Maya Angelou said:

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

So maybe the real work isn’t doing more.

Maybe it’s remembering who we are without all the noise.

Choosing a life that feels aligned is not just impressive.

Choosing connection over constant proving.

Choosing meaning, even when no one is watching.

Because in the end, we walk our path alone.

And the only question that really matters is:

Did this life feel like mine?

What I’m Reading

Manifest — Roxie Nafousi

A book I’d recommend reading as the new year begins. It feels like an invitation to release the past, get clear on what you want from the future, and understand how much the way we think shapes what we create.

Traction — Gino Wickman (still reading)

This book was recommended to me by a mentor when I told him I wanted to start my brand. It’s a practical, no-frills framework for building companies that actually run well — especially when growth starts to outpace your systems.

The 5 Types of Wealth — Sahil Bloom (still reading)

I’ve been following Sahil Bloom for a while and genuinely admire his work. This book, being a New York Times bestseller, only adds to the intrigue, and I’m excited to dive in. It feels like the right mindset reset to go into the new year with intention.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

From Scotland to Sephora: How Cici Turned Insecurity Into Her Superpower

→ Cici Stefanova

Under the Hood

The Power of Cultural Disruptors: Why Being the First in the Room Creates Entire Markets

→The Power of Cultural Disrupters

On My Reading Desk

1. In the gen AI economy, consumers want innovation they can trust

2. A window into consumer behaviors

3. Inside the rise of brand romance, where celebrity love stories double as business deals

4. From Pop Star to Fashion Icon: How Victoria Beckham’s Success Story Offers Lessons for Celebrity Ventures

5. TikTok Shop is driving social commerce growth

6. The Dark Side of Big Goals

Note to My Future Self

Don’t confuse who you are with what you do.

Don’t build a life that looks good but feels empty.

Choose presence over performance.

Choose alignment over applause.

You come alone.

You go alone.

Make sure the life in between feels like yours.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

New Debrief is out every Friday

This week’s debrief is a reflection on something I’ve been sitting with for a while now: what it really means to start from the bottom.

Between my conversation with Charlotte and finishing The Ride of a Lifetime, I couldn’t ignore the parallel that kept surfacing. Their paths look completely different on the outside — different industries, different timelines, different circumstances — but at the core, they shared the same beginning. They both started from scratch.

No shortcuts. No guaranteed outcomes. No audience in the early days.

And yet, when we talk about success, we seldom talk about that part.

We tend to encounter people only after the years of quiet effort have already compounded. We see the results, not the process. The wins, not the work. The visibility, not the invisible seasons that came before it. The lonely days, the self-doubt, the failures, the moments where quitting felt easier than continuing, those rarely make it into the highlight reel.

Somewhere along the way, we start assuming that the people we admire didn’t struggle the way we are struggling now.

But that assumption is almost always wrong.

What Starting From the Bottom Actually Looks Like

If there’s one thing this week reinforced for me, it’s this:

Every person you admire once stood exactly where you are — unsure, unproven, and unseen.

So instead of idolizing the outcome, I’ve been thinking differently:

• Pick the person you truly admire and ask why.

• Study their story.

• What did they do when no one was watching?

• Why did they make the choices they made?

• What values did they refuse to compromise?

Then take what resonates, adapt it to your own life, and keep going.

Not to copy them but to understand the work behind the success.

Because the truth is: Everyone’s journey is different.

You can’t control the timeline.

You can’t control the outcome.

But you can control your effort.

And that’s where real progress lives.

For the first time in my life, I feel like I’ve learned how to separate my work from its outcome, and that shift has been unexpectedly liberating.

I’m doing the work because it matters to me, not because I’m chasing a specific result.

And somehow, that makes the work better.

What I’m Reading

The Ride of a Lifetime — Bob Iger

This book gave me chills — not because of the scale of what Bob Iger built, but because of how he built it. Again and again. It’s a masterclass in creating history without losing your humanity.

Traction — Gino Wickman (starting)

This book was recommended to me by a mentor when I told him I wanted to start my brand. It’s a practical, no-frills framework for building companies that actually run well — especially when growth starts to outpace your systems.

The 5 Types of Wealth — Sahil Bloom (starting)

I’ve been following Sahil Bloom for a while and genuinely admire his work. This book, being a New York Times bestseller, only adds to the intrigue, and I’m excited to dive in. It feels like the right mindset reset to go into the new year with intention.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

The Audacity to Begin: How Charlotte Trecartin Built an Eight-Figure Brand from a Hair Tie

→ Charlotte Trecartin

Under the Hood

Why Your Shopping Choices Actually Run the Economy (And What It Means for 2026)

→Hidden Power of Your Wallet

On My Reading Desk

1. Kate Spade is using the Coach bag playbook to try to reach Gen Z

2. Curiosity Is Your Secret Weapon for Building Stronger Strategies

3. Mel Robbins was in a ‘toxic’ place. She’s now sharing the tools that got her out of it.

4. The “Good Enough” Paradox: A Science-Backed Life Trap

Note to My Future Self

Don’t rush the beginning.

Don’t romanticize the end.

Keep doing the work, especially when it’s quiet, unglamorous, and unseen.

Detach from outcomes.

Stay obsessed with effort, values, and consistency.

Everyone you admire once stood at the starting line.

The difference is that they kept going.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

New Debrief is out every Friday

This week’s debrief is a quieter one.

The kind that comes after life reminds you—again—that nothing stays still for long.

The last two weeks forced me to pause. Not out of choice, but out of necessity. When your personal life and professional life start moving at the same pace, it becomes hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. And the real question becomes: How do you stay present in one without letting the other swallow you whole?

That’s where I’ve been sitting.

In this week's episode, I shared 10 lessons that helped me find clarity in the middle of chaos—what grounded me, what pushed me forward, and what kept me from losing myself in the process. But I’m learning something new now: how to stay rooted in the “now” without becoming attached to it…

how to observe what’s happening without letting it define me.

Because the truth is, we don’t know what the future will hold.

It could get better. It could get harder. It could surprise us completely.

The only thing we actually own is this moment.

The work in front of us.

The people we love.

The version of ourselves we’re choosing to build today.

So that’s my reminder to you—and to myself:

Live the “now” fully. Do your best work. Protect your peace. Stay close to the ones who steady you.

Everything else will shift. And that’s okay.

Change isn’t the enemy. It’s the evidence that we’re still growing.

Zooming Out

What I’m learning is that clarity doesn’t come from powering through the chaos — it comes from being honest about it.

This season isn’t about perfection.

It’s about alignment.

It’s about moving slowly but steadily, without abandoning yourself in the process.

And when you learn to hold both your work and your life gently, you stop trying to control the storm—and start learning to navigate it with grace.

What I’m Reading

Indistractable — Nir Eyal

This book was recommended to me by a friend, and it genuinely helped me cut down and manage my time better. It’s full of practical tools that help you clean out your shit - mentally, emotionally, and in your life.

Still Bobbi — Bobbi Brown

I have admired Bobbi Brown as a makeup artist and as a brand owner. She created not one but two successful beauty brands that speak to real customers. This book is a no-nonsense story of her life from start to finish, in her own words.

A fascinating read!

The Ride of a Lifetime — Bob Iger (currently reading)

Started this as I am a huge admirer of Bob’s Leadership. More coming next week.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

Be Anomalous: Why It Exists and 10 Lessons to Apply To Your Life Today

→ Be Anomalous Story

Under the Hood

How One Woman Walked Away from Wall Street to Start a Revolution.

→ The Codie Sanchez Story

Note to My Future Self

You don’t need to sprint to prove you’re moving.

Slow becomes powerful when it’s intentional.

Take care of your mind. Protect your peace.

And remember: momentum is built in the smallest moments, the ones that no one sees but you.

“Don’t count the hours — make the hours count.”

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

New Debrief is out every Friday

Redefining Success Through Time

My conversation with Kara got me thinking about time — how we spend it, how we protect it, and what it says about what we value.

She said something that hasn’t left me since:

“Success, for me, is full autonomy over my time.”

That kind of freedom doesn’t come early. It comes with experience, when you’ve lived enough to realize that control over your hours is the real luxury.

When we’re young, success feels loud. It’s often tied to money, titles, or recognition. But the more you hear from people who’ve built meaningful lives — not just impressive ones — the clearer it becomes that what we’re chasing might not be what we truly want.

So this week, I sat down to ask myself: What am I actually chasing?

An exercise by Codie Sanchez helped me find clarity.

She says there are three people you need to outwork:

1. Your past self — the one who got comfortable. Do the things they didn’t want to do. Wake up early. Show up when they wouldn’t.

2. Your role model — study them, learn from them, and then do 10% more than them.

3. Your doubter — the one who believes you can’t do it. Don’t argue. Don’t explain. Just keep showing up until they can’t ignore you.

When you understand those three, your goals start to realign. You stop chasing validation and start chasing growth — the kind that makes your time, your energy, and your story fully your own.

Because at the end of the day, success isn’t about doing more. It’s about becoming someone your past self wouldn’t recognize — and your doubters can’t deny.

A Reminder of Time in Numbers

The other reminder came from Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO, where he lays out how many days we have left. When you see that number, it adds real perspective.

Here’s what time looks like in days, based on an average life expectancy of 77 years:

Look at those numbers. Really look at them.

The time we’ve lost is never coming back. What we have is the future — and seeing it quantified like this puts a completely different lens on everything we do.

It’s not about being morbid. It’s about being honest. Every day you spend doing work that drains you, staying in situations that don’t serve you, or waiting for “someday” — that’s a day off the right side of this table.

The question isn’t whether you have time. It’s what you’re doing with the days you have left.

How I’m Protecting My Time

Understanding the value of time is one thing. Actually protecting it is another. Over the coming weeks, I’m implementing a few techniques to make sure my days count:

Time Blocking — I’ve been doing this for years, and it’s one of the most effective methods I’ve found. By assigning specific blocks of time to specific tasks, I eliminate decision fatigue and ensure my priorities actually get done.

Eat the Frog — Tackle your hardest, most important task first thing in the morning. Everything else feels easier after that. It’s about building momentum and making sure the day doesn’t get away from you before you’ve done what matters most.

Task Batching — Instead of switching between different types of work throughout the day, I’m grouping similar tasks. Respond to all emails in one block. Handle all calls in another. It reduces the mental cost of context-switching and helps me get into a flow state faster.

The 1-3-5 Rule — Each day, I’m committing to completing one big thing, three medium things, and five small things. It keeps me realistic about what’s achievable while ensuring I’m making progress on what matters. Not everything can be urgent, and this framework helps me stay grounded in that truth.

These aren’t just productivity hacks. They are ways of saying: my time matters. My attention matters. And I’m going to treat both with the respect they deserve.

Because when you realize how finite your days are, you stop letting other people’s priorities dictate how you spend them.

What I’m Reading

Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy

Parenting lessons that go beyond kids — on empathy, repair, and giving yourself grace.

Indistractable by Nir Eyal

A framework for reclaiming focus in a world built to steal it — and learning to spend attention like it’s currency.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

Confidence isn’t about volume — it’s about clarity. The truth about leadership when you’re figuring it out as you go.

→ The Truth About Leadership Confidence

Under the Hood

How two founders turned acne into a $90M fashion statement — and built a cult brand by rejecting beauty’s old rules.

→ The Starface Story

Note to My Future Self

You don’t need to sprint to prove you’re moving. Slow can be powerful when it’s intentional. Consistency and belief in yourself are what matter.

Keep building in silence. Keep showing up even when it’s not glamorous. And keep remembering that freedom isn’t found in doing everything; It’s found in doing what matters to you.

“ Don’t count the hours,make the hours count.”

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

My conversation with Arielle sparked a deeper reflection on the scarcity mindset. It’s so important to notice when your thoughts start drifting there—because awareness is the first step to shifting out of it.

I want to focus on practical ways to reframe scarcity into abundance. Think about it: if Guy Raz had told himself, “There are already too many people doing business podcasts,” we wouldn’t have How I Built This. If Sara Blakely had thought, “There are already enough products in shapewear,” Spanx would never have existed. And if Howard Schultz had believed, “There are already coffee shops everywhere,” Starbucks wouldn’t have become the global brand it is today.

There will always be others doing what you want to do. The key is shifting that thought into inspiration: If they can do it, I can too.

Strategies for Shifting Mindsets

1. Practice Gratitude

Regularly acknowledge the positive things you already have. This shifts your focus from a state of lack to one of abundance. In The Manifest Book, I came across the idea of writing down the little things that made you smile throughout the day—something as simple as a sunny morning or a great cup of coffee. It really helps rewire your perspective toward the positives.

2. Focus on Growth and Possibilities

Scarcity says, “I can’t.” Abundance says, “How can I?”

For example: “I want to work out, but I don’t have a gym, equipment, or time.” Stop. You can run or walk outside. You can wake up 30 minutes earlier. There is always a solution. Small changes add up, and consistency compounds.

3. Surround Yourself with Positivity

This one is key for me. Seek out people with an abundance mindset—those who uplift, motivate, and encourage you. The right community pushes you forward.

4. Embrace Collaboration

Helping others doesn’t take away from your success—it expands it. Want to read more? Join a book club or find a friend to read with. Want to work out? Get a partner. Abundance thrives in connection.

5. Notice and Create Abundant Experiences

Take care of your mind, body, and health. Self-care isn’t selfish; it’s the foundation for everything else. When you nurture yourself, you generate a sense of abundance that spills into everything you do.

What I’m Reading

• The E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber — full review coming next week.

What Else We Dropped This Week

Under the Hood

From late fees to global empire—how Netflix reinvented entertainment and built a category-defining business.

→ The Netflix Story

Skin Deep

From rice water in Japan to honey in Greece—exploring traditional face masks across cultures, and what they teach us about beauty and ritual.

→ Global Beauty Traditions: Face Masks

A Note to Your Future Self

Every small step you take today is building the life you’ve been dreaming about. Don’t let fear fool you into thinking you’re behind. You are exactly where you’re supposed to be.

Keep your blinders on. Do the work. Be consistent.

Abundance is already waiting for you—meet it halfway.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

I’ve been thinking about my conversation with Arielle all week.

She shared something that doesn’t get talked about enough — not in glossy profiles, not in dinner table conversations, not in most of our families.

She left home.

Not to chase a job. Not to prove a point.

But because she needed peace. Because the space she came from no longer felt safe. And staying would’ve meant slowly disappearing.

That’s not the kind of decision you make lightly.

Especially not when culture, family, and tradition are wrapped so tightly around your sense of self.

But sometimes, walking away is the most honest, loving thing you can do — for yourself.

🎧 Listen to Part 1 of my conversation with Arielle

Breaking Generational Trauma Isn’t Glamorous

biancamceruta

A post shared by @biancamceruta

It’s messy. It’s isolating. It’s painful.

It’s being the one who says, “No more,” when no one else ever did.

It’s looking at the expectations you were raised with and realizing… they were never yours to begin with.

You are not “bad” for breaking the cycle. You are brave.

You are not disrespectful for choosing boundaries.

You are not selfish for needing space.

You are not weak for saying, “This hurts me.”

Arielle’s story reminded me: we don’t have to carry forward what broke us.

Just because it’s been that way doesn’t mean it has to stay that way.

What I’ve Been Sitting With

We’re taught to endure.

To smile through it. To be grateful. To “make it work.”

But sometimes the most radical thing you can do is choose yourself — not out of defiance, but out of deep care.

I’ve been unlearning the idea that love equals sacrifice.

That loyalty means silence.

That if you leave, you’re the problem.

No.

If you’re the first to name the pain — you’re the beginning of healing.

What Else We Dropped This Week

Under the Hood

Everyone wanted to be DTC-first… until it stopped working. Now retail is back. Here’s what smart brands are doing differently.

→ The DTC Reckoning

Skin Deep

Confused by color correctors? This beginner’s guide breaks it down. A step closer to understanding your skin.

→ The Beginner’s Guide to Color

A Note to Anyone Breaking the Pattern

Breaking the cycle doesn’t make you the problem — it makes you the pioneer.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

Growing up, I had tunnel vision. I didn’t think much about marriage or kids.

I wanted a career. I wanted to be known. I wanted to build something bold and brilliant that would put my name in rooms I’d never been in before.

By 30, I believed I’d have it all figured out — a career that fulfilled me, maybe a company with my name on it, and the kind of life you see featured in glossy profiles.

The kind that makes it all look effortless.

So when I hit 30 and I wasn’t there , I felt like it was over.

Like I had somehow missed my window.

Back then, I thought happiness looked like a cover story. A billion-dollar valuation. A Pinterest-perfect home and a smiling, filtered life.

But no one told me about the cost of real relationships.

Of real problems.

Of building something that doesn’t look impressive yet, but means something deeply to you.

I was naive.

The jobs I thought would complete me didn’t.

The milestones didn’t fill me.

So, I started asking deeper questions about purpose, meaning, and what I actually wanted out of life.

The Pivot Point

My son is 4 now. And every day with him teaches me something I never learned in business school.

He’s part of the reason I started Be Anomalous.

But not the only one.

I had a thousand things on my plate, but this — this space — was the thing that gave me joy. The podcast, the conversations, the community. Talking to people from all walks of life who are building their lives on their own terms. No perfect resumes. No straight lines.

Their stories cracked something open in me.

They were generous, honest, messy, and brave.

And they reminded me: you can still chase your dreams — even in the chaos. Especially in the chaos.

Why I Built This

Be Anomalous isn’t just a podcast. It’s a mirror.

A place to reflect on all the stories we don’t see enough of, stories about reinvention, about self-trust, about the space between “success” and “still figuring it out.”

From that vision came three things I now pour myself into every week:

Under the Hood

Because I’m still obsessed with business the strategy, the psychology, the real-world case studies of how people build what they build.

Skin Deep

Born from my research while developing a beauty brand that actually understands people — not just their skin type, but their identity, their rituals, their truths.

The Debrief

This space. Where I get to write like this. To think out loud. To let things be unfinished and in motion.

This Week’s Reminder

Many people around me are navigating difficult things.

Career confusion. Relationship shifts. Mental noise. Family pressure. Global chaos.

And still, we move forward.

Still, we choose to evolve.

To reimagine our lives even when the original plan failed us.

This week reminded me that it’s not too late to become who you were always meant to be.

Even if the version of you from 10 years ago wouldn’t recognize her.

Maybe especially then.

What I’m Learning

• Currently reading: Venture Deals, and E- Myth Revisted.

• Recently inspired by: Steven Bartlett’t journal on DOAC

• Still thinking about: “Building a Candy Business ”

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This week was heavy. My grandmother passed away.

She’d been sick for a while, but knowing doesn’t make it easier when it happens. I’m not someone who often shares grief — most people who know me would never even know this happened. My way of processing is inward: silence, prayer, reading, and holding onto memories quietly.

But this week reminded me: life is fragile. Time is short. And what we do with it — who we love, how we build, what we leave behind — matters more than we often let ourselves admit.

The Grit You Don’t Always See

On the podcast this week, I spoke with Mayssa Chehata, founder of Behave Candy.

Until I personally knew her, I never would’ve guessed the pain she carried: divorce, family addiction struggles, credit card debt, near burnout — and yet she fought through every battle, personal and professional, and kept building.

Behave exists today because she refused to stop. Because she trusted something deeper than fear and chose to keep going when most would have quit.

“Something told me not yet,” she said about the moments she almost walked away. “I trusted that voice.”

That’s grit. The quiet kind you don’t see on Instagram. The kind you don’t even recognize until someone lets you in on the battles they fought to still be standing.

What This Week Taught Me

• We all carry something unseen. Everyone is fighting battles we don’t know about. Be kind, even when you don’t understand someone’s silence.

• Grit doesn’t always look loud. Sometimes it’s choosing to show up one more day.

• Don’t wait. Make the call. Take the trip. Read the book. Say “I love you.” Life isn’t endless.

This week I gave myself grace for the missed 6 a.m. workouts. I moved when I could, not when I planned. I read books that gave me quiet. I called the people who matter to me.

Mayssa’s story reminded me of this: you don’t have to look like you’re winning to actually be winning. Sometimes, survival is the win.

Current Reads

• E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber

• Believe It by Jamie Kern Lima

Your Takeaway

If you’re carrying something heavy right now, you’re not alone. Keep going — even if all you can manage today is one small step forward.

I’ve been thinking about my conversation with Kalsoom all week. She has this way of making you feel like it’s okay not to have the perfect plan, just start, and figure it out as you go. Hearing her story made me want to get out of my own head and do more. It’s so easy to talk ourselves out of trying because we don’t tick all the boxes. But she built her seat at the table from scratch. I needed that reminder.

Honestly, this week I noticed how much I overthink. I let fear of not doing things “right” stall me. So I tried to just move—even if it was messy.

Parenthood, Priorities, and the Power of “Why”

There’s something about being a parent that changes how you see everything. I find myself asking “why” a lot more:

Why am I saying yes to this?

Why am I working so late?

Why am I letting other people’s urgency become my emergency?

Kalsoom talked about how her “why” got sharper after having a child. I feel that too. Kids are mirrors—whatever you say or do, it comes back at you in the funniest, sometimes hardest ways. I catch myself wanting to show them what self-trust and boundaries look like, not just talk about it.

Tiny Experiments That Worked (for Me)

• Social media: I put my apps in lockdown mode (10 pm–4 pm).

  That’s wild for me. I still check stuff for work on my laptop, but my phone isn’t just a distraction machine anymore. I feel lighter.

• I started reading at night again.

  I finally found an accountability buddy. We’re not competing, just sharing what stuck with us. I’m actually finishing books for the first time in forever.

• Curation over consumption:

  I’m quick to hit “not interested” if content doesn’t serve me. Feels small, but my headspace is cleaner.

• One “win” per night:

  Each night, I write down one thing I did well; sometimes it’s big, sometimes it’s “I didn’t lose my patience.” It’s helping me see progress I usually ignore.

What This All Means (for Me, Maybe for You Too):

• Time is precious, and it’s slipping whether I use it or not.

• Saying yes to please others almost always leaves me regretting it.

• Doing, even badly, is better than dreaming perfectly.

Current reads:

Believe It

The Diary of a CEO

If you’ve figured out a tiny hack to protect your time or a book that made you see things differently, hit reply and share it with me. I want to know how you’re keeping it real, too.

— Sai M