The person who fears losing the most is not the person who has nothing.

It is the person who has everything.

Think about that for a second.

When you are at the bottom, trying to climb, you are not afraid of falling. You are just focused on the next step—the next rung. The only direction that exists is up, and so that is where all your energy goes. There is a clarity in that—a kind of freedom in having nothing to protect yet.

But then you start climbing. And something shifts.

The higher you get, the more you have to lose. The more you have to lose, the more afraid you become of going back down. And suddenly, the climb that once felt like pure momentum starts to feel like something heavier. You are no longer just climbing toward something. You are also running from the thought of losing what you have already gained.

And here is the other thing.

Once you get what you were chasing, you want the next thing. The finish line moves. It always moves. So you are never really arriving anywhere. You are just chasing, gaining, fearing, chasing again. On a loop. Indefinitely.

I saw a video that made me think about how much of our lives we spend in this cycle chasing, gaining, protecting, chasing again. And I realized something sitting with it.

That is not the point.

The point is to enjoy the climb itself. To find something you love doing so much that everything else — the wins, the recognition, the results — becomes a bonus. Because if you are already happy while you are climbing, if the climb itself is the reward, then the fear of losing loosens its grip. What you gain along the way is wonderful. But it is not the source.

You are.

So ask yourself whether you are enjoying the climb? Or are you just chasing the top?

Because the top will always become the bottom of the next thing.

The climb is all there is. You might as well love it.

What I’m Reading

Crush It - Gary Vee (Reading)

I want to use this as a guide for building.

Never Split the Difference - Chris Voss(Reading)

I have been told this is a must-read for negotiating.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

Why This Founder Refused VC Money & Built a Thriving Business | Susanne Mitschke

Under the Hood

The Attention Arbitrage Engine

Note to Self

Keep your blinders on.

Not because the destination is everything, but because the journey is. The climbing, the building, the figuring it out as you go. That is the achievement. Not the moment you arrive. The whole beautiful, messy, uncertain journey getting there.

Do what you love. Enjoy the climb. Let everything else be the bonus.

And when the fear of losing creeps in — and it will — remind yourself that you didn’t start this to protect what you have. You started this because something in you had to.

Keep going.

The journey is the point. It always was.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

Follow for more Be Anomalous stories, conversations, and behind-the-scenes.

We are social animals.

We need people around us. Community. Connection. The feeling of being needed, liked, and understood. That is not a weakness; that is just human. But here is where it gets complicated. When we constantly look outside ourselves for validation, when who we are becomes a reflection of what others expect, we slowly lose the thread that connects us to ourselves.

And most of us don’t even notice it happening.

I talk to a lot of people. And one of the things I hear more than almost anything else is some version of this: I used to be really good at drawing or painting or writing or music. Or something. Some outlet, some gift, some part of themselves that got quietly buried under the years of becoming what they were expected to become.

I understand that more than I can say.

In high school, I wanted to be a fashion designer. I used to draw sketches. I was cultivating something, a skill, a vision, a version of myself I was curious about. But I didn’t have access to that world. I couldn’t see what you could actually do with those skills. My dad is an engineer. My mom is an accountant. They were building a business, doing what worked, doing what made sense. And so I followed what I could see. I was good at problem-solving, and that part of computer science made sense to me. So I went there and, in doing so, quietly buried the creative, designing side of who I was.

I am not saying I would have become a fashion designer. That is not the point.

The point is that who we are today is shaped far more by our surroundings than by what was actually inside us. The access we had. The examples we could see. The expectations that were spoken and unspoken. We became what was visible to us. And everything else, the gifts, the curiosities, the quiet passions got left behind.

So stop for a second.

Is there something in you that got buried? Something you were once good at, once drawn to, once lit up by that you haven’t touched in years?

One of the reasons I love talking to people from so many different industries and walks of life is that I want people to see the opportunities that lie ahead. The ones I couldn’t see when I was a kid, standing at the edge of a world I didn’t have a map for.

I was always a dreamer. I didn’t always have the window to see what was possible.

Maybe this is your window.

How do you find it again?

If you are confused about how to even get started, the following might help, but I do have to say it is an effort, and you have to take the time.

Go back to childhood.

What did you love before the world told you what to love? Before the pressure of practicality, before the expectations, before you knew what was realistic. Think back to what you did purely for the joy of it.

Notice what you admire in others.

Sometimes what we admire most in other people is a reflection of something dormant in ourselves. The artist you follow obsessively. The writer whose work stops you cold. Ask yourself what it is about them that pulls me? The answer is usually closer to home than you think.

Try things without the pressure of being good at them.

We stopped exploring because we became afraid of being beginners. Permit yourself to be terrible at something new. Take the class. Pick up the instrument. Open the sketchbook. You are not auditioning. You are excavating.

Sit in the quiet and ask yourself honestly.

If nobody was watching. If money weren’t a factor. If you had nothing to prove, what would you spend your days doing? Write that answer down. However impractical it sounds.

What I’m Reading

The Cold Start Problem - Andrew Chen(Finished)

Explores why platforms like Uber, Airbnb, Tinder, and Facebook struggled in their earliest days and how they overcame the challenge of building network effects from zero. This is a must-read for anyone who is starting a marketplace or using network effects.

Crush It - Gary Vee (Reading)

I want to use this as a guide for building.

Never Split the Difference - Chris Voss(Reading)

I have been told this is a must-read for negotiating.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

Identity, Nuance, and Building the Media Company South Asians Deserve | Hiba Irshad

The Startup Lawyer Breaking Every Rule, and Writing Better Ones - Aravinda Seshadri

Under the Hood

The New Media Moguls Nobody Saw Coming

Note to Self

Somewhere along the way, you buried a part of yourself to become what made sense to everyone else.

You are the only person who will be there for yourself till the very end. So enjoy your own company. Get curious about yourself again. The way you were before the world had opinions about who you should be.

That person never left. She just got quiet.

It is time to listen.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

Follow for more Be Anomalous stories, conversations, and behind-the-scenes.

I found true liberation when I stopped caring what people think.

And I don’t say that lightly. It changed everything about how I live, how I speak, how I react, how I show up. There is a freedom in it that I cannot fully put into words, but once you feel it, you cannot unfeel it.

We spend so much of our lives consumed by it. What will they think? Will they misunderstand me? Will they think I am rude? Too much? Not enough? And all of that noise, all of that second-guessing quietly shrinks you. It keeps you performing a version of yourself for an audience that isn’t even paying as much attention as you think.

Here is what I know now. If you know your intentions, if you know who you are at your core, and you are not guilty of doing anything wrong, there is nothing to defend. Nothing to explain. Nothing to shrink for.

I won’t pretend it is easy. It took me 36 years to get here. And sometimes I think if I had realised this earlier, how much I would have done differently? But then I remember the journey is what got me here. Every part of it.

This life is yours to create. Yours to build into exactly what you want it to be. Yes, circumstance matters. Access matters. The birth lottery is real. But don’t start by looking at what others have. Start with what you have. And from there climb. It might take longer. But your days will be happier. I truly believe that.

I have been happiest building what I love and spending my days with the people I actually want to be around.

That is it. That is the whole thing.

How did I get to not caring?

These are the things that actually moved the needle for me

Reading more

Reading truly changed my life. The more I read, the more I understood myself. The more I understood the world. The more I stopped needing external validation to feel grounded in who I am.

The book Let Them by Mel Robbins

This one was crucial. The first time I read it, it liberated me. It validated something I had been feeling but didn’t have the words for yet. If you haven’t read it, read it.

Changing my circle

As I started creating distance from people who were bringing me down, people who made me question myself, people who drained my energy without adding anything back, everything shifted. You don’t realise how much weight you are carrying until you put it down.

Discipline and working out

When you commit to something hard, when you show up for yourself physically, consistently, it changes what you believe you are capable of. That belief bleeds into everything else. You stop doubting yourself as much. You start trusting yourself more.

And one more thing — this one might surprise you.

I used AI to generate an image of the future I am building. The life I am working toward. And seeing myself there visually, concretely, became one of the biggest sources of motivation I have ever had. Everything else starts to become noise when you can actually see where you are going.

What I’m Reading

The Cold Start Problem - Andrew Chen(Currently Reading)

Explores why platforms like Uber, Airbnb, Tinder, and Facebook struggled in their earliest days and how they overcame the challenge of building network effects from zero. The book offers a practical framework for entrepreneurs on how to create momentum, reach critical mass, and turn a small community into a thriving network.

Crush It - Gary Vee (Reading)

I want to use this as a guide for building.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

Identity, Nuance, and Building the Media Company South Asians Deserve | Hiba Irshad

The Startup Lawyer Breaking Every Rule, and Writing Better Ones - Aravinda Seshadri

Under the Hood

How Three Startups Broke Three Different Monopolies

Note to Self

You are not performing for anyone.

You know your intentions. You know who you are at your core. That is enough. You don’t owe anyone an explanation for how you live, what you choose, or who you are becoming.

Stop shrinking for rooms that were never built for the fullest version of you.

The people who are meant to understand you will.

The ones who don’t — let them.

This life is yours. Build it accordingly.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

Follow for more Be Anomalous stories, conversations, and behind-the-scenes.

Are you feeling consumed by the pace of everything around you?

Things are moving fast. Everyone is running toward the next big win, the next big bet, the next big thing. There is a constant hum of urgency that follows you everywhere on your feed, in your conversations, in the back of your mind at 2 am when you should be sleeping.

And if you are feeling behind, overwhelmed, like you are scrambling to catch up to everyone and everything, I want you to know something.

You are not alone. I feel it too.

But here is the truth that nobody says out loud. Everyone is trying to catch up to something that nobody really knows. We are all chasing so we are not left behind. But left behind from what exactly? Nobody has a clear answer. We are all just running because everyone else is running. And somewhere along the way, the running became the point.

It isn’t a race.

Or if it is, nobody told us where the finish line is. Nobody agreed on what winning looks like. And yet here we all are, breathless, comparing our pace to everyone else’s, wondering why we can’t keep up.

So take a breath.

Just stop for a moment. Because the world will keep moving whether you sprint or whether you pause. And the pause is not falling behind. It is the only way to remember why you started running in the first place.

You are not behind. You are exactly where you are.

And that is enough to work from.

Let’s do something today. Together.

Write it down. Right now. With me.

Because if we are going to run, and we will run, that is just who we are, we should at least know what we are running toward.

And we should know how far we have already come.

What is your finish line?

Not someone else’s, or not the one you feed, is selling you. Yours. What does winning actually look like for you in your life, on your terms? Get specific. Write it down. Because a finish line you cannot see is just exhaustion with no reward at the end.

What are you chasing?

Be honest with yourself here. Is what you are chasing something you actually want, or is it something you feel you are supposed to want? Is it yours, or did you inherit it from the noise around you? Write it down. The answer might surprise you.

How far have you come?

This is the one we skip the most. We are so focused on how far we have to go that we never stop to look back at the ground we have already covered. The things you have figured out. The hard seasons you have survived. The version of yourself you have already left behind. Write it down. You have come further than you are giving yourself credit for.

Take the time today. Not tomorrow. Today.

Because you cannot run well toward something you have never clearly defined. And you cannot appreciate the journey if you never stop to look at how far you have already travelled.

You are not behind. You are building. And you have been building all along.

Now write it down.

What I’m Reading

Start with Yourself - Emma Grede (Finished)

This is an easy, engaging read. If you admire Emma or consider yourself ambitious, it's well worth your time.

The Cold Start Problem - Andrew Chen(Currently Reading)

Explores why platforms like Uber, Airbnb, Tinder, and Facebook struggled in their earliest days and how they overcame the challenge of building network effects from zero. The book offers a practical framework for entrepreneurs on how to create momentum, reach critical mass, and turn a small community into a thriving network.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

From Bartender to Co-Founder: How Helen Diaz Built a National Brand Without Losing Herself

The Startup Lawyer Breaking Every Rule, and Writing Better Ones - Aravinda Seshadri

Under the Hood

The Scarcity-to-Scale Paradox: How an 11-Table Restaurant Built a $2.7 Billion Brand

Note to Self

Stop running for a moment.

You cannot win a race you never defined. So before you take another step, get clear on what you are actually chasing and why.

And while you are at it, look back. You have come further than you think.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

Follow for more Be Anomalous stories, conversations, and behind-the-scenes.

I was at an amusement park the other day, and I noticed something.

The kids around me, all different ages, all raised in the US, were still gravitating toward each other by community. By culture. Children of immigrants, American in every way they speak and carry themselves, and yet still finding their way back to what felt familiar. Still clustering together.

And I found myself thinking why?

Because we as humans are always looking for commonality. It is one of the most fundamental things about us. We scan every room, every situation, every new face for the answer to one quiet question: Do you understand me? And when we find even a thread of it, a shared culture, a shared language, a shared experience, a shared interest, we hold onto it. Because being understood is not a luxury. It is a basic human need.

This is why Indians find Indians. Mexicans find Mexicans. Why do people in the same profession gravitate toward each other? Why do people who share a passion find their way into the same rooms? It is not exclusion. It is the search for belonging. The search for a place where you don’t have to explain yourself from the beginning.

We all want to be seen. We all want to be understood. And we move toward the people and spaces that make us feel that way naturally, instinctively, often without even realising we are doing it.

And this is exactly why representation matters. In every form.

When you see yourself reflected in the stories being told, in the people in positions of power, in the faces on screen, in the voices in the room, something shifts. You stop feeling like an exception. You start feeling like you belong. Like, your experience is valid. Like, there is a place for you here.

Representation is not just about visibility. It is about the fundamental human need to be seen and understood. To know that you are not alone in your experience.

You start feeling like you belong. Like, there is a place for you here.

But here is the other side of it.

There is safety in sameness. But there is growth in difference.

When you only surround yourself with people who look like you, think like you, and live like you, your world stays small. You stop being challenged. Empathy becomes harder to build because you never have to stretch beyond what is familiar. Your circle becomes a comfort zone dressed up as a community.

And some of the most profound connections happen across cultures, across backgrounds, across every line you thought divided you. When you find someone from a completely different world who just gets you, that expands something in you. It changes how you see yourself. It changes how you see the world.

There is also something unique about growing up between two worlds. Being raised in one culture while living inside another. Never feeling fully one thing or the other. That in-between space is its own kind of identity. And it is one that more people carry than will ever admit it.

The most interesting people are the ones who can do both.

They are rooted in where they come from. They know who they are and where they belong. But they are also curious enough, open enough to step into rooms that look nothing like them. To build bridges, not just circles. To find their people and then go beyond them.

Finding your community is the beginning. But expanding beyond it is where the real growth lives.

We are all just looking for our people. And everyone deserves to find them.

But don’t stop there.

What I’m Reading

Start with Yourself - Emma Grede

There’s so much conversation around Emma Grede’s book Start With Yourself, and I’m excited to dive into it finally. My review of the book will be coming shortly.

Think Faster, Talk Smarter — Matt Abrahams

A practical guide to improving spontaneous speaking and clear communication under pressure. I want to improve how I think and speak, so I am trying this highly rated book.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

I Got Laid Off… And It Completely Changed My Life

Under the Hood

The $3 Billion Playbook: Poppi and Grüns

Note to Self

Listen more than you speak.

Go beyond your circle. The people who look like you, think like you, live like you, they are your comfort. But they are not your only teacher.

The most important lessons will come from the rooms you almost didn’t walk into. From the people whose lives look nothing like yours. From the conversations that stretched you in ways you didn’t expect.

So go there. Deliberately. Curiously. Without needing to have all the answers before you arrive.

Listen. Really listen. Not to respond. Not to compare. But to understand.

That is how empathy is built. That is how your world gets bigger. That is how you grow beyond the version of yourself you already know.

Your circle is your roots. But curiosity is your wings.

Use both.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

Follow for more Be Anomalous stories, conversations, and behind-the-scenes.

Do you evaluate the relationships in your life? Really evaluate them?

Not just the ones that are obviously broken, but all of them. The ones you’ve had for years. The ones that feel comfortable. The ones you keep out of habit, out of history, out of loyalty to a version of yourself that may no longer exist.

Here is a way I have been thinking about it.

There are anchors, and there are sailboats.

Some people in your life help you sail. They push you forward, they believe in you, and they make you feel expansive. And some people are anchors. They hold you in place. They keep you small. They weigh on you in ways you don’t always notice until you realise how long you’ve been stuck in the same spot.

But here is the part that is harder to sit with.

Someone who helped you sail at one point in your life can become an anchor later. People change. You change. And what a relationship once was does not guarantee what it is now. That friendship that lit you up at 25 may be quietly draining you at 35. That person who once pushed you forward may now be the reason you are holding back.

Relationships are an emotional rollercoaster throughout our lives.

But the question is, do we evaluate them as we grow? Or do we just move ahead, carrying everything and everyone with us, never stopping to ask whether it still makes sense?

The Five People Theory

Jim Rohn said,

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

I truly believe this. The people closest to you are shaping you, whether you are aware of it or not. They are influencing how you think, what you believe is possible, how ambitious you allow yourself to be, and how you see yourself. You absorb their energy, their habits, their ceiling, or their limitlessness.

So here is an exercise to analyze:

Write down the five people you spend the most time with. Not who you wish you spent time with. Who you actually are. And then ask yourself honestly

Who are they becoming? Because that is likely who you are becoming, too.

Are they growing or are they staying still? Are they building something, or are they just talking about it? Do you leave their company feeling energised or drained? Do they challenge you, or do they keep you comfortable? Do they celebrate your growth, or does your growth make them uncomfortable?

This is not about cutting people off or being ruthless with the people you love. It is about being conscious. It is about understanding that your circle is not neutral. It is either pushing you forward or pulling you back. And once you see that clearly, you can make better choices about who you invest in, who you protect your time with, and who you need to slowly create distance from.

You don’t have to announce it or be dramatic about it. You start being intentional about who gets your time and your energy.

Because those five people? They are not just your friends. They are co-authoring the person you are becoming.

Choose them carefully.

Growth requires honesty, and sometimes the most honest thing you can do is look at the relationships in your life and ask, " Is this helping me sail or is this keeping me anchored?” You are allowed to ask that question. About anyone. Even the ones you love. Even the ones who have been there the longest.

Because the life you are building deserves the people who belong in it.

What I’m Reading

Start with Yourself - Emma Grede

There’s so much conversation around Emma Grede’s book Start With Yourself, and I’m excited to dive into it finally. My review of the book will be coming shortly.

Think Faster, Talk Smarter — Matt Abrahams

A practical guide to improving spontaneous speaking and clear communication under pressure. I want to improve how I think and speak, so I am trying this highly rated book.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

How Alix Peabody Built Bev After 200 Rejections

Under the Hood

Selling Out: The Rise, Drift, and Humiliating End of Everlane

Note to Self

It is okay to move on from people.

It is okay to outgrow a friendship, a relationship, a version of your circle that no longer fits who you are becoming. It doesn’t make you disloyal. It doesn’t make you cold. It just means you are growing. And growth sometimes means your paths no longer run in the same direction.

It is also okay if someone moves on from you.

That one is harder to sit with. But it is just as true. Not everyone is meant to stay for every chapter. And when someone drifts away, resist the urge to make it mean something about your worth. It isn’t personal. It never was.

It just means you are going in different directions now.

People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Not everyone who starts the journey with you is meant to finish it with you. And that is okay. That is just life moving the way life moves.

Let people go with grace. Let yourself go with grace, too.

And trust that the people who are meant to be in your life, the ones who belong in this chapter, will be there.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

Follow for more Be Anomalous stories, conversations, and behind-the-scenes.

I was listening to a podcast this week, an interview with Ramit Sethi, and he was talking about the compounding effect of money. If you haven’t come across Ramit, I highly recommend him. He is the person to go to when it comes to understanding money.

But what he said got me thinking beyond money.

The compound effect applies to everything.

Hit the gym every day, and your body will eventually show it. It takes time, but the results show up. Keep eating junk every day, and that shows up too. The lessons you are learning right now, the habits you are building, the work you are quietly putting in, all of it is compounding. Slowly. Invisibly. Until one day it isn’t invisible anymore.

And here is what struck me.

We give up so easily. We stop before the compound effect has a chance to show itself. We put in the work for a few weeks, don’t see the result, and decide it isn’t working. But we never question whether the bad habits are working; we just keep those going without demanding proof.

Why can’t we believe in ourselves the same way?

I want you to think about the effort you are putting in, like laying bricks. Every workout. Every lesson. Every hour you put into your side hustle. Every time you choose the harder, better thing. That is a brick. And you are building a house.

The house will not be a house in one day. You have to lay one brick at a time every single day and trust that they are adding up. The only way the house stays incomplete is if you stop laying the bricks.

And here is the other thing.

Some houses are built faster than others. Some people will seem further along than you. But you don’t know what kind of house they are building, and they don’t know what kind of house you are building. The comparison is meaningless. You have your own blueprint. Your own timeline. Your own house.

Stay in your lane. Keep laying the bricks.

The house will come together. Trust the process.

What I’m Reading

Start with Yourself - Emma Grede ( Starting)

There’s so much conversation around Emma Grede’s book Start With Yourself, and I’m excited to dive into it finally. My review of the book will be coming shortly.

Think Faster, Talk Smarter — Matt Abrahams (Still Reading)

A practical guide to improving spontaneous speaking and clear communication under pressure. I want to improve how I think and speak, so I am trying this highly rated book.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

Why Rama Afullo Walked Away From SpaceX to Build Something Bigger

How Alix Peabody Built Bev After 200 Rejections

Under the Hood

The Dubai Chocolate - FIX Dessert Chocolatier Story

Note To Yourself

You won’t see it today. Maybe not even this month.

But every time you showed up — every workout, every late night, every moment you chose the harder thing — it counted. It is all in there. Quietly compounding and building on itself in ways you cannot yet see.

That is how it works.

You don’t plant a seed and dig it up the next day to check if it is growing. You water it. You trust it. You come back tomorrow and do it again.

So keep going. Not because the results are visible. But because you know the work is real.

One brick. Every day. That is all it takes.

The house is coming.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

Follow for more Be Anomalous stories, conversations, and behind-the-scenes.

I saw a post today that stopped me.

“You want a better life? Go build it. Don’t tell me what you want. Tell me what you are willing to give up.”

And I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

We spend so much time looking at what we want. The career. The body. The relationship. The life. We see it on social media, we see it in the people we admire, and we think I want that. But we rarely stop to look at the full picture.

When you admire someone’s life, you are only seeing part of it.

Along with everything they have, you also get everything they gave up. Or don’t have. Maybe it was a painful divorce. Maybe a public scandal. Maybe years of loneliness. Maybe a parent lost along the way. The highlight reel never shows you the cost. But the cost was always there.

And it is real for all of us.

If you decide to pour everything into your career, you might miss moments with your kids that you can never get back. If you step back from your career to be present for your children, you might miss the promotion, the opportunity, the momentum. If you decide to build something of your own, a brand, a business, a vision, you might get married later. Or not at all.

These are not wrong choices. But they are choices. And every single one comes with a price.

Some prices are easier to pay. You want to be fit, so you give up unhealthy food and show up for the workout when you don’t feel like it. You want to build your side hustle, you give up the social events, the lazy weekends, the path of least resistance. Those trade-offs, when you see what they’re building toward, feel worth it.

But then there are the harder questions.

Do I want to be the most successful version of myself, and am I willing to give everything for that? Do I want to build an empire, and what does that cost the people I love? Those questions don’t have easy answers. They require you to sit with yourself honestly and think it all the way through. Not just what you want but what you are willing to lose to have it. And whether you can live with that.

Because here is the thing we forget.

The cost shows up whether you thought about it or not. The difference is whether you walked in with your eyes open. The choices you make have consequences, good and bad, and those consequences are yours to live with. Nobody else’s.

So think deeply. About everything you have. Everything you want. And everything you are willing to give up to get there.

There is always a price.

The only question is whether you have decided consciously, honestly, that it is worth paying.

It is not all or nothing.

This is not about choosing between your career and your child. Your marriage and your ambition. Your business and your life. That framing is too binary and too heavy.

What it is really about is consciousness. When you are aware of the cost, you can make conscious choices. And conscious choices give you something powerful,

Your non-negotiables.

The things you decide, in advance, that you will not compromise on. Not because someone told you to, but because you know yourself well enough to know what you cannot lose.

Maybe it is every Friday evening that is for your spouse. No matter what. Maybe it is not to miss a single one of my son’s performances. Not one. Maybe it is Sunday mornings belong to me. Maybe it is something else entirely. Only you know what those things are.

But when you name them, when you actually decide them, they stop being things that slip through the cracks of a busy life.

They become protected. Intentional. Yours.

You get to choose your battles. You get to decide what you are building toward and what you are holding onto along the way. The key is that you are deciding. Consciously. Deliberately. Not just letting life make the choices for you and wondering later how you got here.

What I’m Reading

South to Freedom - Alice L Baumgartner ( Finished)

A historical account of enslaved people fleeing south to Mexico and how this challenged U.S. slavery laws. This was very research-oriented, and I have to say I didn’t know a lot about that period. It gave me an insight into those times and people’s mindset.

Think Faster, Talk Smarter — Matt Abrahams (Still Reading)

A practical guide to improving spontaneous speaking and clear communication under pressure. I want to improve how I think and speak, so I am trying this highly rated book.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

Julie Castro Abrams on Power, Privilege & Funding Women’s Future

Under the Hood

The Art of Starting Over: How Bobbi Brown built 2 empire

Note to Self

Everything you want has a price. Know it before you pay it.

And as you chase your dreams remember that life happens along the way. Things you didn’t anticipate. People you didn’t expect. Priorities that shift. Dreams that change. And that is okay.

Just don’t forget to check in.

Reevaluate what matters to you. The things you are building toward and the things you are holding onto. Because sometimes what you wanted at the start is not what you want anymore. And sometimes the things you took for granted became the most important things of all.

Are you still willing to pay the price for the life you want? And is what you are giving up still something you can live without?

Only you can answer that.

Choose consciously. Protect what matters. And keep checking in with yourself along the way.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

Follow for more Be Anomalous stories, conversations, and behind-the-scenes.

This week was an emotional rollercoaster. And I heard every bit of it.

It started with gratitude. A man almost as old as my father came to install our dishwasher. It was a hot day. He was running around, sweating, working. And something hit me quietly. The comfort I live in, the safety, the small luxuries I move through without thinking so much of that came down to where and to whom I was born. The birth lottery. I watched him, and I heard that feeling clearly. Gratitude. Deep, humbling gratitude. The kind that makes you realise you have no business complaining.

And then by the end of the same week, I was feeling detached. Questioning my worth. A completely different emotional place.

I heard that too.

Both of those were me in the same week. And instead of pushing either feeling away, I sat with them. That’s the practice, not managing your emotions, but actually hearing them and letting them tell you something.

You can be grateful and sad at the same time. You can feel full and empty in the same breath. You can count your blessings in the morning and question everything by evening. That is not a contradiction. That is just life. And life only makes sense when you’re honest enough with yourself to hear what you’re actually feeling, not what you think you should be feeling.

That’s where your voice lives.

The voice that only you can hear. The one that speaks in the quiet, in the in-between, in the middle of an emotional week when everything feels like too much. It was there when I watched that man and felt grateful. It was there when I felt lost by Friday. It’s always there. Telling you what you need, what you want, what comes next.

But you have to be attuned to yourself to hear it.

And the more you listen consistently, honestly, without judgment, the stronger that voice gets. That is how you build intuition. Not from a book, not from advice, not from anyone outside of you. From the practice of hearing yourself over and over again until you learn to trust what you hear. Until that voice becomes your compass.

Your friends will show up. Your kids, your husband, and your parents will be there. But none of them can hear your voice the way you can. None of them can feel your needs the way you feel them. That responsibility belongs to you alone.

So don’t lose your voice for anyone.

Build that relationship with yourself. Protect it. Because you are the only constant in the life you are building. And that voice, the one only you can hear, is not just self-awareness. It is your intuition. And your intuition is the truest guide you will ever have.

Don’t stop listening to it.

What I’m Reading

Think Faster, Talk Smarter — Matt Abrahams

A practical guide to improving spontaneous speaking and clear communication under pressure. I want to improve how I think and speak, so I am trying this highly rated book.

South to Freedom - Alice L Baumgartner

A historical account of enslaved people fleeing south to Mexico and how this challenged U.S. slavery laws. This is for my book club, and I’m truly enjoying it.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

Engineering Her Own Lane: Mitali Saxena on Reinventing Fashion, Tech & Herself

Under the Hood

The Bankruptcy Test: What Retail’s 2026 Wave Is Really Revealing

Note to Self

Life goes by quickly.

You don’t want to look up one day and realise you moved through it without really knowing yourself. Without knowing what you felt, what you wanted, what mattered to you in each moment.

Don’t wake up ten years from now asking what I actually wanted back then?

Every phase of your life is still you. The you who was figuring it out. The one who was hurting. The you who was hopeful. The you who didn’t have the words yet but felt everything deeply.

Know her.

Know the you in every season, not just the polished, put-together version. All of her. Because each version of you is building the next one. And if you’re not paying attention, life will pass, and you will have missed yourself entirely.

So listen. Feel. Write it down. Sit with it.

Know who you are right now in this season, in this moment.

Because this version of you deserves to be known, too.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

Follow for more Be Anomalous stories, conversations, and behind-the-scenes.

Website | Instagram | LinkedIn | YouTube | @iamsaimenon

I went to a book event this week.

My usual pattern is to show up with someone I know, or I go alone, sit quietly, take notes, talk to no one, and leave. I’ve done it enough times that it stopped feeling like a choice. It just became what I do.

This time, I wanted to break that.

So I volunteered. I checked in every guest who walked through the door. I had to talk to every single person who came in. It was uncomfortable. That was exactly the point.

And here’s what I’ve been sitting with since.

As we get older, it gets harder to meet new people. Not because we lose the ability, but because we stop putting ourselves in situations where it has to happen. We stick to what’s familiar. The same people, the same spaces, the same version of ourselves that we’ve gotten comfortable performing. And comfort, after a while, starts to feel like safety. But it isn’t. It’s just stillness dressed up as stability.

You cannot grow in that state.

Growth lives on the other side of uncomfortable. It lives in the room where you don’t know anyone. In the conversation, you almost didn’t start. In the version of yourself that shows up when you have no choice but to figure it out.

I didn’t change my life by checking in guests at a book event. But I showed myself something small and important that I can choose differently. That the pattern isn’t permanent. That discomfort, when you walk toward it instead of away, is actually just the feeling of expanding.

That’s worth something.

Start Here.

Volunteer at something.

Just like I did. Find an event, a cause, a gathering, and sign up to help. Volunteering removes the awkwardness of not knowing what to do with yourself in a room full of strangers. It gives you a role. A reason to talk to people.

Go somewhere alone. On purpose.

Not with a friend as backup. Alone. A dinner, a show, a class, an event. When you go alone, you are forced to engage. There is no comfortable corner to retreat to. Aloneness in a social setting, when you choose it deliberately, builds a kind of quiet confidence that you can’t get any other way.

Say yes to the thing that makes you hesitate.

You know the invitation. The one you read and immediately start finding reasons to decline. The event that sounds interesting but unfamiliar. The gathering where you won’t know many people. That hesitation is information. It’s pointing at exactly where the growth is. Say yes before you talk yourself out of it.

Put yourself in rooms you haven’t been in before.

New industries. New neighborhoods. New circles. Different kinds of people live differently from you. Familiarity is comfortable, but it is also a ceiling. The most interesting shifts in how you think come from exposure to people whose lives look nothing like yours.

What I’m Reading

Think Faster, Talk Smarter — Matt Abrahams

A practical guide to improving spontaneous speaking and clear communication under pressure. I want to improve how I think and speak, so I am trying this highly rated book.

South to Freedom - Alice L Baumgartner

A historical account of enslaved people fleeing south to Mexico and how this challenged U.S. slavery laws. This is for my book club, and I'm truly enjoying it.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

How Katherine Built Francis Henri During The Pandemic.

Under the Hood

Anjali Sud: The Builder CEO Who Rewrote the Rules of Streaming

Note to Self

When you learn from people of different walks of life, something shifts in you quietly.

You build empathy. The kind that comes from sitting across from someone whose life looks nothing like yours and finding yourself in their story anyway. You build community beyond the people who already think like you, look like you, live like you. You grow.

And here is what I keep coming back to.

You have this one life. To explore. To learn. To do.

So why are you resisting yourself?

Not the world. Yourself. Because that’s what it actually is when you shrink back. When you don’t start the conversation. When you leave early. When you stay in the same rooms, with the same people, and wonder why nothing feels new.

Stop waiting for the right moment. Walk into the room. Talk to the stranger. Let yourself be a beginner somewhere new.

You only get one shot at this. Don’t spend it playing it safe.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

Follow for more Be Anomalous stories, conversations, and behind-the-scenes.

Website | Instagram | LinkedIn | YouTube | @iamsaimenon

I have been devouring Grit by Angela Duckworth, a book that has sat with me for years, and I cannot believe it took me this long to actually get into it. At its core, it helps you understand what it means to be a gritty person, but the first step is surprisingly simple: you need to know your goal.

As humans, we are rarely working toward just one thing. We are restless and easily pulled in multiple directions. Duckworth explains this through the concept of hierarchy of goals, the idea that our ambitions exist on different levels, from small daily tasks all the way up to a single overarching purpose. (I’ve attached a video below for a quick visual breakdown.)

Reading this pushed me to sit down and identify my own main goal and, honestly, to audit everything beneath it. Some lower-level goals needed to go. Others needed to be reshaped so they actually serve where I am trying to go. I think of this main goal as your purpose; the two words can be used interchangeably once you understand what they point to. Duckworth’s own purpose, for example, is to use psychological science to help individuals, especially children, thrive by developing grit and self-control.

What struck me most was realizing how scattered my own goals had become. I was overcomplicating things, layering ambition on top of ambition without checking whether any of it was actually aligned. The truth is, what we want from life is usually simple. The path is what gets complicated. But it helps to pause and remind yourself: you probably have not strayed away as far from your original goal as it feels. You just need to clear the noise around it.

If you would like to see a video of me doing this, comment below.

What I’m Reading

Grit — Angela Duckworth (Finished)

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.

A Different Kind of Power - Jacinda Ardern

It reflects on her journey into leadership and the personal values that guided her time in office. It explores how empathy, resilience, and compassion can redefine strength in politics and inspire a more human-centered approach to power.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

How Katherine Built Francis Henri During The Pandemic.

Under the Hood

Outdoor Voices: The Inside Story of Ty Haney

Note to My Future Self

You will meet people on this path. Many of them.

Some will be so interesting, so full of life, so different from anything you have known, that they will make you stop and wonder if you have been living wrong. They will open doors in your mind you didn’t know were closed. They will make you question the direction, the pace, sometimes even the destination.

And that’s okay. Let them. That is part of it.

But here is what I want you to remember when that happens.

The people who shake you are not signs that you are on the wrong path. They are just reminders that the world is bigger than you thought. You can be moved by someone and still return to yourself. You can be changed by an encounter and still know where you are going. The two are not in conflict.

Because at the end of every detour, every distraction, every beautiful and unexpected thing that pulls you sideways, there is still a question waiting for you.

What are you willing to keep going for, even when it’s hard?

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

Follow for more Be Anomalous stories, conversations, and behind-the-scenes.

Website | Instagram | LinkedIn | YouTube | @iamsaimenon

This week felt different, not because it was easier, but because I could finally see it clearly. My son had spring break, and it also happened to be my birthday. My husband and I are always working to balance careers and childcare, to carve out real time with him. This week, that balance tilted toward me. My husband carried a heavier load at work and felt the weight of missing out. I had more flexibility, and so I had more of our son.

And here’s what struck me: a year ago, maybe two, I would have said I have to take care of him this week. A quiet resentment buried in the phrasing, the kind you don’t even notice until it’s gone. This week, without really planning it, I noticed myself thinking differently: I get to be here with him.

Watching my husband grieve the moments he was missing made it real for me. Time with a child isn’t a given. It isn’t owed. It’s a gift, and like most gifts, it’s easiest to take for granted right up until the moment you can’t have it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying every day is easy. Some days it does drive you a little crazy. But the mindset shift doesn’t ask you to pretend otherwise — it just changes how you hold it. It invites you to be in the moment rather than enduring it.

And once you see it, you can't unsee it. It starts to reach into everything. I get to work out. I get to do my work. I get to be with my family. None of it is guaranteed. All of it is precious.

That’s been my realization this week: Savour it. Take the chance. You don't know how long you get to do any of it.

Reframe Your Mindset

• Notice the language you use Start by just catching yourself. When you hear "I have to," pause and ask: Is this actually something I chose, or something I'm lucky to have? You don't have to force a reframe every time; just noticing builds the habit.

• The subtraction exercise. Imagine the thing is gone. The school pickup, the work meeting, and the dinner to cook. Who would you be without it? Often, what feels like a burden is actually evidence of a life you built: a job, a family, a home. Subtraction makes the invisible visible.

• Anchor to the “why” behind the “what.” Instead of thinking about the task, think about what it represents. Driving your kid to practice = you have a healthy child who gets to play. Paying bills = you have a home and a life running. The task is just the surface; underneath is the meaning.

• Change the story you tell others. When someone asks how your week was, notice if you lead with a complaint or with gratitude. You don't have to pretend it was perfect but try ending on what you were glad to have, even in a hard week. How we narrate our lives shapes how we experience them.

Gratitude isn't pretending the hard days don't exist. It's making sure the good ones don't pass unnoticed.

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.

A Different Kind of Power - Jacinda Ardern

It reflects on her journey into leadership and the personal values that guided her time in office.It explores how empathy, resilience, and compassion can redefine strength in politics and inspire a more human-centered approach to power.

What Else Dropped This Week

Off Script

How Shahezad Left IT to Build Cousins Burger (Lessons on Scaling & Risk)

Under the Hood

He Started With $1,000, One Customer, and a Mediocre Product. Two Years Later, He Sold for $100 Million.

Note to My Future Self

The practice is simple, even when it isn’t easy. Notice the language. Anchor to the meaning. Show up for the ordinary moments as if you know because you do know, that they won’t last forever.

“I have to” keeps you surviving your life. “I get to” lets you live it.

That’s the whole shift. Two words. One choice. Made again and again, on the hard days especially.

Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.

— Sai Menon

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