I was a naive person.
My parents always made decisions for me. I come from a very poor family in India, so they thought I should put all my focus on my studies to get out of poverty. We had no TV, fridge, phone, internet, or computers—not even a bank account. I never traveled beyond my city, or hung out with friends, lacking money for restaurants. These left me without any real-world experiences. When I went to college suddenly everyone expected me to grow up, and I failed to meet their expectations.
I learned to become a people pleaser, and always took care of others before myself. I trusted everyone and they took advantage of me. My family and friends ridiculed me for being immature, but no one tried to understand my situation. Due to constant failures and a lack of respect from others, I lost all confidence in myself. Being naive became part of my identity, and I felt worthless. This situation went on until 2019.
In 2020, I got three salary increments in the space of 6 months at my software developer job. This gave me a huge self-esteem boost, but quickly got my reality check on how far behind I was.
I saw those young entrepreneurs on social media who had access to computers and the internet from age five, and I felt deep regret for not having the same opportunities. They studied at English-medium schools, speaking fluent English with effortless confidence, while I struggled to express myself due to a lack of training. They’ve read everything from Dostoevsky to J.K. Rowling and traveled everywhere from Ladakh to Italy. I asked them how to catch up, but everyone offered vague motivational platitudes like “hard work pays off” or “don’t give up.”
Desperate to close the gap, I purchased books and online courses, starting with one for ₹500, then ₹2,500, and kept investing in pricier ones - ₹5,000, ₹15,000, ₹25,000, ₹45,000, and ₹75,000. Eventually, I spent ₹300,000 on a blockchain bootcamp, hoping its emerging nature would let me compete on even footing and land a high-paying job at US-based companies. But even there, others got far ahead of me. I studied every day and never took any breaks, there were too many books and courses to finish. Just when I was about to give up, I got the lifeline from an unexpected source.
Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022 and my YouTube feed got flooded with content on Geopolitics. I consumed curiously and started to see similarities between international relations and everyday life. The nuclear blackmail, sanctions, and proxy conflicts mirrored the passive threats, social exclusions, and subtle power plays I experienced in my personal and social interactions. I applied strategies used by International leaders and instantly got results. For the first time, I managed to establish proper boundaries in my life.
But that was just the start. Over the next three years, I developed a unified framework to think about human behavior, which I found to be the common pattern across all domains. By understanding how the human mind works, now I can reverse engineer any theory or product and connect with other domains. This removed my main bottleneck - the lack of time for learning new things. Instead of importing insights from others, I started mining my own mind - confidently. From relying on others for even basic decisions, I suddenly found myself critiquing my former idols, like Naval and Tony Robbins, and crafting my vision on India’s future.
Here in this blog I write an article everyday on my work on the mathematical model to quantify what is theoretically possible for humans. I am working on a book to organize everything and a journaling app based on the same for aspiring thought leaders. Subscribe to get updates on them.
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