I have a smart and successful younger brother Shrikant. He got the good looks from my mother and was named after her favourite cricketer. I am told that my mother wouldn’t leave the radio when he would bat. Krishnamachari Srikkanth was known for his flamboyant and aggressive batting. It also meant taking risks and it came at its own cost.
Then came Virender Sehwag who on a good day spoiled the line and length of any bowler in the world. He also had the balls to hit a six when he would be on a 99. I grew up watching him hitting bowlers all over the park especially I would go crazy when he would hit Shoaib Akhtar during a power play. He always played risky shots and would rarely believe in taking singles.
“I believe he was not crazy but it was his way of finding happiness. And you can’t be happy if you don’t take risks,” I shared with Abhimanyu Saha while having a free-flowing chat on one of my recent Insta Live.
Apart from battling the never-ending lockdown, he is busy producing amazing music along with his wife. Here is the Spotify link, it is pure bliss.
He also has a keen interest in philosophy. We had a long conversation on happiness and at this point, I shared - “You can’t be happy without taking risks.” The other side of this would be coming across as someone who is reckless.
“I can’t make everyone happy so I work on making myself happy. I may come across as a selfish person but I don’t care.”
“Live your life as passionately as you can,” said Nick Butter, the man who has done a marathon in every single country i.e. 169 countries. In doing so he also became the first person in history to crush 196 marathons in all 196 countries. In a 2 hour long conversation with Rich Roll, Nick shared that he ran through 15 war zones and endured several Argo-Esque border crossings. “He was mugged twice and repeatedly attacked by dogs, even going so far as to run 335 laps around a car park on the Marshall Islands to avoid that country’s overrun population of rabid canines. He had his luggage stolen. He ran in extreme cold and unbearable heat, oftentimes starting marathons at two or three in the morning to avoid 140-degree weather. He repeatedly succumbed to food poisoning and kidney infections. This list goes on.”
And this has been his biggest learning from life:
Is he crazy? He gave up his high paying banker job, sold everything, took loans, friends chipped in, strangers joined in to support a marathoner, and finally, his parents sold everything for their son's dream. Besides, it took two years to plan and 674 days to complete — an astounding accomplishment that entailed running 3 marathons, in 3 new countries a week, every week, for 96 weeks, blowing through 10 passports and 455 flights along the way.
Today Nick lives in a van, travels, and is a big advocate of Prostate Cancer. He has a book “Running The World” coming out soon.
If you ask any long-distance runner he or she will tell you that the sport allows you to be who you are, challenges you how far you can push and all comes down to one thing that makes you happy.
To be happy you will have to open yourself, go out in the middle, challenge yourself, and not worry about failures. You can’t play safe. You will have to push yourself, take risks, not worry for results, and try. At most, you will fail but you will have to get up and push yourself.
In my favorite book, The Road Less Travelled there is a story of a lady who lives like a shadow, hardly talks to anyone, goes to the church on Sundays, buys food from the nearby store, and gets into her home. Obviously she is living safely because she is scared to fail again and get hurt.
Life is painful and there is no escape from it. But we have two choices: either we play safe and die that very moment or take risks and live happily. I have loved taking risks all my life because playing safe is kind of boring for me. It is not who I am. I have played safe for the last two years but from August 2019, I have pushed myself a little bit every day. It is not easy, I fail almost every day but being less bitter and hopeful is lovely.
Last year during the month of December I decided that I should do a backpacking trip. I was out of the job market for more than 8 months, my savings were almost nil and all of a sudden I decided that I will go to my favorite place that I have been thinking for years. My parents supported me and my mother was super excited. I went to Leh and stayed there for 20 days in temperatures ranging between -10 and -17.
Every other person(old people) usually asked three questions:
What is your name
Where are you coming from
And why have you come in winters
Well, I am a nutcase. I love hills, freezing temperatures, and traveling like locals. I traveled in buses, hitchhiked, walked miles every day, slept in bus stations, stayed in Gurdwaras, and covered Leh, Himachal, Chandigarh, Amritsar, and Delhi all via the cheap state transport buses. I was roaming in the day and traveling via buses in the night. I had no plan, no itinerary, and would just do things on the fly to be with myself. I was offline for a month just keeping in touch with my parents once a week. It is one of my best decisions, also one of the crazy ones but I have never been so happy.
By 2022 I will move to Leh. I wish to work with NGOs, write and most of the time do nothing. I have very basic needs and I know I will survive.
Recently I also did something which backfired me on a personal level. Over the last few days, I have analyzed for hours why I had to. I didn’t plan, it just happened. I failed but I am at least happy that I took a risk. And while analyzing for hours I came up with this thought that “To be happy I will have to take risks.” It is interesting how without getting drunk one can still learn life lessons. All you need to do is to sit with yourself and try to find answers. And at times I scribble something like this:
Besides, I don’t fear anything in my life. I have lost jobs, I have lost people who loved me once, I have had money going and coming, and I don’t fear death anymore. Trust me I am not saying to portray myself like any saint or god. I am a devil, let me be a good one :)
I have nothing to lose.
I live in NOW, I am what I am, and I don’t do things that don’t make me happy. Playing safe was never me.
If you are still there with me I am really happy. This week I wrote two stories:
NGOs need to rethink how they work and engage with their brand advocates on celebrities with India spending more time on digital.
“Prasant what do you think should be the future of the digital agency in the next two years. What would be your vision and thoughts?” an industry acquaintance recently asked me who has spent most of his life with traditional agencies.
Initially, I was skeptical but then I gave him gyaan for 30 minutes straight. This is a post about my thoughts on how I think a new digital agency should focus on for the next 2-3 years.
This isn’t an agency playbook. You may agree at times or completely thrash by saying Prasant you haven’t built an agency and you are an idiot. I won’t mind and you are free to unsubscribe from my thoughts.
After Life is one of my beautiful Netflix web series. It is about an alcoholic man’s struggle to live life after he lost the love of his life. He works as a journalist in a paper that no one reads. It is a series that will make you cry, love, laugh, hope, hate, and eventually make you believe in life. Also, it has Ricky Gervais.
The second season ends on a beautiful note: “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” - Robert Frost.
Just don't read RUMI.
Peace and happiness ❤️