Every single “new subscriber” email is a reminder for me to write in my newsletter again.

So here I am.

It’s been more than 3 years of working full time for me. I started my career (with a full time role) at a small early stage startup called Ubu.

That role lasted 9 months, before I decided to part ways and move to a larger startup, where I lasted 6 months, before we parted ways again for me to join another small startup in the AI space where I finally stayed (just a bit) longer than a year.

I left that startup 9 months ago when I got an offer to join Mojo, a video editing app on iOS and Android, as a product manager for creative content.

This new role combines everything I’m in love with — video editing, tech products, social media, and business. It’s been a dream role ever since I joined, and 9 months in, it’s only getting more and more interesting.

This is the role and company where I feel like I’ve learnt the most in such a short amount of time.

It’s been quite a journey though. Early career is never easy, and doing this in a different country from where I grew up doesn’t make it any easier.

And there are many things I know now that I wish I knew at the beginning (although, if I can be honest, I’m so glad I went into my career with a naive mindset since that’s what helped me learn as much as I’ve been able to).

What I’ve learnt in 3 years of working —

You don’t get what you don’t ask for

…and there’s nothing wrong with asking.

I’ve got sooo many things just literally by asking for them.

At work, I’ve been able to get salary raises (once close to 50% on a freelance project lol), perks and bonuses, and generally opportunities for growth.

I learnt that no one is going to come and offer me what I want. No is also going to read my mind about what I want I want. Sometimes all that asking for something does, is tell your manager (or whoever else you’re asking) that you want something. And if they already like you, they’ll want to give you what you want, so they can keep you happy.

Of course, this only works if:

1. You ask strategically (and not at a bad time), and

2. You already have a good reputation in the eyes of whom you’re asking.

Outside of work, I’ve been able to get exceptions and special offers made to me at restaurants, hotels and other places like that. Again, it’s all about sharing what you want, and sometimes they just want to make you happy so they give you what you want.

When I was younger, I used to be nervous about asking for stuff. I was scared about what they’d think of me, whether I’d be judged, what if they said no, etc. I realise now that it doesn’t matter, and people actually want to make you (or keep you) happy.

The worst case scenario is I get a no.

The most likely scenario is that I get some of what I want, or I get what I want later.

The best case scenario, of course, is I get what I want now.

Everything is negotiable

…specially deadlines.

Unless you’re saving lives (and props to you if you are) deadlines are mostly artificially set to create pressure that gets people to work. Without a deadline, most teams won’t get much done — they’ll just waste time in perfectionism or procrastination.

The goal for most teams isn’t to meet the deadline. The goal is to produce good quality work. The deadline is, more often than not, just a tool to help produce good quality work.

So, if a deadline is coming in the way of you producing good quality work by adding unnecessary stress, you can negotiate it. You just need to frame the request in a way that puts the emphasis on improving work quality rather than on your inability to work fast enough.

If something isn’t working out and there’s no recourse, just quit

…life’s too short to work at dead end jobs that stress you out.

Early on in your career, time is extremely precious.

The decisions you make about how you spend your time in the first three years of your career set the trajectory for the next 10 years of your career.

So if a job isn’t working out for you, and you’ve tried to make things work by negotiating, asking for the changes you think you need, or adjusting your expectations (for high-ambition folks, expectations can often be very high and very unrealistic, very early), you should just quit.

There’s plenty of jobs out there. If you can afford it and have a few months of expenses saved up, you can even quit before you find something else, so you can save your mental energy and spend it on figuring out your next step. Nothing wrong with that.

By spending your time at a job or company you hate, you’re not only wasting your time, you’re also spending costly mental energy to survive and stay afloat, instead of spending it in a way that makes you thrive.

I’m not going to get rich by struggling to save money

…I’m going to get rich by making more money than I need.

When I just started earning money, I was focused on trying to save more by cutting expenses I thought weren’t necessary.

My first winter in Paris living alone, I kept the heating on low so I could save €50-60 a month during winter. I denied myself nicer food, drinks and comforts, simply because I felt guilty that I wasn’t saving an enough % of my take-home income every month.

I quickly realised I was being stupid and short-sighted. I wasn’t going to get rich by struggling to save.

I was going to get rich by working hard on things I enjoy, sustainably over a long period of time.

I can only work hard sustainably if I’m comfortable and happy. So I started making myself comfortable and happy.

Even before my income increased, I started spending on comforts like a nicer apartment, heating, a nice desk and chair, tools, equipment, software to make me more effective.

Getting a nicer apartment was the biggest one — by having a nicer place to work and unwind, I gave myself more space to grow.

My income has increased since then, and the same expenses I thought were unnecessary at the start, now don’t bother me at all.

I’m really glad I learnt this lesson early on instead of wasting years to save the same amount of money I save in a few months now.

It’s okay to save a smaller % of your income earlier on. Spend money on making yourself happy and comfortable, and then over time you’ll be able to save a larger % of your income.

(obviously this only applies if you have reasonable confidence that your salary is going to grow)

It’s easy to recover from failures when you’re young

…but you can never go back in time to try that thing again.

Growth comes from taking risks.

Risks come with a possibility of failure.

When you’re young, failure costs you less.

When you’re old, failure costs you more.

So take more risks when you’re young. When you’re young, the upside is high — since you’re young, the growth and rewards last way longer. The downside is low.

When you’re old, the upside is lower, and the downside is higher.

Join that startup, start your business, post that Instagram Reel, TikTok or YouTube video, ask your crush out, try that new restaurant (this one’s for me lol).

The worst thing you can do when you’re young is play it safe ✌🏼

Thanks for reading this far —

I know this email might have come unexpectedly, so if you want to unsubscribe, feel free. I don’t mind (really).

Otherwise, thanks for reading. I can’t promise when the next email is going to come, but I appreciate you staying along for the journey nonetheless!

Cheers,
Mayank

Reminder: if you don’t want to continue receiving emails from me, please unsubscribe. Really. I won’t mind, I promise. :) Link at the bottom!

Since I was 13 years old, I’ve been on a treadmill of starting tons of different projects and “seeing where they go”.

A “bias to action”, as they call it, has been a priority in my life since I know I learn way more when I actually do something as compared to just reading about the same things.

Moreover, I also know that by doing different projects I’m just increasing the “surface area” of my luck — just giving myself more chances to succeed, learn or connect with people.

And so… music CDs, student clubs, products, websites… I’ve started them all.

A few of these projects went somewhere, but most of them went nowhere.

Except that all of the ones that “went nowhere” taught me things that were essential to the ones that “went somewhere”. Always.

Here are the projects I’ve started in the last 1 year, and their results, in reverse chronological order.

My Failure CV — Failures + Learnings

Here’s what I’ve recently “failed” at.

Though tbh I don’t really consider any of these as failures — but as learnings.

The Growth Curve Community

Late last year, I started a Slack community with the aim of bringing members of my audience together in a way that they could connect with each other.

I wanted it to be a place where growth minded people + people studying in France/Europe got together to interact and connect.

Result?

→ 79 people joined, there were a few interesting discussions, but it eventually died out. No more discussions, no new people joining.

What went wrong? In retrospect, a few things:

• There was no focus for the community. It was unclear who the “ideal member” of this community was, what would qualify you to join — to whom the community would be interesting.

• And so, I targeted it to “people studying in France”… but also Europe? But also creative people? Also growth-minded people? This did not work.

• As a result, I didn’t know what type of online events and discussions to prioritise in the community.

• This led to it being not interesting for current as well as prospective members, leading to its death.

• Also, perhaps the fact that I hosted it on Slack, which is something not most people use every day already, led to its “non-stickiness”.

What did I learn?

• If I’m going to start a thriving community, I need to define a proper focus for it. Make a clear “ideal profile”, and communicate about it in a way that everyone else self-rejects themselves from joining. This way the community maintains its focus.

• A community isn’t something that’s going to build and maintain itself. It requires lots of dedicated time and effort. I should build one when I have that time and energy.

B-school Essay Guide

In November 2022, I decided to do a sprint where I tried to develop and sell a product as fast as possible. I also knew that writing business school essays is a pain point that many people, especially within my audience, face.

I had spent that previous few months helping people out with their essays (project described below), and I had a fair bit of understanding on this topic — so I decided to productize it.

So I spent 2 weeks writing out this 7000 word document on Notion with the aim to allow anyone to understand their own application story and write the most impactful essays possible, by listing out 20 application essay questions that I had come across while helping others, and writing out a framework to answer them.

Result?

→ I sold 20 copies. Many people wrote to me, telling me that my product was helpful. I received eight 5-star ratings on Gumroad.

One of the best outcomes — someone in China bought the €20 guide, booked a €100 call through the guide to help with their essays because of how helpful they found the guide, and then booked another €100 call to help with their admissions interview, because of how helpful the first call was. Definitely the best-case outcome.

Technically a “success”, but I was expecting to sell more, and I realised that I made some mistakes.

The approach I took was that I announced the product and opened an email list before I had even started developing it — to validate the demand. 35 people signed up for the list — only 3 or 4 of them actually bought it.

People might be interested in something, but the only way to truly know is when they give you their credit card.

These are some of the mistakes I made —

• I priced the product at €23,90 first, and then after selling 2 of them, I decided to reduce the price to €19,90. I refunded the two buyers €4, but I think this led to me losing out on sales in the beginning.

• I tested out a bunch of different discount codes, and I found that people bought more easily at €16. But by then it was too late to reduce the price permanently. I have a hunch that I could have sold it at €10 and made more money doing that cuz I’d sell more.

So yeah my mistakes I think were mostly in pricing — but of course I could have always communicated about it more.

Running Ads

In February 2023, I invested €50 and tried running FB/IG ads for the essay guide.

Result?

→ I gained a few IG followers, but didn’t sell any guides directly.

I did sell 2 guides to non-audience members during the same time period (can’t attribute it to the ads with 100% certainty though), and they requested a refund because it wasn’t useful to them.

They mentioned that they were both expecting actual essays that they could just copy/”take inspiration from” — not something my guide offers.

This made me a bit upset, but then I realised it’s an issue with communicating and setting expectations — since my audience-members who bought the guide loved it.

This led to me to change the description of the product on Gumroad to make it more clear.

What did I learn + next steps?

• Good thing is that the guide is seasonal in nature. It’s (hopefully, if they got admitted) not much more useful to someone once they’ve used it. Hence it’s worth whatever price you pay during application season if you got admitted.

• I will update the guide and re-launch it next application season (starting September 2023), and perhaps launch it at €10 this time.

Overall the product launch was a success for me personally — aside from selling way fewer than I initially anticipated, I learnt a tremendous amount during the process. I learnt things that I absolutely could not have learnt otherwise. I’m now way more prepared when I want to launch another product in the future.

It was overall a net-profitable project if I consider how much I made from it (around €200 after fees, taxes and the FB ads project) and divide by number of hours I spent writing it (around 6 hours or so in total) — so around €33 per hour in profit.

But this doesn’t include the tens of hours I spent creating content around it, setting up technical systems, learning, etc.

So maybe it was still not super profitable hourly lol. Failure! (jk)

Etsy T-Shirt Shop

Early last year, I decided to start a print-on-demand T-shirt shop selling T-shirts with my favourite photograph on them.

Result?

Even though lots of people showed interest, I sold just 1 T-shirt to someone that was what I’d call a “dedicated fan”.

What did I learn?

• Again, people might be interested in something, but the only way to truly know is when they give you their credit card.

• Print-on-demand is a great way to take out all the risk on my end (I don’t manufacture or store any T-shirts that I don’t sell), but it’s very expensive.

• Each T-shirt had to sell for at least €30 for it to make sense for me, and not cause me to take a loss, this was too high especially considering that a lot of my dedicated audience is in India and INR 2700 for a T-shirt is simply way too high. I myself wouldn’t buy one.

• It was a great project to see how fast I could set up a T-shirt shop, but while setting up the shop is simple, a successful strategy might have involved communicating about my T-shirts a lot more than just a few IG stories.

I might launch merch at some point in the future again, but in a much more strategic way. Not using print on demand, with a proper communication plan, and with a longer term strategy.

Maybe not T-shirts but perhaps something else that aligns with my brand (which itself isn’t clearly defined at the moment), just like how Ali Abdaal launched a stationery line.

Paris Apartment Tour Video Series

In April 2022, I uploaded a video titled “Tiny Paris Apartment Tour • 9m² for €750” which went viral — 1.4M views as of May’23.

Definitely a success.

When I could see that this video was picking up, I decided to produce a bunch of more videos in the same series — I published a total of 7 videos after that one.

1.4M, 104K, 41K, 20K, 14K, 6.6K, 2.3K — while still a lot of views, the view count went lower and lower with every subsequent video in the series.

What I learnt —

• Apartment tour videos are very entertaining for the audience, and I love filming them too!

• However, finding interesting apartments to film + a charismatic host with stories to tell is a struggle.

• Not everyone with a great apartment is comfortable to tour it on video, and not everyone comfortable touring their apartment on video has a notable apartment that’s exciting enough for me to go over and film it.

However, one of the videos I had the most fun filming was this one:

They all were so happy to see me and show me their apartment, they had such a great vibe among each other, they fed me lunch afterwards too, and it was overall such a great day.

Vatsal (the guy who contacted me) told me that when he was looking for flatmates one of his conditions was “they have to be okay with Mayank touring our apartment”.

Crazy.

Next steps —

• I think Paris apartment tours is a type of video I’ll do every now and then when I find a notable enough apartment to tour — but it is not likely to be a regular appearance on my channel.

Conclusion

To be honest, I know I started more failed projects but I just don’t remember them rn lol and I thought the email was already getting too long. I do hope this gives you a bit of clarity on some of the things I was up to the last year.

I also have some projects that I started recently — like mimineurope.com — but it’s too early to say whether it’ll be a success or a failure.

Life is short, guys. Go start whatever you really want to start. At an early stage, there’s really no such thing as failing — you’ll either succeed or you’ll learn.

Some tips on starting projects —

• Define your ideal outcome(s) — profit, learning, connections, experience — what do you want to achieve?

• Define your minimum outcome(s) — what would you have to achieve for it to not be a complete waste of time? In most cases this is learning.

• Finish the projects you start. If you decide to give up — write that down. It counts as finishing when you define and tell yourself why you gave up.

• Define a realistic timeline for your projects. By when should you have achieved what?

• Look back every 3 months to see whether you’re completing your projects or you’re giving up. If you find yourself giving up a lot, try and introspect why that might be.

• Have fun. If it stops being fun, just stop. It’s not worth it ✌🏼

All the best everyone!

— Mayank

In a nutshell — a mental model is a way, or a methodology, to approach a problem or a situation.

Let’s understand this with an example.

Here’s a common problem: you need to cook dinner.

You need to know what you feel like eating. Then you know that you first need a recipe. The recipe needs ingredients. You either have the ingredients, or you go buy them. Then you cook your meal with those ingredients. Finally, you eat your meal.

But what if it’s cold outside and you don’t feel like going out to buy ingredients?

If you don’t feel like going out and buying ingredients, you need a recipe that uses ingredients you already have.

So then you work backwards. You understand what you have at home, you gather your ingredients, you then decide what you feel like eating based on the ingredients, you find a recipe, you cook your meal, and you eat it.

You see how the entire process can be broken down into a map or a flowchart? This flowchart is called a mental model. It’s a model for solving a particular issue — in this case, filling your tummy.

What if you had a flowchart like this for solving most of life’s problems, or for navigating through complex situations? Wouldn’t that make life much simpler?

That’s basically what mental models are.

Two business mental models that I use regularly in my life

Sunk Cost Effect

Sunk costs are costs that have already been incurred, that you cannot get back. If no matter what you do, that money/time/energy has already been spent and there are no refunds, then that is a sunk cost.

There is no point in making decisions about the future by looking at costs you cannot get back. They are gone. Whether you move forward with a project or not (or relationship, or career choice, or… you get the point), those costs are not going to change.

To make a decision about the future, pretend as if past costs were never incurred in the first place. Only look at the future costs, what you will have to spend to move forward with a project. And then evaluate whether it’s worth it.

For example, you’ve already booked your flights and hotel for a trip. They are non-refundable. Finally, you fall sick and you’re debating skipping the trip. “But I’ve already paid for everything!” — whether you go or not, it doesn’t matter. You won’t get the money back. But if you do go, you risk getting even more sick. Solution? You don’t go.

Same thing can be applied when you’re deciding to sell something. In April 2021, I spent €2200 on an M1 MacBook Pro. I used it for about 10 months, made some money using it, and I realised that I didn’t need such an expensive computer, especially when I had one from the company I worked for, and I’d rather use the money for something else. I was getting an offer to sell it for €1750.

Sure, it could be looked at as a €450 loss after 10 months, but for me — the money I spent was a sunk cost. Today, the decision is — keep the laptop and get nothing, or give the laptop and get €1750. If I flipped the decision, would I spend €1750 for this laptop? No I wouldn’t. So what would be my decision? Sell it.

Return on Investment

When you spend time, energy or money on anything, it can be looked at as an investment. Whether making that investment is worth it or not depends on the return on that investment, and the costs of that investment.

Sure you can argue that “not everything is an investment, Mayank. Some things are just meant to be enjoyed, and done for the sake of doing them” — but I would argue that the ROI of those investments is pure fun, joy, satisfaction and the experience of doing the thing. Which is not a bad ROI. But it is still an ROI.

Whenever you’re making a decision, think of what your expected outcome of that decision is (the ROI), the likelihood of that expected outcome, and the costs incurred for that decision.

A few months ago, I was having a really tough time understanding whether I should spend a ton of money on a new camera. The one I had my eye on was considerably expensive, it was basically more than half the year’s YouTube earnings. And then one thought solved it all for me.

I realised that if I buy the camera, two things can happen.

In the first case, it gives me a positive ROI, through —

1. Greatly increased production quality, leading to…

2. Increased perceived value of my content, leading to…

3. More opportunities and views, leading to…

4. Increased YouTube/side business earnings and growth

Besides that, it would also give me:

1. Increased pleasure of shooting and creating — something that’s non-quantifiable

2. The joy and pride of having purchased something I’ve dreamed of for a long time

Basically, tons of potential positive things, and a few guaranteed positive things. I assigned my own weightage and value to each of these.

In the second case, it would give me a negative ROI.

If I didn’t see any positive ROI in 6 to 12 months, I could sell the camera for a 15-20% loss on the cost of the camera.

I realised that the true worst-case cost of this decision was 15-20% of the camera’s cost. Something that I could easily do, and it wouldn’t affect me much.

I didn’t need to think anymore. I placed the order then and there.

How I can help you

1. My B-School Application Essay Guide. If you’re applying to business schools, this guide can help you write your essays in the best, most impactful way possible.

2. My YouTube channel. Information about living in and moving to France.

3. The Growth Curve Community. My free Slack community of people applying to study/move abroad, current expats, and growth minded people.

Thanks —

Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for supporting me. Thanks for being a member of this community.

See you next week!

— Mayank

Reminder: if you don’t want to continue receiving emails from me, please unsubscribe. Really. I won’t mind, I promise. :) Link at the bottom!

It’s now been close to 5 years since I moved abroad to France from India, and of that time I’ve spent only 1 year living with one or more roommates/flatmates. This means I’ve spent 3+ years living completely alone, by myself, managing everything on my own at home.

In this issue, I’ll break down my reflections on what I’ve learnt during this time.

Lessons from Living Alone

I’ve learnt to be fiercely independent

When you’re living alone, you’re the captain of your own ship. When you’re hitting rough waters, whether that’s logistically with home issues, or emotionally with personal issues, there’s no one immediately there to support you.

Mould on the ceiling? Gotta fix it yourself. Shower drain clogged? Gotta fix it yourself. Cleaning the kitchen or the toilet? Gotta clean it yourself. Issues with the landlord? Gotta deal with it yourself.

You get the point. But also —

Want to get nicer furniture? Buy it yourself. But also choose it yourself. And build it yourself. Want to get nicer groceries? Same thing. Want to choose whacky decor? No one can tell you otherwise.

But again, also —

Broke up with your girlfriend? Gotta get through it yourself. Fought with your mom? Gotta get through it yourself. Issues at the job? Gotta get through it yourself.

Years of getting through things yourself, building things yourself, dealing with things yourself — you become a fiercely, hyper-independent person. You feel like you can deal with anything… yourself.

I’ve become more intentional about hanging out with friends

When you live alone, there’s no default person to hang out with. You either hang out with yourself, or you make an intentional effort to spend time with people.

It’s on you to make sure you reach out to friends, family, make lunch plans, going out plans, or weekend plans. There’s no default.

If you don’t, it’s too easy to live like a hermit and not spend time with anyone at all.

But the flip side is that you choose exactly how you spend your time. It’s much easier to focus on things and to focus on yourself.

That’s one reason I love living alone — I love the autonomy of how I spend my time. I don’t think I could produce as much work as I do right now if I didn’t live alone.

But… living with aligned people is still really great, if not better

In 2021, I spent a good 7 months living with my ex-classmate Cody, and it was a wonderful arrangement — we would hang out when we felt like, we would be on our own when we felt like, there were no obligations and no compromises. We were completely independent but still lived together.

Best part? It didn’t bother him that I played guitar or loud music because he would always have his AirPods Pros in with noise-cancellation. And best best part? He himself was a quiet, calm person who didn’t make much noise himself. Perfect arrangement.

We did a lot of fun things together, it was really great. And the fun-est of the things we did were spontaneous plans, which are harder when you live away from each other.

Another time was in college in Manipal, when I lived with my college best friend Shubham. We lived in a 2 bedroom apartment, we had a lot of fun, gave each other a lot of emotional support, but we were also quite independent. We pushed each other to do better for ourselves.

But my realisation was that it’s rare to find such an arrangement. It doesn’t come across very often.

So for me the preference is:

It’s much easier than it looks like

A lot of people don’t even consider the option of living alone because they’re too scared they’ll be lonely or bored.

I just think it’s a matter of getting used to it, embracing the nice aspects of it, and understanding + finding solutions to your needs.

Ideal solution perhaps is to live alone but close to good friends. That’s what it felt like in college at HEC. That way you can get your time and independence, but still spend time with people more easily and spontaneously.

How I can help you

1. My B-School Application Essay Guide. If you’re applying to business schools, this guide can help you write your essays in the best, most impactful way possible.

2. My YouTube channel. Information about living in and moving to France.

3. The Growth Curve Community. My free Slack community of people applying to study/move abroad, current expats, and growth minded people.

Thanks —

Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for supporting me. Thanks for being a member of this community.

See you next week!

— Mayank

Reminder: if you don’t want to continue receiving emails from me, please unsubscribe. Really. I won’t mind, I promise. :) Link at the bottom!

It’s now almost 2 years since I’ve been done with my classes at HEC Paris. That’s a lot of time to reflect on what I really learnt there, and why going to business school something that’s worth spending so much time and money on.

In this issue, I will break down the key things I got out of studying at business school.

The real value of going to B-school —

Learning how to network:

I feel like networking gets a bad connotation of being inauthentic, selfish, purpose driven, and something you do when you’re desperate.

At business school, I learnt what networking really is — it’s making genuine, authentic connections with people that are based on exchanged value. This value is often in the form of having insightful conversations, fun and drinks, motivation, inspiration, or shared opportunities.

But the key thing is that both parties receive value.

I learnt how to genuinely give value to others, and build a strong network as a result.

And the best part? When you go to a top business school, others around you will set an example for you. Alumni, teachers, managers, bosses, mentors, friends, classmates, they will all show you how it’s done.

I remember one of my managers when I interned at Estée Lauder in my gap year had told me: “Mayank, it’s part of your job to have coffees with the other interns, and other people. Don’t hesitate to take breaks during the day to do that. It’s important.”

So far, I had been networking just for fun, in an ad-hoc manner, meeting only people that aligned with my values and could be friends. But during and after B-school, I started to take a more intentional approach to it.

Note that intentional ≠ inauthentic.

Intentional = doing it with the purpose of sharing as much value with others as possible, and building goodwill.

I’ve actually made a video about networking that I think summed up my thoughts on this pretty well.

Expanding the things I think are possible:

I always wanted to move to and work in LA, but I didn’t think it was possible, so I didn’t even try.

Until one I received an email one day with the internship job description of my dreams. When I dug further, I learnt that it was actually an HEC girl that had networked with the CEO of the company to convince him to hire her as an intern, and after her they decided to hire one more — which turned out to be me.

That girl — she tried. She didn’t think it was not possible.

In LA, I met my manager. He was running a 6-figure a year side business at that time, which is now a multiple 7-figure full time business. He was the one that taught me “Most people fail because they don’t persist. They give up too soon.” He made me understand that actually, it is possible to have it all — a job you love and money.

At HEC, I met others that took big risks and won big. Others took big risks and lost, but they learnt a lot in the process so they bounced back even bigger. I met people that came from very different economic backgrounds from me on both extremes, and learning about their perspective on the world showed me that my perspective needs to be expanded.

When you grow up in a middle or upper-middle service class family with no entrepreneurial background, you think in a significantly different way from people that grow up in an entrepreneurial household.

Sometimes all you need to expand what you’re able to do is to expand your mindset. Only once you see, meet and talk to people that did things that you want to do but don’t think are possible, only then you even start to think they might be possible.

And that’s what makes all the difference. Belief.

Challenging my perspective on the world:

As I mentioned earlier, going to B-school, especially a top school abroad, will push you to meet people from a variety of different backgrounds — social, cultural, economic, academic.

That’s what pushes you to learn more and more about the world, and the different types of people in it.

This builds empathy — a quality that is incredibly important as a manager or leader, but equally important to get ahead in life as well.

Growing the boundaries of my comfort zone:

When you’re surrounded by people doing crazy things, you permit yourself to do crazy things. Eventually, doing crazy things becomes the norm. They don’t seem so crazy anymore.

Spending a weekend with French-speakers when you don’t speak any French? Crazy at one time, not crazy anymore.

Meeting random people from Instagram for coffees? Crazy at one time, normal part of networking now.

Moving all the way to LA from Paris with just 2 suitcases, a backpack, and a 10-day hostel reservation hoping I’ll find an apartment soon? Super crazy at one point, not so crazy now.

Building a side business? Crazy at one point, not so crazy now.

These are just a few of the things I’ve got out of attending business school.

Would I have had this growth, these learnings and experiences without attending B-school? Maybe eventually. Maybe not. Who knows.

But I know that attending B-school abroad at the age of 23 gave me these learnings at the age of 23, at an age where the compounding value of these learnings is very high.

The growth curve of my life would have been very different if I didn’t go to HEC in 2018, that’s for sure.

And that’s why this newsletter is called The Growth Curve. Since it’s a documentation of my own growth curve.

How I can help you

1. My B-School Application Essay Guide. If you’re applying to business schools, this guide can help you write your essays in the best, most impactful way possible.

2. My YouTube channel. Information about living in and moving to France.

3. The Growth Curve Community. My free Slack community of people applying to study/move abroad, current expats, and growth minded people.

4. Magoosh GMAT Prep Software. This is the same GMAT prep tool I used to get a score of 760, something that was key to my admission at HEC Paris. (affiliate link)

Thanks —

Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for supporting me. Thanks for being a member of this community.

See you next week!

— Mayank

Reminder: if you don’t want to continue receiving occasional emails from me, please unsubscribe. I really won’t mind, I promise. :) Link at the bottom!

Consider a math equation with different variables.

In order to balance the equation, I can only optimise a few variables at a time. Once those variables are optimised, only then I can optimise other variables, while trying not to change the first variables too much.

Life is kind of the same way.

I can only optimise a few variables of life at a time.

In 2022, I was largely focused on work — my day job, growing my online presence/YouTube, meeting and networking with people, thinking of new ideas, trying new things.

Being a creator

YouTube was basically a second job the entire year. I was posting weekly almost consistently while learning to push myself to try new things. I learnt how to negotiate sponsorships. I learnt how to deal with a video blowing up to 1M+ views, and how to leverage the attention to grow my channel instead of wasting it.

I launched a digital product, and learnt how to sell it. I learnt how to price it, how to build a landing page, how to run a marketing campaign to sell it. I learnt what to do when I realised I chose the wrong price.

I started helping people with their business school essays. I learnt how to sell myself, how to price myself, how to build processes and structures, and when to say no.

I started a creator community in Paris called creators.paris and this helped me meet a bunch of new people too. Even when I was traveling in New York, I spent an entire day trying to meet with different YouTubers.

I learnt how to do all these things from scratch, since it was my first time doing them.

Starting a career

I also chose to take a few risks while starting my career, which added a bit of stress to my life. I learnt how to quit a job that wasn’t working out for me.

Living, alone

I was also focused on learning to manage myself living alone. This included setting up and taking care of my apartment, figuring out where and how I’m going to eat, building routines, managing things around the house (like for example: figuring out how to clean mould from the ceiling of my bathroom while standing on a ladder with a bucket in one hand and a sponge in another), and generally learning to live and work full time, away from the safe and easy community of a school/uni system.

Finances

It was also my first full year of earning a proper salary on my own. And so, I was also learning how to manage my finances.

How much should I save? How much can I spend on food? What if I really really enjoy eating food and I’m not being unhealthy – does the answer change? Is it okay to spend a crazy amount of money on a new camera? Is it stupid to buy something just because I really really want it and don’t know what I’ll do with it yet? How often can I do that?

I had to figure out the answers to all these questions.

Doing all of this, but on expert mode

To add to it, I was managing all of this while building a life in an entirely new country. This is the part I very often forget. Doing these things at home, near family and close/old friends, in a familiar environment and language, is already hard. Doing these things in a new country, language, social group, micro and macro environment, just adds a whole new level of complexity.

This meant, however, that other aspects of life had to take a bit of a backseat. I know that I could definitely have focused more on my health and diet. I could have focused on fitness. I could have focused on traveling more, or on cooking more. I could have focused more on building more hobbies, or on my mental health.

There are so many things I could have done, but I didn’t.

My 2023 variables

In 2023, there are other variables I’ll be focusing on. I’ll write about them in a future issue, shortly. :)

What I realised

The reality is that it’s tough to focus on everything at once. And I was already having to focus on a lot things already.

I understood that in any transitory phase of life, there are new things to focus on learning, and this often comes at the cost of other things. This isn’t even my first transitory phase. It’s happened before.

And it’s easy to look at other people being able to focus on those other things, but it’s important to remind myself what are the things I need to focus on at this moment.

How I can help you —

1. My B-School Application Essay Guide. If you’re applying to business schools, this guide can help you write your essays in the best, most impactful way possible.

2. My YouTube channel. Information about living in and moving to France.

Thanks for reading this far. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend!

It’s been a while since I’ve written this newsletter, but I’m still glad to see a bunch of new people subscribing to it. I’ll be writing way more often from now on. I promise.

See you next week!

— Mayank

When I was 13, I would come home every day from school and turn on the computer, just like most other kids my age.

Except I would take out my guitar, and make music the entire evening. I used to use a cracked version of this software called FL Studio. The process I followed was that I’d imagine what I wanted my song to sound like, and I would aim to get there using YouTube to help. I did this for months, writing and finishing a couple of songs on the way, making me incredibly proud and pleased with myself.

Eventually, I had a wild idea — what if I released a music CD? Wouldn’t that be so cool? Imagine telling all my friends and the girls I had a crush on (there were always a few) that I had a music CD — damn, I’d be such a badass.

It was decided: I was going to make a music CD.

• Where would I sell it? At school.

• Whom would I sell it to? My school mates.

It would be my debut album. And I would self-release it and be the child prodigy I was destined to be.

I painstakingly wrote and recorded 8 songs, one of them even featuring a fellow musician friend, and made a master copy.

Music, done.

Next step: making cover art.

I did a little photo shoot in my neighbourhood with the help of my friend, and edited the photos using an online tool — I remember it was called PicMonkey.

I learnt a lot about photo editing through this process of creating album art. In fact, that’s probably how I got into photography.

Album art, done.

Now was the tricky part. Getting CDs made.

I was 13 years old and on a budget. I called up 5 different suppliers in Bangalore and negotiated rates.

I found this manufacturer called Avishkar Techno Solutions and first ordered 20 copies, and then ordered 30 more because I was so confident I'd sell them all. I spent Rs. 3000 of my pocket money (€50 at the time).

Because you gotta invest, right?

My idea was that I'd sell each of them for Rs. 150 (€2.5) and make Rs. 90 (€1.5) in profit. If I sold all of them, I'd be making Rs. 4500 (€75).

It sounded neat.

Business plan and manufacturing, done.

Now I had to figure out distribution.

I’d decided that I would sell my CDs in school first. I’d built up a bunch of hype, started a Facebook page and it had 200 likes on it, and people were looking forward to the release of my CD.

I had a bunch of people that were already ready to buy. I just needed to release the thing.

And then I spoke with my school principal, and she told me that the school could help me promote my CD to students as well, I just needed to push the release a little bit.

I agreed.

Distribution, sorted.

Closer to release day…

I never heard back from my principal about this, and she’d always postpone our meetings. Eventually she backed out, saying that they can’t help me anymore.

I decided to launch it myself anyway. That’s when I bought 30 more copies as I mentioned previously.

I built up a LOT of hype around this release — I was talking about it with everyone, posting about it on Facebook, I was part of the school band at the time, so we were going to different school fests and playing, and I was spreading the word every chance I got.

I ended up getting quite a bit of attention around this, at least within my school. Everyone knew that Mayank was working on an album, Mayank was part of the school band, he’s gonna launch something and sell it.

It was gonna be my big success.

Launch

And so I launched. And I completed tanked. The album sold 7 copies before I realised no one else was going to buy them.

7 copies.

I didn't even break even.

Even though I built up a lot of hype at school and people were excited, on release day it was... crickets.

The aftermath

A couple of things happened.

1. I ended up becoming overconfident and arrogant with all the attention I got. It went to my head. And as a result, I lost friends. It was probably also why I didn’t sell more copies. Because let’s face it — no one was really buying it for the music. They bought it to support me. And no one wants to support an arrogant kid.

2. My confidence was crushed, partially for good reason. I’d gotten way too ahead of myself, and this brought me back down.

3. I realised that my music was actually… not good. It wasn’t bad for a 13 year old who just started, but not good enough for people to enjoy. Heck, I myself didn’t enjoy listening to it all that much.

Yeah… I had no idea that what started as a unique hobby would lead to this. Not what I signed up for at all. I just wanted to make music and sell some CDs.

It was my first real big bad failure.

There were actually two failures. One in not being able to sell CDs and even break even.

The other, more real failure was in letting attention get to my head. In forgetting to be humble. In not stopping to check whether I’m doing this for the right reasons. In basically being, let’s face it, an ass to people around me.

What I learnt after

1. I promised to myself to never let attention get to my head. To always be humble, and keep checking myself if I feel like I’m going down an arrogant path again. I promised to never feel “above” anyone because of anything I achieved or did. To just generally be a nicer, more grateful person.

   
   The best part about not feeling “above” anyone is that you also don’t feel “below” anyone — my realisation while writing this, just now.
   

2. Instead of stopping music production, I gave myself another chance to make and release music. I went 3x as hard, learnt a lot more, practiced a lot, and finally started releasing things I was actually proud of.

   
   And some if not all of those things are actually still up on the Internet. I ended up releasing an 8-track album/EP in the summer of 2014, and I literally didn’t care how many people listened to it or downloaded it. I think I got like… 100 downloads? I was so happy for even that.
   

   

   
   Today, whenever I listen to that album, I feel happy and proud. Because that album to me is the product of my growing up as a person, as well as a creator.
   

3. I also decided I wouldn’t ever sell music again. Every single song I put out after, I gave it out for free. Free to listen, free to download. I’d rather have even a few hundred or thousand people listen to my music than to earn a few thousand rupees and be heard by like… 20 people.
   

4. I realised that I genuinely liked creating. I wasn’t doing it for the money or for the attention. And once I removed those considerations, I started enjoying creating and putting myself out there a LOT more.
   

5. I realised the potential of personal branding and putting myself out there, and how it can literally shape my life into either something I hate or something I love.

Looking back, I’m now incredibly grateful for this experience. This real big bad failure was what set me on the path towards where I am today, career-wise as well as personally. And I think it was necessary for me.

Thanks for your support

This post was honestly a bit hard for me to write, but I wanted to get this out there and share it with you. And I’m glad I did.

As always, thanks immensely for your support all this while. My apologies for not being more regular with this newsletter, but I try.

I hope you’re doing great wherever you are :)

— Mayank

Hey you!

Welcome to the 19 new people here since the previous issue, and welcome back to the 590 of you in total.

I use this newsletter as a platform for sharing deeper, more personal thoughts and stories that I haven’t yet found a way to express on other platforms.

And today, I’m going to share with you 7 things that I’ve recently realised I don’t really care so much about anymore.

People doing me wrong and behaving weirdly

Most of the time when someone does us wrong, they’re usually acting in self-defence more than offence.

Everyone has their own way of perceiving the world, and I believe that no one wakes up and inherently thinks to themselves “Let’s do something terrible to Mayank today!”

Now, I’m able to better explain someone’s negative behaviour. That doesn’t mean that I will excuse it or tolerate it — it’s simply an observation of this person’s mental state at a given point in time.

This more stoic view has helped me build more empathy, and also make more rational decisions about my relationships with people.

Small amounts of money

Ever feel terrible when you lose €2 in a vending machine that doesn’t deliver or when you have to pay Rs. 200 more for Uber’s surge pricing? But how do you feel about finding a €2 coin on the floor of a bus, or getting Rs. 200 in extra discounts that you weren’t expecting on Swiggy/Uber Eats?

You feel worse for the loss than how happy to feel with an equivalent gain.

Loss aversion is an economic theory identified by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, which describes this tendency to avoid losses because of a greater pain attached to them.

I learnt about this theory in my first year at HEC Paris, and since then whenever I randomly lose small amounts of money here and there, I remember all the small (and large) amounts of money I’ve equally randomly gained here and there.

Bargaining for commodities

Especially back in India, with street vendors and auto-rickshaw drivers, I made it a rule to simply not bargain. I listen to their price and decide whether it’s a “yes” or a “no” without bargaining for 50-100 rupees (€0.5–€1) here and there.

Granted, this is a result of a position of privilege, but I have two specific reasons for this:

1. The vendor definitely needs that extra money more than I do. In my own mind I determine my “fair price” of what I’m buying, and any extra I pay I consider as giving a tip, or an “expedition fee” of having what I need without any hassle.

2. The money I save bargaining is not nearly worth the mental energy of the negotiation. My energy and time is limited, and I’d rather be spending it on more profitable activities instead of trying to save a few bucks.

If I’m going to bargain or negotiate price, I’d rather do it for bigger ticket items where the negotiation will actually save me (or earn me, if I’m selling) significant money — and even the threshold for this will change as the value of my time (and energy) changes.

Unfulfilling relationships

You know how you have some people that are GREAT friends and you love hanging with them, and some others that are TERRIBLE and you just avoid them? But there’s also a third category of people that are “Ambivalent” — not bad enough for you to ditch entirely, but not great enough that you feel awesome after hanging out, and very inconsistent between times that you hang out with them.

Recently I read a wonderful article on The Art of Manliness about “Ambivalent Relationships” that talks about this exact phenomena, and why this third type is bad for you.

Now I’m very much hell-yes-or-no with people. If I get a great vibe, I’ll hang with them more often. If it’s anything less than that, I’ll reduce how much I hang with them to match the vibe, or stop hanging out altogether.

I’d rather spend a Friday or Saturday evening alone than in the company of people I’m not vibing with.

Being super efficient all the time

These days, I’m happy to not be super productive or effective 100% of the time.

I understand that there are periods that I’m very effective — usually periods with lots of production and output — those are my “sprint” periods.

Then there are times when I’m walking — usually periods with lots of learning, reading, consuming — those are my “walk” periods.

Other times I’m just resting. Entire day spent at home chilling out, or travelling, or outside with friends.

I acknowledge when I’m in a certain state, and then I embrace it without having any expectations of being in another state.

I also understand that I can be in a certain state for hours, days or weeks. Sometimes even months, on a macro level — and that’s OK. The last few weeks I’ve been in a rest state, and while it was a bit weird for me in the beginning, I learnt to embrace it.

This allows me to rest effectively, work effectively, and learn effectively.

Check-the-box travelling

In the past, whenever I’d travel, the first priority would be the place — i.e. exploring, seeing everything there is to see, making sure I did all the things I should be doing.

Now, whenever I travel, the first priority is myself. I don’t force myself to do anything I don’t feel like doing in that moment. If I feel like spending an entire day at a cafe, I do that.

If I feel like just walking around, I do that. If I feel like stopping and talking to people, I do that. If I feel like not talking to anyone, I do that.

Recently, when I was in New York, I made no plans at all for my time there. I just showed up, and decided to do what I felt. It was great.

Did I see everything I could see in a week? No. Did I have a good time? Yes.

Expectations

This is another stoic view I’ve been trying to imbibe — to have no expectations, especially out of people. Anything anyone does for me is a bonus — I don’t expect anything.

I try and keep a more observatory perspective on other people. Anything anyone does or doesn’t do, is something to learn from about that person. I use it to form my judgement on that person, and decide how I’m going to respond.

Recent Inspirations

I legitimately teared up at the end of this video. You need to watch it.

Video of The Week

I published this video 2 months ago, and recently it’s been blowing up in the algorithm — it crossed 100K views a few days ago, and it keeps getting more views, which is insane.

There are more apartment tours incoming!

Thanks

For reading this far. For subscribing. For supporting me. I’m very grateful.

See you in the next one!

— Mayank

One of my favorite photos of all time is this one of a skater at Venice Beach, and I launched a T-shirt with it!

Made of super-soft cotton, it’s available in black or white. It ships internationally.

€29.90 in France, and €34.90 everywhere else 👇

Get the T-shirt delivered home

I’ve found it so easy to fall into a trap of constantly being dissatisfied with the way I’m spending my time, and I know that many of my peers feel the same way — no matter how much time you spend working, it just never feels enough. Sounds familiar?

And this ends up creeping into other aspects of life as well. When you feel constantly dissatisfied, it’s not easy to feel free – and it’s not easy to feel creative. At least not for me.

How do I deal with this?

The Reitoff Principle™️

This term was coined by Ali Abdaal. The idea is basically that if you’re ‘not feeling it’ some of the days, which for me happens many days, just “write off” those days.

Actively decide that you’re not going to get anything productive or useful those days/those evenings after work.

By doing that, instead of procrastinating working and procrastinating having fun at the same time, and doing low-value activities like scrolling Instagram and TikTok, you can actually focus on resting yourself well without guilt.

It’s about setting your intentions and following through.

The Daily Highlight

This is from a book called Make Time by Jake Knapp. The idea is to start each day by setting a “highlight” for that day — something that you will do or achieve that day.

It has to be only one highlight. A single thing that you have to get done.

And when you achieve that thing, you’ll know you achieved your highlight. And you can feel satisfied knowing that you did.

For example, I set the daily highlight for myself today, to finish writing this newsletter. And by the time you read it, I’ll have achieved that. Done!

It’s again about setting your intentions and following through.

Understanding Your Energy Capacity

We underestimate what we can achieve in a year but we overestimate what we can get done in a day (I forget where I read this, but it’s not mine).

Get real with yourself. Figure out what your true daily capacity is, and figure out what times of the day your energy is at its peak, and develop your work schedule around that

Being a “morning person” or “night person” aren’t the only options. Personally, I’m an afternoon person. My most productive hours are between 2–5pm.

If you’re in the business of doing high-value, mental-energy-intensive work, it’s more important to manage your energy than it is to manage your time. 3 hours of deep work is more valuable than 8 hours of unfocused work.

Video of the week

I released an apartment tour video on my channel, showing what my apartment looks like and what I’ve done with it.

Thanks a lot for reading, and feel free to hit reply or comment down below with your thoughts!

— Mayank

I’ve always had somewhat of an identity crisis.

I spent my childhood and teen years in Bangalore, but I was born in New Delhi, where my entire family is from. I went to college in Manipal in coastal Karnataka and then moved to Paris, France right after. So when someone asks me “where are you from?” I’m very confused.

In Bangalore, my school separated the Kannada language kids and the Hindi language kids at ages 5-6 so that we can focus on our own languages separately. So the local Bangalore kids and I were never in the same class.

Hence, I can’t speak Kannada because growing up I was simply not exposed to it, and add to this that my Hindi, while being fluent, “sounds like an NRI” or “sounds like a South Indian” because I spoke mostly English growing up in cosmopolitan Bangalore.

I’m too “North Indian” for Bangalore, and I’m too “South Indian” for Delhi.

Growing up in Bangalore in the early 2000s, many of my classmates and friends were children of ex-NRIs newly returned from the US. The rest of them were kids of parents who worked for American companies and traveled a lot, including me, and they were from all over the country. And our only common language was English.

That’s how I picked up English to a native level, at age 6, and that’s how I picked up western music, TV shows, movies, and media, because that’s what all the kids around me were talking about.

My “westernization” started from there, eventually reaching a point at age 14 where I was eating aloo parathas with a fork and knife because I didn’t want to get my hands messy. I thankfully don’t do that anymore, but I’m still not too comfortable eating with my hands for some reason.

And so now, when I’m with Indians abroad, I have trouble speaking Hindi and eating with my hands. But I never lived abroad before this. Am I a phony?

I’m “too brown” to be western, and I’m “too western” to be Indian.

Funnily enough, when I lived in Los Angeles in 2019, I felt most “at home” there.

Maybe because of all the American (mostly Californian) culture I consumed as a kid and young adult.

Maybe because most of the music I listen to is indie bands from California. Or skateboarding. Or surfing culture. Or the tech and marketing culture I immerse myself in. Or YouTube.

Maybe also because it was the first time I lived in a place where the first language was my first language, English.

Or maybe because everyone there was practically an immigrant, whether first-gen, second-gen, third-gen, or further.

But when people asked me “where are you from?” it was the same issue all over again. I’m not American. I’m Indian. And I live in France. Where did all my American-ness come from?

In France, my English is too American to be European. But I’m too Indian to be American. And I’m too European to be Indian.

So where am I from?

Simple answer: it depends on who’s asking.

Over time, I learned that the real purpose of asking this question is to make a connection. To understand my background as quickly as possible, and make a personal connect in some way.

And so, if a South Indian asks me, I’ll first say “Bangalore”. If a North Indian asks me, I’ll say “Bangalore, but my family is from Delhi”. If a European asks me “Indian, but I live in Paris”. If a French person asks me “I live in Paris since 4 years ago, but I’m from India." If I’m speaking to an American person, I’ll make sure to drop into the conversation something about living in Los Angeles for half a year.

I don’t think it’s being fake. I think it’s about making a connection, and showing the other person that you “get them”.

And being able to do that with people from 3 different continents, is one of the biggest positives of being a third culture kid, despite the identity crisis that comes with it, which I guess I’ll never be able to define with a geographical location.

Video of the week

Unfortunately, I was a bit late in my video for this week — it should be uploaded tomorrow!

Inspirations of the week

1. Nikhil Kini

Nikhil is one of my favorite storytellers, and he’s in the UK with his buddy this month, and they are vlogging it all.

Their vlogs are extremely entertaining, and the thing I like about them the most is that Nikhil and Suraj are really great at being 100% authentic in their videos. I highly recommend giving them a watch!

2. How to tell better stories

I listened to this episode and immediately ordered Kindra’s book on storytelling. I highly recommend it.

If you don’t use Spotify you can find other listening links here.

Thanks for reading so far! Let me know what you think by responding to this email and sharing your thoughts :) Or comment down below!

— Mayank

A lot of times we end up doing things, buying things, and saying things (to others and to ourselves) due to some kind of outside pressure, even if we don’t know what this outside pressure really is.

This could be anything from buying a certain brand of clothes to taking certain vacations or choosing a certain career path.

The thing is, we don’t do it intentionally or with the idea of giving in to peer pressure. We don’t even know who we’re trying to impress — it just feels natural and so we don’t really even think that we’re giving in.

And then at one point you realize that you’re not really happy and can’t really understand why.

The way around this

Start practicing this — before making any decision, big or small, step back and ask yourself “is this something I’m personally aligned with? Would I still do it if I were alone in this world with no one but myself to judge my actions?”

If the answer is yes, go forward.

If the answer is no — stop yourself. Try and figure out what your intentions really are.

I’ve been doing this for many many years now, after realizing at one point that I wasn’t truly happy with many of my decisions. And by doing this, over time, I started to live a more intentional life.

Video of the week

Inspiration of the week

I love Seth Godin. I love Chris Do. Here’s both of them having a conversation about storytelling, education, and the creative world of business.

Thanks for reading! And again, if you don’t want to receive these emails every week, feel free to hit unsubscribe!

Cheers,

— Mayank

This unlocked a whole new world for me. What were the possibilities of all these different screens? How much screen could I control at once?

I found a USB TV tuner card at home and decided to connect the extra screen, my TV, and my laptop all together to see what screen monster I could come up with.

Soon enough, felt like I needed two different displays — I really benefited a lot from it, especially as I was doing a lot of music production at that point in time. I wanted to be able to spread out my DAW workspace in a way that made it easier for me to create.

And then, I upgraded my speakers to studio speakers.

The speakers were necessary for me since they were studio speakers intended to help me judge my sound mixing much better than standard consumer-level speakers.

I guess a lot of it was also a matter of identity.

First, I was a tech geek kid who was trying new things. The initial purpose of my connecting my external display to the laptop was just to see what would happen. And then when I realized how cool it was, I kept it.

When friends came over, I was that kid who did the different thing.

“Wow, is that two computers?” “Actually, no it’s the same. Look! I can move my mouse between the two!”

Then, I was a music producer. All music producers had a desk, a big display, and speakers. And so by having those things, I was fitting into that identity.

But even after I stopped producing music as much, I kept the speakers.

They were large and heavy, but they sounded great. I then was the guy who absolutely loves music, and hence who would do the sacrifice space and weight to have them on his desk.

In college, I was the creative-tech-art-music guy. And so my desk setup, with the MacBook, speakers, and decor like photographs and wall art reflected that.

But I had another desk next to my computer desk, which was meant for studying. I was also a studious kid. It was mostly empty (for focus) except for a clock (actually an old iPad), and some other small stuff.

It was meant to reflect the priority I gave to my academics.

One of my speakers occupied part of the study desk. I guess that was also reflective of my priorities.

The idea was for me to mentally switch between “fun” and academics.

When I worked at SpringRole, I was the creative marketing and video editor intern. I needed not just one, but two displays.

In my first year at HEC, I was a nomad. It was the first time in a long time without my speakers and display, and that was not by choice. It was just not feasible to bring them with me on my first trip. Back to studious mode by default.

At Giggster, in Los Angeles, I was again the creative tech-media intern. I had to have more screens. This one time I went overkill before I realized I was being ridiculous and removed the extra vertical ultra-wide screen after 3 days.

More screens isn’t always better.

In my second year of HEC Paris, I was the YouTuber. I had an aesthetic space, with a big screen for video editing, a nice microphone for zoom classes, and little plants and trinkets everywhere for the aesthetics and the mood.

But the key was that I had only one screen. I would close my laptop. It was my first time trying this setup out, and I realized I preferred a single but large and high-res screen over having two screens because I was able to focus better.

I was now less tech, and more media + writing.

When I first started working 8 months ago, I was the tech startup guy.

Back to the tech. That’s why the headphone hangers and double screen.

I then became the tech startup marketing-person-creator.

Business books, but also art. Mechanical keyboard. The double screen is back, this time with a laptop stand. Organized pinboard too.

Recently, I got rid of my desk. I prefer now to work on the sofa, on my dining table, or outside at a café or a coworking space.

I also stopped using my display and my speakers. I still have them in case I choose to go back (the speakers are being used as book-ends for now), but for now, I’m pretty happy with just my laptop. The big screen on the 16” MacBook helps a lot with that.

What does this mean about my identity now?

— Mayank

How did I gain the confidence to continue to make new friends, put myself out there in the dating game, and do ‘socially risky’ things like attending meetups, going to concerts, bars, restaurants alone, and talking to random strangers?

I learned the concept of anchors and built them into my life.

⚓️ Anchors

Anchors are things that keep you grounded in life, from where you gain the confidence to branch out. These are mental “safe places” that give you a sense of security.

Personal Relationships

Having a partner, close friends and family, trusting work relationships — these are all natural anchors, the ones that most of us depend on.

It’s easy to take these for granted, and you only realize how much you’re doing that when they’re taken away from you when you move by yourself to a new country where you know no one.

What do you do for security until you build personal relationships in a new place?

Routines ⏱

Doing the same things at the same time every day and every week gives you a sense of consistency that can keep you grounded.

Joining a regular meetup, a class, the gym, or setting your own rituals helps a lot with this. In my case, when I moved to LA, I joined a regular language exchange meetup and an improv class, which was held at the same time every week.

Favorite Places ❤️

Frequenting the same places, again and again, gives you a sense of consistency as well as personal ownership — they become “your” places. A little piece of you in a new (or old) place.

In my case, I biked to the same part of the beach in Santa Monica multiple times a week with a towel, a journal, and a book.

I would also visit the same coffee shop twice or thrice a week to order the same drink every time, and write in my journal or apply to jobs (I was searching for my second gap year internship at that time).

Favorite Foods

Finding and cooking the same supermarket foods and discovering restaurant dishes that you can go back to again and again also gives you a sense of consistency and familiarity.

Building a “supermarket routine” of purchasing the same things every time, while still trying out new things, is a great way to anchor yourself as well.

We actually find that most successful people have multiple anchors like these — they usually have fixed ways of dressing, their favorite restaurants they go back to again and again, their favorite spots to vacation at, and they are often very religious about sticking with their routines.

When you have many different variables at work or in business, it helps to reduce the number of other variables in life.

Video of the week

I made a YouTube video about how to write effective cold messages, and how I was able to meet some of my favorite YouTubers in New York by doing so.

Thanks —

Thanks for reading! Thanks for subscribing! Hit ‘reply’ to let me know what you think — what are the anchors that you build in your life?

— Mayank

My personal growth as an individual and as an artist and creator has been shaped by a variety of different forces and sources, and the Internet has played a tremendous role in doing so.

In this article, I’ll be listing down just a few of these Internet sources, mostly YouTube channels, that have helped me grow personally a lot. This is by no means an exhaustive list. This is just the list that’s on the top of my mind for this week.

Every now and then I will build and publish another list like this one.

The Creators That Inspire Me

The Art of Manliness Blog

I think this was probably the first personal growth content source I followed online. I remember discovering this blog back in 2014 when I was in high school, by searching on Google for “how to be more manly” — yeah, you can tell what was going on in my mind at the time, I had a bit of a complex about not being manly enough.

This was the article I found. They’ve got a variety of articles on building strength, social skills, other skills, and even men’s style. It’s really quite interesting.

Rowena Tsai on YouTube

I discovered Rowena in 2020 during the pandemic, and I was taken by her calm voice and loving demeanor — She starts all her videos with “Hello, sweetest potatoes!” — isn’t that so cute?

She’s got a variety of content on Notion planning, feeling better, anxiety, and productivity. I remember going on a binge of her videos at one point when I was feeling a bit unmotivated, and many of her points resonated with me and made me feel heard and listened to.

Her content also inspired my own YouTube channel in a few ways.

Matt D’Avella on YouTube

I discovered Matt D’Avella a really really long time ago, perhaps 4 or so years back. What I love about him the most is that he’s so relatable — watching his videos feels like listening to a big bro talk to you.

He’s definitely contributed in a huge way to my personal growth. He’s got content on minimalism, productivity, and growth. He’s also a filmmaker, and he’s inspired me a lot in the way I make my YouTube videos as well.

muchellb on YouTube

I found her through her Notion video, which I must say is one of the best ones I’ve seen so far. I found her demeanor to be really calming as well, which is again something I really like to listen to.

She’s got content on being more motivated, planning your life, and growing personally. It’s kind of like Rowena Tsai.

Captain Sinbad on YouTube

I discovered him a few years ago as well. He’s an Indian-American making videos about personal growth and productivity, from his unique perspective of being an Indian-American.

I again love his super authentic vibe, and his ability to be completely vulnerable and raw in his content.

Generally I’ve found that the YouTubers that I resonate with the most are the ones that come off as raw and vulnerable rather than the ones that put out a perfect image of themselves. And that’s what I aspire to achieve as well.

Ali Abdaal on YouTube

I don’t think I could complete this list without Ali Abdaal.

I discovered him in 2020, right before I started regularly producing YouTube videos. And I do believe that he probably had the biggest contribution, inspiration-wise, to my YouTube content.

Ali does a fantastic job of bringing in psychological and social concepts from a variety of different sources and curating them into concise videos that are easy to watch and binge.

He now also speaks about business, finance and technology — which is again what I like about him, he’s always experimenting with new topics and new ways of telling stories.

Van Neistat on YouTube

Van is Casey Neistat’s brother. He has what I would call the most unique style of telling stories on YouTube, and he’s a true example of an artist who does what he wants and somehow is able to capture attention without using traditional YouTuber storytelling tactics.

I highly recommend watching his channel.

Wrapping Up —

I hope you were able to derive inspiration from some of the sources that I’ve listed in this article. What have been your sources of inspiration and motivation on the Internet? Let me know by hitting “reply”.

Cheers,

— M

It was a last-minute decision, literally booking my flights 2 weeks before I left. And it was the best thing I did for myself recently.

How I met Brett Conti, Elliot Choy, Luke Eich, and a bunch of other YouTubers at 368 New York

I sat down at a WeWork one street away from 368, the NYC creator community, where I knew a bunch of these folks worked. And I wrote cold Instagram DMs to them.

Brett was so kind to reply to my DM asking for a coffee, and gave me an hour of his time to discuss YouTube, being a creator, building communities, and gave me some great advice on my YouTube journey, which was awesome.

Luke happened to be there too, and he dropped in to say hi!

We then went over to 368 and saw Kelly Wakasa + the entire ur moms house gang shooting a video, and I was a wallflower on their shoot for a hot second. This was awesome.

Honestly, I had no idea that this would happen and no expectation of it at all. It felt oddly weird to be there even, I was like “am I in a YouTube video or this real life?” because I was so used to seeing them in their YouTube vlogs the last few months. Wild!

But this entire experience taught me one thing — no one’s gonna give you anything if you don’t ask. Sometimes asking is all it takes. This happened literally as a result of a cold Instagram DM to Brett Conti, to which he was so kind to respond.

The rest of my trip was pretty awesome. I met a bunch of friends, ate a lot of good food, saw a Broadway musical (Dear Evan Hansen!), saw some great views of the city, and generally took in an entirely new culture and experience — breaking my routine of being in Paris.

Video of the week

I made this video about why I chose to move to France over the USA, while I was in the USA.

Thing I’ve been resonating with this week

I watched this Colin and Samir video interviewing Van Neistat, and getting into his mind — about what he thinks of being a creator and how he got to where he is today. Very very inspiring. Highly recommend watching if you’re a creator or just generally interested!

That brings us to the end! Thanks for reading this far, and feel free to hit reply to let me know what you think ✨

— Mayank

It’s been great learning, but I realized it was time to expand to be able to do and learn more—and so I hired an intern to join me!

Here’s what I’ve learned so far about being a first-time manager.

The things I've learned about being a manager

I had some REALLY great managers that inspired me and guided me when I did internships at Springworks in Bangalore and Giggster in Los Angeles, and I’m very motivated and inspired to give Marine the same great experience that I had.

The biggest takeaway that I had from my past experiences was that I was inspired. My managers taught me a lot not just about marketing, but also about softer aspects of functioning in a startup environment and negotiating things with senior management.

More than anything, they were people that I could trust and whom I could go to for pretty much anything. Unsurprisingly, I’m still in touch with them—they still teach me a lot, and I continue to be inspired by them.

Intern ≠ Assistant

The common thread across my previous startup internship experiences, which is what made them so great, was that I didn’t feel like an assistant. I felt like an equal teammate.

Actually, this is my philosophy on company hierarchy and in life as well—everyone is a peer.

The CEO, the intern, the admin staff, we’re all peers. We just have different jobs.

And the job of the intern is not to be my assistant—I would have hired an assistant if I wanted one.

I’ve also had internships at some companies where I felt like an assistant—and those were not my best manager relationships, and definitely not my favorite internships.

Giving ownership

At Giggster and Springworks, there were specific projects I had ownership on—and when those projects did well, I felt GREAT because I knew they were MINE.

When the projects didn’t do that great, I also learnt a LOT and I received a lot of support from my managers on how to improve them.

This is what made me even more motivated to do my work. My managers didn’t tell me what to do—they inspired and empowered me to tell them what we should do.

And this is what I’m trying to do with Marine as well.

I also had ownership to set up my desk the way I wanted, which was great

Supporting and listening is part of the job

When something goes wrong, when my team needs advice, they’re gonna look up to me. And it’s my job to listen and give advice and constructive feedback when required.

When things are going great, it’s also my job to give feedback and congratulate them on their success. Publicly, preferably!

Paying it forward

When I was at Giggster as well as at Estée Lauder, my managers bought me lunch every now and then, and they told me just one thing: “When you have an intern, do the same thing. Pay it forward!”

And so I did the same thing. And I told my ex-CEO about it, and he was delighted.

Wrapping up

Honestly, in the last 5 months at this startup, I’ve learned WAY more than I imagined I would—and actually, most of my valuable learnings have been in the soft skills and people management department.

And managing isn’t just managing down—it’s also managing yourself and managing up.

I realized that hard skills can be learned pretty easily, but it’s these three types of management skills that are gonna make my career.

Thanks—

Are you a manager? Are you an intern? What have you learnt so far? Hit “reply” and let me know!

See you guys in the next one ✨

But at one point when I was 14 years old, I decided to make a hard decision to completely stop pirating music, a decision that slowly led me to stop pirating everything. Here’s what happened afterward →

Understanding the value of music

At the age of 14, in 2011, I lived with a German family for 3 weeks, and I was inspired by how most people in Germany bought music from iTunes because it was illegal to download mp3s, and people got caught.

I had also just started being a musician at the time, and it made me think about how it’s kinda wrong to just “steal” someone’s work, especially after I knew how much work went into it.

That’s when I decided that I won’t pirate music anymore. I thought I would just see what happens.

I deleted my entire pirated music library and decided to start from scratch. There was a service that allowed me to buy songs at INR 1 per song, and I decided I would just buy songs from there.

It felt like the stupidest thing to do, especially in India where everyone just downloaded mp3s, but I felt like it was the right thing to do.

No more pirated mp3s on this iPod!

What happened next →

I just felt better about myself.

There are times in our lives, when we have a choice – to do the “right” thing which is usually harder, or the “wrong” thing which is usually the easier way out of a situation.

Many of those situations also don’t have any tangible or real consequences. This was one of those situations. In India, no one would catch me for pirating music.

But there’s always someone watching.

That someone is you. By making a hard decision that was in line with my morals, and sticking with it, it set me on a path of increasing my self-esteem to a great extent.

I enjoyed my music a lot more.

When I had to pay for music, there was a value to it, even if it was 1 rupee. This made me a lot more intentional in the songs that I bought and put on my iPod.

And as I’ve learned over the years, being intentional about your actions is a great source of self-trust and happiness.

I broadened my music tastes.

Since I could no longer pirate music, I had to get creative about the music I listened to. I started looking for legally-free songs, made by indie artists, and by doing that I discovered a lot of niche Bandcamp and SoundCloud artists that gave out their music for free.

This was revolutionary for me because it made me listen to music that no one around me was listening to, and each discovery led to other discoveries, and I started discovering whole new genres of music that I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.

Discovering indie artists also gave me the confidence to produce more of my own music, because prior to that music production was this “all or nothing” endeavor that you either became a pop music celebrity from, or you failed.

I realized that you can make good music as an indie artist, and that’s what I aspired to be myself as well.

I stopped pirating other things too

In college, when everyone around me used a cracked version of Photoshop and Premiere Pro (for video editing), I was the only person paying INR 2000 a month for Adobe Creative Cloud.

My reasoning? If I paid for it, I would take my hobby a lot more seriously, and push myself to make money from it. And I did.

I ended up making more money than I paid for Adobe CC, and then some. It also had a lot of the self-esteem and self-confidence results that I spoke about before, which paved the way for me to take up a career in digital marketing.

Being morally wrong isn't always very obvious

It took me traveling to Germany to realize that pirating music, and pirating generally, was morally wrong. Because everyone around me was doing it I never really questioned it before then.

What are some of the things you do that are actually morally wrong (and likely with 0 consequences) but you haven’t realized yet? How can you stop doing them?

Hit ‘reply’ to this email, I’d love to know if you’re willing to share!

Thanks ✨

Happy New Year, by the way! I hope you’re keeping safe and doing well.

See you in the next one!

— M

In this email, I give an update on what I’ve been up to since the last time we talked.

Finishing HEC

I had my thesis defense on the 31st of May, and since then I’ve been free of all of my academic obligations. After three years, I’ve finished HEC!

I kicked off my post-HEC life with a trip to Corsica

End of Studies Internship

In July, I started an end-of-studies internship at L'Oréal Paris – which didn’t turn out to be exactly what I wanted.

However, after one month of working at L'Oréal, I came across an opportunity at an early-stage tech startup in Paris, and I got talking to the CEO and…

New Job

…I got offered a job as a Growth Manager at Ubu, a social CRM platform that helps D2C brands build and grow their community. 🚀

I’ve been working there since the 13th of September, and it’s been a wild ride – there’s something new to learn every single week.

It’s the most responsibility I’ve ever gotten, and I have a lot of potential to learn and grow into the role, along with the company.

New Podcast

If you’re connected with me on Instagram and LinkedIn, you might have noticed that I started a new podcast about Marketing & Entrepreneurship with two of my good friends.

It’s called Speak Up! and we’ve published 4 episodes so far – one every two weeks. Through the podcast, I’ve had the opportunity to interact with many inspiring individuals, and it’s something I continue to do every week.

Speak Up! • A podcast on Anchor

New Mode of Transport

A month ago, I decided to get myself a monthly pass for Lime Scooters (and a helmet). I’ve been scooting around Paris as well as to and from the WeWork that I work at. So much fun!

Yeah, I'm one of those people now.

Dealing with change, and my break

Change is hard. Just like going from middle school to high school to college, and then across oceans to a new country to do a master’s – this is a transition period in my life.

A transition from being a student, which has been my identity my entire life, to a full-time working professional.

And transitions can be much harder than we realize – because it’s not individual specific day-to-day things that are hard, it’s the sum of all the little things we have to deal with – new routines, new people, new responsibilities, new grocery store, new money, new decisions and new risks – which can make things quite exhausting.

For this reason, even though I initially felt a bit bad to break my consistency, I had decided to take an unannounced break from content creation – to allow myself to devote all of my time and energy to ensuring a smooth transition.

A new chapter

I now want to start the next season of my YouTube vlog and email newsletter – and this email officially kicks that off.

Here’s to a new chapter 🥂

Thanks —

— for reading this far. For supporting me. For being patient. For hitting the “reply” button and starting a conversation 😄

— Mayank

Taking photos these days often looks like this — we take multiple photos of everything just to be sure that we get at least one good shot.

We review our photos and we find that “this person looks awkward” or “I don’t like how my face looks in this” or “you’re making a funny expression” – and then we go back to taking more photos. We repeat this process until we’ve had enough and then we stop.

The result is that we end up with 30 photos from one afternoon lunch plan with friends.

In the past —

When I see photos from the early 2000s or late 90s, not all photos are perfect. Some photos are blurry, in some photos, someone is closing an eye, someone’s doing something awkward – they more often than not look like a moment frozen in time, which makes them have a very candid quality.

This photo of my sister and I is a great example.

The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, film was expensive – and so every shot counted. Secondly, we didn’t see the photo until weeks later when we developed the film, so even if the photo looked funny or awkward we didn’t know it at that moment.

What that led to —

The result of that was photos with a candid quality, as I mentioned before, but also that we didn’t spend so much time taking and retaking photos and instead took in more of the experience.

We took one photo, and that’s it.

And so what I did —

I decided to apply the same constraints to my digital photo taking.

On my phone, I force myself to only take one single photo each time – whether it is of a scene, a group of people, a selfie, or a landscape.

I don’t review my photos until the end of the day when I’m back at home.

On my camera, the same thing. I only take one single photo each time (there are exceptions, like for e.g. when I’m shooting some action, or a model with changing poses).

I’ve disabled the photo review function on my camera, and so after I take a shot, the camera doesn’t automatically show me what I just took. I only review the photos later on once I transfer them to my computer, or at the end of the day/end of the shoot.

Another rule is to never post on Instagram – stories or posts – during the moment. I always take photos and then post on IG later on during down time.

The result —

I found two main results out of doing this:

1. I spend more time composing each shot I take – looking at all the details in the scene and making sure that everything looks good, before I hit the shutter button. As a result, my attention to detail has improved a lot.

2. I enjoy the moment itself a lot more, because once I take my one photo, I’m done with photo taking.

Moreover, I’ve learned to be happy with the result – mistakes and faults included.

Over time, this habit proves to be quite beneficial because it allows me to balance taking photos with actually enjoying the moment!

I sometimes even add a disposable film-camera filter to sell the effect more.

Thanks —

Let me know what you think of this idea – would you implement it in your life? Hit ‘reply’ and let me know.

P.S. sorry for not being regular on this newsletter (and on YouTube) the last couple of weeks. I recently started a new internship, and I’m still figuring out a good routine to keep up with content creation and working full-time at the same time.

See you guys in the next one!

– M

Spotify launched in 2011, but streaming music didn’t really come to India until Apple Music launched in late 2012. Before then, and even after then for a bit, everyone in India was listening to most of their music using illegally downloaded mp3 files. Including me.

Until —

During a 3 week long experience in Germany at age 14, where I lived with a German family and experienced a German lifestyle, I noticed that it was uncommon for them to illegally download mp3 music. People either bought CDs or bought songs from iTunes.

At the same time, I was also starting to get into music production (in fact, some of my music from that time is still there on the Internet), and that got me thinking of just how much work goes into making one single song, let alone an entire album.

I started to feel bad about my ill-gotten 3000 song mp3 collection.

I guess we all had an iPod/phone filled with mp3s at some point

What did I do? —

I decided at that point to entirely stop downloading new music illegally, and go through my existing collection to see what I really wanted to keep, and delete the rest. It was like spring cleaning/Marie Kondo but for my music library.

I started finding alternatives to downloading illegally — the iTunes store launched in India at that time, and each song was Rs. 10 (€0.12) — I thought that if I could spend that money on a pack of chips at the store, I could definitely purchase music for the same amount. So I did.

But that wasn’t enough to keep up with my music needs. So I discovered this app called 8tracks that basically let me discover and play playlists without being able to skip songs. Through that app was how I developed most of what my music taste is today — obscure, independent music that most people haven’t heard of (or won’t hear of for a few years until they become hits).

I also started discovering and listening to artists on SoundCloud and YouTube that gave away their music for free. One of my favourite artists and inspirations of all time, CJ Trillo, was discovered by me on YouTube.

I discovered artists such as Bon Iver, alt-J, The 1975 on 8tracks

In essence —

Deciding to stop downloading mp3s had a few positive effects —

1. The music in my library was now the music that I really liked and wanted to listen to. I could now shuffle my library and not skip 3 songs out of 5. It turns out that paying for music makes you far more mindful of what you buy, and makes you value what you get a lot more.

2. Through finding alternatives on 8tracks (now defunct), SoundCloud, and YouTube, I was able to expand my music listening to genres and artists far beyond what I was listening to before, which contributed to my development as an artist and creative far more than I imagined it would.

3. I felt far more confident as a music listener. I knew I was supporting the artists I listened to, instead of stealing from them. Especially the smaller ones.

I also realized that this could be applied to other areas of my life as well. It made me far more mindful of my digital “clutter”, and mindful of supporting the artists and creators that I value. Turns out that the constraint of having to pay for my music made me minimize, declutter and positively alter my listening habits.

It turns out that constraints breed creativity and resourcefulness.

Thanks —

Thanks for reading this far. Are there any areas in your life you feel like you could declutter? How are you going to achieve that? Hit “reply” and let me know.

— M