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Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 188 // Week 24 // 2020

June 13, 2020 No Comments

Hello!

Another week passed by. Week 24th to be exact. Even though cities have started to open up here in India and in many other countries, but the vaccine is still away and the virus is still here. So we should all be cautious when going out. I know this is what we all know, but just trying to put it out as a reminder to everyone.

As promised earlier, I want this newsletter to become a getaway for you from all the news and the chaos.

Last week was productive for me, I got a good amount of things done at work. On the creative side, my “Lifestyle Design in Action” story series (on my blog) is also being liked by you all (my readers), so I’m continuing to post these guest posts from various people living alternate Lifestyles. In other news, I’m doing a collaboration and exciting news is coming up mostly in the next week. So watch out for that.

Coming to the book reading/listening progress, I moved forward on below books –

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – 30% done (Audible) – I was on a binge listening spree on this one.
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – 50% done only (Kindle)

No progress on below ones this week –

Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway – 20% done only (Audible)
Breaking Smart: Season One: How Software is Eating the World – 70% done (an amazing book recommended by David Perell) (Kindle)
Truck de India – 20% – (Kindle)

I added below books in my reading list as subsequent reads –

How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie
The Art of Public Speaking by Dale Carnegie and J. Berg Esenwein
Atomic Habits by James Clear
The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger

Current Yearly Tally – [Yearly goal – 24]

Read – 6 | In progress – 5 | Pending in Reading list – 5 | Yet to discover for reading for yearly goal – 8

That’s it for the personal updates.

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 188 // Week 24 // 2020

An article I found useful —

Go From Chaos to Clarity in 30 Minutes – In this article (or rather how-to with personal experience) Tiago Forte shares his process of going from total Chaos to Clarity in 30 mins.

He shares how he does weekly review and how he has refined this process over the years to make it so that it aligns him to his goals when executed weekly.

Interesting approach and a good read.

A podcast episode I loved —

Tim Ferriss Show – Rick Doblin – Loved this interview of Rick Doblin by Tim Ferriss where they discuss the origins of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and how MDMA and psychedelic drugs are being a promising cure of PTSD.

There are a lot of nuggets in this episode. I finished it in just one sitting.

Here is the YouTube link (or click the title for the rest of the platforms) –

A video I loved —

Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man – Episode 2 with Matthew McConaughey – This video was the highlight of the last week’s intellectual consumption and sort of eye-opening in a very subtle way.

This is why I love Matthew McConaughey because he has this capability to listen as well.

Totally recommend watching this as it will educate you too –

Music I’m loving —

Garden Concert by Jubin Nautiyal – My sister introduced me to this Garden Concert from Jubin Nautiyal (A Hindi Singer from the mountains). In the pandemic situations as everyone is stuffed in their homes and feeling anxious. This was a really amazing and unique concert he put together at his home garden.

If you have the will to do something you can put together things and do almost about anything and beautifully. That’s what this Garden Concert symbolised to me. I loved his music as well. Such a buffet of great Hindi songs.

Quote which I found meaningful –

You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
— James Clear (Atomic Habits)

Before saying “see you next week”

Here is a throwback photo I posted on Instagram. You can check it out here or go to my Instagram for the whole story and more –

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on Jun 1, 2020 at 10:26am PDT

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

About Author

I’m Himanshu Sachdeva, a technology professional working in Mumbai, India. I spend most of my spare time making Podcasts, YouTube videos and write on Lifestyle Design and sometimes stories.

Every Saturday, I send out an email newsletter called “Saturday Pentacle”, a list of the cool stuff I explored in the past week, including quotes, photos, books, articles, movies, documentaries and so on!

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 188 // Week 24 // 2020

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Just enter your email address below and click “Subscribe!”

podcast, podcasts, regular

#22 – Shashank Murali (Co-Founder and CEO of TapChief) – Building the Future of Work

June 8, 2020 No Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:09:03 — 63.2MB)

Play the podcast on your favourite platform

In this episode, I’m talking to Shashank Murali who’s the Co-Founder and CEO of TapChief. TapChief is an Indian Start-up which aims to build the future of work with it’s focus on Solopreneurs and the gig economy. A freelance professional can register on TapChief and can access thousands of projects to choose from and TapChief handles all the things around this and help the freelancer earn well.

Shashank is a BITS Pilani Alumni. Like many tech founders, his journey also started in the hostel room of BITS Pilani where he created the early version of what today is TapChief.

In this candid conversation, we talk about his journey and how TapChief started out from his hostel room and has now become one of the top Indian Start-ups and is having 1 Lakh plus professionals on their platform. How BITS Pilani shaped his thought process. We go deep on TapChief’s focus on people with Attention to detail and empathy. Their goal of getting 2 Million people to the platform and much more. There are a lot of nuggets in this episode for anyone who’s aspiring to start a company or a start-up which is looking to level up.

So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Shashank Murali.

Links and references from the episode –

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 187 // Week 23 // 2020

June 6, 2020 No Comments

Hello!

Last week was difficult as violence irrupted in many states of the US in the wake of Geoge Floyd’s death while he was being arrested by police. Racism still exists in the world and things really need to change. The environment in the US and many of the western countries is changing and there is sort of a movement going on right now. It’s a historic moment. Black lives matter. This movement is showcasing that on a scale.

I’m trying to educate myself with the history of racism from online sources, blogs and books and following the threads on social media on this.

Past week in India, there was a cyclone which hit the western shoreline of India – Nisarga but fortunately, it was not as destructive as it was thought to be.

2020 is slowly becoming the year of the century when things are changing so rapidly. Every day new events.

Coming to the book reading/listening progress, I moved forward on below books –

Breaking Smart: Season One: How Software is Eating the World – 70% done (an amazing book recommended by David Perell) (Kindle)
“The Sign of the Four” of the Sherlock Holmes series – Finished (Audible) – on to the next one in the series – The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – 40% done only (Kindle)

No progress on below ones this week –

Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway – 20% done only (Audible)

That’s it for the personal updates.

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 187 // Week 23 // 2020

An artical I found useful —

The importance of red teams – This article was a great read from Dr Peter Attia. I found two ideas very intriguing from this article which I would like to share as a summary –

Importance of Red –

In the early 19th century, the Prussian army adopted war games to train its officers. One group of officers developed a battle plan, and another group assumed the role of the opposition, trying to thwart it. Using a tabletop game called Kriegsspiel (literally “wargame” in German), resembling the popular board game Risk, blue game pieces stood in for the home team—the Prussian army—since most Prussian soldiers wore blue uniforms. Red blocks represented the enemy forces—the red team—and the name has stuck ever since.

Idea – One Organization itself can have both the teams and play tactically, as their own red team can work as an enemy simulation and the blue team can, therefore, be trained better.
Differentiation b/w signal and noise – On the contrary to the point of the counter team or the counter idea (as mentioned in point 1), there is one more paragraph in the article which gives a great perspective –

Generally, the more we can introduce and consider opposing views into our thinking, the more we can rely on the knowledge we’re trying to build. But—and this is a very, very big BUT—not all opposing views are equal. Recognizing the difference between scientific (worthy of debate, though often still incorrect over time) claims and pseudoscientific (not worthy of debate, as the very foundations on which they sit are not pulled from the disciple of science or the scientific method) claims is crucial and a failure to do so makes the following exercise futile.

Idea – As we are constantly bombarded with information in these present times, so it because very difficult to identify the signal from noise, meaning – logical or scientific debate as compared to illogical or pseudoscientific debate. But as it is difficult at the same time it is as important to do this rightfully and diligently.

An ad which I really loved —

The Art of Music Production – This new Apple add shows the creative process of a Grammy-nominated music producer – Oak Felder.

I was just amazed by seeing the way things change when you become a producer and shift from working on the atomic piece to moving to the place where you can see the birds-eye view of a masterpiece.

That tells if you are a world-class producer (of any art) or no.

A brilliant ad which is centred on the customer –

A video which intrigued me —

How MDMA is being used to treat PTSD – As western scientists are opening up to experimental drugs in medicine. MDMA which is commonly known as ecstasy or molly, is a psychoactive drug primarily used for recreational purposes.

But as I follow Tim Ferriss and he’s very active in the support of research with these psychedelic drugs and keeps sharing about it through his blog and newsletter. It made me really curious that if it actually works than how deep the impact it can make on the lives of people living with a disorder like PTSD. It will be a paradigm shift.

This video shows exactly that with example.

P.S.: I don’t recommend any of the psychoactive drugs and this mention is just for research on the impact of MDMA on PTSD patients.

A Magnet scientist who blew my mind – Professor Eric Laithwaite (A British electrical engineer) who is known as the Father of Maglev and pioneer in the development of the linear induction motor and maglev rail system, shows in this 1975 video – how Magnetic Levitation can be achieved.

It was just mind-boggling. Check out the video –

Quote which I found meaningful –

It’s a helluva start, being able to recognise what makes you happy.
— Lucille Ball

Before saying “see you next week”

Here is the latest story from my story series – “Lifestyle Design in Action” which I published last week –

Yoga – A way of life

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

About Author

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 187 // Week 23 // 2020

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Just enter your email address below and click “Subscribe!”

Guest Post, regular

Yoga – A way of life

June 4, 2020 No Comments

Designing your life around your passion and what you deeply resonate with, is not easy. Making difficult career choices, making life choices which may sound naive to the people around you, not being able to see the light across the tunnel, but still being hopeful and moving forward in the dark. That’s what it takes to follow your heart.

It all comes to what matters to you. Is it a stable paying job where you feel discontent? or Is it working on something you truly believe in and practice yourself, the thing that makes your heart happy!

In the middle of the herd, there are always exceptions, the moonshots, the crazy ones, the ones who take that shot, which most of us are afraid to take. Leaving the stability and going for that alternate lifestyle which makes them feel fulfilled. Starting a company, Building an innovative product, Starting to Coach etc.

This story is from Priyamvada Mangal, a Freelance Yoga Coach and Journalist from Mumbai, India (Instagram).

She is a certified Yoga Coach and has been working to introduce Yoga to more and more people as a way of life, with her coaching. She is also a prolific writer with her writing pieces published in The Hindu, The Tribune, Manorama etc. As a journalist, she has worked with names like Mumbai Mirror and Firstpost. She’s worked on many photojournalism projects, her photography portfolio can be found here.

Since leaving her full-time job at a big media house couple of years back, she’s been working freelance and is well on the path of financial freedom. She usually provides one-on-one Yoga coaching, but now since Covid-19 hit all of us hard and restricted us inside the boundaries of our homes, she has started teaching Yoga online.

In this piece, she’s sharing how she first got introduced to Yoga and shares about her transition from a traditional journalism career to the freelance writing and Yoga Coaching. She also shares the Yoga way of life that changed her lifestyle and how she’s helping others now to discover this alternate way of life with her Yoga Classes.

[This story is part of the Lifestyle Design in Action series]

Enters Priyamvada Mangal

The first time I did yoga was when I was 13 and visited the yoga institute for a children’s camp, since then I have been doing Yoga on and off but I never really made it a part of my daily lifestyle until 2018.

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 186 // Week 22 // 2020

May 30, 2020 No Comments

Hello!

Week 22 has passed by. We are at 41% of the year. I didn’t know I’ll wish a year to pass faster, but here we are.

This year has given us so many surprises already. Mostly the bad ones. But this week is special. After a decade a crew mission to Space is launching from American Soil in an American built Space Craft (which is a first in history). I’m really excited to see this mission progress. (more on this in the second point of the newsletter)

[Next up is my book reading progress, which I’m sharing publicly every week for public accountability so that I reach my goal of 24 books a year this year. If you don’t want to read about the books, skip to the first point from the 5 awesome things below]

Coming to the book reading/listening progress, I moved forward on below books –

Highly Productive Remote Work by Darius Foroux – Finished
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – 30% done only (Kindle and Audible)
“The Sign of the Four” of the Sherlock Holmes series – 80% done (Audible)

No progress on below ones this week –

Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway – 20% done only (Audible)
Breaking Smart: Season One: How Software is Eating the World – 60% done (an amazing book recommended by David Perell) (Kindle)

As my goal was to read at least 24 books in the year 2020. So to just summarize and reflect for this year till now, as of writing this newsletter on 30th May I’ve read 5 books completely –

Below are the ones I’m progressing on –

Becoming a Category of One (20%)
Breaking Smart: Season One: How Software is Eating the World (60%)
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (30%)
Sherlock Holmes: The Sign of the Four (80%)
Truck de India (20%)

Below are the ones in the reading list till Jul 2020 – (have a new book to recommend me? Let me know, in the comments) keeping a few extras than 12 books –

This is the plan until Jul 2020. In mid of Jul 2020, I’ll be selecting the books to start with for the second half of the year. I’m looking forward to that.

That’s it for the personal updates.

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 186 // Week 22 // 2020

A new word or expression I learned from one of the recent books I’m reading (Breaking Smart) —

sine qua non – a thing that’s absoultely necessary

Use example – “Grammar is the sine qua non of language teaching and learning.”

A historic event which is happing and has got me excited —

SpaceX and NASA’s manned demo flight to the ISS (2020) – This is a historic moment for the whole world and especially for the US. The US Government space Agency NASA is doing the demo flight of commercial spacecraft of SpaceX with their Astronauts on it. SpaceX is founded by Tesla founder – Elon Musk.

NASA and SpaceX targeted 4:33 p.m. EDT Wednesday, May 27, for the launch of the Demo-2 flight, however, due to the bad weather that didn’t go through and was postponed to 3:22 p.m. EDT Saturday, May 20. (as of writing this newsletter on Saturday morning in 10 a.m. IST)

For the first time in history, NASA astronauts will launch from American soil in a commercially built and operated American crew spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station. The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft is going to carry NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley and will lift off at 3:22 p.m. EDT Saturday on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to dock to the International space station at 10:29 a.m. Sunday, May 31. NASA Television and the agency’s website are going to provide live coverage of the Crew Dragon’s trip to the orbiting laboratory.

I’m really excited to see this mission taking shape in reality. If this mission is successful, this is going to be the start of a new era of Space Exploration. More commercial companies may come into this race and especially SpaceX will move forward to their plans to land their spacecraft on Moon and Mars.

Goodspeed the Dragon.

A video I found useful —

How to Set SMART Goals – Becoming productive and effective at the same time is the goal everyone should strive for. Here is a great formula to set and achieve goals. It’s S.M.A.R.T.

This video made me recollect the famous Peter Drucker quote –

What gets measured gets managed.
— Peter Drucker

Music I’m loving —

Innerbloom by RÜFÜS DU SOL – Man! I stumbled upon this song from YouTube Algorithm and this just blew my mind. I could resonate with one of the comments on this video that said –

When I listen to this song it makes me feel like I am an observer of a world completely different from ours.
– YT Comment Citation

I really felt this somewhere in between the song. Like floating above the surface of the earth and watching it from above. It sounds psychedelic but it was more like meditative and healing.

A Quote I found symbolically true from the book I’m (re) reading (The Fountainhead) –

It is not the works, but the belief which is here decisive and determines the order of rank—to employ once more an old religious formula with a new and deeper meaning, it is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be lost. The noble soul has reverence for itself.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

About Author

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 186 // Week 22 // 2020

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Just enter your email address below and click “Subscribe!”

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 185 // Week 21 // 2020

May 23, 2020 No Comments

Hello!

After a previous couple of hectic weeks, this past week was a little better (except for Monday, Tuesday where the residue work of the previous weeks was being cleared up). I meditated on 4 days last week and stretched as well to calm my mind and body. The previous week, I was almost about to freak out with stress.

I was able to write more this week and finished up a few pending copywriting pieces for my blog and also finished an introduction and editing of the guest post of this past week. You can read it here.

I’m working more to improve my writing and specifically writing online. Because I’ve slowly understood that writing for different platforms is completely different. For example –

For twitter, dense ideas with clear thoughts in fewer lines.
For How to blogs – medium form simple writing with clear bullet forms which are easily consumable.
For an essay or article on a specific subject – Spend your time properly on researching on the idea, it should reflect clarity of thoughts but also the deepest knowledge about the subject.
For a book – fast and imperfect writing in your first draft, and then 2-3 edit iterations.

The most important aspect of improving your writing is sitting daily and churning out words on the screen or paper. Daily! there is no other way. I’m continuing to schedule writing every day.

Coming to the book reading/listening progress, I moved forward on below books –

Highly Productive Remote Work by Darius Foroux – 80% done (Kindle)
Breaking Smart: Season One: How Software is Eating the World – 60% done (an amazing book recommended by David Perell) (Kindle)
“The Sign of the Four” of the Sherlock Holmes series – 70% done (Audible)

No progress on below ones this week –

Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway – 20% done only (Audible)
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – 20% done only (Kindle).

That’s it for the personal updates.

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 185 // Week 21 // 2020

An article I found useful —

How to rewire your brain to beat procrastination – This is a great article which shares the idea that as humans we are now prone to procrastination more than ever. In the world of information overload when we have to focus on a task, we have 100s of distractions ready at your palm (in the mobile phones).

Procrastination wasn’t there in ancient times. as humans evolved and reached the information age, our mind evolved and the procrastination came to light. But the way it came to be, the same way it can be overcome. Our mind can train itself to overcome procrastination, through the process called Neuroplasticity.

This article shares the definition of Neuroplasticity and how to rewire your brain to beat procrastination with different techniques like S.M.A.R.T. goals and much more.

Great useful read which anyone can start implementing in their lives.

A show I loved —

Upload – This Amazon Studios’s original show – Upload is really good. It shows that in the near future a person’s consciousness can be uploaded into a digital space and they can have a digital afterlife which is dependant on the data plan you take from a service provider. So eventually in your afterlife also your monetary value will define the quality of the place you live in. (that sounds sad and capitalistic).

But the human element in this show and all the CGI wizardry is just astounding.

I totally recommend the season 1 (season 2 is yet to come).

Here is the trailer –

A video I loved —

The Toxic World of Self Help – I resonated well with this video. James Jani (The video creator) didn’t say that everything is bad, the way it looks from the title of the video. But he put out quite a good points which one should be aware of.

Here is the summary of the wisdom from this video –

Be aware of fake gurus, which are a million in this digitally social world.
Keep yourself aware of social media and self-help rabbit-hole.
Don’t allow yourself to consume more than you take action on.
Don’t just keep on following the self-help advice like a robot, it’s ok to be human and take time for recovery and healing as well.
Focus on what your task/business needs right now. Ignore the fluff. (Action Faking – that’s a new term I learned from this video)

To learn more on this, check out the video –

Music I’m loving —

Know Your Worth by Khalid – This amazing upbeat song by Khalid kept me going this past week.

Beautiful lyrics and great music. Must listen (on repeat).

Quote which I found meaningful –

Believe in yourself. Under-confidence leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy that you are not good enough for your work.
— Dr Roopleen

Before saying “see you next week”

Here is the second story of my Lifestyle Design in Action – Story Series which I published this past week –

Craving – The state of mind

Also posted this photo on Instagram. You can check it out here or go to my Instagram for the whole story and more –

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on May 4, 2020 at 12:30am PDT

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

About Author

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 185 // Week 21 // 2020

What to do Next?

Just enter your email address below and click “Subscribe!”

Guest Post, regular

Craving – The state of mind

May 21, 2020 No Comments

The most important thing we can do for our well being is to build and maintain our energy. As per my own experiences and what I’ve read in one of the classical books like Laws of Success and even in the works of modern writers like Darius Foroux, our whole energy is the addition of the three different types of energies –

Mental Energy
Physical Energy
Emotional Energy

If any one of these energies slips through the crack, then everything goes for a toss. So our main goal every day should be to build and maintain all these different types of energies. But as we know, as our day passes by we start feeling depleted by one energy or the other. So how to keep these 3 energies sustained in our body?

Mental Energy – Mindfulness practice is key for this. Every day, sit quietly for some time and meditate. It can be any type of meditation – Mindfulness meditation with an app (like Headspace) or Mantra based meditation like Transcendental Meditation (TM) etc. When we sit with ourselves, it gives us clarity and we can look inwards. Doing Journaling is also a great way to clear up your mental mess and find clarity. After waking up if you write a few pages of whatever is there on your mind, maybe your previous day’s thoughts or anything which is bothering you, write it down and you’ll immediately see the shift in your mental state towards clarity.
Physical Energy – This is mainly about eating clean and exercising. If you eat good nutrition and exercise every day. It’s a sure shot way to increase your physical energy which then sustains throughout the day.
Emotional Energy – Last but not least is emotional energy, which is one of the most important aspects of Homosapiens’ well being. One can maintain their sanity if they keep healthy human Interaction. Sharing your thoughts with others, laughing with them and keeping in touch. All of this increases our emotional energy.

But there is an amazing co-relation between all these 3 types of energies. To elaborate more on this subject, I asked one of my expert friends – Bhupinder Singh Budwal from Navi Mumbai, India, who is the founder of The FnF [Food, Nutrition, Fitness] Coaching. Bhupinder is a certified Nutritionist from the Institute of Nutrition and Fitness Sciences. He’s also Meta Health certified Practitioner. He has been able to integrate Food with Emotions (one of the 3 types of energies I described earlier), helping clients to use food to heal their health issues and injuries.

Bhupinder and I have been in touch since past 3-4 years as he’s also a passionate runner and part of the running community in Navi Mumbai.

In this story, Bhupinder shares how his unique theory of working with emotional aspect along with the nutritional aspect of well being started and how he further connected the dots of Food Emotion Therapy (FET) – a therapy invented by him which has made his coaching very unique and started benefiting his clients pragmatically.

P.S.: This story is edited for better readability, keeping the context of the story unchanged.

[This story is part of the Lifestyle Design in Action series]

Enters Bhupinder Singh Budwal

Being a Nutrition Coach since the past 5 years I wanted to go further to provide value with my coaching. I was teaching about mindfulness, nutrition and exercise to my clients. But I knew a piece of the puzzle was missing.

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 184 // Week 20 // 2020

May 16, 2020 No Comments

Hello there!

Last week was quite hectic from the work perspective. Work from home has now become like working double hours because of multiple factors like –

Anyone can call you anytime.
Networks are slow because of overload traffic due to everyone working from home.
Even machines are becoming slow because they are constantly being used 50% more than usual.

Physical and mental exhaustion is taking toll.

So didn’t get much time for the reading this past week, but still i dedicated a half of my Sunday to reading. I also worked on defining my core values (check point one of today’s newsletter), that exercise is still going on. Hopefully I’ll finish it this weekend and most likely will publish a blog post around this topic as well.

Coming to the book progress, I moved forward on below books –

Highly Productive Remote Work by Darius Foroux – 60% done (Kindle)
Breaking Smart: Season One: How Software is Eating the World – 40% done (an amazing book recommended by David Perell) (Kindle)

No progress on below ones this week –

“The Sign of the Four” of the Sherlock Holmes series – 40% done only (Audible)
Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway – 20% done only (Audible)
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – 20% done only (Kindle).

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 184 // Week 20 // 2020

A life exercise I’m doing —

Defining my Core Values List – As one of my favourite writers – Darius Foroux tells in this essay –

Just like a healthy root system is essential for a healthy tree, core values are essential for a healthy life. They define our character and the way we live. Without values, we lack clarity about who we are and what we want in life.
— Darius Foroux

I think that until we know our values we sort of become a person who either lives without values or adapts other’s values unknowingly. Until we don’t define our core life values we actually don’t know who we are.

So I’m taking some time from past few days and writing down my values and why I resonate with those values.

For example – Curiosity is one of my values – cause I’m natively very curious about things and why they are the way they are.

I’m currently referencing the list shared by Darius. (Essay link above) to think about many other values as well and drilling down to my top 10 values.

I feel if one sticks to their core values, one can build a strong character which resonates with who they actually are.

A page I couldn’t get enough off —

Animals about to drop album photos – This BoredPanda page was hilarious where the staff shared the amazing photos of Animals who look like they are about to drop the hottest music album of the year.

My personal favourites from this page –

#6 The Band With The Twin Guitarists
#7 The Pop Trio Owls

These made my evening in these stressful times and I laughed.

A video I loved —

Should You Specialize or Be a Generalist? – Many of us are often in this dilemma that should I be a generalist or develop a specialized skillset. In this video, Tim Ferriss answers this question and his awesome answer resonated with me. He suggests being a Specialized Generalist. New word? Huh!

He also shares that the following three skills are essential to be anything in your life –

Public Speaking
Writing
Negotiating

Check out the video to learn more.

Music I’m loving —

Grace of Silence – In the search of some soothing soulful music, I stumbled upon this Handpan Duo. They are just amazing.

Handpan music is just so much pure and blissful. This duo’s chemistry is just fantastic.

Quote which I found useful to declutter –

Loneliness is when you’re missing people, aloneness is when you’re enjoying yourself.
— Anthony de Mello, author of Awareness

Before saying “see you next week”
Here are a few pictures I posted in the past few days on my Instagram. You can check them out here or go to my Instagram for the whole stories and more –

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on May 2, 2020 at 3:59am PDT

View this post on Instagram

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Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

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Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 184 // Week 20 // 2020

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#21 – Aditya Kalyanpur (World-renowned Indian Tabla Maestro) – Taking Indian Tabla across International boundaries

May 10, 2020 No Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:51 — 52.0MB)

Play the podcast on your favourite platform

In this episode, I’m talking to Aditya Kalyanpur who is a world-renowned Indian Tabla Maestro. He has trained under the Tabla Legends Ustad Allarakha Khan and Ustad Zakir Hussain. Since his first appearance in the Wah Taj! ad in the 90s where he played the Tabla along with Ustad Zakir Hussain, to now when he has become the Tabla Maestro and taken the Indian Tabla Classical Indian music art form across International boundaries. He’s played along with the Indian Legends like Shivkumar Sharma, Amjad Ali Khan, A.R. Rahman, Rahul Sharma and western legendary artists like Katy Perry, Herbie Hancock, Larry Coryell and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones to name a few. He also popularised the colourful Tablas. He’s wearing multiple hats at the moment, founder of 2 music institutes in the US and a non-profit in Mumbai India which helps out kids with Cancer.

In this conversation, we talked about his initial journey, his time with his Gurus, his creative process, how to perfect your craft and much more.

It was amazing to talk to Aditya jee and I hope you’ll love it too.

So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Aditya Kalyanpur.

Links and references from the episode –

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 183 // Week 19 // 2020

May 9, 2020 No Comments

Hello there!

Another week passed by. Now as this is becoming the way of life for foreseeable future, I feel the focus from the news has to be reduced a little bit. There is a lot of chaos in the world right now; if we keep focusing on the chaos while being in the limited square footage of our home. It starts feeling like a prison very quickly.

So to avoid that, I’ve decided to provide things of calmness and serenity through my Saturday Pentacle newsletter as much as I can.

I recently published the latest podcast with Indian Tabla Maestro Aditya Kalyanpur. If you want to listen to a conversation around how to pursue what you love and how to hon your craft so much that it takes you places, here is the Podcast episode.

I’ve also started getting back to meditation more, listening to the chirp of sparrows in the morning (yes sparrow’s are back as the humans have stopped venturing out). The inward journey is not very calm though, all the things which I have stopped being sensitive about, as I sit without the ignorance armour in my meditation, they start to come up. But these unresolved thoughts (something from the work or somebody said something and things like that) start to come to the surface and through meditation one can resolve them just by thinking about them. That’s what I’ve been doing in my meditations.

I’m also focused on movability exercises a bit more nowadays which include stretching the core, hamstring, hips and spine mobility. More than the cardio I’ve been working on these and also the posture of my body while sitting for work trying to maintain the straightness of spine.

To improve my focus, I’ve been using the Pomodoro technique. Where I focus for 25 mins and take a quick break. I found that it makes it easy to churn out one single mid-tier task into 1 of the 25 mins session and that way I can actually accomplish better. An app which I’m using for Pomodoro sessions is one of the points in today’s newsletter.

Coming to the book progress, I moved forward on below books –

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – 20% read on kindle.
Highly Productive Remote Work by Darius Foroux – 30% (found it via Darius’s newsletter, finding it very useful right now in this situation)
Breaking Smart: Season One: How Software is Eating the World – 30% finished (an amazing book recommended by David Perell)

I’m finding it increasingly difficult to listen to audiobooks in these past few weeks, so the below two books are on pause –

“The Sign of the Four” of the Sherlock Holmes series
Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway.

But happy to be back to reading. Some way or the other books have to be read. That’s it for the talk.

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 183 // Week 19 // 2020

An app I’m loving —

Forest App for Pomodoro Technique – This app has been really amazing, suggested by Ali Abdaal, it is actually a Pomodoro timer plus much more. It grows virtual trees in a virtual forest as you keep focusing every 25 mins. It provides you virtual coins, if you collect enough coins (like 2000) it provides an option to plant a real tree! (What! No way!!! but it’s actually true) via a Non-Profit, they are integrated with. We are living in an amazing world, where just by focusing on your work you can plant and grow virtual and actual trees. That’s what keeps my excited to focus more now.

A podcasting product I found awesome —

Riverside.fm – This new product just blew my mind, Create a podcast (not exactly a podcast but sort of a link), then share the guest link with your guest. You both login into your links and boom you are on a video call. Press record and your video+audio (in separate tracks) start recording. Once you stop record, you can immediately download your side, guest side audio and the video from the dashboard.

Riverside CEO Nadav Keyson, himself gave the demo to me. Super smart guy. The company is based out of the Netherlands. I think this is going to be a product to watch out for. Especially if you are a podcaster or a live streamer. (Yes you can live-stream your video podcast as well! How cool is that!).

Even though the pricing is there for this and it’s a bit on the higher side at the moment, but still if you want ease and one-click production. This is going to be the way to go.

Here is a demo –

A podcast I loved —

The Random Show (part of the Tim Ferriss Show Podcast) – This is one of my favorite aspect of the Tim Ferriss Show, where Tim and Kevin Rose come together every few months on boozie trip (sometimes) and over drinks they talk about life and all things in between. In the latest doze of the Random Show, they talked about –

What are they reading in the lockdown (some good book recos)
How to shape your investment strategies in these times.
Why Tim is so much troubled with the whole pandemic situation, even though he has got it all.

And much more. I loved the conversation, hope you’ll find it awesome too.

Playlist helping me focus again —

Study Playlist by Thomas Frank – As I was not able to focus much in the early past week, so I came back to this playlist, which is really good for calmful focus (that weird right? Calm and Focus together? but I think spiritually they are very similar).

This playlist has a rhythmic tone to it and sort of calmness with instrumental music which doesn’t bother your brain to process further information about lyrics. Good one by Thomas Frank.

Quote which I found useful to declutter –

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
— Peter Drucker

Before saying “see you next week”
I’m gonna mention my recent podcast episode again here if you missed it in the top section. Episode 21 with Aditya Kalyanpur (Indian Tabla Maestro).

Also, watch out for the next story in “Lifestyle Design in Action – A Story Series” this Thursday.

Lastly, here are a few pictures from my Instagram. You can check them out here or go to my Instagram for the whole stories and more –

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A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on May 1, 2020 at 12:36am PDT

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A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on May 1, 2020 at 5:30am PDT

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

Hey friends, I’m Himanshu, a technology professional working in Mumbai, India. I spend most of my spare time making Podcasts, YouTube videos and write on Lifestyle Design and sometimes stories. Every Saturday, I send out an email newsletter called “Saturday Pentacle”, a list of the cool stuff I explored in the past week, including quotes, photos, books, articles, movies, documentaries and so on!

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 183 // Week 19 // 2020

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