Dear Self,

Howdy from your favourite alien!

Riding the waves without drowning requires confidence, skill, courage and most importantly luck. You have become good at it, especially the luck part. You ride it well. I won't tell you why and let you guess.

Your visit to the Tricity was about two deeply immersive Live Labs for real estate projects in Punjab - helping shape their positioning strategy and product mix. Traveling by (premium) Indian trains is liberating in unique ways. Other than endless hospitality, you get exceptionally good legroom, as well as mind space to think afresh about everything. Your client was very kind to host you and your colleague over sumptuous breakfast at his home.

Valentine's Day this year was all about love for your clients, especially the coaching ones. An intelligent lawyer with an untapped potential and a fast learning two-time entrepreneur solving men's health almost solo were the beneficiaries of your time well spent guiding them on immediate next steps.

You were witness to masterful presentations by your consulting, content and design teams as they presented well crafted verbal and visual identities for a literacy education non-profit.

You kicked off the advisory and PMO assignment along with your colleague for a new age school setup in Uttar Pradesh under the watchful eyes and words of the wife-husband founder duo. They explained their vision of what can be a very inspiring start to their education ventures.

One of the most fulfilling evenings in a long time came to you in the form of a gift from your super senior at b-school who asked you to take a guest session for the undergraduate students of one of the most prestigious liberal arts universities in Asia. Your lecture on "Consumer Insights" got the students to share and discuss several pertinent challenges in their research journey as they worked to incubate their startups as part of their "Venture Design Lab" course. Your senior who runs this brilliant course at leading graduate and undergraduate schools in India allowed you to share the limelight in front of brilliant students.

Your time spent with the peer group of entrepreneurs of your trust group this month was most transformative as you got a chance to present your firm's business plan in a completely non-judgmental space to members who served like your expert board who don't charge a dime for their advice. Their ideas and critiques left you richer by a few decades. You are lucky, didn't I tell you before? 

You spent three hours brainstorming and shaping the thought process of four co-founders and their advisor on following a structured process in building their brand foundation for the future. They are into architectural hardware, very focused on engineering good quality products, have a legacy name for close to five decades to vouch for but find themselves struggling for growth in rapidly commoditizing markets.

The week gone by saw you delivering a workshop to the sales and marketing team of one of the fastest growing consumer electronics brand in India. The theme was about helping them tap into their true potential which is unlimited and tireless in a Phurro world (means transitory in Kumaoni language). You had lots of joy teaching the idea of Phurro to all attendees. How every single thing happening around us is transitory and that one must be willing to change as frequently as is needed to adapt to the 'phurroness' in life and business.

A client of yours who spent the last three weeks navigating a very stiff crisis and threat to their business was candid enough to share the details with you. How low a competitor stooped to harm them and how resilient your client was to every attack faced was a lesson in patience and fortitude, two skills you rate highly in entrepreneurs. And as everything is Phurro anyway, the crisis has become boring and their business is thriving again, back to its usual momentum.

Nothing stays, yet people want to build something that lasts forever. This desire is in complete contrast to the laws of nature. And yet, humans fuel their inner drive for legacy as if there is no tomorrow and with the hope they can stop their future from becoming a shadow of itself.

Cheers,
Your friend for life