Speaking Small

I’ve come to realise that most of us grow up mastering the art of speaking small. Not because we lack ambition, but because somewhere in childhood we learned a quiet rule: don’t say anything that might make you look foolish later. So we talk in safe units… half-dreams, modest targets, things we’re already confident of achieving. It feels practical, but over time that habit quietly becomes a ceiling. We end up describing our lives, not shaping them.

Entrepreneurship shook that out of me. It was the first world I entered where people didn’t just dream bigger — they spoke bigger. They talked about goals as if they were already sitting on the table. Not as a performance, not as bravado, but as a way of telling their mind, their team, and the world: this is where we are heading, come catch up.

Think of Kennedy announcing the moonshot. He didn’t say, “We hope… we wish… we’ll try.” He spoke with a strange kind of finality, as if the universe had already signed the contract. And that tone — that certainty — pulled an entire nation into a higher orbit. Leaders, no matter the field, carry this same quality. They don’t wait to feel confident before they speak; the speaking itself creates the confidence.

Over time I realised something uncomfortable: the moment you declare a goal out loud, you place yourself in a vulnerable position. And maybe that’s the point. Because once you say it — truly say it — your mind starts rearranging itself. Ideas appear that never showed up before. The path you couldn’t see suddenly starts revealing itself, one small light at a time. You didn’t get the confidence first; you got the words first. And the confidence followed.

I’ve watched this transformation happen in real people around me. The day someone says, “I’m doing doubling my revenue this month,” the room shifts. There’s surprise, maybe even disbelief — but something else too. A new expectation forms, both in them and around them. Others start assuming it’s possible. The person saying it stands a little taller, even if they’re terrified inside. It’s not arrogance; it’s courage wearing a thin coat.

And then, of course, there are the reminders that sometimes children hold the wisdom we keep misplacing. A 14-year-old I know recently made a vision board filled with goals written in the past tense — Got the internship. Scored the A’s. Held my first art exhibition. Not “I hope to,” not “maybe someday.” It was all stated as though life had already handed it to her. There was no hesitation in her language, no fear of being wrong. Just a clean, bold claim on her future.

It struck me: adults hesitate because we’ve lived long enough to collect disappointments. Children haven’t yet learned to be afraid of their own voice. And maybe that’s what we’re really recovering when we learn to speak our goals again — a return to that uncomplicated courage.

So if you ever find yourself stuck, unclear, or quietly shrinking your dreams, ask just one thing: What am I afraid to say out loud? Because more often than not, the missing link isn’t strategy. It’s speech. The future doesn’t always begin with a plan. Sometimes it begins with a sentence — spoken boldly, before you’re ready, before you know how — and everything else learns to follow.

The AI Coach

People often say, “I’m not sure I can do this… it feels like too much work.”

But work has never been the real fear. People handle hard things all the time — family, jobs, illness, uncertainty. What unsettles them isn’t the effort. It’s the isolation that effort usually comes with.

And this is where app-based or AI-driven solutions quietly fall short. Not because they lack intelligence, but because they lack human presence — the one ingredient effort depends on.

Apps can remind you to walk. A coach asks why you didn’t — and helps you fix the reason.

Apps can give you a meal plan. A coach checks your fridge, your schedule, your stress levels — and adjusts the plan to your life.

Apps can send automated notifications. A coach sends a message because they remembered you had a tough day coming up.

This is the difference most people underestimate.

The difference isn’t in the data.

The difference is in the relationship.

If information alone created transformation, everyone would be healthy by now. Google has enough advice to fix every problem, yet people still feel stuck — not for lack of knowledge, but for lack of companionship. An app can tell you what to do. But it can’t sense the fear behind your questions, the shame behind your slip-ups, or the loneliness behind your “I’ll start again tomorrow.”

And that’s the real question hidden inside “I’m not sure I can do this.”

It’s not a question about effort.

It’s a question about support.

Because with an app, you carry your doubts alone.

With a coach, your doubts become part of the process — something to work through, not hide from.

In the end, transformation isn’t technical. It isn’t a list of steps or macros. It’s emotional. It’s human. It’s two people walking together so the burden never becomes unbearable.

Apps guide the body. Coaches guide the human inside the body.

And that’s why coach-led change endures — it dissolves the one fear no algorithm has learned to solve:

The fear of walking alone

Recognizing Value

There’s something subtle that happens in service professions — especially in coaching. We become so familiar with the work we do that we stop seeing how much of ourselves is embedded in it. Not in the obvious places, like the plan or the protocol, but in the quiet, everyday gestures that no one else notices.

A client sends a photo of a half-eaten meal, and you instinctively know what went wrong. Someone messages at 10 p.m. saying they’re craving sugar, and you talk them through the moment instead of ignoring it till morning. You remember their routine, their challenges, the things they shared casually but that mattered to them. You hold all of this — their doubts, their momentum, their fragile motivation — as if it were your own responsibility.

And strangely, we forget that this level of attention is rare.

The world has already placed a high value on focused expertise. Doctors bill for a few minutes of consultation. Dermatologists charge heavily for follow-ups. Trainers set fixed rates for sessions whether the client shows up or not. Nobody questions it, because the value has been normalised. You pay for the container, not the guarantee.

But coaching operates differently. It’s not a container — it’s companionship. And companionship is harder to price, because it comes from a very human place. We don’t measure our care in minutes or appointments. We measure it in desire — the desire to see someone succeed, to see them change their own story.

This is why so many coaches hesitate when they quote their fee. Not because the price is unreasonable, but because they’re unaware of the invisible work they’re offering. They compare their number to the plan on paper, not to the life they help someone reclaim. They forget that clients aren’t paying for information; they’re paying for the presence that keeps them accountable, the guidance that stops them from repeating old mistakes, the steady voice that helps them stay with the process when the process gets uncomfortable.

And when you look at it that way, the question shifts. It’s no longer, “How do I justify my price?” It becomes, “Why did I assume my work needed justification at all?”

Because value doesn’t come from the length of a session or the sophistication of a chart. It comes from the heart and discipline you pour into someone’s transformation — the kind of effort that can’t be outsourced, automated, or easily replaced.

When you recognise that, pricing stops feeling like a defence.

It feels like telling the truth

All ears...

It’s funny how we grow up believing that the smartest person in the room is the one who speaks the most. The one with the strongest opinions, the quickest answers, the loudest certainty. But anyone who has spent real time observing people eventually discovers the opposite: the real power is in listening.

There’s a reason God gave us one mouth and two ears. Maybe it was a hint. Maybe He was telling us that understanding should always come before speaking. But most of us spend our lives doing the reverse — talking twice as much, listening half as much, and wondering why our conversations feel shallow and our connections feel fragile.

Entrepreneurs, especially the ones who build trust easily, learn a different rhythm. They ask one open-ended question — “How’s life going?” — and then they do something most people can’t: they stay quiet. And in that quiet, people start to unfold. They talk about stress, fears, hopes, the small private battles they’ve been carrying alone. They reveal insights you could never have discovered by talking. They hand you the roadmap to understanding them… without you having to push.

And here’s the paradox: the more they talk, the more they think you are wise. Not because you dazzled them with knowledge, but because you made space for their truth. Listening gives them the rare experience of feeling seen — and people remember the ones who make them feel that way.

In a world full of noise, silence becomes your advantage. The person who listens isn’t quieter; they’re sharper, more aware, more trusted. Sometimes the most intelligent thing you can do is simply let someone else speak

“The person who listens holds the real power — not because they know more, but because they understand more.”

Passion is not enough

When we start something new, the reason usually sounds noble — “I’m doing this because I’m passionate about it.” It feels pure, exciting, and full of energy. But that’s also the trap. Because passion, by itself, doesn’t build success. You can be passionate about medicine and still fail as a doctor. You can love flying and never become a great pilot. You can adore teaching and still not run a thriving school. Passion makes you good at the work, but not necessarily good at the system that carries the work.

A job feeds on passion. But a business feeds on consistency, patience, and repetition. When we say, “I love doing this,” we also unknowingly say, “I’ll stop when I no longer love it.” That’s the double-edged sword of passion — it’s emotional, not structural.

Building a business is about doing the same thing so many times that you can teach others to do it. It’s about designing routines, not chasing rushes. It’s about filling forms, answering objections, making follow-up calls, managing people, being misunderstood — and still showing up the next day. The boring parts are the foundation. The beautiful parts just sit on top.

That’s why ventures built only on passion collapse. The moment excitement fades, effort does too. The ones that last are built on a larger understanding: Does this solve a real problem? Does it serve a real need? Are people willing to pay for it? The skill of entrepreneurship is not doing what you love — it’s learning to love what needs to be done.

That means getting good at sales, planning, marketing, people, organisation — and building a thick skin for opinions you never asked for. It means staying steady when others don’t understand what you do. Because that’s where strength is built. Over time, the thing you were passionate about still remains — but it matures. It’s no longer about excitement. It’s about devotion.

Passion is a spark. Discipline is the fire that keeps the house warm. So, don’t build a business around what excites you today. Build it around what will still matter to you when the excitement fades.

Acceptance (verb)

The first time I read this concept was in the book “The Servant” by James Hunter. Love as a noun is very limited in its purpose in our lives. Because either it exists for someone or something or it doesn’t. And it seems that we can’t do anything about it. How about using it as a verb instead? Love could be something that we “do” or choose to do instead of something that happens “to” us. And that changes everything in our lives and in the lives of people who come in contact with us. Because now we have a choice and it’s no longer a compulsion.

I feel it’s the same thing about “acceptance”. What if we start using it like a verb? Would we be able to give the biggest gift to anyone and everyone in our lives. Because we expect this gift from everyone around us. We want them to accept us as we are - in all our strengths and limitations, weaknesses and shortcomings. But we expect that they change according to how we want them to be. What would happen inside us if we could start accepting everyone as they are…everything around us as it is? Maybe that’s when we will be able to truly change it…something to really think about…

Middle Age Crisis

It’s only something we know as a concept for the first quarter of our lives. Something that happens to the other “middle aged people”. But then as you hit 40 and 45 and beyond, you start getting this feeling of insecurity and know that you are living it. So now, what about it? Should you be proud of the fact that you lived through what everyone lived through? No. Definitely not. Mature people are able to brace for every stimulus and are able to give a response that comes from awareness and thoughtfulness instead of sheer instinctive behaviour. The question you need to ask yourself is this - did you feel life was perfect at any point in time? When you were 6 you wanted to be 13. When you were 13 you wanted to be 18. When you were 18 you wanted to be 25. And even at 25, you wanted to live the life of 45 because you felt you deserved more. Finally, at 45, you want to be 25. And then at 65, you will want to be 45. And 65 when you are 95. The secret is in enjoying the present moment. Because each day is bringing something so unique and so beautiful that it will never come again.

Mentorship : 270 degrees

The thing about mentorship is that it covers your blind spots. We can all see the 270 degrees behind us, but the rest is always a blind spot for us which we want someone to watch out for us. And that is what mentorship does. It’s like walking through a minefield. If you can just walk in the footsteps of someone who has walked before you, there’s a high chance you won’t blow yourself up. Most people have spiritual mentors, financial mentors, mentors at work and so on. But the problem is that most of the time their lives themselves are out of balance. They are so passionate about the one thing they are good at that you run a real risk of duplicating their life along with all of it’s imbalances. 

When choosing a mentor, it’s important to begin with the end in mind. Who is there around you whose package of life is something that you would like to have? Who is there who can think about your “well being” in all areas of life instead of just a one dimensional path? Unfortunately, most people treat life as separate boxes and try to make sure they don’t mix together. The work package is separate, the relationship package separate, the spiritual life package separate, the health package separate. They work on 1 or 2 of them but ignore the rest which doesn’t work since they affect each other greatly. Massive success in one at the cost of other almost always leads to pain and grief in the long run. 

I was very fortunate to find a mentor whose life was in balance on all fronts - wealthy on the money side, conscious of health and habits, solid marriage - basically they had the fruit on the tree, and were living a life I didn’t mind living in. That is an appropriate choice of mentor. Everyone else can only be a coach - they can coach us on certain skills or areas of life. A football coach will be worthy of following on the field but might not be worthy of following off the field. And that differentiation is very important. When we start confusing a coach with a mentor, we might unknowingly start picking up habits and attitudes which might be difficult to change in the long run. 

But what if a mentor is not in physical reach for whatever reasons? Chase them, become worthy of their mentorship and earn it. And if none of it works, keep following them and keep catching the nuggets from wherever they are. It’s a worthwhile chase for a great life. The joys of being mentored by someone and the feeling of security knowing that someone like that is looking out for you itself is worth it. 

Listening with the eyes...

I heard something interesting the other day. Only 17% of our communication is verbal - meaning what we speak or hear others speak in words. Around 35% is tonal - meaning the words are not as important as the tone of voice in which they were said - and the tone is twice as important as what we are saying. But around 58% of our communication is body language - meaning what our body language says is almost four times as obvious as the words we speak. 

Which brings us to the point of how we read people? Most of the time I see people paying 100% attention to what someone is saying without really paying any attention to how it was said. Then, when the words don't measure up, they get perturbed why it happened. They should have understood in the first place that the words are not going to get honoured. Thus, it is very important to learn to listen with our eyes as much as we need to listen through our ears. Sometimes that will speak so loud, you won't need to hear what they say.