Dancing into 2024!
🚀 2023 Rewind, 2024 Fast-Forward! 🌟
👋 Hey there, fellow tech enthusiasts, professionals, and wanderers of the digital realm! 🚀
I am Gourav. I write about Engineering, Productivity, Thought Leadership, and the Mysteries of the mind!
In this edition, Let’s dive into our epic year-in-review, and decode the setting behind your best self in 2024. Let's make it a funky journey together! 🎉✨
Your engagement is what makes this community vibrant, so feel free to hit reply and share your thoughts, feedback, and ideas, or even just to say hello!
Today at a Glance
Survey Question: What would you like to learn in 2024?
Quote of the day: Prepare your Armoury!
Main Topic: Year out, year in!
Top 3 books I read in 2023
2 Fun-facts
Did you know…?
Must-to-read tweet storm before year-end
Survey Question of the Week
What would you like to learn in 2024?
I'm thinking about building a live, cohort-based course in 2024 to teach skills that I have learned in my life, the hard way. I have a passion for teaching and have mentored, taught, and consulted people on various topics. Now I’d love to teach you. Fill out this survey in under 1 minute, to help me understand the topic that you would like to learn.
As a thank-you for your contribution, those on the priority waitlist will be the first to hear when enrollments open, granting you exclusive access and discounts while securing your spot.
Your insights matter—let's create something extraordinary together!
Quote of the day: Prepare your Armoury
If you are going to shoot for the moon, you are going to need more than a bow and arrow.
— Mac McGovern
Hard work is irreplaceable, however, reaching for ambitious goals needs a different approach. Prepare your Armoury, rightly catered for your battle - recognize the scale of your ambitions and equip yourselves appropriately for the journey ahead.
For Software Engineering, this may mean pacing up with tech advancements like AI and learning the leadership qualities.
In personal life, it could entrace advancing towards financial freedom, a healthy lifestyle, and cherishing relationships by enrolling under life-coach mentorship.
Main Topic: Year-out, Year-in!
A lot happened in 2023…
On a personal level for me,
A few Life changing events unfolded:
I became the father to our first kid, a boy! 👨👩👧
I became spiritual “while trying to understand the grand scheme of things” 🧘♂️
I grew professionally by incorporating Emotional Quotient into my leadership style! 👑
I started content writing and started this newsletter. ✍️
All this materialized into reality, thanks to immense support from the most important person in my life - my wife! 👩❤️👨
But also there were some bitter-sweet moments:
I got burnt out while trying to sustain a startup that I started at, as Engineer #1 and eventually quit because I prioritized other aspects of my life over it.
Had to bid farewell to my closest friends - Sagar and Shubhangi, due to their visa issues in the USA.
Sleep and health took a toll. I got out of shape. I also lost a lot of hair on my head! (This suggests that there might be many other silent issues going on in the body)
At the same time, World 🌎 spun crazily
Tech World: AI took the main stage. Google launched Gemini. The VCs switched from Crypto to AI buzzword startups. Layoffs were the main villain for employees when CEOs pleased the deal for Wall Street.
Finance: The stock market took a U-turn in the second half, thanks to the Fed’s shenanigans. Bitcoin at $42,000 now. Crazy huh? At least it’s not worth $1M as predicted. 😆
Leadership: LinkedIn saw a huge inflow of great ‘leaders turned content creators’. Sam Altman and Satya Nadella created some show-ups for the world to watch in an already hyped ‘OpenAI space’.
Geopolitical: The Israeli-Gaza Palestine war is giving heart-melting moments and an alarming signal to the world to rethink humanity.
Entering 2024…
What are you thinking as your goals for 2024? But, the first question is, Do you really need to think a lot?
While everyone would be telling you to think about multiple goals, I would say it’s a waste of time! You already know it doesn’t work that way.
The point is to avoid over-indexing on the quantity of “What”, rather focus on the “Why” and “How” parts of a few realistic goals.
For example, for the last 3 years, my New Year resolution as well as my goal for the whole year was to become and stay fit…but it collapsed like a house of cards. The missing link? Discipline and Tracking. Instead of obsessing over a laundry list of resolutions, this year, I am embracing a different approach. I am outlining broad aspirations, and my primary emphasis is on cultivating discipline, boosting accountability, and tracking progress, with a core focus on just two major goals!
Yes, just two major goals:
One major Professional goal - grow as a ‘Thought Leadership’ content creator with more than 10k subscribers across all platforms.
One major personal goal - gain control of my health by getting back in shape and lowering the shaken lipid levels.
If you are wondering what to choose as a personal goal, you can refer choose from this wheel of life (credits: Ali Abdal for the picture):
For tracking, and measuring progress, and feedback loop, I am following and would strongly recommend all of you as well to use Sahil Bloom’s Annual Planning Guide.
But why restrict ourselves to just one goal per realm? Why not entertain a few more?
Research attests that when confronted with multiple goals, our minds are prone to a multi-fold increase in the tendency to lose focus!
If the thirst for knowledge beckons, perhaps categorize additional pursuits as level 2 or minor goals. Yet, exercise caution not to over-index on them, for risking the loss of sight of our primary objectives.
Few more ideas for you:
Aspire to ascend to a senior echelon in your software career by contemplating how you can shoulder more responsibilities, such as taking charge during on-calls, handling incidents adeptly, and contributing to the enhancement of system architecture and infrastructure.
If your goal is to attain a state of profound health, consider framing your perspective around not merely shedding excess fat but eliminating ailments from your life.
To cultivate flourishing relationships, embark on the journey of making deliberate "love deposits" — intentional acts that contribute positively to the emotional bank account of your connections.
In the end, acknowledge with a pragmatic outlook, that no single year possesses the magic to overhaul your entire life. However, adopting an approach marked by incremental steps, coupled with diligent tracking, accountability, and measured progress, can propel you steadily in the right direction.
Top 3 books I read in 2023
I’ve read over 10 books this year, but I want to share the top 3 books (click on names for Amazon links) that I loved reading the most.
Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data:
Demystifying stats. It’s a stats 101 journey that's engaging and crystal clear. No need for a math degree—the book uses intuitive examples to highlight key concepts.Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track:
Being a fellow Staff Engineer, I personally resonated with its content. This was my second time reading this book after 2021. Even if you aren’t specifically targeting Staff+ levels, it’s a good guide on how to orient oneself as a leader.Efficient MySQL Performance: Best Practices and Techniques:
Bit of a niche skill to learn. Learn the internals of MySQL to run MySQL cluster in a cost and performance-efficient way. This book teaches you about indexing, query analytics, data access patterns, sharding, monitoring, and much more!
2 Fun-Facts
For every 1 million lines of GoLang code written, there are roughly 10,000
error nil checks!
err != nil The year 1995 is further away than the year 2050.
Did you know..?
FAANG lost its luster, at least as per level.fyi 2023 report.
Must-to-read tweet storm before year-end
I am sure many of you have already heard, read, or explored the famous tweetstorm from Naval Ravikant on “How to Get Rich (without getting lucky)“, but I still want to share it in case you have missed it somehow.
A lot has been discussed, podcasted, written, appreciated, and shared about this tweet storm. It teaches you what would it take to become wealthy if you lose everything that you have and start afresh.
I can guarantee you that it’s thought-provoking and would give you a new perspective on money, wealth, financial freedom, building and selling ideas & products, leverage, and much more.
In case you missed my previous articles…
Why did I start this newsletter?
Why do we fall short Despite Intelligence and Skill Excellence?
The Art of Empowering Others with Influential Leadership: Spreading Joy and Happiness
Dispelling Career Advice Myths in the Tech World
How to apply Bhagavad Gita teachings to succeed at Work (without Stress)?
Let’s Connect
If we haven't crossed paths previously, I'd be delighted to receive a message from you! Don't hesitate to reply to this email and introduce yourself. I make it a point to respond to every direct message, email, and comment. You can also find me actively sharing on LinkedIn—let's connect:
Best regards,
Gourav Khanijoe