Suresh Dinakaran's Blog

 

Let’s start with a little horror story.

 

You didn’t buy that protein shake. You became a gym-going, mirror-selfie-clicking, sleeveless-wearing person because of that shake’s Instagram campaign. Congratulations. You didn’t just get sold a product. You got assigned a personality. And that, dear reader, is Advertising 5.0: Continuous Behaviour Modification on a Titanic Scale.

 

Gone are the days when advertising was about shouting “Buy One, Get One” louder than your competitor. Today, it’s about whispering into your subconscious, hacking your dopamine loops, and puppeteering your routines until you think it was your idea all along.

 

If you think you’re immune to advertising, congratulations—your programming is complete.

 

Advertising has metamorphosed into the Great Mind Heist– and you are the Willing Accomplice.

Welcome to the Behaviour Modification Olympics—and guess what? You’re the main event, the mascot, and the medal. Remember when ads begged for your attention like a desperate Tinder date? Now, they don’t ask. They hack. They slip into your DMs, your dreams, your dopamine drip. They’re not selling soap—they’re laundering your free will, one micro-targeted nudge at a time. If you think advertising is about selling you a bar of soap, you’re already in the shower, singing their jingle, and you don’t even know it.

 

Recall the time when ads were just those annoying interruptions between your favourite TV shows? When “Nirma, washing powder Nirma” was the petulant earworm you had to endure? Fast forward to today: advertising isn’t just selling you stuff—it’s reprogramming you, one dopamine hit at a time. Welcome to the era where advertising has mutated into a relentless, 24/7, behaviour modification machine. And you, dear reader, are the lab rat—except the cheese is your own attention span. Welcome to the age of behavioural puppeteering.

 

Then & Now– Then :- TV, radio, print—ads were like that overeager uncle at weddings: loud, obvious, and easy to ignore. You could switch the channel, flip the page, or just walk away. Now :-ads are the invisible strings pulling your every move. They know when you’re hungry, tired, or just bored enough to buy a Himalayan salt lamp at 2 AM.

 

Let’s try to understand this behaviour modification on steroids a little better through some examples. Ariel India #Sharetheload. What started as a detergent ad became a social movement. Ariel didn’t just sell soap—they sold guilt to Indian men for not doing laundry. Over 1.5 million men pledged to “share the load,” and the campaign sparked national conversations about gender roles. Suddenly, not helping with chores wasn’t just lazy—it was socially unacceptable. Bell Bajao (Ring the Bell), India– A campaign that didn’t just raise awareness about domestic violence—it recruited men to intervene. The message? If you hear violence, ring the bell. Over 130 million people reached, and a new social norm: silence is complicity. Advertising as a moral nudge, not just a product push. In the US, Neutrogena used real-time UV data and your location to push sunscreen ads just as you stepped into the sun. Result: you buy, not because you want to, but because the ad knows you need to.

Advertising isn’t just about making you buy—it’s about making you be. The next time you reach for that product, ask yourself: is it your choice, or have you just been nudged, poked, and prodded into submission?

 

You’re Not the Customer—You’re the Product. If you’re not paying, you’re being played. Your Habits Are the New Currency. Every scroll, like, and pause is data—fuel for the next manipulation. Opt-Out? Good Luck. Even your “Do Not Disturb” is just another data point. The Only Way Out Is Through Awareness. If you can’t spot the sucker in the ad game, it’s you.

 

You think you bought those Nike Air Max because they were on sale?
Wrong. Nike didn’t sell you shoes. They installed an identity app inside your skull: Just Do It. Don’t think. Don’t rest. Don’t ask. Perform. Project. Perspire. Repeat.

 

The needle is being moved. From what to buy to who to be.

 

Old School Ad Man: “Buy this detergent. It removes 99% stains.”

 

New Age Algorithm: “Your neighbor already has this detergent. It also makes their kitchen smell like Santorini sunsets. Don’t be basic.”

 

Swipe through Swiggy, scroll Instagram, browse Flipkart—what looks like convenience is just camouflaged compliance.  Zomato’s notifications aren’t reminding you to eat. They’re training you to salivate on cue. Cred doesn’t reward good behavior. It creates behavior by defining what “cool” financial adulthood should feel like. Tata Neu? It’s not a super app. It’s a walled garden where your choices go to get domesticated. And don’t even get me started on matrimonial apps. It’s no longer shaadi.com, it’s identity re-assembly dot AI.

 

TikTok isn’t a social media app. It’s a neurological lab conducting mass experiments in 15-second doses. Amazon doesn’t wait for demand. It plants the seed, waters it with algorithms, and sends a delivery guy before you even knew you needed it. Apple’s not selling phones. It’s prescribing taste.

 

Remember when India went cashless overnight? What looked like a financial revolution was actually the world’s largest behavior modification experiment. Apps like Paytm, PhonePe, and Google Pay didn’t just make payments easier—they made spending invisible. No physical money changing hands means no psychological friction to spending. Result? Digital payment transactions in India jumped from 2.4 billion in 2016 to 87 billion in 2023. That’s not adoption; that’s addiction by design. From cash to cashless to clueless?

 

In India, companies like Byju’s and Unacademy didn’t just sell education—they sold parental anxiety. Their ads featured crying mothers, disappointed fathers, and the implicit message: “Your child’s failure is your failure.” They turned education into an arms race where parents mortgaged their futures to buy their kids’ dreams. The result? A multi billion dollar industry built on fear, hope, and EMI payments. Selling dreams by delivering debt?

 

We’re not in the age of brand loyalty anymore. We’re in the age of brand colonization. The biggest brands aren’t brands. They are behaviour pharmacies.

 

Your willpower is the product. Your habits are for sale. Let’s call it what it is. Advertising is no longer trying to change your mind. It’s trying to own it. And in doing so, it’s turned from an art form into a behavioural operating system.

 

It isn’t about better ads. It’s about better addiction loops.

 

Why do you think YouTube autoplays?
Why do you think Netflix asks, “Are you still watching?”
Why do you think Spotify creates “Your Weekly Discovery”?

 

Because they don’t just want your attention. They want to choreograph your day.

 

Default Settings Are Designed to Exploit You: Every default setting on every app is designed to maximize engagement, not user benefit. Auto-play, push notifications, infinite scroll—these aren’t features, they’re behavioral modification tools. The first thing you should do with any new app is turn off notifications and change the default settings.

 

The Algorithm Knows You Better Than You Know Yourself :-Your smartphone knows when you’re happy, sad, lonely, or excited based on your usage patterns. It knows your political views, your shopping habits, your relationship status, and your insecurities. It’s like having a therapist who sells your secrets to advertisers.

 

Free Will is an Illusion in the Digital Age:- Every choice you make online is the result of hundreds of micro-decisions made by algorithms. The content you see, the products you’re shown, the people you meet—it’s all curated to influence your behavior. You think you’re making free choices, but you’re actually following a script written by an AI.

 

Here’s what we as a tribe (customers) have to be wary of. Brand owners will not stop treating customers like Pavlov’s dogs. They will not give us autonomy but addiction. Thy will not make us feel, but react. For marketers, data is actionable, sellable intelligence. Period. They are not going to treat it like it’s influence with a moral obligation. Consumers (aka, us, the Hunted): Awareness is rebellion, especially in this age of engineered desire. Curate your content the way you’d curate your diet. Detox your data feed. Don’t let trends trend you. Your attention is currency. Spend it like you mean it. Students of Branding: This is your wake-up call. Learn psychology before Photoshop. Because the battlefield isn’t billboards—it’s beliefs.

 

So, even if this seems like stating the obvious, here it is in unadulterated form . Advertising isn’t about selling stuff anymore. It’s about selling stories that script your schedule, style, and self-worth.

 

This isn’t just a creative industry anymore. It’s a behavioural economy with more power than most elected governments.

 

So the next time an ad pops up, don’t just ask, “What are they selling?”
Ask, “What are they trying to make me become?

 

The Real Product is Behavioral Change:– Modern advertising doesn’t just want to sell you a product—it wants to change your behavior permanently. They want you to develop new habits, new needs, new insecurities. It’s not about a one-time purchase; it’s about lifetime behavioral modification.

 

So, Wake Up and Smell the Manipulation !

 

Reality has a knack for RSVPing to your life’s party just as you’re about to sip your victory champagne. You could be in a boardroom in Bengaluru, a café in Brooklyn, or a virtual meeting on Mars—reality doesn’t care. It barges in, unannounced, and says, “Mind if I crash your narrative?”

 

Welcome to the art of living when life refuses to stick to your script. Life doesn’t get the memo that you’re ‘not in the mood.’ It shows up anyway—often with a smirk. The inconvenient truth is that the universe doesn’t do ‘out of office.’ Your breakdown is just its coffee break.

 

The compound interest of denial is expensive. The longer you postpone facing reality, the more it costs. But here’s the secret: every great story in history began with someone facing a reality they didn’t expect and choosing to dance with it.

 

Reality has the emotional intelligence of a charging rhinoceros and the timing of a toddler at a dinner party. Ask Vishal Garg, the CEO who famously Zoom-fired 900 employees and then realized—oops—reality has a thing called brand reputation. Or Elizabeth Holmes, who dreamed in turtlenecks and blood tests, until reality made her trade Silicon Valley stage lights for orange jumpsuits.

 

Reality, does not read your LinkedIn bio. It’s not inspired by your grid aesthetic. It doesn’t care about your hustle porn or your “Grind. Rise. Win. Repeat.” wallpaper. It shows up when the funding dries up. When the cofounder ghosts. When the product actually has to work. When the marriage can’t be saved by “good vibes only.” When your boss says, “We need to talk.” And when it does, it’s a masterclass—brutal, beautiful, and unskippable.

 

Howard Schultz of Starbucks was once fired from Xerox  and then laughed at for wanting to bring espresso to America. Reality said: “No one wants fancy Italian coffee.” Cut to: A multi-billion dollar coffee empire and more pumpkin spice than anyone ever asked for. Mike Tyson: Depression. Obesity. Booze. Down and out. Reality? A heavyweight championship belt and a comeback story that punches as hard as he does. And for pure contrast Harshad Mehta: Believed in too big to fail. Reality doesn’t negotiate with hubris. End credits: The Big Bull meets The Big Fall.

 

Elon Musk didn’t just build rockets—he built a brand on reality checks. When SpaceX rockets exploded, he didn’t cry over spilled rocket fuel. He tweeted memes, learned, and launched again. Pragmatism, Musk-style: “If reality slaps you, tweet about it and slap back with innovation.” Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw walked into banks with a dream and walked out with a “no.” Did she sulk? No. She turned her garage into a biotech empire. Reality told her she was crazy. She told reality, “Watch me.” Today, Biocon is rewriting the rules of global pharma. The lesson? Reality is just a suggestion—not a verdict.

 

From J.K. Rowling’s rejection letters (which could wallpaper Buckingham Palace) to Ratan Tata’s Nano—a car so small it could fit in your self-doubt—reality has a way of inspiring the most unexpected triumphs. It’s not the setback that matters; it’s the comeback. And sometimes, the best stories are written by those who let reality in, then show it the door with style.

 

Because, life isn’t a rom-com where the universe sends you a ‘thinking of you’ text. It’s more like a Tarantino film—blood, guts, and unexpected plot twists. Buckle up. So next time reality kicks in your door, hand it a drink and say:  “Took you long enough. Let’s negotiate.”

 

Reality is the unsolicited WhatsApp forward from life. It doesn’t ask permission. It doesn’t care for aesthetics. It’s that one friend who tells you your breath stinks—loudly—in public. But hear this: Reality doesn’t ruin the party. It does one better. It resets the guest list. It removes the illusion that passion alone pays bills. The myth that “working smart” means not working at all. The startup pitch where “disruptive” = “we don’t have a revenue model yet”.

 

Travis Kalanick of Uber disrupted the world, then got disrupted by his own HR department. Built a unicorn. Got bucked by it. Lesson: You can code your way into the future, but culture will still sneak up and code-switch you out of it. WeWork’s Adam Neumann– he had the vibe of a guru, the funding of a nation-state, and the business model of a daydream. Reality came wearing a SEC subpoena and said, “Namaste, bro. Time’s up.Vijay Mallya ran a liquor empire. Bought a Formula 1 team. And then forgot one minor detail: Cashflow matters more than Kingfisher calendars. Reality now sends postcards to him in London—with extradition notices. Ratan Tata punched reality in the face with humility. When Nano flopped, he didn’t blame astrologers or Mercury retrograde. He simply said: “We tried. We’ll do better.” That’s how real leaders wear failure—like a sherwani, not a shame-shawl.

 

The universe isn’t against you. It’s just way too busy to pander to your laziness. Get in the queue. Bring value. Or bring chai. Delusion is not a strategy. Optimism is not a plan. Manifestation is not a business model.
Hard work? Still trending since 2000 BC.

 

You’re not being punished. You’re being positioned. Reality’s got range. Every time you ignore reality, it does 10 pushups and comes back stronger.

 

One look into the Uncomfortable Mirror and it tells you that we backup our photos but not our relationships. We insure our phones but not our mental health. We prepare for zombie apocalypse but not Monday morning meetings. Reality is laughing at our misplaced priorities. What are you actually preparing for?

 

Every algorithm confidently predicted Hillary Clinton would win the US Presidential elections. Every model missed the 2008 crash. Every expert said Lehman was too big to fail. Reality is the ultimate fact-checker, and it doesn’t care about your data science degree.

 

Boomers: Saves for everything Millennials: Optimizes everything Gen Z: Influences everything Reality: Surprises everyone equally.

 

Whether you’re Mukesh Ambani or the neighborhood kirana store owner, reality treats everyone with equal irreverence. COVID-19 didn’t check anyone’s net worth before shutting down their operations. The democracy of disruption is real, and it’s coming for all of us. And, thats the Universal Truth.

 

Picture this: You’re 35,000 feet up, sipping airline coffee that tastes like liquid disappointment, when suddenly the plane starts doing its best impression of a paint mixer. Your stomach relocates to your throat, your white knuckles could crack walnuts, and that guy in 12B who was bragging about his “iron stomach” is now praying to gods he didn’t know existed.

 

But here’s the kicker – the pilot isn’t panicking. The flight attendants are still discussing their weekend plans. The plane isn’t falling apart; it’s just encountering some atmospheric sass.

 

Life operates on the same principle. Turbulence doesn’t mean you’re crashing. It means you’re flying.

 

Ever watched a plane plummet from the sky just because it hit a few bumps? No? Then why do you think your life’s turbulence means you’re crashing? If turbulence was fatal, every airline would be bankrupt by lunch. So, why let a rough patch ground your dreams? Warning: This post may cause your self-pity to crash-land. Please keep your seatbelt of self-belief fastened at all times.

 

If your life were a smooth, turbulence-free flight, you’d be bored out of your skull, cruising at 30,000 feet with nothing but recycled air and a sad little bag of peanuts. The most extraordinary journeys—whether in business, love, or just surviving adulthood—come with seatbelt signs permanently switched on.

 

So why do we freak out when things get shaky? Because society sold us the lie that success should feel like floating on a cloud of unicorn farts. Spoiler: It doesn’t. Turbulence isn’t your downfall—it’s your damn liftoff.

 

Remember: The world mocks before it marvels. Keep building. Read on. Meet Binish Desai, aka “The Recycle Man. “At 11, he invented a brick made from industrial waste and chewing gum. Yes, chewing gum. While most kids were mastering Fortnite, Binish was solving India’s construction waste crisis. Today, his company recycles 700+ tons of waste daily. Turbulence? Try being laughed at for suggesting garbage could build homes.

 

There is a place called Rock Bottom. Heard of it? Rami Al-Karmi fled Syria’s civil war with $400 to his name. Instead of waiting for pity, he coded his way into Y Combinator (the Harvard of startups) and built Refugee Open Ware, a tech platform training displaced people in robotics and AI. Now, refugees he’s upskilled work at Tesla and NASA.

 

So the boarding call would sound something like this: Turbulence isn’t the end—it’s the middle. It’s the messy, noisy, sometimes terrifying part where you prove you’re made of more than just wishful thinking. So next time life shakes you up, remember: you’re not falling apart. You’re just getting ready to land somewhere incredible. So, fasten your seatbelt, grab your sense of humor, and enjoy the ride. The only way out is through—preferably with a cocktail in hand and a smirk on your face. Cheers to the turbulence that makes us unforgettable.

Age, gender, and corporate dinosaurs are just speed bumps. Margaret Hirsch, co-founder of Hirsch’s Homestores, started selling appliances from her car boot after being fired for—wait for it—being pregnant in the ’70s. Today, her empire turns over $100M+. Oh, and she still works six days a week at 75.

 

Meet Irena Sendler, a Polish social worker who smuggled 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. She hid babies in coffins, suitcases, and potato sacks. When the Nazis caught her, they broke her legs and arms. Her response? She escaped and went back to saving more children.

 

Sendler didn’t see the Nazi occupation as a sign that humanity was falling apart. She saw it as turbulence – violent, terrifying, but temporary. She kept flying, kept saving lives, kept believing that storms pass.

 

The woman literally turned her life into a human smuggling operation and somehow made it look like community service. Talk about grace under pressure.

 

Richard Speck (not the serial killer – this one saves lives) was a janitor at a hospital in the 1960s who noticed that doctors were losing critical time running between floors to check on patients. His solution? He invented the first wireless patient monitoring system using radio technology from World War II surplus.

 

The medical establishment laughed at him. A janitor with a high school education telling doctors how to do their job? The audacity!

 

But Speck didn’t see their dismissal as proof he was wrong. He saw it as turbulence – the inevitable friction that occurs when you’re trying to change altitude. Today, wireless patient monitoring is standard in every major hospital worldwide. And Richard is known as the Janitor who revolutionised medicine.

 

Sometimes the person mopping the floors sees the solution that the person running the boardroom missed.

 

When Aravind Eye Care System started in India in 1976, they had a radical idea: What if we treated eye surgery like McDonald’s treats hamburgers? Mass production, standardized processes, and making it so efficient that we can offer it nearly free to the poor while still making money from the wealthy.

 

The medical community was horrified. Surgery isn’t supposed to be an assembly line! But Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy and his team saw the criticism as turbulence, not a crash warning. They kept refining their process.

 

Result? Aravind now performs more eye surgeries than any organization in the world, has restored sight to millions, and operates profitably while treating 60% of patients for free. They turned medical care into a movement.

 

Since we are on the topic- Here’s what turbulence actually does to an airplane: It makes it stronger. Engineers call it stress testing – subjecting the aircraft to forces that reveal weaknesses and improve design. Commercial aircraft are tested to withstand turbulence 2.5 times stronger than anything they’ll encounter in normal flight.

 

You know what they don’t do? They don’t build planes that avoid turbulence. They build planes that can handle it.

 

The same principle applies to humans. Psychologists have discovered that people who experience moderate levels of adversity actually develop greater resilience and well-being than those who experience no adversity at all. They call it post-traumatic growth.

 

But here’s the twist – it’s not the turbulence itself that makes you stronger. It’s how you interpret it.

 

Remember temporary tattoos? They seemed permanent when you were seven, but you knew they’d wash off eventually. Treat your current turbulence like a temporary tattoo – vivid, attention-grabbing, but ultimately not permanent.

 

Write your current major challenge on a piece of paper. Now add “This too shall pass” at the bottom. Look at it daily. Watch how your perspective shifts. Embrace a temporary tattoo mindset.

 

Here’s the secret that the universe doesn’t want you to know: Turbulence isn’t random. It’s strategic. Every time you level up in life – new job, new relationship, new challenge – you encounter turbulence. It’s not a sign you’re failing; it’s a sign you’re ascending to a new altitude.

 

The atmosphere gets thinner as you climb higher. The air becomes more unstable. The pressure changes. This isn’t a design flaw – it’s a feature.

 

Turbulence is life’s way of asking: “Are you sure you want to fly this high?” Your answer determines everything.

 

Comfort is a liar. Progress doesn’t come with cucumber water and mood lighting. Stop treating panic as prophecy. It’s just your nervous system saying “Whoa, this is new. Make turbulence a KPI. No shake = no growth. Period. Track your turbulence. What shook you six months ago is your warm-up now.

 

Change your internal narrator from an anxiety-ridden news anchor to a curious documentary filmmaker. Suddenly, your life becomes less like a disaster movie and more like an adventure film. Seriously. Instead of saying “Everything is falling apart,” try ” This is the part of the story where things get interesting.” Adopt the narrator-switch technique.

 

Friendly reminder: The plane doesn’t ask permission from the turbulence to keep flying. Neither should you. Featuring stories of people who turned chaos into catalysts and made the impossible look like Tuesday.

 

Every SpaceX launch looks like a midair crisis. But that’s just physics applauding courage. So the next time life rocks your boat, don’t go looking for the nearest lifeboat. You’re not drowning. You’re deep sea diving for your next version.

 

And, BTW, your current turbulence? It’s just the universe checking your seatbelt.

 

What if everything you learned about leadership is backwards? Why the future belongs to the gloriously inconsistent and the beautifully uncertain…

 

Confidence is so last season. The world is moving faster than a gossip in a WhatsApp group. If you’re not ready to pivot, you’re just roadkill. Humility is the new flex. The leaders who admit they don’t have all the answers? They’re the ones who actually get answers.

 

Take Gandhi—India’s OG game-changer. He didn’t just preach humility; he lived it. “It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.” Translation: even the smartest can be wrong. And that’s where the real power lies.

 

Remember when Netflix announced they were splitting into Netflix and Qwikster? The name alone sounded like a pharmaceutical side effect. “Ask your doctor if Qwikster is right for you. Side effects may include nausea, customer revolt, and stock price hemorrhaging.”

 

Reed Hastings didn’t just step in it – he did a full cannonball into the deep end of stupid. The internet didn’t just roast him; they turned him into a digital rotisserie chicken.

 

Now, here’s where most CEOs would have hired a crisis management firm, blamed the market for “not understanding the vision,” and doubled down like a Vegas gambler on a losing streak. Hastings did something so radical it should have its own TED Talk: He admitted he was spectacularly, publicly, embarrassingly wrong.

 

Not a mealy-mouthed “mistakes were made” politician-speak, but a full-throated “I screwed up, this was dumb, I’m killing it” mea culpa. That moment of nuclear-level humility? It didn’t just save Netflix – it turned them into a $150 billion streaming empire.

 

Qwikster died faster than a horror movie teenager, but Netflix? They’re still here, making us all question our life choices with true crime documentaries.

 

Ratan Tata could have played the typical Indian business maharaja – sitting on a throne of yes-men, making pronouncements from his ivory tower, expecting everyone to kiss his ring and validate his genius.

 

Instead, this man – this absolute legend – chose to be the anti-emperor. During the Nano project, he didn’t just listen to feedback; he actively hunted it down like a bloodhound. Engineers, factory workers, chai wallahs, random people on the street – everyone became his advisory board.

 

When the initial designs were garbage, he didn’t blame the team or fire the engineers. He looked in the mirror and said, “Maybe I’m wrong.” That’s not just leadership; that’s leadership with a PhD in self-awareness.

 

Under his watch, Tata Group went from $4 billion to over $100 billion. Coincidence? I think not. Turns out, when you stop pretending you’re the smartest person in the room, you actually become the smartest person in the room.

 

Jeff Bezos has been religiously consistent about one thing – customer obsession. Everything else? Fair game for a complete overhaul. Amazon started as a bookstore, became a marketplace, morphed into a cloud computing company, then a logistics company, then a media empire, then a space program.

 

Most CEOs would have been paralyzed by analysis, stuck in “focus” mode, trying to do one thing perfectly. Bezos said, “Focus is overrated,” and proved that being scattered can be strategic if you’re scattered in the right direction.

 

When Satya Nadella took over Microsoft, the company was basically a tech museum – impressive history, increasingly irrelevant present. The old Microsoft was built on a know-it-all culture, where being wrong was career death.

 

Nadella didn’t just change the products; he performed open-heart surgery on the corporate soul. From We know everything to We’re curious about everything. From defending yesterday’s decisions to exploring tomorrow’s possibilities.

 

Result? Microsoft went from a $300 billion has-been to a $2 trillion titan. Turns out, admitting you don’t know everything is surprisingly profitable.

 

Before any major decision, assign someone to argue against it like their career depends on it. Not token resistance, but full-contact intellectual combat. Make it their job to find every flaw, every weakness, every potential disaster scenario. In other words let her play Devil’s Advocate With a PhD Protocol.

 

Keep a detailed catalog of your most spectacular failures and what they taught you. Review it like scripture. Share it with your team. Make being wrong feel normal, not nuclear. Your Failure Museum is a learning goldmine.

 

Regularly torture your strongest beliefs with this question: “What evidence would make me change my mind about this?” If you can’t think of any, you’re not having beliefs – you’re having a religious experience. Sending your conviction for a thorough interrogation, in other words.

 

Here’s the delicious irony: The more you admit you don’t know, the more people trust your judgment. The more you change your mind, the more people respect your mind. The more human you become, the more powerful you become. And remember- humility is a superpower.

 

Jacinda Ardern, erstwhile Prime Minister of New Zealand didn’t govern like a traditional politician – all scripted answers and calculated positions. When she didn’t know something, she said so with the confidence of someone who knows that honesty is the ultimate power move.

During COVID-19, she didn’t pretend to have a crystal ball. She followed the science, listened to experts, and when new information emerged, she pivoted faster than a startup running out of runway. Her approval ratings didn’t suffer from this uncertainty – they soared because of her authenticity about it.

 

Warren Buffett’s annual letters aren’t just shareholder updates – they’re masterclasses in strategic self-deprecation. He calls his mistakes “bonehead decisions” and dissects them like a pathologist examining a crime scene.

 

This isn’t corporate flagellation; it’s genius reputation management. By owning his failures spectacularly, he builds unshakeable credibility for his successes.

 

Time for calling a spade a shovel(or at least a spade)-Most leaders are suffering from terminal arrogance. They’ve confused confidence with competence, mistaken certainty for strength, and turned doubt into the enemy.

 

These leaders are like GPS systems that refuse to recalculate when they’ve clearly taken a wrong turn. They’d rather drive into a lake than admit they might have made a mistake.

 

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: Your certainty is killing your company.  Your unwavering conviction is a corporate cancer. Your refusal to be wrong is making you spectacularly, expensively, publicly wrong.

The persuadable future isn’t just uncertain – it’s aggressively, relentlessly, beautifully uncertain. The leaders who thrive won’t be the ones who predict it perfectly. They’ll be the ones who adapt to it fastest.

 

They’ll be wrong quickly, wrong cheaply, and wrong openly. They’ll update their beliefs as frequently as they update their phones. They’ll treat certainty like a disease and curiosity like a superpower.

 

Radical open-mindedness is the ultimate competitive advantage. The world is moving too fast for rigid thinking. Stay flexible, or get left behind. Kill your darlings. Fall in love with your ideas—then be ready to bury them if they’re not working. Encourage dissent. Make it safe for your team to challenge you. If everyone agrees with you, you’re either a dictator or a delusional.

 

Confidence is overrated. Humility is underrated. Persuadability is the new black. So, next time someone asks you to be more consistent, tell them: “Consistency is for breakfast. I’m having inconsistency for lunch—and humility for dessert.

 

Ready to weaponize your willingness to be wrong?  Ready to be persuadable?

 

First, let’s get this out of the way—most of us love the idea of love the way we love the idea of six-pack abs: from a safe distance, with zero intention of doing the hard work. We swipe right on illusions, marry projections, and then act shocked when our “soulmate” turns out to be a snoring, opinionated, gloriously flawed human being. Welcome to the real Olympics—where the only sport is seeing people as they actually are, not as you wish they’d be. Spoiler: The gold medal is actual, grown-up love.

 

You think you’re loving someone? Nah, you’re loving your own mental Netflix series starring them as the hero/heroine. David Brooks nails it: “We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are”. Translation: Your love life is less ‘reality show’ and more ‘hallucination with popcorn.’

 

Let’s take a global detour. Remember the Anarkali-Salim saga? Prince falls for a dancer, empire loses its collective mind, tragedy ensues. Was Salim in love with Anarkali, or with the idea of rebellion wrapped in a pretty package? Fast-forward to Indian boardrooms—how many managers “love” their teams, but only as long as they agree with every word? The moment someone disagrees, it’s “off with their heads!”—Mughal court style.

 

Antoine de Saint-Exupery said, “Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction”. But try telling that to half the world’s couples, who think love means staring at each other until someone blinks (or files for divorce). The French get it—love is a partnership, not a staring contest. The French Kiss Of Reality anyone?

 

Or look at Japan’s concept of Wabi-Sabi—finding beauty in imperfection. They don’t demand flawless. They see the cracks and love them. Meanwhile, you’re out here ghosting people because they don’t fit your Pinterest-perfect fantasy.

 

Mythology beckons: Mirabai didn’t just love Krishna; she saw him, warts, flute, and all. She wasn’t in it for the palace perks or the Instagram likes. Her bhajans are a masterclass in loving beyond the surface. If you’re still loving people for their ‘potential,’ congratulations—you’re dating their LinkedIn profile, not the person. Fast forward to today—your parents want an arranged match with a “fair, slim, homely” partner who ticks boxes like a grocery list. Where’s the seeing? Where’s the awareness?

 

Osho(Bhagwan Rajneesh) does a classic pattern interrupt as only he could. Osho, never one to sugarcoat, drops this bomb: “Your so-called love is almost an illusion. The man of awareness has a different love arising in his heart which is not an illusion. Your so-called love is a bargain…You use the other, he uses you. This is a kind of settlement, adjustment. You call it love”. Ouch. If your love feels like a business deal, maybe it’s time to renegotiate the contract.

 

Awareness is the ultimate relationship hack no one’s using.

 

The ancient Greeks had four words for love, but somehow we’ve managed to dumb it down to one oversimplified, Disney-fied concept that’s about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

 

Let’s go back a bit in time with the poster boy of Indian idealism. Mahatma Gandhi’s marriage to Kasturba wasn’t the sanitized version they teach in schools. For the first 20 years, it was a disaster of epic proportions. Gandhi was controlling, jealous, and tried to “improve” his wife constantly. Only when he stopped trying to change her and started seeing her as she actually was – strong-willed, independent, and perfectly capable of her own moral choices – did their relationship transform into something genuine. The man who preached non-violence had to learn to stop waging war on his wife’s personality first.

 

Winston Churchill was an alcoholic, depressive, warmongering aristocrat with the social skills of a rabid badger. His wife Clementine knew this from day one. She didn’t marry the myth – she married the man. Their 56-year marriage worked precisely because she never tried to turn him into someone else. She saw his darkness and chose to love the complete package, tantrums and all. Compare this to most modern relationships where people swipe right on potential, not reality.

 

Here’s an awakening that we could all do with. Arranged marriages in India have a lower divorce rate than love marriages. Why? Because arranged marriages often begin with realistic expectations. When your aunt tells you, “He’s a good boy, but he snores like a freight train and has the fashion sense of a colorblind buffalo,” you’re starting with awareness, not illusion. Meanwhile, love marriages often begin with the delusion that your partner is perfect, leading to the inevitable crash when reality hits like a Mumbai local train during rush hour.

 

Bollywood has convinced three generations of Indians that love means never having to say you’re incompatible. Shah Rukh Khan running through mustard fields doesn’t prepare you for the reality of someone who leaves wet towels on the bed and thinks “5 more minutes” means 45. The real love story isn’t about finding someone perfect – it’s about finding someone whose particular brand of crazy complements your own insanity.

 

Real awareness comes when people drop their masks. If someone has never shown you their ugly-cry face or their 3 AM anxiety spiral, you don’t know them – you know their PR department.

 

Despite what Jerry Maguire told you, another person cannot and should not complete you. If you’re half a person looking for your other half, you’re going to create a whole mess, not a whole relationship. Your soulmate might be someone else’s nightmare roommate. And that’s perfectly fine. Compatibility isn’t universal – it’s personal.

 

Look at countries with the happiest relationships: Denmark, Finland, Sweden. What do they have in common? Brutal honesty about expectations, realistic views of partnership, and the cultural permission to be imperfect humans rather than romantic ideals.

 

Meanwhile, countries obsessed with romantic perfection (looking at you, France and India) often have higher rates of relationship dissatisfaction despite all the poetry and Bollywood songs.

 

When you truly see people as they are, your expectations become realistic, and suddenly everyone becomes more loveable. It’s like switching from expecting your local chai wallah to be Starbucks – once you adjust expectations, you can actually enjoy what’s in front of you. Thats the liberation of lower expectations.

 

Let’s be honest. We don’t love people. We love the edited version of them we’ve Photoshopped in our heads. The Insta Story version with bad lighting cropped out and unpleasant truths muted like a WhatsApp group full of relatives.

 

Awareness isn’t about becoming Zen. It’s about becoming honest.
Honest enough to say: “Hey, this guy’s got warts. And baggage. And an ego that could use its own seat on a flight. But he’s real.”

 

When Naseeruddin Shah admitted to hating Rajesh Khanna’s acting and later owned the backlash, people woke up. Why? Because realness stings. Awareness isn’t diplomatic. It’s disruptive. And sometimes, that’s how respect is born.

 

Haruki Murakami. This guy writes characters so nakedly honest, they make you squirm. He doesn’t give you heroes. He gives you humans—with all their dusty flaws and dreamy contradictions. That’s awareness dressed in literature.

 

When you truly see someone – their fears, their wounds, their weird quirks, and their magnificent strengths – and choose to love them anyway, you’re not just loving a person. You’re loving humanity itself. You’re saying, “I see your beautiful, broken, complex reality, and I choose to be here anyway.”

 

That’s not just love. That’s revolution.

 

And in a world full of filters, fake news, and carefully curated social media lives, choosing to see reality might just be the most radical act of all.  That is the final truth: that awareness is the ultimate act of love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The best brands don’t just own your wallet—they rent space in your senses.

 

So, if you’re tired of branding that’s all style and no substance, join us for a sensory safari. Warning: Side effects may include brand envy, sudden inspiration, and the urge to sniff your own logo.

 

Open your mind (and your nostrils)—the SOHB Story 👇 is about to get under your skin.

The Insight That’ll Blow Your Mind- Great brands don’t just occupy shelf space—they occupy sense space. They create invisible threads that connect with you long before logic kicks in.

 

Think the “snap” of a KitKat. The hotel lobby that smells like wealth. The MacBook start-up chime that makes you feel 17% smarter. The feel of a Gillette razor gliding like poetry over skin.

 

This isn’t branding. It’s seduction. And the best part? It works in stealth mode—bypassing logic, hitting straight at the heart, then nestling in the subconscious like a secret crush.

 

So if your brand still believes in only sight as strategy— …it’s time to give your audience a full-body experience.

 

Ready to give your brand a sixth sense? This week’s SOHB Story Knewsletter (heart crafted with love and a dash of mischief by ISD Global) dives nose-first into the world of Sensory Branding: The Invisible Weapon. Because let’s face it—if your brand only looks good, it’s basically the Instagram filter of the business world: all gloss, no goosebumps.

 

So, why settle for looking iconic when you can sound like a melody, smell like nostalgia, and feel like a warm hug?

 

The best brands don’t sell—they hypnotize.

 

Sound:That iPhone click? Pure ASMR for your brain.

 

Smell: Starbucks’ coffee scent? A $100M aroma strategy.

 

Touch: Tiffany’s blue box? Instant dopamine.

 

Fact:If your brand isn’t flirting with the senses, you’re leaving money (and magic) on the table.

 

The Sound Secret: “Netflix’s ‘Ta-dum’ cost $0 to create. It’s now worth millions in brand recognition.

 

The Scent Strategy: Singapore Airlines’ signature scent Stefan Floridian Waters isn’t just perfume—it’s brand memory in a bottle.

 

The Taste Test: Coca-Cola’s secret isn’t the recipe. It’s the fizz sound when you open it.

 

Intel’s iconic boot-up jingle  = Trust | KitKat snap = Instant craving.

 

Cinnabon’s 3pm bakery blast = sales spike.

 

These brands don’t advertise.They linger.

 

The Insight: Great brands don’t interrupt your day. They become part of your sensory vocabulary.

 

Sensory Branding is NOT Marketing. It’s memory-making.

 

This week, SOHB Story 👆 by ISD Global explores how brands can touch lives in ways words never could.

 

Because real connections aren’t just seen—they’re felt.

 

This one’s for every dream that got RSVP’d “Not Happening” by the Ministry of Mediocrity.

 

Your dreams are like a Bollywood masala movie—full of drama, passion, and a villain who just won’t shut up. Meet the gatekeeper: that one person (or society at large) who thinks their job is to guard the gates of mediocrity like a underpaid bouncer at a shady club.

 

Get ready to absorb this fun fact: The word “no” is the most commonly used word by people who’ve never done anything worth a “yes.”

 

It took a while but I soon realized gatekeepers are basically professional dream assassins with fancy titles and terrible LinkedIn profiles.

 

They told Oprah Winfrey she was “too emotional” for television. They told Steve Jobs he’d never make it in the computer business without a college degree. They told Sudha Murty that engineering wasn’t for women and she should focus on “suitable” careers like teaching. And somewhere in Mumbai, they probably told Shah Rukh Khan that a middle-class boy from Delhi could never become the King of Bollywood.

 

Plot twist: Every single one of these gatekeepers is now either unemployed, irrelevant, or desperately trying to take credit for “discovering” the very people they rejected.

 

But here’s the nuclear-grade truth that’ll make your chai taste like liquid ambition: While these legends were busy proving gatekeepers wrong, millions of potential legends were busy proving gatekeepers right by giving up before the fight even began.

 

Welcome to the greatest tragedy of human potential – where dreams go to die not because they’re impossible, but because someone in a position of imaginary authority said “no” with enough conviction to make it stick.

 

You would have I’m sure met some of these gatekeepers( read self-appointed dream assassins) including but not restricted to the Be Realistic Uncle – the guy who thinks passion pays in exposure and dreams should fit neatly into an Excel sheet. The Jealous Friend – Their support has more conditions than a prenuptial agreement. The Corporate Clown– Promotes innovation but panics when you actually try something new. Society’s Rulebook – Because apparently, your life should follow a 1950s manual written by bored bureaucrats.

 

“No” is just “On” spelled backwards. Think about it. Slowly.

 

The breed of gatekeepers come in multiple flavors:-The Riskophobics – Yes- the ones who ask “What’s your fallback plan?” (As if dreams need mattresses). The Degree Dealers – “Are you even qualified to do this?”. The Has-Beens & Never-Was-es – “When I was your age…”(Yeah? And look how that turned out). The boss who thinks “moonshot” is a cocktail. The VC who wants “proof of concept” before you’ve even proofread your pitch. That teacher who said you were too ‘artistic’ for science and too ‘logical’ for art. Gatekeepers. Dream police. The self-appointed bouncers of the status quo.
They exist to remind you that your dream doesn’t fit their parking lot of possibilities.

 

If you’re not being doubted, denied or dismissed—you’re not dreaming loud enough.

Otto Orondaam, a young Nigerian, was told slum kids were uneducable. He ignored the memo. Today, Slum2School has educated over 100,000 children, proving that sometimes, the best way to shut up the gatekeepers is to build your own damn gate. When Gitanjali Rao, a teenager from Colorado with Indian roots, invented a device to detect lead in water, adults said, “Leave science to the grown-ups.” She went on to win TIME’s Kid of the Year. Lesson: Age is just a number, and sometimes, so is your critic’s IQ.

 

There are enough and more real-world inspiration going around. Narayana Murthy, before he was Godfather of Indian IT, was rejected by his future father-in-law because he had “no future.” (Imagine if he listened. Infosys would be an unfulfilled Google Doc.) Wright Brothers—Two cycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio, told they were “unqualified dreamers” by experts in flight. Today, we eat stale peanuts at 35,000 feet because of their delusions. Masaba Gupta was told she didn’t “look like a designer.” She now has a fashion label that screams confidence, chaos, and colour—everything her doubters lacked. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, a woman trying to start a biotech firm in India in the 1970s. Bankers said, “You’re a woman, and biotech isn’t even a thing.” Today, Biocon is a thing. A billion-dollar one. Stan Lee, told by his publisher that superhero comics would never work. Enter Spider-Man. The rest, like Peter Parker’s love life, is complicated history. Dhirubhai Ambani was a petrol pump attendant who dreamed of building an industrial empire. Gatekeepers laughed at his ambition, questioned his methods, doubted his vision. Today, Reliance is one of India’s largest companies. The gatekeepers are still explaining to their children why they didn’t invest in his dreams.

 

The gatekeepers aren’t going anywhere. They’re a permanent feature of the landscape, like taxes and traffic jams. But here’s what they don’t want you to know: they only have the power you give them. Every time you water down your dream to make it “more acceptable,” you’re not being realistic – you’re being complicit in your own creative murder.

 

The choice is yours: Will you be the dreamer who broke through, or the cautionary tale who gave up?

 

Some takeaways that we might want to consider. Gatekeepers are often former dreamers who gave up. Their realism is just their regret wearing a business suit. The best revenge against a gatekeeper isn’t proving them wrong – it’s proving yourself right. Every industry, every field, every domain has its sacred cows. Your job isn’t to worship them; it’s to make better hamburgers. The phrase that’s how we’ve always done it is not an explanation – it’s an admission of intellectual bankruptcy. Collect rejections like Trophies. J.K. Rowling was rejected by 12 publishers before Harry Potter found a home. Those rejection letters aren’t failures – they’re proof you’re playing the game. Every “no” brings you closer to the “yes” that changes everything. Today J.K. Rowling is richer than the Queen of England and Harry Potter is a US$25 Billion Empire. Master The Art of Strategic Ignorance. Sometimes, not knowing something is impossible is your greatest advantage. The Wright Brothers didn’t have aeronautical engineering degrees. They had bicycle repair experience and an unshakeable belief that humans could fly.

 

So, pl stop asking permission to be extraordinary. The application will get lost in bureaucracy anyway.

 

The right way is often the well-trodden path to mediocrity.Elon Musk built rockets reading textbooks, not waiting for NASA’s permission. Dreams are the original black market currency—everyone wants them, but the authorities (read: gatekeepers) want them confiscated at customs.

 

Let’s face it. Dreams are the most democratic thing on the planet. You can be a chaiwala in Vadodara or a coder in Silicon Valley, and your dreams are as valid as Mukesh Ambani’s Wi-Fi password. But here’s the plot twist: the world is full of bouncers at the nightclub of ambition, ready to check your ID and tell you, “Sorry, not tonight, buddy.”

Dreams are not fragile. They are nuclear reactors—dangerous only to those who fear their own power. The next time someone tries to play customs officer with your dreams, remember: the only passport you need is your own conviction.

 

Dhirubhai Ambani didn’t ask permission to dream big from a petrol pump. Kalpana Chawla didn’t ask permission to reach for the stars from Karnal. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam didn’t ask permission to become a scientist from a fishing village in Rameshwaram. They just started walking toward their dreams and let the gatekeepers explain to history why they tried to stop them.

The gatekeepers are still there, by the way. They’re still telling dreamers to be realistic, practical, careful. They’re still confusing their comfort zones with wisdom, their fear with experience, their limitations with universal truths.

 

But here’s what they don’t want you to know: They’re optional. They always were.

 

Your dreams don’t need a committee’s approval. They need your commitment.

 

Your potential doesn’t need validation. It needs activation.

 

Your future doesn’t need permission. It needs you to show up.

 

 

 

The lion doesn’t hustle. It rests 20 hours a day. And when it moves, the savannah makes way. So why are you still sprinting like your inbox is a finish line?

 

We live in a world where doing nothing is a crime, and busy is worn like a badge of honor pinned to a coffee-stained calendar.

 

But here’s the cosmic joke: Doing nothing may be the most productive thing you ever do.

 

In a world obsessed with optimization, hustle culture, and active recovery, we’ve forgotten the profound wisdom hidden in complete stillness. While everyone else is power-walking through their “rest days” and meditation-multitasking their way to burnout, the real revolutionaries are discovering something ancient yet radical: the transformative power of total, unapologetic surrender to nothingness.

 

Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of Hamilton, one of the all-time great hits on Broadway, attributes his breakthrough musical ideas to long periods of lying on his couch, staring at the ceiling, doing absolutely nothing productive.

 

J.K. Rowling conceived Harry Potter during a delayed train journey where she sat motionless for hours, not writing, not planning—just existing with her thoughts. Read staring out of the train window.

 

Archimedes discovered his principle of buoyancy not while actively problem-solving, but while passively soaking in a bath, completely surrendered to the moment.

 

Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan claimed his most profound mathematical insights came during periods of complete mental stillness, which he described as mathematical meditation.

 

The above are some of the real-world revolutionaries who mastered nothing.

The world doesn’t need another person trying harder. It needs someone brave enough to surrender completely, to trust in the wisdom of stillness, and to discover what emerges from the fertile void of doing absolutely nothing.

 

Your next breakthrough isn’t hidden in another course, another method, or another strategy. It’s waiting in the space between your thoughts, in the pause between your breaths, in the revolutionary act of complete surrender.

 

The question isn’t whether you have time for this—it’s whether you have the courage to discover who you become when you stop trying to become anything at all.

 

The revolution begins when you stop. The transformation happens when you surrender. The magic emerges when you do nothing.

 

We have all been sold the concept of active rest . The idea that rest must be purposeful—meditate, journal, stretch, walk. But even these “restful” activities keep our minds subtly engaged, always doing, always processing. True rejuvenation, however, often requires a radical step further: complete surrender. Not just unplugging, but powering down. Not just slowing the pace, but stopping altogether.

 

Doing nothing works spectacularly because when you surrender to stillness, your brain shifts from task mode to default mode(the brain’s background processor)—the state where daydreams, insights, and creative breakthroughs are born. Your body, too, has a chance to reset, repairing itself at a cellular level. Nature’s rhythms seep in, and you rediscover your own. So yeah, the best version of you isn’t found in the flurry of 52 browser tabs.

 

Across the world, cultures have long recognized the transformative power of stillness:

• Italy’s “Dolce Far Niente”: The sweet art of doing nothing, celebrated as a way to savor life’s moments and let inspiration bloom.

• Japan’s “Ma”: The space between things, where silence and emptiness are honored as the birthplace of creativity.

• India’s Sages in Silence: From Himalayan hermits to urban meditators, India’s spiritual masters have long retreated into silence and nature, believing that true wisdom arises when the mind is quiet.

• Spain’s Revolutionary Siesta Philosophy:  Spain didn’t just give us the siesta; they gave us a masterclass in civilizational wisdom. The traditional Spanish siesta isn’t a nap—it’s a complete halt to productivity, a societal agreement that human beings are not machines. During these sacred hours, entire cities surrender to stillness, and creativity flourishes in the silence.Research from Harvard’s School of Public Health found that countries practicing regular daytime rest periods show 37% lower rates of heart disease and significantly higher levels of innovation in creative industries.

 

Consider Mahatma Gandhi, who regularly withdrew into silence, emerging with renewed clarity and vision. Or Rabindranath Tagore, who found his poetic genius not in endless activity, but in long, contemplative walks by the riverside, simply being with nature. Steve Jobs credited his greatest ideas to long, aimless walks and periods of quiet reflection. Ratan Tata, one of India’s most respected business leaders, is known for his love of solo drives and quiet retreats, where he disconnects to reconnect with his vision. Albert Einstein famously came up with his theory of relativity while—guess what—daydreaming. Bill Gates schedules regular Think Weeks in a cabin with no devices—just silence, books, and thoughts.

 

India has gifted the world two profound concepts that embody passive rest: Santosha (contentment with what is) and Shavasana (corpse pose). But these aren’t just yoga concepts—they’re revolutionary approaches to human optimization through surrender.

 

The Rishis of the Himalayas have practiced Akinchan (the state of having nothing and wanting nothing) for millennia. Modern neuroscience now confirms what these sages knew: the brain’s most creative insights emerge not from thinking harder, but from thinking nothing at all.

 

Vipassana meditation, as taught in India’s ancient tradition, involves sitting in complete stillness for hours—not trying to achieve anything, just witnessing. Steve Jobs credited his Vipassana retreats in India as the source of Apple’s most revolutionary innovations.

 

Denmark’s hygge and Sweden’s lagom aren’t just lifestyle trends—they’re cultural commitments to doing less and being more. These societies consistently rank among the world’s happiest and most innovative, not despite their embrace of slow living, but because of it.

 

We’ve been sold a lie. The wellness industry has convinced us that rest needs to be productive—that we should be stretching while we recover, journaling while we unwind, or listening to educational podcasts during our downtime. This isn’t rest; it’s performance anxiety dressed in yoga pants.

 

It would help if we can re-define productivity. Stillness is a form of inner productivity. The ROI? Clarity, energy, creativity, and sanity. Schedule Nothing Like You Schedule Meetings. Put it on your calendar. Call it The Void or Unmeeting with the Universe. Make it sacred. Find Your Inner Sloth. Channel the spirit animal of champions. Lie on your back, stare at the ceiling, and let your mind wander like a lost tourist.

 

Doing Nothing is the New Doing Everything.

 

In a world that worships hustle, dare to be a heretic. Surrender to the sofa, let nature serenade you, and discover what happens when you let go—completely. Sometimes, the best way to leap forward is to lie down and let the universe do the heavy lifting. Who knew that the secret to success could be as simple as… nothing?

 

 

 

Welcome to the golden age of golden oldies, where every brand executive has suddenly discovered that their dusty archives are worth more than their innovation labs. We’re living in times when a grainy Instagram filter can resurrect a dead brand faster than you can say “vintage aesthetic.“

 

This Week’s SOHB Story 👇 is serving you the brutal truth with a side of perfectly curated melancholy:

How yesterday became today’s most expensive real estate. Nostalgia is back. And it brought receipts, vinyl, and insane ROI.

 

BREAKING: Your childhood has been acquired by marketing. And it’s calling—on a rotary phone.

 

This issue is your VIP pass to the nostalgia nightclub—where yesterday’s hits pay for tomorrow’s champagne.

 

Because why just remember the good old days when you can sell them, package them, and make your brand’s future so bright it needs shades?

 

Welcome above 👆 to SOHB Story(State Of The Heart Branding) Issue#6, where we dive into how nostalgia isn’t a feeling anymore—it’s a full-blown business model. Because emotions don’t have inflation.

 

One that’s turning Walkmans into wallets, Polaroids into pitches, and grandma’s recipes into VC-funded food trucks.

 

Because in a world overdosing on digital detox and AI déjà vu, yesterday is the new tomorrow—and brands are cashing in big time.

 

Understand why your childhood memories are now a marketing department’s favorite playground.

 

Know the science of selling “simpler times” to complicated people.

 

How brands are turning FOMO into JOMO (Joy of Missing Out… on being present).

From McDonald’s bringing back the McRib (again) to luxury brands launching “heritage collections” that cost more than the original ever did, we’re exploring why nostalgia isn’t just a feeling anymore—it’s a business strategy with a PhD in psychology and a master’s degree in your credit card statement.

 

We’re dissecting the beautiful mind bend of an economy where the past is the new black, vintage is the new luxury, and your childhood is officially an investment portfolio. Spoiler: The house always wins, and the house is decorated with Edison bulbs and reclaimed wood.

 

SOHB Story(State Of The Heart Branding) Issue#6 👆–Lovingly roasted and heart-crafted by the delightfully unhinged team at ISD Global. For all you C-Suite rebels, Brand Whisperers, and Marketing Flamethrowers who know that the heart is the new hustle.

 

Ready to get emotionally manipulated by your own memories?

 

Here’s a question that’ll make your MBA professor squirm: What if everything you’ve been taught about business is gloriously, spectacularly wrong?

 

Picture this. You’re in a boardroom. Suits everywhere. PowerPoints flying. Someone inevitably says, “We’ve built this amazing product! Now let’s find customers for it!”

 

Record scratch. Freeze frame.

 

That, my friend, is the sound of business logic dying a slow, painful death.

 

Walk through any startup accelerator in Bangalore or Boston, Gurgaon or Georgia, and you’ll find them—the walking wounded. Brilliant engineers and entrepreneurs who built “revolutionary” apps that nobody wanted. Marketing geniuses who crafted campaigns for products that solved problems nobody had.

 

We have all been in that boat- and all made the same fundamental error: Fell in love with the solution before we understood the problem.

 

But here’s where it gets interesting. The most successful brands in the world—from Apple to Amul, from Tesla to Tata—they all figured out the secret sauce early. They don’t find customers for their products. They find products for their customers.

 

Remember that your customer is a beautiful liar. Here’s the thing about customers: They’re terrible at articulating what they need. Not because they’re stupid—quite the opposite. It’s because they’re human. And humans don’t know what they don’t know.

 

Henry Ford never actually said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” But the sentiment? Pure gold. Steve Jobs understood this better than anyone. He didn’t ask people if they wanted a phone without buttons. He didn’t survey the market for demand for a tablet that wasn’t quite a laptop. He looked at how people behaved, what frustrated them, what made them fumble, and then created solutions they didn’t know they desperately needed.

 

Remember when Zomato was just a restaurant listing website? Boring, right? But Deepinder Goyal and his team weren’t just building a digital Yellow Pages. They were watching. Obsessing. Studying how people actually discovered and experienced food.

 

They saw the friction. The indecision. The “what should we eat tonight?” paralysis that hit every household at 7 PM. They saw couples arguing over restaurant choices, friends scrolling endlessly through options, delivery boys getting lost in maze-like apartment complexes.

 

So they didn’t just list restaurants. They built an ecosystem around the customer’s entire food journey. Reviews, ratings, delivery tracking, cloud kitchens, loyalty programs—each feature emerged from a customer pain point, not a product roadmap.

 

Result? A $5.4 billion company that redefined how a billion people think about food.

 

Here’s a brand that tells customers “Don’t buy our jackets unless you really need them.” Sounds like business suicide, right?

 

Wrong. It’s customer obsession at its finest.

 

Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard didn’t wake up thinking, “Let’s build expensive outdoor clothing.” He was a climber who was frustrated with gear that broke, clothing that didn’t perform, equipment that harmed the environment he loved.

 

He built products for people like himself. Obsessive outdoor enthusiasts who valued durability over fashion, function over form, environmental responsibility over profit margins.

 

The “Don’t Buy This Jacket” campaign wasn’t marketing gimmickry. It was brand DNA. It spoke to customers who were tired of fast fashion, throwaway culture, and meaningless consumption.

 

Result? A $1 billion company with customers so loyal they tattoo the logo on their bodies.

 

Sum summarum, it is about selling less to sell more.

 

LEGO’s “Ideas” platform lets fans submit, vote, and co-create new sets. The result? Products that fans didn’t know they wanted—until they saw them on shelves. This isn’t just customer feedback; it’s customer partnership. Spotify didn’t just stream music; they made listeners the heroes of their own playlists. “Spotify Wrapped” is a product nobody asked for but now everyone waits for. It’s personalization on steroids, rooted in customer data and behavior.

 

Myntra uses AI to personalize fashion recommendations and even lets you “try on” clothes virtually. Shoppers didn’t know they wanted a virtual dressing room—until they got hooked on it. Result? Higher retention, bigger baskets, and a legion of loyalists. It is about fashion that fits you, not the other way around.

 

The customer does not know paradox has to be recognised and respected. Customers can’t imagine what doesn’t exist yet. They’ll ask for better versions of what they know, not what’s possible. Your job? Show them what’s possible. Be the magician, not the order-taker.

 

The new Brand Gospel is all about moving the needle from being Product Pushers to Customer Whisperers.

 

Let me caution you about the most expensive circle jerk in human history. It happens every day, in every accelerator, in every startup hub from Silicon Valley to Cyber City. A bunch of smart people sit in a room, fall madly in love with their own ideas, build something nobody asked for, and then act shocked—SHOCKED—when the market yawns and scrolls past.

 

“But our product is revolutionary!” they cry, waving their pitch decks like battle flags.

 

Sure it is, champ. So was the Segway. So was Google Glass. So were about 90% of the startups that raised millions, burned through cash faster than a Bollywood producer’s son, and died whimpering into the night.

 

Here’s the uncomfortable truth your business school professor won’t tell you: Your product is not the hero of this story. Your customer is.

 

Elon Musk could have built another worthy, boring electric car for tree-huggers who were willing to sacrifice performance for environmental karma. Instead, he understood something profound about human psychology:

 

People want to feel good about their choices, but they don’t want their choices to feel like compromises.

 

Tesla didn’t make electric cars mainstream by making them more electric. They made them more desirable than gas cars. Ludicrous Mode: Because “saving the planet” is great, but “beating a Ferrari off the line” is better. Over-the-air updates: Your car gets better while you sleep. Try that with your BMW. Autopilot: The future isn’t coming. It’s here, and it’s driving your car. Supercharger network: Range anxiety solved before you knew you had it.

 

Musk didn’t ask customers if they wanted a faster, smarter, more connected electric car. He looked at their behavior with traditional cars and imagined what they’d want if physics and engineering weren’t limitations.

 

The result? Electric cars went from “environmental statement” to “status symbol.” Tesla became the most valuable car company in the world without being the largest. And suddenly, every automaker is scrambling to catch up.

 

When Mukesh Ambani launched Jio in 2016, the Indian telecom market was like a crowded Mumbai local train—packed, competitive, and seemingly impossible to enter. Traditional business wisdom said: Build a network, price competitively, acquire customers gradually. Ambani said: Screw tradition. Let’s understand what Indians actually want.

 

What he saw was a massive gap between aspiration and reality: People wanted to stream videos, but data was prohibitively expensive. They wanted to stay connected, but call rates made conversation a luxury. They wanted smartphone experiences, but were trapped in feature phone economics. They wanted digital services, but the infrastructure wasn’t built for mass adoption.

 

So Jio didn’t just launch another telecom service. They launched a digital revolution disguised as a phone company.

 

Free calls. Practically free data. Affordable smartphones through financing. Content platforms. Digital payment solutions. Each element addressed a specific barrier to digital adoption.

 

The traditional players had spent decades training customers to ration their digital usage. Jio said: Why ration? Why not gorge?

 

Result? 400 million subscribers in four years. The fastest customer acquisition in human history. Not because they built better cell towers, but because they understood customer aspirations better than anyone else.

 

Here’s why this approach works, backed by the kind of behavioral science that would make Daniel Kahneman proud:

 

Loss Aversion on Steroids: People fear making wrong choices 2.5 times more than they desire making right ones. Customer-first companies don’t just offer solutions—they eliminate entire categories of regret.

 

The IKEA Effect: People value things more when they feel involved in creating them. When your product emerges from customer insight, customers feel like co-creators, not just consumers.

 

Social Proof Amplification: People want what other people want, but they don’t always know what that is. Customer-first companies become the “someone” who shows them what they didn’t know they wanted.

 

Cognitive Fluency:  The brain loves patterns that feel familiar. Products built from customer behavior feel intuitive because they align with existing mental models. They don’t require customers to learn new ways of thinking.

 

Identity Reinforcement: The best products don’t just solve problems—they make customers feel like better versions of themselves. This only happens when you understand customers’ aspirations, not just their complaints.

 

Forget focus groups. Forget surveys. Forget asking people what they want. Start watching what they actually do. Netflix didn’t succeed because they asked people if they wanted to binge-watch TV shows. They succeeded because they noticed people were already doing it with DVDs and built technology to make it easier, faster, and more addictive.

 

Spend time where your potential customers spend time. Watch them struggle. Watch them adapt. Watch them create workarounds for problems they don’t even realize they have. In short become a customer stalker(the legal one!).

 

Every customer journey has moments that suck. These aren’t just pain points—they’re profit opportunities waiting to be harvested. Urban Company didn’t start by thinking “Let’s build a services marketplace.” They started by noticing that finding reliable home service providers in Indian cities was like playing Russian roulette with your weekend plans.

 

Map every step of your customer’s journey. Find the moments where they swear, sigh, or give up. Those moments are your goldmine. In effect, hunt for customer friction like a bloodhound.

 

Stop building complete products and hoping customers want them. Start building the smallest possible solution to the biggest customer problem you’ve identified. WhatsApp started as a simple status-sharing app. The messaging feature came later, as a response to how people were actually using the platform. Instagram began as a location-sharing app with photo features. The photo-sharing focus emerged from user behavior, not original vision.

 

Build small. Learn fast. Iterate based on actual usage, not imagined use cases. Build MVS(Minimum Viable Solutions) Not MVP (Maximum Viable Product).

Once you’ve found a solution that customers love, resist the temptation to add features. Instead, find more customers with the same core problem. Instagram could have become a full-featured photo editing suite with filters that rival Photoshop. Instead, they focused on making photo sharing simple, fast, and social. They scaled the core insight about visual storytelling, not the feature set.

 

More features usually mean more complexity. More complexity usually means more confused customers. More confused customers usually mean less money in your bank account. Scale the insight, not the product.

 

A brutal truth about your next move. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to finish reading this, feel inspired for about 47 seconds, and then go back to building features that nobody asked for.

 

Don’t.

 

Instead, do this: Tomorrow morning, cancel your product roadmap meeting. Block two hours on your calendar. Leave your office. Go where your customers are.

 

Don’t interview them. Don’t survey them. Don’t ask them what they want.

 

Just watch.

 

Watch how they struggle with problems you didn’t know existed. Watch how they create solutions you never imagined. Watch how they work around systems that should work but don’t.

 

That’s where your next breakthrough lives. Not in your competitor analysis. Not in your market research reports. Not in your brilliant late-night brainstorming sessions.

 

It lives in the gap between what customers need and what they’re currently getting.

 

Because the best brands don’t follow trends—they brainwash you into needing them.