Author: Suresh Dinakaran

Dead Phrases Walking: Or How The Corporate World Became A Graveyard Of Sentences That Should Have Been Cremated In The Early 90’s

 

We are all aware of the phrases in the corporate world that refuses to die.

 

These phrases survive every economic downturn, every AI disruption, every TED Talk, every leadership summit where somebody in a black turtleneck says “future-ready ecosystems.”

 

And yet…they linger. Floating through boardrooms like stale samosas wrapped in old PowerPoint slides.

 

Somewhere between your third meeting about a meeting and your fourth “quick sync,” the English language quietly filed a restraining order against the corporate world.

 

We didn’t notice. We were too busy circling back.

 

Here’s a forensic autopsy of phrases that should have died in a PowerPoint somewhere around 1991(or even earlier)

 

“With all due respect…” Translation: Zero respect is incoming. You’ve essentially said “I’m about to insult you and I want credit for the warning.” It’s the verbal equivalent of a slap with a glove. No one has ever followed this phrase with a compliment. Nobody in human history has ever said “with all due respect” and then followed it with: “You are magnificent. Please adopt me.” “With all due respect” has injured more people than kick boxing. Believe it or not!

 

“At the end of the day…” Which day? Financial year-end? Judgement Day? Next Monday? IPL final Day? By the end of the sentence, we’re all exhausted. This phrase enters meetings the way background music enters low budget crime serials. Meaninglessly. Aggressively. Repeatedly. At the end of the day, the sun sets. That’s it. That’s the only fact this phrase has ever earned.

 

“In my humble opinion…” Said exclusively by people with opinions so unhumble they require structural reinforcement. Nobody truly humble has ever prefaced a sentence with IMHO. Nothing humble has ever followed this sentence. Ever. It’s like a peacock saying “if I may be so plain.”

 

It’s usually followed by a 19-slide TEDx hostage situation involving “disruption”, “synergy” and a graph nobody understands.

 

“Let me add my 2 cents…” Two cents was already not legal tender in 1987. This opinion is arriving at the table with the fiscal confidence of a Zimbabwean dollar. And yet — it never stops. It never pays. And somehow, it always expects change. And BTW, inflation has entered the chat.
Your 2 cents is now a US$4.8 keynote with no early bird offer in sight.

 

“Let me circle back…” The circle has never been completed. Not once. Even in school. It’s a geometric promise made by someone whose follow-up lives in a parallel dimension. Circling back is corporate for “I will absolutely not be returning to this topic in my lifetime.” It actually means forget and hope they die. We know.

 

“Let’s revisit this…” This is “circle back” in formal clothes. No Friday Dressing pretense. Both travel in the same direction: away. From you. From accountability. From the question you just asked that made someone very uncomfortable. Real translation:I didn’t do the work, but I’m optimistic about time travel.

 

“Can we take this offline?” Translation: You’ve said something inconvenient in front of witnesses. Or “You are embarrassing me publicly with facts.””Offline” is where all difficult conversations go to be quietly drowned and never spoken of again. It’s not a place. It’s a time-out corner for inconvenient truths.

 

The modern workplace has become a karaoke bar of borrowed vocabulary. Everybody sounds important. Nobody sounds human.

 

Here’s some more that you might have had the misfortune of dealing with:-

 

“Have a nice day!” Said with the emotional investment of a toaster. Deployed after rejecting your claim, cancelling your subscription, or putting you on hold for 27 minutes. The nice day they want you to have is happening to someone else, somewhere far away. This is usually sent immediately after:

“Your loan has been rejected.”
“Your appraisal is deferred.”
“We regret to inform you…”

 

Have a nice day?
Sir, I now identify it as turbulence.

 

“Truth be told…” Implies that everything before this moment was elaborate fiction. Were you lying this whole time? Is this the first true thing? Beta version honesty? Should we restart the conversation from the beginning? Truth be told — this phrase is exhausting.

 

“I’m in my morning huddle…” You’re in a meeting. About a meeting. That will probably result in another meeting. A huddle is what rugby players do — they have a plan, they execute, they score. Your huddle will produce a deck. Nobody scores. Except the HIPPO( Highest Paid Person’s Opinion) will score brownie points.

 

“Going forward…” As opposed to going backward? Into the past? To fix the thing nobody’s owning? “Going forward” is how you acknowledge a catastrophic failure while ensuring absolutely no one is held responsible for it.

 

Meanwhile corporate calendars continue to sound like rejected Christopher Nolan scripts:

 

  • “Let’s unpack this.”
  • “Low hanging fruit.”
  • “Touch base.”
  • “Bandwidth issues.”
  • “Deep dive.”
  • “Quick sync.”
  • “Actionables.”
  • “Parking lot this thought.”
  • “Boil the ocean.”
  • “Game changer.”
  • “Think outside the box.”
  • “Do the needful.”

 

“I’ll loop you in…” A loop is a closed shape. Nothing leaves. Nobody escalates. You’re looped in the way a thread is looped — around and around, going nowhere, slowly tightening until someone finally cuts it in a performance review.

 

“Per my last email…” The four most aggressive words in professional communication, gift-wrapped in Times New Roman( though given what it does or doesn’t, it should be in Comic Sans, pun intended). You have heard of road rage but this is corporate rage with a paper trail. These four words have started more cold wars than most actual geopolitical events.

 

“Synergize our core competencies…” A phrase with exactly zero caloric meaning. You could remove it from any document and the document improves dramatically. You could replace it with “do our jobs together” and suddenly everyone understands. That’s the horror.

 

“Pivot to…” Said immediately after a strategy has spectacularly failed. “Pivot” makes the failure sound athletic. Like you meant to fall that way. Like the floor was the plan all along. We are pivoting. We have pivoted. The pivot has pivoted.

 

“Deep dive…” Nobody is diving. You’re in a conference room in Whitefield, Bangalore, eating a sad sandwich, looking at slide 47. The only depth here is the depth of the collective sigh when the host shares their screen and it’s not in presentation mode.

 

What Next?

 

Maybe the future of communication is not sounding polished.
Maybe it is sounding alive.

 

Less: “Per my last email…”

 

More: “Did you even read the thing, champion?”

 

Less jargon. More heartbeat.
Less template. More texture.
Less corporate mayonnaise. More human masala.

 

Because language is not just communication. It is emotional architecture.

 

And right now…most workplaces sound like expired yogurt giving a keynote.

 

Some fresh adages we need to euthanize, law permitting:

– “It is what it is.” – The battle cry of the creatively bankrupt.
– “Let’s unpack that.” – We aren’t moving houses, Karen.
– “I’ll ping you.” – No you won’t. You’ll ping my last nerve.
– “Best practice.” – Aka “we’ve always done it this way, and I’ve given up.”
– “Low-hanging fruit.”– Sir, this is a PowerPoint, not an orchard.
– “Bandwidth.” – You have 168 hours. You watched Real Housewives. Then Sacred Games. Then Dhurandhar. So, don’t lie.
– “Blue-sky thinking.” – The sky is currently grey with your buzzwords.
– “Lean in.”– I’d rather lean out a window.
– “Move the needle.”– The needle is your self-awareness. It’s flatlined.
– “Drink the Kool-Aid.” – I’m lactose intolerant to bullshit.

 

Question: Why do we speak like malfunctioning HR bots?

 

Because actual honesty—“I’m bored, this meeting is a funeral for time”—would get us fired. So we invented a zombie language. Polite. Dead. Hilarious.

 

Say one real sentence today. “I don’t know.”“I was wrong.”“Let’s stop pretending.” Watch people blink like you’ve performed magic.

 

These phrases died in the ’70s. Time to stop embalming them.

 

PS: On a completely different note, I am taking the liberty to share here that my other blog SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story is now a Podcast as well. You can access it on these links below:

You have all the freedom in the world. So why does it feel like a trap?

 

We banned fear — and taught people to obey. Freedom is unfinished.

 

What if the greatest prison in modern life does not have walls, guards or barbed wire…but premium subscriptions, polite LinkedIn posts, Insta Reels, performance reviews, EMI schedules and “Last seen at 9:42 PM”?

 

THE TWO FREEDOMS NOBODY TAUGHT US

Erich Fromm wrote Escape from Freedom in 1941. The world was burning. People were, paradoxically, running away from the very freedom they had fought for — straight into the arms of dictators, cults, and conformity.

 

He wasn’t writing about then. He was writing about now.

 

Fromm made a razor-sharp distinction: Freedom From and Freedom To.

 

Freedom From is liberation. From oppression. From a bad job. From a toxic relationship. From a country that suffocates you. It’s the breakout. The resignation letter. The one-way ticket. It feels electric — until it doesn’t.

 

Freedom To is the terrifying next question: Now what?

 

It’s the freedom to create. To choose. To build a life on your own terms. To sit with an empty calendar and actually fill it with meaning — not just noise.

 

Most people are masterful at the first. And are paralysed by the second.

 

LOOK AROUND. IT’S EVERYWHERE. LIKE A CONTAGION

 

The millennial who quit corporate life to “follow her passion” — and spends three years doom-scrolling, calling it “finding herself.” Escaped from. Never arrived to.

 

The startup founder who broke free from a boss — only to build a company culture identical to the one he fled. Changed the cage. Didn’t change the instinct.

 

The country that won independence and immediately handed power to strongmen who promised certainty over chaos. Fromm saw this. History keeps rereleasing this film.

 

Even social media. We were freed from gatekeepers — editors, studios, publishers. Every person became a broadcaster. And what did we do with that radical Freedom To? We recreated hierarchies. Chased algorithms. Handed our attention to the loudest voice in the room. Again.

 

THE IRONY UNDER ARC LIGHTS

 

We scream for freedom.
Then quietly rent ourselves out in monthly installments.

 

Erich Fromm spoke about “Freedom To” and “Freedom From.”

Freedom from oppression.
Freedom from fear.
Freedom to create.
Freedom to become.

 

Today, that philosophy has returned wearing athleisure, carrying a smartphone( and a Starbucks) and doom scrolling at 1:13 AM.

 

We have freedom from bosses.
Yet are enslaved by notifications.

 

Freedom from arranged careers.
Yet trapped inside algorithm-approved ambitions.

 

Freedom from censorship.
Yet terrified of saying what we actually feel.

 

WELCOME TO THE AGE OF CURATED CAPTIVITY

 

A world where people proudly announce “I can work from anywhere” while never truly switching off from anywhere.

 

The modern human being has become a strange cocktail of autonomy and anxiety.

 

We have more choice than any generation before us.
And more exhaustion.

 

Netflix asks: “Are you still watching?”
Society whispers: “Are you still performing?”

 

Freedom today is no longer merely political.
It is psychological. Emotional. Digital. Existential.

 

The entrepreneur wants freedom from a 9-to-5 job.
Then builds a startup that chains him to a 24×7 panic attack.

 

The influencer wants freedom of expression.
Then becomes a hostage to engagement metrics.

 

The employee wants freedom from toxic workplaces.
Then carries workplace toxicity home through Slack, Teams and WhatsApp.

 

START WITH THE GUT

You can escape a job you hate (freedom from) but still be trapped by the life you never chose (no freedom to).

 

You can mute toxic online mobs (freedom from) and still feel unable to speak for what matters (no freedom to).

 

The rage and relief we feel today are two sides of the same coin — one cancels pain, the other demands purpose.

 

EVEN BRANDS ARE TRAPPED

For years, companies wanted freedom from irrelevance.
So they chased trends. Memes. Virality. AI-generated everything.

 

Now many brands have lost freedom to sound human. And probably by design?

 

Every brand deck says “authentic.” Perhaps they get a kick out of it. Yet most communication feels like it was written by a committee trapped inside an airport lounge.

 

SOMEWHERE ALONG LIFE’S NH-44, FREEDOM BECAME CONFUSED WITH CONVENIENCE

 

But convenience is not freedom.
A food delivery app can save time.
It cannot save loneliness.

 

A four-day work week can create space.
It cannot create meaning.

 

A dating app can offer options.
It cannot guarantee connection.

 

And perhaps that is the deeper crisis of our times.

 

We have engineered freedom from discomfort.
But lost freedom to sit with ourselves.

 

Children still understand freedom better than adults.
They dance badly without embarrassment.
Ask dangerous questions.
Invent worlds from cardboard boxes.

 

Adults?
We ask:
“Will this look professional?”
“Will this hurt my personal brand?”
“Will people judge me?”

 

The cage is now internal.

 

The tragedy is not that people are imprisoned.
The tragedy is that many decorate the cage and call it success.

 

EVERYDAY PROOF

At work: HR builds policies to shield employees from burnout (freedom from). Leaders rarely train people to invent, decide and fail forward (freedom to). The result: safer, smaller performers.

In tech: Platforms promise “freedom from” friction with one-click shopping, curated feeds, content moderation. They sell comfort. But they also strip agency — we trade decision-making for dopamine. That’s convenience without capability.

In politics: Laws that remove discrimination are vital (freedom from). But democracy needs empowered citizens who vote, organize and imagine alternatives (freedom to). Without both, rights calcify into apathy.

In branding: Brands promise “freedom from” uncertainty — guarantees, returns, safe choices. The brave ones sell “freedom to” — to be bolder, to belong to a chosen tribe, to rewrite routines.

 

A business that masters both doesn’t just reduce risk; it builds agency. Think of companies that train employees to lead (freedom to) while also giving them psychological safety (freedom from). They innovate faster and hold culture longer.

 

WHERE | WHEN DOES REAL FREEDOM BEGIN?

Real freedom begins when we stop outsourcing our identity to society, social media or salary slips.

 

Freedom to say no.
Freedom to pause.
Freedom to disappear for a while without announcing a “digital detox.”
Freedom to build a life that may not impress strangers but deeply nourishes the soul.

 

Maybe the future belongs not to people who have everything…but to people who can walk away from anything that slowly destroys their peace.

 

Because in the end:

 

Freedom From gives you survival.
Freedom To gives you life.

 

And one without the other is merely a prettier prison.

 

FINAL PROVOCATION

 

A life of only “freedom from” is a well-guarded cage. A life of only “freedom to” with no guardrails is chaos. The task for leaders, brands and citizens is to architect both: scaffold the human, then unleash the human.

 

Would you rather be safe or significant? Build systems that let people answer: both.

 

Erich Fromm saw this coming a century ago. He wrote that modern humans escaped the chains of medieval feudalism only to run straight into a new cage: loneliness and meaninglessness. We gained the freedom to choose our chains—social media, hustle culture, performative success—but lost the freedom from the panic of insignificance.

Look Around. It’s Everywhere.

 

PS: On a completely different note, I am taking the liberty to share here that my other blog SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story is now a Podcast as well. You can access it on these links below:

Gilli Danda Was Our CrossFit: A High-Octane Tribute to the Games That Made Us Sweat, Cheat, and Cry (Mostly from Laughter)

The Original Indian Fitness App Had Dust, Bruises & One(Sometimes More) Friend Who Always Cheated

 

Before smartwatches began informing us that we had slept “72% efficiently”…

Before people paid ₹18,000 annually to attend something called “Primal Goat Yoga Fusion Pilates”…

Before cardio came with neon tights, protein smoothies and instructors yelling “FEEL THE BURN, PEOPLE!”…

India already had the greatest fitness ecosystem ever created.

It was called: “Go play outside and don’t come back till the streetlights turn on.”

 

No subscriptions.
No Meditation apps or app updates.
No Bluetooth syncing.
Only survival. Meets gay abandon.

 

An entire generation was forged through dust storms, scraped knees, emotional damage, neighbourhood politics and one permanently angry aunty( Mrs Achuthan) whose window glass was always collateral damage.

Our childhood games weren’t games.

They were:

Leadership workshops.
Military training.
Cardio.
Diplomacy.
Negotiation.
Emotional resilience.
And occasionally, attempted murder.

 

Welcome to the golden era of Indian childhood…

Where Lagori was WWE with architecture.
Pakda Pakdi was ace the race.
And Snakes & Ladders(or Saap Seedi it’s shady vernacular equivalent) quietly prepared us for corporate life.

 

Let me paint you a picture

 

It is approximately 4:17 PM on a weekday. The homework is “done” (it is not done, at least in my case it never was). The school bag has been hurled into a dark corner. The mother has been informed — via a disappearing act of Olympic calibre — that the child will “be back before dark.” The child is lying. The child will be back when the streetlights come on, smelling of mud, triumph, and somebody else’s tears.

 

This child — this unshowered, scab-kneed, completely feral child — is doing something that the modern wellness industry would bottle and sell for ₹6,499 a month if it could figure out how. They are playing.

 

While you are currently paying a gym trainer named “Flex” to yell at you on a Tuesday at 6 AM, and while corporate wellness programs are serving you ‘resilience workshops‘ with kombucha, let me take you back to the original boot camp. The one with no fees, no instructors, no protein shakes — just raw ambition, a pocketful of marbles, and the terrifying possibility that Paithankar from the next building might beat you. Sujit, are you listening?

 

Gilli Danda: The MBA Nobody Talks About

Long before cricket academies and IPL auctions, there existed the street-side Harvard of hand-eye coordination:

Gilli Danda

A tiny wooden missile called the “gilli” was launched into orbit using a danda by children who had absolutely no helmet, no insurance and no fear.

One kid would scream:
“OUT Re!”

Another would say:
“Not out bidu, rebound!”

A third fellow, who had contributed nothing to humanity till then, suddenly became ICC umpire.

Gilli Danda taught:

  • Risk-taking
  • Precision
  • Reflexes
  • Negotiation
  • Conflict management
  • How to run when somebody’s dad comes out angry

 

Modern equivalent? CrossFit with legal complications.

 

Kancha (Marbles): India’s First Stock Market 

Marbles aka Goatee aka Kancha.

You squat in mud, flick a glass marble, and try to smash another marble out of a circle. High stakes. Low hygiene.

Tiny glass spheres.
Massive emotional volatility.

You could lose:

  • your best marble(no pun intended),
  • your dignity,
  • and your entire week’s self-esteem…

…within six seconds.

Every child had:

  • one lucky marble(Haider from Navy Colony would call it ” neeli waali tapp“),
  • one “foreign marble,”
  • and one fellow who claimed he had “imported” marbles from Kancha Cheena.

Kancha sharpened:

  • aim,
  • patience,
  • strategy,
  • geometry,
  • gambling instincts,
  • and the ability to accuse others of cheating with complete confidence.

Wall Street traders today call it:“portfolio diversification.”

We called it:“Bhai touch mat kar, shooter hai mera.” Ever wonder why Indian CEOs swear by “gut feel“? Blame Kancha—it wired our brains for high-stakes gambles.

 

Lagori: Demolition Derby Meets National Emergency 

Lagori was simple.

Here is a game where one team throws a ball at a stack of seven stones to knock them over, and the other team has to reassemble the stack while the first team tries to pelt them with the same ball. Read that sentence again. A regulation projectile. Being thrown at children. Who are trying to calmly rebuild a stack of rocks. Under fire.

The ball used in Lagori had one mission:To discover kidneys.

This is not a game. This is a military training exercise for nine-year-olds.

Lagori built team strategy at a cellular level. The rebuilder needed cover. The cover-runners needed to draw fire. Somebody needed to be the decoy. Somebody needed to be the closer. We figured all of this out, unprompted, at age eight, in the afternoon sun. No PowerPoint. No ‘team charter.’ Just pure, screaming, instinctive collaboration — with the occasional bruise to confirm that the stakes were real.

Every Lagori team had that one kid who would “strategise” from a safe distance the entire time and then sprint in for the final stone looking heroic. He grew up and became…you guessed it right…a consultant.

Six rounds of Lagori = a 45-minute HIIT class + a leadership seminar + a lesson in how not to freeze under pressure. Total cost: zero. Total equipment: seven stones and an old rubber ball(from Hitesh Stores) that smells faintly of regret.

Pakda Pakdi: The Original HIIT Workout 

No treadmill in human history has matched the terror-fuelled acceleration of hearing:

“AYEEE PAKAD LIYA!”

Children achieved Olympic sprint speeds merely because touching meant social humiliation.

Fitness influencers now say: HIIT- “High Intensity Interval Training.”

Indian mothers already knew.

They simply said: “Go play outside.”

Calories evaporated.
Lungs expanded.
Knees dissolved.

Character was built.

Kho Kho: Chess Played At 40 Kmph 

Kho Kho looked innocent. Butter wouldn’t melt in it’s mouth.

It was not. This game involved:

  • explosive acceleration,
  • ninja-level directional change,
  • tactical deception,
  • and the flexibility of an octopus escaping taxation.

One wrong “Kho!” and your entire team looked at you like you had betrayed the nation.

Today people pay premium gym memberships for agility drills.

Our childhood gave them free…along with dust inhalation.

 

LANGDI( not to be mistaken for Lungi Ngidi, the cricketer) aka “The Original Balance & Stability Protocol”

Langdi asks you to hop on one leg and tag the entire opposing team. Which seems manageable, until you realize the opposing team is running at full speed and your job is to hop after them — on one leg — through sand, gravel, cow pats, and the psychic weight of your own dignity slowly leaving your body.

Your physio is charging you ₹2,400 a session to improve your “single-leg balance and proprioception.” Tell them about Langdi. Watch their face drain colour.

Takeaway: True balance is not achieved on a yoga mat with incense. True balance is achieved when twelve screaming children are running away from you and you must hop after them with the grace of an irritated flamingo. That is functional fitness.

 

SACK RACE · TYRE RACE · SLOW CYCLING

aka “The Holy Trinity of Winning by Doing Everything Wrong”

 

Sack Race is officially the funniest thing humans have ever invented. You climb into a gunny sack. You hold it up around your waist. A whistle blows. You try to move forward by hopping, which makes you look like a confused kangaroo with commitment issues. The person who falls the fewest times while maintaining forward momentum wins. This is, accidentally, the most accurate metaphor for a startup in Year Two.

 

Tyre Race — rolling an old automobile tyre ( we used cycle tyres) with a stick, maintaining speed and direction across a field which was certainly NOT level playing — sounds insultingly simple. It is not. The tyre has its own opinions. It will lean left. It will accelerate downhill and become a genuine public menace. It will suddenly decide to go horizontal for no reason. Tyred and tested doesn’t mean anything here. Managing a tyre with a stick over fifty metres is managing chaos with minimal tools. Half of all middle managers I know are still struggling with this. Tyre racing across gullies was Formula 1 for children with unlimited stamina and questionable braking systems.

 

Slow Cycling is the most wickedly counter-intuitive game ever devised. Last person to reach the finish line wins. Which means: you must go as slowly as possible on a bicycle without stopping or putting your foot down. Every instinct in your body says “GO FAST.” You must override every instinct. You must become a monument of stillness on two wheels. The wobbling is spectacular. The falls are legendary. The winner is always that unnervingly calm child who becomes an anaesthesiologist or a Buddhist monk later in life. The same person who redefined ASAP  to be As Slow As Possible.

 

Sports Science, Uninvited: Slow Cycling builds core stability, balance, and the specific kind of frustration tolerance that no meditation app has yet managed to replicate. Your mindfulness coach should be taking notes. Then crying.

 

Snakes & Ladders(Saap Seedi, its shady vernacular equivalent): India’s Earliest Lesson In Corporate Politics 

You climbed gracefully to 98…feeling like destiny’s chosen child…

…and then a snake sent you back to prehistoric sadness.

Promotion cancelled.
Bonus revoked.
Spirit broken.

This game taught:

  • humility,
  • unpredictability,
  • resilience,
  • and how life occasionally slaps without prior notice.

Frankly, it prepared us better than most MBA programs.

 

Carrom: Diplomacy With Powdered Violence 

Every Indian household had:

  • one Carrom board,
  • missing coins,
  • and one cousin who blew powder like he was seasoning biryani.

The striker flew with terrifying intent. Fingers developed sniper precision.

Arguments erupted over:
“Double touch.”
“Rebound.”
“Queen cover.”

Carrom built:

  • patience,
  • angles,
  • strategy,
  • emotional discipline,
  • and passive aggression.

Essential skills for adulthood.

Every Carrom board I have ever seen was slightly warped and covered in boric acid powder, which tells you something about the conditions under which excellence was achieved.

 

Ludo 

 

This is where families went to test whether they actually liked each other. On normal days, we like each other. On Ludo days, when someone’s token gets sent home for the fourth time, we discover the truth. The “safe house” squares were where tokens could rest without being captured — the only place immunity existed. In actual life, this place is called “your mother’s house” and the rules are identical.

 

The Boardroom-to-Board-Game Pipeline: Ludo taught emotional regulation — when your token gets knocked off for the 8th time and you cannot upend the board. Carrom taught precision under pressure. Saap Seedi taught equanimity — the ability to lose 80 squares of progress, say “okay,” and roll again. The boardroom requires all three. Simultaneously.

 

Lattu / Bawra: The Bladerunner With Anger Issues 

The Spinning Top

Children would wrap string around a wooden spinning top with the seriousness of nuclear scientists.

Then came the launch.

If it spun beautifully:
You were a legend.

If it flew sideways into a parked scooter:
You vanished for three days.

Lattu taught:

  • hand coordination ( haath jaali anyone?),
  • patience,
  • timing,
  • persistence,
  • and how to pretend “I didn’t do it.”

Today’s mindfulness workshops charge ₹7,000 for focus exercises.

Meanwhile 9-year-old Dilip achieved Zen mastery in 1981 beside a vada paav stall near Amar Dairy Farm.

 

Kabaddi: You Take My Breath Away

Respiration Meets Violence 

Kabaddi was basically:
Wrestling.
Chess.
Lung capacity.
And chaos marinated together.

One child inhaled deeply and entered enemy territory chanting:
“Kabaddi kabaddi kabaddi…”

The remaining players transformed into gladiators.

Kabaddi taught:

  • courage,
  • breath control,
  • teamwork,
  • anticipation,
  • resilience,
  • and survival under pressure.

Corporate workshops now call this: “Strategic penetration into hostile environments.”

 

Name, Place, Animal, Thing: The Entrance Exam For Overthinkers 

This innocent-looking notebook game exposed:

  • vocabulary frauds,
  • spelling disasters,
  • and fake confidence.

Everybody froze when the alphabet was:
“Q”. ” Kyun- I am still trying to figure out”.

Suddenly humanity had no animals.

No places.
No professions.
Nothing.

Yet this game quietly sharpened:

  • memory,
  • speed,
  • creativity,
  • and the ability to bluff academically.

Basically LinkedIn.

 

The Beautiful Truth

That the wellness industry has buried under fifteen layers of branded activewear( or Athleisure): we didn’t need to be taught fitness, teamwork, resilience, creativity, spatial intelligence, emotional regulation, or competitive drive. We played our way into all of it — barefoot, unscheduled, largely unsupervised — in streets and parks and backyards that have since been replaced by apartment buildings and parking lots.

 

The games we played were not simple. They were sophisticated systems of human development that different communities across this vast, chaotic, glorious country had evolved over centuries. They encoded negotiation (deciding who’s “it”), rule-making (every game had local variants argued over intensely), conflict resolution (the endless “out/not out” disputes), recovery (from losses, from falls, from embarrassment), and the pure, irreducible joy of moving a human body through space with complete, unadulterated freedom.

 

We ran without tracking our pace. We jumped without calculating our jump height. We caught our breath without a respiratory coach. We fell, stood up, and kept going — not because we had read anything about “growth mindset” but because the game was still happening and we were still IN it.

 

In Closing

 

So the next time your smartwatch congratulates you for doing 8,000 steps — steps that your seven-year-old self would have completed before the afternoon snack, in pursuit of a rubber ball, without looking at anything except the game — smile to yourself. You were built in a gully. Finished in a gym. But built — magnificently, irrevocably built — in a gully.

 

Go find seven stones. Stack them up. Then knock them down. Then build them again. That’s Lagori. That’s leadership. That’s life.

 

And tell Sameer I still have his favorite goatee/kancha. He knows why.

 

PS: On a completely different note, I am taking the liberty to share here that my other blog SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story is now a Podcast as well. You can access it on these links below:

Your biggest competitor isn’t another brand. It’s your own meeting that ended with “let’s revisit this.”

 

If the caption sounds like a boardroom bite, well that was the intention.

 

Can I ask you something?

 

What is the actual cost of the decision you didn’t make last quarter? Not the bad decision. The non-decision. The meeting that ended with ‘let’s revisit this.’ The campaign that got parked in approvals. The repositioning that died because someone said, ‘The market isn’t ready.’

 

The answer: The market was ready. You weren’t.

 

THE COMFORTABLE CATASTROPHE : Why Doing Nothing Feels Like Genius (Until It Isn’t)

 

Look at the peculiar genius of inaction: it is the only business decision that can never be directly blamed on anyone. A bad campaign? Fire the agency. A failed product launch? Blame the timing. But doing nothing? Ah. That’s collective wisdom. That’s prudence. That’s ‘we are being careful with our assets.’

 

Kodak didn’t destroy itself. It simply watched. It had the technology for digital cameras in-house in 1975. Engineers were excited. Leadership was nervous. They chose the safety of doing nothing disruptive. And then, with extraordinary patience, they waited for someone else to come and disrupt them instead.

 

Remember Nirma in India? Once it made HUL genuinely sweat. Then it stopped. Not dramatically — just quietly. No real repositioning, no new story, no fight for relevance in a changing India. It’s still there. But there as a ghost brand — present on shelves, absent from hearts. The safest catastrophe looks exactly like that: not a crash, but a slow, dignified fade.

 

THE SOHB STORY RECKONING: A State Of The Heart Brand Cannot Afford To Be Stateless

 

Crafting a State Of The Heart Brand means you have accepted a particular kind of accountability — one that most brand custodians run from. It means your brand carries emotional weight, not just market weight. It means people don’t just buy you. They believe in you. And belief, unlike market share, collapses not slowly but suddenly. We all know about ” The future arrives gradually, then all of a sudden “.

 

Not so long ago, think of how Café Coffee Day quietly imploded in public consciousness even before its financial collapse became news. The heart had left that brand years before the balance sheet confessed. Nobody decided to stop loving CCD. The brand simply stopped earning it, one non-decision at a time.

 

Contrast that with Amul — a cooperative that has consistently chosen to show up, say something, be present through every national moment for over five decades. Not perfect. Not always polished. But always there. A brand that never confused silence with sophistication.

 

SO HOW DO YOU ACTUALLY BUILD ONE? The Architecture Of A State Of The Heart Brand

 

No “off-the-grid brand strategy huddle” is going to reveal this: a State Of The Heart Brand is not built in campaigns. It is built in commitments. Small, consistent, unglamorous commitments that compound over time the way interest does — quietly, invisibly, and then all at once.

 

The Comfortable Coma

 

There exists a strange corporate lullaby:

 

“We’re doing okay.”
“Let’s not rock the boat.”
“Margins are steady.”

 

Translation?

 

“We are slowly becoming invisible.”

 

Brands that choose comfort over curiosity enter a beautifully decorated coma. No alarms. No urgency. No one to blame.

 

Because nothing happened. And that’s precisely what happened.

 

What would people genuinely mourn if your brand disappeared tomorrow?

 

Not miss, as in ‘oh, that was convenient.’ Mourn, as in ‘something real is gone from my life.’ If the answer is a shrug, you don’t have a Heart Brand yet — you have a transaction dressed up in a brand mission statement. The work begins there. Figure out what human truth your brand was born to serve. Not a category truth. Not a market truth. A human one. Patagonia didn’t build a Heart Brand by selling jackets. It built one by standing for the inconvenient idea that the planet matters more than the next quarter’s numbers — and then actually meaning it.

 

A Heart Brand must have a voice that speaks even when it’s uncomfortable, and a silence that is never confused with approval

 

Tata as a group has done this for over a century in India — showing up in moments of national crisis, rebuilding cities, funding education, refusing to exit markets just because margins got thin. You don’t have to be a Tata to do this. You have to be willing to stand for something beyond the transaction, say it out loud, and then — this is the hard part — do it when nobody is watching and there’s no press release to show for it. That’s where Heart Brands are actually forged. Not in the campaign. In the quiet, costly, unwitnessed choice.

 

THE GLOBAL AUTOPSY: When The World’s Biggest Brands Chose The Slow Goodbye

 

Blockbuster met Reed Hastings(Founder of Netflix) in 2000. He offered to sell Netflix for $50 million. The Blockbuster executives reportedly laughed. What they were actually doing was choosing comfortable inertia over uncomfortable reinvention. By 2010, Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy. Netflix today is a verb.

 

Nokia had smartphones before the iPhone existed. Their internal memos from 2007 reportedly show the fear wasn’t technological — it was cultural. They were afraid of cannibalizing their own success. Apple had no such fear. It ate itself first, before eating everyone else.

 

“The brand that waits for permission to be brave is already broken.”

 

And this food for torque from a domicile called The Quiet Coffin: Brands don’t die from bad decisions. They die from the comfortable ones nobody made.

 

Doing Nothing: The Safest Catastrophe

 

Let’s call a spade a spade( or should we call it a shovel?).

 

Doing nothing feels safe because it carries no immediate consequence.
No risky bets. No bold moves. No sleepless nights.

 

But it also comes with some sunken costs:

 

• Loss of cultural relevance
• Erosion of emotional connection
• Gradual commoditization
• Eventual invisibility

 

And the most dangerous part?

 

No one gets fired for doing nothing.
Because there’s nothing to point at.

 

It’s the perfect crime. With a missing victim.

 

Crafting a State Of The Heart Brand

 

Please Note: This is not a campaign. It’s a commitment.

 

  1. From Proposition to Pulse
    Stop asking what your brand offers. Start asking what it awakens.
  2. From Messaging to Meaning
    If your communication vanished tomorrow, would anyone feel the loss?
  3. From Audience to Allies
    Customers transact. Communities belong.
  4. From Consistency to Character
    Consistency is hygiene. Character is magnetism.
  5. From Safe to Significant
    Safe keeps you alive. Significant makes you unforgettable.

 

Wake Up and Bake Up: You Can’t Have The Cake And Eat It Too

 

Brands don’t lose because competitors outspend them.
They lose because they out-bore their audience.

 

In a world drowning in content, indifference is the new extinction.

 

If your brand does not evoke, provoke, comfort, challenge, or move someone…

 

It is already halfway out of the room.

 

Final Thought Please

 

You can choose chaos.
You can choose courage.
You can even choose calculated madness.

 

But if you choose nothing…

 

Nothing will eventually choose you back.

 

And it won’t even bother to leave a goodbye note.

 

If your heart is racing a little faster after reading this, perhaps it’s time we meet. I am at suresh@groupisd.com

 

PS: On a completely different note, I am taking the liberty to share here that my other blog SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story is now a Podcast as well. You can access it on these links below:

Your brand isn’t for everyone. Good. That’s the whole point!

 

Circa 1962. A tiny car company told you it was ugly. “Think Small,” said VW. Didn’t apologize. Didn’t beg. Just drew a line. Sales exploded. Why? Because exclusion is the new inclusion. When you try to be for everyone, you stand for no one. The fastest way to become irrelevant is to keep every seat warm.

 

It’s not for you’ — the four words that built every cult brand you worship.

 

Make the best for everyone

 

Bullshit. That myth’s sell-by date expired with the last Kodak roll. In today’s bazaar of infinite scrolls, “universal best” is a recipe for irrelevance. The radical truth? “It might not be for you” is the unspoken heartbeat of every killer brand. It’s permission to polarize, to own a tribe, to leave the timid in the dust.

 

Question: What if your “best” is repelling 90%…and magnetizing the 10% who’ll evangelize forever? That’s the weight. Brands die chasing consensus; legends thrive on conviction.

 

It might not be for you

The most dangerous words in branding. Also, the most honest. Because hidden inside that polite shrug is a war cry:

 

“We are the best…for someone.”

 

Not everyone. Not the masses. Not the bored scroller who double-taps everything from biryani to bitcoin.

 

Someone. Specific. Chosen. Excluded.

 

And that’s where most brands lose the plot.

 

The Cult Of Universal Likeability(And Other Expensive Mistakes)

 

Somewhere along the way, brands started auditioning for everyone.
Like a stand-up comic who refuses to offend, provoke, or even mildly disturb…and ends up being just background noise.

 

Saying it as is, where is:

 

If nobody is saying “this isn’t for me,”
nobody is passionately saying “this is for me.”

 

Indifference is the tax you pay for playing safe.

 

The Unpopular Superpower

 

The best brands don’t chase approval. They engineer belonging.

  • A gym that screams at you is not for the “I’ll start Monday” tribe.
    It’s for the “give me pain, give me proof” tribe.
  • A luxury watch doesn’t whisper value. It declares irrelevance to anyone asking for discounts.
  • A brutally honest consulting firm repels the “yes-men seekers” and magnetizes the “tell me what I need to hear” crowd.

 

They don’t just define who they serve. They define who they refuse.

 

And that refusal? That’s the real brand asset. Want cult status? Start saying no.

 

The Unignorable

 

Exclusion is not arrogance. It’s precision.

 

When you say “not for you,” you are doing three radical things:

 

  1. Sharpening your promise
    Blurry brands don’t scale. Sharp ones slice through noise.
  2. Accelerating trust
    The right audience recognizes itself instantly. No persuasion theatre needed.
  3. Creating cultural gravity
    People don’t just buy. They belong. And belonging travels faster than advertising.

 

Building The Arsenal For Perpetual Readiness

 

  1. Audit your tribe: Map who raves about you. Double down. Ditch the dabblers.
  2. Polarize with purpose: Launch “not-for-you” variants—spicy for firebrands, subtle for sages.
  3. Test-fire hooks: A/B captions like “Love it or loathe it?” to spike shares.
  4. Future-proof pivot: Quarterly “tribe pulse” surveys. Evolve or evaporate.

 

Overhaul complete. Stop pandering. Start provoking. Your “best for someone” is the moat no competitor can breach. Scarcity of relevance beats abundance of mediocrity.

 

The Final Provoke Of This SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story

 

Stop asking: How do we get more people to like us?

Start asking: Who are we willing to lose to become unforgettable?

 

Because the moment you accept that it might not be for everyone…

 

…is the moment you finally become the best for someone.

 

Because, the brands that win don’t include. They choose.

 

PS: On a completely different note, I am taking the liberty to share here that my other blog SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story is now a Podcast as well. You can access it on these links below:

The RFP Circus: A Love Letter to the World’s Most Elaborate Pretence

 

RFPs: Request For Performance…Theatre

 

Sorry to defy the conventional RFP definition…almost forgot…yes I got it now…Request For Proposal.

 

As I write this, I can visualise a brand manager copy-pasting an RFP template from 2020, changing the logo, and calling it “a strategic partnership opportunity.” The heavens are weeping( No, the Bangalore rains this morning was something else). Somewhere else, an agency is pulling three all-nighters to answer 17 questions about “brand philosophy” for a pitch they know — in their bone marrow — was already decided over golf(or golgappas) on Saturday.

 

Welcome to the RFP. The world’s most expensive theatrical performance where everybody knows the ending but nobody breaks character.

 

Let’s call the shovel a shovel, shall we?

 

The RFP, as currently practised by most brands, is essentially a free consulting extraction machine dressed in the language of “due diligence.” You’re not evaluating agencies. You’re harvesting intellectual capital from six desperate vendors while the decision maker’s brother-in-law’s agency warms the winner’s chair. The “evaluation matrix” with its delightful columns of Strategy (20%), Creativity (25%), Team (15%), and Cost (40% but listed last to seem classy) is democracy theatre of the highest order.

 

The real comedy?

 

The evaluation criteria that asks agencies to demonstrate “deep cultural understanding” but the shortlisting is done by someone who hasn’t spoken to a consumer since 2016. That requests “breakthrough creative thinking” but caps the budget at what wouldn’t cover a decent documentary. That demands “long-term partnership vision” from someone who changes agencies more often than their Instagram profile picture.

 

The agency side isn’t innocent either. They dress their speculative work in confident fonts, present recycled frameworks with evangelical conviction, and call three junior executives “The Core Team” while the actual talent never enters the room.

 

RFPs: Request For Performance…Theatre

 

Somewhere in a glass-walled boardroom, an RFP is being born. Not as a quest for brilliance, but as a beautifully formatted ritual. A document that whispers: “Show us your best thinking”…while quietly budgeting for the cheapest thinking available.

 

Welcome to the grand opera of “RFP for Vendors” where agencies pirouette, procurement claps politely, and merit is the understudy who never gets stage time. Welcome to Russian Roulette with blanks.

 

Act 1, Part 1

 

The opening act is always seductive. “Looking for a long-term strategic partner.”

Translation: Three presentations, five rounds, twelve stakeholders, and a decision already pre-decided in a WhatsApp chat.

 

Agencies arrive like Olympic athletes. Strategy decks that could double as PhD theses. Films that could win at Cannes. Ideas that could make a brand feel something other than quarterly anxiety. And then comes the twist ending:

“Can you match the lowest quote?”

 

India’s masala remix?

 

Picture a Delhi FMCG behemoth RFPs for “disruptive content storytelling.” You pour Diwali-level effort into GOLOKA-esque narratives. Shortlist? The Mumbai shop with “digital expertise” (read: interns on Canva). Verdict: “Your ideas brilliant, but budget!” Why? “Procurement.” It’s the corporate equivalent of “It’s not you, it’s our P&L.”

 

It’s less Mad Men, more Deal or No Deal.

 

Across India, a boutique agency crafts a soul-stirring brand narrative. In London, a mid-sized firm builds a cultural movement blueprint. In Dubai, a digital shop reverse-engineers consumer behavior like a Swiss watch. All three lose to…a spreadsheet with a smaller number. Now go, spread the word!

 

Globally consistent. Locally perfected.

 

In New York, agencies joke that RFP stands for “Really Fixed Process.” In Bengaluru, it’s “Rehearse, Perform, Perish.” In Mumbai, it’s simply “Rate First Please.”

 

The irony is rich enough to invoice. But don’t you dare try it. And if you do, please ensure your price is the lowest!

 

Nothing Changes

 

Because brands don’t actually lack good agencies. They lack the appetite to choose them for the right reasons. The RFP becomes a polite alibi. A compliance costume. A paper trail that says, “We evaluated everyone fairly” while the decision quietly hums, “We evaluated cost obsessively.”

 

And agencies? They play along. They romanticize the chase. They submit unpaid thinking like it’s a devotional offering. They convince themselves that this time, surely, the idea will win.

 

PS: It rarely does.

 

Ever wonder why RFPs demand 43-page decks plus free mood boards, yet decisions hinge on “rate cards“? Because depth? Nah. It’s shallowness disguised as process—agencies shortlisted by Excel wizards, not visionaries.

 

And the shortlisting process?

 

Please. It’s a mood ring, not merit. “We loved your case studies, but your deck’s font felt aggressive.” Or the classic: “Your team is brilliant, but our procurement guy didn’t like your coffee.” Or the ubiquitous cut paste four para regret note that is as emotionless as a doorknob. At this point, agencies should submit quotes in crayon. It matches the depth of evaluation.

 

The RFP charade is a mask for indecision. Brands fearful of owning a point of view hide behind “process.” They want to look polite while gutting value. They tick boxes like tourists ticking temples—no prayer, just photos. They( read the VP-Marketing) want vendors who will give them a roll up overnight Rs 80 cheaper; not an entity with breakthrough strategy or moonshot thinking that delivers.

 

The Tragedy?

If you shop for imagination like you shop for office chairs, don’t be surprised when your brand sits comfortably…and says nothing.

The tragedy isn’t that cheaper agencies win. The tragedy is that better thinking doesn’t even get a fair audition.

 

So what now?

Brands, if you truly want transformation, rewrite the ritual.
Pay for thinking. Shortlist for chemistry. Decide for courage.
Because the cost of safe decisions is invisibly expensive.

 

Agencies, stop auditioning for every stage.
Qualify the client as hard as they qualify you.
If the brief smells like procurement, don’t spray it with creativity.

 

Brands, stop the motions. Agencies, demand paid pilots.

 

Merit-first RFPs exist—Scandinavian brands nail it with “idea bounties.”

 

India, let’s pioneer: Reverse RFPs where you vet them on vision, not just velocity.

 

And maybe, just maybe, we rename RFP to something more honest?

 

RSL — Request for the Safest Lowest.

 

Or, if we’re feeling generous,

 

RFT — Request For Trust.

 

Because the brands that win tomorrow won’t be the ones who found the cheapest partner.

 

They’ll be the ones who had the spine to choose the right one.

 

So, what to take away?

 

Brands: Stop asking for magic at bargain-bin prices.

If you run an RFP without real intent, you will attract real actors—not artists. You’ll get compliance, not courage. And your brand will sound like every other brand: safe, sorry, and silent.

 

Agencies: Ditch the dance. Chase clients craving heart over hustle. Your stories deserve shovels that dig gold, not dirt-cheap graves. Who’s in?

The contrarians will disagree. Good. Let them. But the ground truth is simple: Merit isn’t a checkbox. It’s a mirror.Look into yours before you send that next PDF.

Or don’t. And keep wondering why your “brand story” sounds like a terms of service agreement. Your move next.

 

PS: On a completely different note, I am taking the liberty to share here that my other blog SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story is now a Podcast as well. You can access it on these links below:

“Let’s Catch Up Soon!” — The World’s Most Beloved Lie

 

“Let’s catch up soon.”

 

You bumped into Ramesh at the Bangalore supermarket. Or cousin Priya at a wedding in Coimbatore. Or your college roommate Vikram on Zoom. For approximately 90 seconds, you performed the Dance of Manufactured Warmth — eyebrows raised, arms slightly open, voice pitched at “delighted but busy.” And then someone said it. The magic spell. The Get Out of Genuine Connection Free card.

 

“We must catch up soon!”

 

Both parties immediately relaxed. Because everyone understood the assignment: this meeting will never happen. No date. No venue. No intention. Just the beautiful social lubricant of a sentence that means absolutely nothing and protects everybody’s feelings simultaneously.

 

It’s brilliant, actually. Diabolically, anthropologically brilliant.

 

Let’s catch up soon!

 

The four most faithfully broken words in human history. More predictable than a politician’s promise. The Great Ghosting Gala of Modern Bonds.

 

Sorry to open your gall bladder with a rusty fork: The last time you said “Let’s catch up soon,” you were probably on the pot, scrolling reels, lying through your teeth.

 

The Japanese call unnecessary social performance tatemae — the public face worn over private truth. The British perfected the art with ” We should do lunch“ — an institution so hollow it has its own Wikipedia entry. Brazilians have “a gente se vê” — “we’ll see each other” — which roughly translates to “I wish you well from this comfortable distance.” Indians? We weaponised it. We added “for sure,” “definitely,” “100%” — extra garnish on a dish that was never going to be cooked.

 

Some Ground Truth?

 

In our swipe-right era, “catch up soon” is the velvet hammer of shallow ties. A 2023 Pew study ghosts us: 60% of adults feel lonelier despite 5x more “friends.” Why? We’re masters of motion, not momentum.

 

Ever wonder why your WhatsApp glows with 27 “let’s meet” threads, yet your calendar’s looks like a Vidarbha farmland in summer?

 

 

 

Some More Examples( Caution-They Might Sting)

 

– USA:Two ex-colleagues text “Let’s Zoom!”. After six months of “So busy!” the quest dies without a meeting. LinkedIn recommends each other instead of therapy.

– India:Uncle says “Beta, come home for lunch” at a wedding. You say “Yes, uncle.” You both know the only lunch happening is between his ears. Next family funeral? Same script.

– Japan: “Gohan ni ikimashou” (Let’s eat together) gets lost in keigo politeness. It never happens. Deep bow, shallow bond.

– London: “Fancy a pint?”: translates to “I’d rather scrub a Tube station floor with my tongue.”

 

-In Dubai, “After Ramadan for sure.”

 

Civilisations change. Scripts remain.

 

This isn’t harmless fluff. It’s emotional spam. Because, we’re not bad people. We’re bandwidth bankrupt.

 

“Let’s Catch Up Soon” — The Most Successful Event That Never Happened

 

Somewhere between “How are you?” and “Take care,” lies a phrase that has built more imaginary bridges than actual meetings:

 

“Let’s catch up soon.”

 

Soon, in this context, is not a unit of time. It’s a polite black hole.

 

Entire friendships have been parked there. Engines off. Indicators blinking. Nobody stepping out.

 

We’ve industrialised intent without delivery.

 

Shall I dare say it aloud? 

 

Most “catch ups” are not postponed. They’re pre-cancelled.

 

This ritual isn’t just harmless social lubricant anymore. It’s a symptom. Of connections measured in follows, not phone calls. Of relationships maintained by forwarding memes at unearthly hours. Of a generation that mistakes being liked for being loved. Of the slow, quiet tragedy of people who are digitally crowded and humanly lonely.

 

We’ve confused the motion of connection with the emotion of it.

 

We’ve mastered the art of appearing invested without investing time.
We’ve replaced depth with declarations. We’ve turned connection into a checkbox with good filters (and of course bad lighting).

 

Consider the family WhatsApp group

“Let’s all meet this Sunday!” Twelve blue ticks. Six heart emojis. Zero logistics. By Saturday night, the message has gracefully aged into archaeology.

 

Or the annual ritual: bumping into a school friend after a decade.
“We should totally do a reunion.”

Yes, we should also colonise Mars. Similar probability curves.

 

And yet, beneath the comedy sits a small ache. Because every “soon” that never arrives leaves a residue. A thin film of almost. And over time, almost becomes our default setting.

 

The Truth Of This Lie

 

“Let’s catch up soon” is now the world’s most popular lie, beating “I’ve read the terms and conditions.” It sits between “We should have dinner sometime” and “I’ll pray for you.” A verbal mirage.

 

Why this shallow grave?

 

We’ve outsourced connection to likes and story replies. Real meetups require calendar negotiation, deodorant, and emotional availability. Too hard. So we toss “Must catch up” like rose petals at a baby shower.

 

The Call Of The Shovel

 

Call it what it is—a social sedative. We are drowning in acquaintances, starving for depth. Your WhatsApp has 1,400 contacts. Who will hold your hand during a colonoscopy? NOT the “catch up soon” crowd.

 

A Honest Cleaner Playbook, If I May?

 

If you mean it, book it. Date. Time. Place. Done.
If you don’t, downgrade the script. “Good seeing you. Take care.” No emotional EMI.

 

And occasionally, surprise the system.
Be the anomaly who turns “soon” into Sunday, 5 PM, filter coffee, no agenda. My place. Watch how rare that feels. Almost rebellious.

 

Because in an age of infinite pings, the scarcest luxury isn’t attention. It’s showing up.

 

So the next time “Let’s catch up soon” tiptoes to your lips, pause.

 

Either give it a calendar…
or give it a dignified funeral.

 

In Closing

 

So next time you say “let’s catch up,” ask yourself: Am I building a bridge or just licking a stamp for a letter I’ll never mail?

Be a shovel, not a spade. Dig truth. Or shut up.

 

PS: On a completely different note, I am taking the liberty to share here that my other blog SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story is now a Podcast as well. You can access it on these links below:

 

 

 

We don’t fail because we lack talent. We fail because we misallocate it

 

We love the talent myth. “If only we had smarter people.” “If only we had more budget.” All that is a pack of lies. Look at your organisation chart. Your best creative mind is buried in quarterly compliance reports. Your sharpest data scientist is writing meeting minutes. Your most charismatic brand storyteller? She’s “managing vendor relationships.”

 

A virtuoso violinist doesn’t fail because she can’t hold the bow. She fails because someone handed her a drum kit and asked her to open for Metallica. As if nothing else matters.

 

We don’t bleed talent. We misplace it. Then call it a skills gap.

 

The Benchmark Nobody Benchmarks

In New Zealand’s All Blacks rugby setup, no player — regardless of global superstardom — plays in a position that doesn’t serve the collective strategy. The best ball-handler doesn’t automatically play fly-half if fly-half isn’t where his instincts peak.

 

They call it Role Clarity aligned to Natural Game.

 

Your brand strategy needs the same surgery.

 

Not “we have a great creative team.” But the question to be asking is “is our great creative team solving creative problems — or drowning in approval chains and reporting decks?”

 

The Allocation Illusion

We obsess over hiring. We ignore placement.

 

We run talent audits. We skip talent deployment audits.

 

We ask: Who do we have? We forget to ask: Where are they being wasted?

 

Think about this. The Māori concept of Mana — roughly, personal power and authority — isn’t something you’re born with permanently. It rises or falls based on whether you’re placed in situations where your gifts can actually land. Misplace a person, you diminish their Mana. Diminish enough Mana across an organisation, and you’ve built an expensive mediocrity machine.

 

Flip to benchmarks that bite

 

Japan’s kaizen ninjas at Toyota don’t hoard engineers in R&D ivory towers; they scatter them on factory floors, tweaking assembly lines mid-shift. Result? Zero-inventory miracles while Detroit rusts. Or Nigeria’s fintech phenomenon Flutterwave: Engineers could’ve coded another boring app. Instead, they allocated smarts to “barter bucks” for Africa’s unbanked, exploding from zero to unicorn in hyperdrive.

 

A bit of wisdom whisper here: Chanakya nailed it—”The root of wealth is activity, not talent.” But activity without aim? That would be like squirrels on steroids.

 

The Kodak(Non)Moment

 

Kodak employed some of the sharpest engineers in America. One of them — inside Kodak — invented the digital camera in 1975. They buried it. Not because they lacked genius. Because they allocated that genius to protect film margins instead of inventing the future.

 

The talent was there. The misallocation was catastrophic.

 

This isn’t ancient history. This is De rigueur  in most organisations.

 

You might have heard about The Roman Praetorian Guard — elite soldiers who ended up babysitting emperors — is history’s most elegant metaphor for talent misallocation. Don’t build a Praetorian culture.

 

Netflix’s “Keeper Test”

Not “is this person talented?” but “would I fight to keep them in this exact role?” If no, move them. Don’t fire them. Move them. Misallocation is the enemy, not mediocrity.

 

Japan’s “Cleaning with Elite Athletes”

 

Instead of hiring separate janitors, a Tokyo airport gave sprint coaches to their cleaning crew. Result? World’s cleanest airport. They didn’t add talent. They reallocated timing, precision, and urgency from track to tile.

 

Actionable Arsenal for Brand Rebels

  1. Audit Ruthlessly: Map your squad’s superpowers. That copywriter killing carousels? Don’t bury her in boilerplate emails. Redirect to viral threads that hijack feeds.
  2. Experiment Wild: A/B test allocations weekly. Swap your data wizard from dashboards to customer whisperer—watch retention rocket like Elon’s rockets.
  3. Cross-Pollinate: Borrow from offbeat worlds. Allocate your CMO’s hours to a street vendor’s hustle study. Their one-minute pitch could nuke your pitch deck.
  4. Kill Sacred Cows: Fire 20% of “talent” at misfiring tasks. Reassign to moonshots. Perpetual readiness demands it.

 

What if your next breakthrough isn’t a new hire—but a reassignment?

 

You may not find these captions on a slide, therefore here they are:

Misallocated brilliance looks like mediocrity.
Correctly placed mediocrity looks like competence.
Correctly placed brilliance looks like magic.

 

Your job isn’t to find more magic.
It’s to stop hiding it in the wrong rooms.

 

Food For Thought?

The Talent Bazaar – Kill job titles for a day. Post “problems” on a wall. Let people grab whichever problem fits their instinct, not their JD. You’ll see your true talent map in 4 hours or even less.

Wisdom Weight:  A Ferrari in a cornfield is just expensive scrap metal. A dull axe in a lumberjack’s hands fells forests.

 

Talent is neutral. Where you place it is the strategy.

 

 

The Brand Personality Clinic: All 16 Types. Fully Diagnosed

 

Carl Jung walked so Myers-Briggs could run. And Myers-Briggs walked so brands could finally stop lying about who they actually are.

 

Meet the Brand Personality Clinic.

 

Here’s a question that is probably not asked during a typical brand strategy meet: Is your brand an introvert or an extrovert?

 

While human beings spent decades using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator(MBTI) to figure out why they hate networking events, brands have been doing the exact same personality thing — loudly, proudly, or quietly — without a diagnosis.

 

It’s probably time to look within.

 

The Extrovert Brand walks into every room like it owns the zip code. Nike doesn’t whisper. It doesn’t “suggest” you work out. It grabs you by the collar and yells Just Do It. Red Bull doesn’t sell energy drinks. It sells the audacity to jump off a cliff with cameras rolling. These brands are the ones texting first. Always.

 

The Introvert Brand lets the product do the talking while the brand itself sits in the corner, radiating quiet power. Muji. Aesop. Patagonia. No celebrity. No confetti. Just depth, restraint, and enough self-assurance to make you feel slightly underdressed. These brands don’t chase you. You go to them.

 

Here’s the lowdown on 16 Brand Personality Types

 

  1. INTJ — Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging — The Architect.

Apple. Dyson.

India: Tata Group.

Builds with ruthless long-term vision. Doesn’t explain itself. Doesn’t apologise. Quietly right about everything, annoyingly early.

 

2. INTP — Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Perceiving — The Logician

Wikipedia. Wolfram Alpha. 

India: Zerodha. 

Obsessed with how things actually work. Allergic to fluff. The brand that would rather be correct than popular — and somehow becomes both.

 

3. ENTJ — Extroverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging — The Commander

Amazon. McKinsey. 

India: Reliance Industries.

Doesn’t suggest. Decides. Efficiency is the love language. Will restructure your entire industry before your morning chai cools.

 

4. ENTP — Extroverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Perceiving — The Debater

Oatly. Tesla. 

India: boAt. 

Picks fights with convention on the packaging, in the pitch, on the billboard. Contrarian by design. Wins arguments before you knew there was one.

 

5. INFJ — Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging — The Advocate

Patagonia. Ben & Jerry’s. 

India: Fabindia. 

Carries quiet, burning conviction. Every product is a quiet protest. Makes you feel complicit in something good.

 

6. INFP — Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving — The Mediator

Hallmark. Moleskine. 

India: Archies. 

Feelings first, always. Romanticises the ordinary into something worth framing. May cry during the brand review. Means well. Always.

 

7. ENFJ — Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging — The Protagonist

TED. Oprah’s OWN Network. 

India: Josh Talks. 

Genuinely believes your story can change the world. And then convinces you too. Stage presence as brand strategy.

 

8. ENFP — Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving — The Campaigner

Innocent Smoothies. Oat-ly’s wilder cousin. 

India: Paper Boat. 

Writes nostalgia on a juice carton( sells yesterday to fund tomorrow). Makes you feel seven years old and somehow also deeply understood. Chaotic good, bottled.

 

9. ISTJ — Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judging — The Logistician 

FedEx. Bosch. 

India: LIC. 

Has been showing up since before your parents were born. Doesn’t need a rebrand. Needs your trust. Has earned it. Will earn it again tomorrow, quietly.

 

10. ISFJ — Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, Judging — The Defender

Johnson & Johnson. Dove. 

India: Dabur. 

The brand equivalent of your grandmother’s kitchen. Warm, reliable, never loud. Has your back before you know you need it.

 

11. ESTJ — Extroverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judging — The Executive

Goldman Sachs. KPMG. 

India: HDFC Bank. 

Runs on process, precision, and the radical belief that systems matter. Not glamorous. Absolutely indispensable. The brand that built the scaffolding everyone else stands on.

 

12. ESFJ — Extroverted, Sensing, Feeling, Judging — The Consul

Coca-Cola. 

India: Amul, Tanishq. 

Everyone’s favourite at the family gathering. Warm, inclusive, impossibly consistent. Has a timely, witty opinion on every moment in national life. Loved across generations without trying to be cool.

 

13. ISTP — Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, Perceiving — The Virtuoso

Leatherman. Victorinox. 

India: Royal Enfield. 

Doesn’t pitch. Performs. Built for people who’d rather fix things than talk about fixing things. The brand that shows up when things break — literally.

 

14. ISFP — Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, Perceiving — The Adventurer

Vans. Polaroid. India: Forest Essentials. 

Quietly beautiful. Refuses to be defined. Aesthetics as autobiography. Makes you feel like self-expression is a birthright, not a campaign.

 

15. ESTP — Extroverted, Sensing, Thinking, Perceiving — The Entrepreneur

Red Bull. GoPro. 

India: CRED. 

Moves before the risk assessment arrives. Sponsors the cliff jump. Films it. Makes it look inevitable. Discomfort is the product.

 

16. ESFP — Extroverted, Sensing, Feeling, Perceiving — The Entertainer

Disney. MTV. 

India: Fevicol, MDH Masala. 

Every touchpoint is a performance. Joy is the strategy. Laughter is the margin. The brand that turned up to your childhood uninvited and never really left.

 

What’s The Prognosis?

Most brands are born as one type and slowly tortured into blandness by committees, consultants, and quarterly panic.

 

A brand’s MBTI(Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) isn’t what the strategy deck says. It’s what the brand does during a crisis. That’s character. That’s the only brief that matters.

 

The Real Twist

The best brands aren’t pure types.
They’re intentional hybrids.

 

Apple = Introvert (product) + Extrovert (launches) + Intuitive (vision)
Nike = Feeling (storytelling) + Thinking (performance tech)

 

That’s not confusion. That’s strategic gymnastics.

 

In Closing

 

If your brand feels inconsistent…it’s not a marketing issue.

 

It’s a personality without a spine. Define it. Design it. Defend it.

 

Because in a world of infinite scroll…
people don’t follow brands.

 

They follow behaviour they recognize.

 

PS: On a completely different note, I am taking the liberty to share here that my other blog SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story is now a Podcast as well. You can access it on these links below:

 

Airplane Mode:Where Your Seat Reclines Four Inches.Your Dignity Goes Further

 

AIRBORNE DISEASE: What Really Goes Viral at 35,000 Feet 

 

We faced the dreaded Covid some years back. It’s time to put that behind us( literally and figuratively!). The real contagion in air travel is human behavior. And it’s been spreading, untreated, since Orville Wright landed that blasted thing in Kitty Hawk.

 

A Preamble

 

They say flying is the safest form of travel. But, that said, no Caveat Emptor came with it. They never said anything about the safest form of human interaction. The moment an airport boarding gate appears on the horizon, something deeply primordial awakens in otherwise civilised people. A perfectly reasonable auditor from Pune transforms into a Gladiator that Russel Crowe would find hard to mimic. A mild-mannered housewife from Hyderabad becomes a geopolitical strategist with aisle ambitions. And a startup founder from Bengaluru — who hasn’t actually built anything — begins treating every overhead bin like an IPO.

 

The Boarding Gate

You know the drill. The boarding gate is not a lounge; it’s a gladiator pit for the fashionably late narcissist. This guy walks in 10 minutes before closing, holding an overpriced Starbucks cup like a souvenir from Rashtrapati Bhavan, acting as if the aircraft is waiting for his astrological alignment. Meanwhile, the aisle occupancy squad has already formed: uncles who believe standing 2 cm from the boarding scanner makes them pilots.

 

Boarding passes clutched like lottery tickets. Eyes scanning for weakness. Predators in athleisure( airport look anyone?).

 

The Boarding Gate Theatre begins before the flight is even announced. Zone 3 is called. Zones 1 and 2 remain seated. Zones 4 through 9, plus twelve people who don’t understand boarding groups( or any language that the announcement takes place in), rush the gate like it’s a Black Friday sale at Croma. In America, this is called “gate lice.” In India, this is called every day, every time.

 

“The plane will not leave without you. Even if it wants to. It has your name on the manifest. It does not have a choice “. Sad but true!

 

Then arrives The Fashionably Late Passenger. Boarding has closed. The gate agent is already emotionally exhausted. And then — THEN — a man appears, rolling his luggage with the unhurried authority of someone who genuinely believes the world is on his schedule. He is usually in a Nehru jacket(And there is nothing Gandhian about him). He always has a wife six steps behind him. He is always slightly smug. In Dubai, this person arrives in linen. In London, tweed. In Lagos, he arrives on a phone call. The accent changes. The attitude never does.

 

On board, the Aisle Seat Occupier plants himself and immediately spreads out like a territorial nation-state. Both armrests( Arms and The Man?). One knee in the aisle. A Bluetooth speaker, technically on mute, radiating menace. The Middle Seat Human — always the most emotionally defeated creature on the aircraft — folds himself inward until he is physically 40% smaller than his original dimensions. And since these seats don’t have memory foam, it is unlikely that he will regain his original size(or composure) once he lands.

 

Somewhere in Row 14, The Recliner strikes. The seat back slams into your tray table with the violence of a small verdict. And you thought the jury was out! Your coffee is now on your laptop. It is now branded the Coffetaria. Doing a decaff lap. Your dal makhani is now a tie-dye experiment that curriculum designers at NIFT would be proud of. He does not look back. He has reclined. His journey is complete.

 

The real action starts at 35,000 feet. We don’t fly planes. We unleash personalities at 35,000 feet. That is really…the height!

 

The Class Divide

Meanwhile, in First Class, a man is handed warm nuts and a hot towel simultaneously. In Business, another man is having feelings about his lie-flat bed not being perfectly flat. The airline lied? He almost throws in the towel. In Premium Economy, someone is doing complex mathematics on whether 4 extra inches of legroom justifies the psychological anguish of knowing Economy is right behind them. In Economy — or as it has been lovingly rebranded: Cattle Class(by those who forget they too once mooed) — a family of five is rearranging the food chain. And everyone nose!

 

I don’t know if this has crossed your mind: Ever wonder why Economy flyers treat cabin baggage like it’s the last roti at a North Indian wedding?

 

The Air Hostess Pulveriser

There is a special circle in hell for the flyer who rings the call bell three times to ask, “Do you have tomato juice? No? Then what is your problem?” This is the same creature who will argue with the air hostess about the definition of ‘vegetarian’ using the Bhagavad Gita and a credit card swipe.

 

The Perennial Sleeper (Certified Corpse Class)

This guy boards with a neck pillow that looks like a medieval torture device. The meal cart rams his elbow. The baby screams. The plane lands. He refuses to acknowledge existence. You want to eat your 5-course meal (read: a paneer wrap and a mithai). But no. The Recliner Seat Terrorist in front of you has just executed a rapid recline ( Remember: The Future Happens Slowly, And Then All Of A Sudden). Your food tray is now hugging the seat behind you. Your crotch is now the dining table. Crotch crotch hotha hain!

 

And of course, there is The Know-It-All Traveller, who knows the cruising altitude, the exact model of aircraft (and its production year), why this route was changed last April( and why Govinda could dance on an Air Mauritius plane wing), and why the airline lost its competitive edge post-2019. He tells the air hostess. She smiles. This smile has a tensile strength that should be studied by materials scientists. She has heard everything. She has survived everything. She will continue smiling as she goes home and screams into a very understanding pillow. Kylie Minogue, are you listening?

 

And then…we land. Ah, the grand finale

 

The aircraft has barely kissed the runway and suddenly everyone is cured of inertia. Seatbelts? Purely decorative. The entire cabin springs up like toast. Overhead bins open with the urgency of a heist movie( yes you have seen that Korean movie I know!). Bags rain down. Elbows become conversational tools.

 

Phones emerge. Not casually. Religiously.

Because clearly, the global economy was paused mid-air, waiting for you to reconnect. Without your WhatsApp “Landed” message, civilisation teeters on the brink of collapse. And, needless to mention, both Android and Apple would shut shop. Apple’s new incoming CEO has his work cut out.

 

Airplane mode, by the way, wasn’t invented for aviation safety. It was invented to give humanity a few hours of forced silence. A digital detox disguised as regulation. The only time people reluctantly meet themselves… and hate the encounter. From Gate to Gait…watch humans devolve in real time.

 

And then comes the Gold Rush.

Not for exits. For toilets. A mass pilgrimage triggered by nothing but herd instinct and bladder paranoia.

 

The real Airborne Disease is this: we board as strangers united by destination, but we behave as if the cabin is a zero-sum game where your overhead bin space is my defeat, your on-time departure is a personal inconvenience, and your aisle is my sovereign territory. Every flight is a referendum on our collective EQ. We keep losing.

 

But we keep flying. And somehow, gloriously, inexplicably — we keep arriving. Bon Voyage!