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Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 183 // Week 19 // 2020

May 9, 2020 No Comments

Hello there!

Another week passed by. Now as this is becoming the way of life for foreseeable future, I feel the focus from the news has to be reduced a little bit. There is a lot of chaos in the world right now; if we keep focusing on the chaos while being in the limited square footage of our home. It starts feeling like a prison very quickly.

So to avoid that, I’ve decided to provide things of calmness and serenity through my Saturday Pentacle newsletter as much as I can.

I recently published the latest podcast with Indian Tabla Maestro Aditya Kalyanpur. If you want to listen to a conversation around how to pursue what you love and how to hon your craft so much that it takes you places, here is the Podcast episode.

I’ve also started getting back to meditation more, listening to the chirp of sparrows in the morning (yes sparrow’s are back as the humans have stopped venturing out). The inward journey is not very calm though, all the things which I have stopped being sensitive about, as I sit without the ignorance armour in my meditation, they start to come up. But these unresolved thoughts (something from the work or somebody said something and things like that) start to come to the surface and through meditation one can resolve them just by thinking about them. That’s what I’ve been doing in my meditations.

I’m also focused on movability exercises a bit more nowadays which include stretching the core, hamstring, hips and spine mobility. More than the cardio I’ve been working on these and also the posture of my body while sitting for work trying to maintain the straightness of spine.

To improve my focus, I’ve been using the Pomodoro technique. Where I focus for 25 mins and take a quick break. I found that it makes it easy to churn out one single mid-tier task into 1 of the 25 mins session and that way I can actually accomplish better. An app which I’m using for Pomodoro sessions is one of the points in today’s newsletter.

Coming to the book progress, I moved forward on below books –

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – 20% read on kindle.
Highly Productive Remote Work by Darius Foroux – 30% (found it via Darius’s newsletter, finding it very useful right now in this situation)
Breaking Smart: Season One: How Software is Eating the World – 30% finished (an amazing book recommended by David Perell)

I’m finding it increasingly difficult to listen to audiobooks in these past few weeks, so the below two books are on pause –

“The Sign of the Four” of the Sherlock Holmes series
Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway.

But happy to be back to reading. Some way or the other books have to be read. That’s it for the talk.

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 183 // Week 19 // 2020

An app I’m loving —

Forest App for Pomodoro Technique – This app has been really amazing, suggested by Ali Abdaal, it is actually a Pomodoro timer plus much more. It grows virtual trees in a virtual forest as you keep focusing every 25 mins. It provides you virtual coins, if you collect enough coins (like 2000) it provides an option to plant a real tree! (What! No way!!! but it’s actually true) via a Non-Profit, they are integrated with. We are living in an amazing world, where just by focusing on your work you can plant and grow virtual and actual trees. That’s what keeps my excited to focus more now.

A podcasting product I found awesome —

Riverside.fm – This new product just blew my mind, Create a podcast (not exactly a podcast but sort of a link), then share the guest link with your guest. You both login into your links and boom you are on a video call. Press record and your video+audio (in separate tracks) start recording. Once you stop record, you can immediately download your side, guest side audio and the video from the dashboard.

Riverside CEO Nadav Keyson, himself gave the demo to me. Super smart guy. The company is based out of the Netherlands. I think this is going to be a product to watch out for. Especially if you are a podcaster or a live streamer. (Yes you can live-stream your video podcast as well! How cool is that!).

Even though the pricing is there for this and it’s a bit on the higher side at the moment, but still if you want ease and one-click production. This is going to be the way to go.

Here is a demo –

A podcast I loved —

The Random Show (part of the Tim Ferriss Show Podcast) – This is one of my favorite aspect of the Tim Ferriss Show, where Tim and Kevin Rose come together every few months on boozie trip (sometimes) and over drinks they talk about life and all things in between. In the latest doze of the Random Show, they talked about –

What are they reading in the lockdown (some good book recos)
How to shape your investment strategies in these times.
Why Tim is so much troubled with the whole pandemic situation, even though he has got it all.

And much more. I loved the conversation, hope you’ll find it awesome too.

Playlist helping me focus again —

Study Playlist by Thomas Frank – As I was not able to focus much in the early past week, so I came back to this playlist, which is really good for calmful focus (that weird right? Calm and Focus together? but I think spiritually they are very similar).

This playlist has a rhythmic tone to it and sort of calmness with instrumental music which doesn’t bother your brain to process further information about lyrics. Good one by Thomas Frank.

Quote which I found useful to declutter –

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
— Peter Drucker

Before saying “see you next week”
I’m gonna mention my recent podcast episode again here if you missed it in the top section. Episode 21 with Aditya Kalyanpur (Indian Tabla Maestro).

Also, watch out for the next story in “Lifestyle Design in Action – A Story Series” this Thursday.

Lastly, here are a few pictures from my Instagram. You can check them out here or go to my Instagram for the whole stories and more –

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on May 1, 2020 at 12:36am PDT

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on May 1, 2020 at 5:30am PDT

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

Hey friends, I’m Himanshu, a technology professional working in Mumbai, India. I spend most of my spare time making Podcasts, YouTube videos and write on Lifestyle Design and sometimes stories. Every Saturday, I send out an email newsletter called “Saturday Pentacle”, a list of the cool stuff I explored in the past week, including quotes, photos, books, articles, movies, documentaries and so on!

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 183 // Week 19 // 2020

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 182 // Week 18 // 2020

May 2, 2020 No Comments

Hello there!

Weeks are passing by slow and fast at the same time. Losing focus and getting into anxiety is very easy at the moment. But I’m finding pouring my mind over a journal page every day and meditating 10 mins every day especially useful to distress. As the lockdown is getting extended it’s still difficult to sit inside, but at the same time, we have slowly gotten used to the whole situation. Even though we are alone at homes but still as connected humans species (thank the internet) we are moving through the rough waters.

Moving on to the book listening progress, I didn’t make any progress on below two books, this week–

“The Sign of the Four” of the Sherlock Holmes series
Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway.

But I moved forward on below books (added 2 new ones) –

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – 10% read on kindle.
Highly Productive Remote Work by Darius Foroux – 10% (found it via Darius’s newsletter, finding it very useful right now in this situation)
Breaking Smart: Season One: How Software is Eating the World – 20% finished (an amazing book recommended by David Perell)

So making small progress.

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 182 // Week 18 // 2020

An interview I loved —

Pretty Big Deal by Ashley Graham- Casey Neistat – This was a really casual looking interview but Casey opened up with Ashley in a great way about his process, his journey and I got three big takeaways from this interview –

What should be a deal-breaker? – when a collab/deal collides with your values/social values.
What should you seek with your creativity? – Find the coinciding point between the two circles of exponential growth and longevity of your creation.
What’s the biggest point of growth on any platform? – Honesty and being yourself is the biggest content anchor for any platform.

An article I found really useful —

Lockdown relationship advice – Coronavirus-related anxiety is real and causing serious damage to our partnerships. This NYT article gives great tips to ease the strain.

If you care about your relationship with your partner or your family, then the first and foremost important thing is to take care of your self. Read the article on how to do that. Good Advice.

An info I accidentally found while doing research on a photo —

Health benefits of a Torch Ginger Flower – Recently when I posted a picture of a Torch Ginger Flower which I had taken last year in Kerala. It made me learn more about this flower and I found some really good info about it. Especially the health benefits. Hence sharing the key points here (for full detail click the article link) –

Better known as Bunga Kantan is a popular ingredient in Malaysian cooking (like tom yam soup) that could also have health benefits.⁠ It’s also known to reduce inflammation, treat a loss of appetite, reduce diabetes and hypertension.⁠

Music which made me feel alive —

Vex Oh by KAYTRANADA – This artist was suggested to me by Stuart in our podcast episode recently.

But I discovered a lot more songs when I checked this artist out, he’s specialized in low beat (115 BPM) music. I think this music will be amazing while cycling (when we can do cycling! Ermm).

Quote which made me feel grateful again (literally) –

“If I quit now, I will soon be back to where I started.
And when I started I was desperately wishing to be where I am now.
— Unknown

Before saying “see you next week”
Last week, I started a new series on my blog – Lifestyle Design in Action – A Story Series. In this series few of the people who have worked on their Lifestyle Design are sharing their stories as guest posts, The first story I published is of Sumersingh Rajpurohit (from LastMomentTuitions.com), check it out –

Following your heart, going all in and building a 6 figure business

More stories to come every week as move along.

I also posted a few pictures on Instagram. You can check them out here or go to my Instagram for the whole stories and more –

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on Apr 26, 2020 at 6:40am PDT

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on Apr 26, 2020 at 9:34am PDT

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 182 // Week 18 // 2020

Guest Post, regular

Following your heart, going all in and building a 6 figure business

May 1, 2020 No Comments

In today’s digital world, we have organically learned to live with technology. A word like financial freedom used to come from people who were nearing retirement or were retired already.

But today there are cases when even a 20 something old can also become financially free.

What? Is it even possible?

Yes! It is. You need not even be a rich brat to achieve it. With technology surrounding our lives, we have almost become cyborgs in a way that we can’t even remember general knowledge questions which we used to, a decade ago. Somebody, asks a question, Google pops-up on our screen immediately. The transition to this dependency has been so organic that we don’t even know when we entered the event horizon of becoming machine dependant and now there is no going back.

There are of course dark sides to technology – Uncontrollable Artificial Intelligence, People exploiting kids while they are online, online frauds and much more.

But there is a sunny side to it as well – Technology can liberate humans of today with just access to an internet connection. One can start their own creative business with a website, a YouTube Channel or a course selling platform.

Today’s story is of one of those people from Mumbai, India – Sumersingh Rajpurohit (Instagram). 25 years old, he is financially free and running his YouTube Channel (Last Moment Tuitions) which has around 474K subscribers (at the time of writing this post – Apr 2020) and he’s built a business around his educational YouTube channel – LastMomentTuitions.com. Both of his ventures are earning him a combined revenue of 6 figures+.

P.S.: This story is edited for better readability, keeping the context of the story unchanged.

[This story is part of the Lifestyle Design in Action series]

Enters Sumersingh Rajpurohit

I was in my final year of engineering. Everybody else was searching a job and I was confused because I had two options —

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 181 // Week 17 // 2020

April 25, 2020 No Comments

Hello there!

It’s been 7 exact weeks since I’m inside my home. Lockdown seems to be extending and there is no clear sight of the remedy to this till now. But I’m keeping my eyes on the research and also the political weather around this, as things might be going towards a political storm as countries are calling out China on this blasphemy. Good to keep your eyes and ears open.

But still, keeping our optimism up and being safe at home for ourselves and the people who can’t be at home, should be our priority.

Over the period of this time, my “work from home” situation has kept me well occupied. I was working like a mad man for many days until I decided to have clear cut-off timings a few weeks ago. Start at 10 am and go up to 7.30 pm, keep a transition from work to personal life. I’m going to write a proper blog post about the tools and techniques I’m using to be productive at home. (Expect it soon in your inboxes).

Coming back to the newsletter and to the book listening progress, While I was not making much progress on the audiobooks till last week. – “The Sign of the Four” of the Sherlock Holmes series and Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway. This week I inched further and the sherlock book is about to come to an end very shortly and I read Joe Calloway’s book 25%. Plus I also started reading one of my old half-read book – The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand since last week on my Kindle. So last week was better from reading perspective. So good to progress, even if it’s not huge.

Anyway, without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 181 // Week 17 // 2020

An useful resource I found —

Flickr Photo Album of Obama’s time in WhiteHouse – I loved the Obama Administration since I read about Barack Obama himself and then I read the book Becoming by Michelle Obama and felt more close to both of them.

Recently I found this collection of photos of the Obama Administration in the Whitehouse (posted by the US govt long ago) and it gave me a lot of new visual stories about this amazing couple.

I just loved the photo album. You can check it out too.

An article I found useful —

How To Create Products That Sell For Decades – I love the writing of Darius Foroux and have been following him since the past 4-5 years.

Here is an article he wrote about Ryan Holiday‘s strategy on making timeless products that sell.

Here is a piece from the article itself to give a hint of the entire thing. But I recommend you should read the whole thing, it’s well written and useful.

Ryan’s process for making a perennial seller goes like this:

Adopt the mindset of a creator that makes classics
Create a great product that stands the test of time
Perfect, package, and position into a compelling offering
Promote it through different marketing channels
Capture an audience and build a platform that stands the test of time

A how-to guide I found really useful for making my DSLR into a webcam for awesome quality —

How to use a DSLR camera as a WebCam – In the lockdown as we are finding it convenient to get on a video call and get in touch with colleagues and friends. Usually, our laptop PC / Mac webcams are not as great.

What if we could use a DSLR lying around in our home as a webcam, awesome right?

But it’s not very easy to do if you don’t have a USB to HDMI cable. So this particular method helped me to be able to use my Nikon DSLR as WebCam.

If you are struggling as well, this video might help you. (Plus I’m making a simple blog post about this the process I took, few additional steps to remove the inconvenience.)

A song I loved —

Serenity by Mallika Barot & Asxem Dlean – Found this really beautiful piece done by Mallika and Asxem. Made me feel at peace.

To be noted that Mallika Barot is the daughter of Ranjit Barot, who is a renowned musician and has worked with Coke Studio projects and even with A.R. Rehman.

Please enjoy the song.

Quote I’m pondering on lately –

Write like you speak. Then improve how well you speak.
— David Perell

Before saying “see you next week”
I posted a few pictures on Instagram. You can check them out here or go to my Instagram for the whole stories and more –

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on Apr 25, 2020 at 8:08am PDT

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on Apr 25, 2020 at 9:35pm PDT

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 181 // Week 17 // 2020

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 180 // Week 16 // 2020

April 18, 2020 No Comments

Hello there!

Hope you are holding up like everyone else. I’m optimistic that the cloud of uncertainty will lift soon.

But I must share my vulnerability here. To be honest, this last one month has filled up so much anxiety in my mind. Not just because we are stuck at home and doing work beyond our required hours, but because this period has taken away the biggest freedoms of human beings, to meet with other people and to travel.

Well, one could argue that we are still able to socialize, but to be honest, not being able to be in the presence of another human being in real life, slowly starts haunting. Loneliness starts hitting you hard.

If you are lucky and stuck with people (family, friends or roommates) you are still far better than stuck home alone. Because this may be the longest social isolation we would ever see.

Coming to the good part, we are still alive. You (of course, you are alive, corpse don’t read – well that was dark) and Me. So let’s keep holding on to the interactions on virtual social worlds, let’s write letters to our loved ones and give them those when this thing is over. This time won’t be coming ever again in our lives (i hope not).

Ok. Coming back to the newsletter.

Book listening progress- This week was bad, I didn’t read even one single day.

Still on the book “The Sign of the Four” book from Sherlock Holmes series (80% same as last week). 2nd book – Becoming a Category of One – How Extraordinary Companies Transcend Commodity and Defy Comparison (2nd Edition) by Joe Calloway. (10% same as last week).

But still, I was able to post a few good photos from my collections to my Instagram feed which you’ll find at the bottom of this newsletter.

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 180 // Week 16 // 2020

A Lightroom tip I found useful —

Why EVERY PHOTOGRAPHER should use Smart Previews! – I am a sucker for organization – digitally and physically both. For all my photography work I use Adobe Photography plan which includes Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom.

In recent few weeks, I tried to build up my Lightroom catalogue from scratch and the below video helped me a lot.

Now I have a good Lightroom workflow that I can easily churn out photos on daily basis.

If you are a photographer I recommend Lightroom for sure and If you are new to Lightroom, make sure to check out the below video –

An article I found intriguing —

Why plague doctors wore those strange beaked masks – Recently when I was doing some research for my video on Corona Virus and I was trying to co-relate historical pandemics with Corona situation now. I found that in In 17th-century when the plague hit Europe, then doctors who were treating patients wore strange beaked masks. It was believed that these outfits could purify poisonous air. But eventually, they were wrong.

A profound video by Tom Scott —

This Video Has <real-time-number> Views by Tom Scott – This is the first time I saw a person who’s a coder at heart teaching the way life works and how nothing lasts forever. Even the title of this video that he says, can’t stay static. He coded a script which changes the title of the video to show the real-time view number in the title itself. It’s like a little RPA (robotic process automation) he made.

Amazing how he tells all this in a very profound way standing on the White Cliffs of Dover.

Just watch this video you’ll understand the feeling.

A Song/artist which/who made me feel like I’m nothing (in a good way) —

Jacob Collier: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert – This artist was recommended to me by Stuart DaCosta (recent podcast guest).

As soon as I saw this video I was in a constant state of shock and admiration for some time. This particular video is a set of three songs.

I loved all three but the second song – Feel was especially awesome.

Quote I’m pondering on lately –

Suffer less and be able to help others suffer less.
— Unknown

Before saying “see you next week”

I published a podcast episode for which I waited 2 years!
Episode – 20 with Stuart DaCosta who is a music composer and the bassist of The Yellow Diary Band (Loved recording this one).

Check it out on Spotify –

I also posted a few pictures on Instagram. You can check them out here or go to my Instagram for full stories and more –

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on Apr 12, 2020 at 3:17am PDT

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on Apr 12, 2020 at 8:30pm PDT

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 180 // Week 16 // 2020

podcast, podcasts, regular

#20 – Stuart DaCosta (Music Composer and Bassist of The Yellow Diary Band) – Making Music, Touring with bands and co-creating 6+ million view songs

April 17, 2020 No Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:08:26 — 62.7MB)

Play the podcast on your favourite platform

In this episode, I’m talking to Stuart DaCosta, who is a music composer and bassist in the band The Yellow Diary whose songs like Na Tere Jeha Hora Disda and Rab Rakha have been rocking the charts since the day 1 of launch. I absolutely love this band.

Stuart has been in the indie music scene in India from a long time. He has played in various bands like Something Relevant, Baycity Lights etc and then eventually made his way into The Yellow Diary. Which is now signed by Sony Music India. On the side he’s also working for bigger projects with his music production company – Salvage Audio Collective and have worked with films like Gully Boy which had chartbuster songs.

This is an episode with which most of the musicians might resonate. A lot of tidbits for musicians. But for everyone else also it will be a good episode and teach you if you keep working on what you love with all your passion, you definitely will get there.

So without further adieu, please enjoy this conversation with Stuart DaCosta.

Links and references from the episode –

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 179 // Week 15 // 2020

April 11, 2020 No Comments

Hello there!

So Lockdown has been extended in India till 30th April in most of the states. Because the new cases are still on the rise, even though in a controlled manner, but still rising.

I think until the whole nation is tested with rapid test kits in large scale, we won’t know the scale of the spread. Even though it’s still contained because most of the Indians are obeying the stay home rule. But still, people who are out of job and food are forced to come on the streets to collect food from the NGO people.

In the past week, Cadila healthcare India who is a major pharma company announced that they have made the vaccine and it’s in animal testing phase right now. Even though the US also has some companies working on vaccines and Bill Gates is supporting parallel manufacturing of 7 strong US candidates for vaccine making, let’s see who wins the race.

This also makes a window for people to buy stocks of these companies and the underlying companies who are making the masks, ventilators. As they will eventually pop on the stock market. So we should look out for that as well.

Coming back to the newsletter and to the book listening progress, I didn’t progress much in this past week on the books front and “The Sign of the Four” book from Sherlock Holmes series (85% now) just made 5% progress. Another book – Becoming a Category of One – I just started that and wasn’t able to finish even the first part under 10%. Batching the audiobooks with workouts (non-running) didn’t work as well, as I anticipated. So I need to carve out at least half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening to progress on this front. I’ll work on it this week.

So without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 179 // Week 15 // 2020

Interesting info about Bees I found —

How do bees make honey? – While posting one of my Instagram macro photos of bee extracting food from the flower, I was intrigued by how exactly they make the honey? So I found this article on The Guardian where I found this simple but useful info about this –

“Bees start making honey, which is their food, by visiting flowers. They collect a sugary juice called nectar from the blossom by sucking it out with their tongues. They store it in what’s called their honey stomach, which is different from their food stomach.

When they have a full load, they fly back to the hive. There, they pass it on through their mouths to other worker bees who chew it for about half an hour. It’s passed from bee to bee until it gradually turns into honey. Then the bees store it in honeycomb cells, which are like tiny jars made of wax. The honey is still a bit wet, so they fan it with their wings to make it dry out and become more sticky. When it’s ready, they seal the cell with a wax lid to keep it clean.

So that’s how bees make honey. They don’t make very much of it, though. It takes at least eight bees all their life to make one single teaspoonful.“

An interesting person I started following on Twitter —

Through one of my favourite online writer – David Perell I found Matthew Kobach last week. Matthew is the Head of New York Stock Exchang’s (@NYSE) Social Media and one of the first people to ever pursue a PhD predicting how people use social media.

On his Twitter account, he shares his tips and tricks to for increasing your traction on Twitter. Very interesting personality.

A time management video I really enjoyed —

How I Manage my Time as a Doctor + YouTuber – 9 Time Management Tips – I really found this video by Ali Abdaal who is a Junior Doctor in the UK and also a famous productivity YouTuber. He’s videos have really popped up in last one year. I precisely remember a year back watching one of his iPad video – How students should use the iPad for better performance. I’m a fan of his videos since.

This particular video is for time management as he’s a solopreneur, Junior Doctor and YouTuber, so it was really useful to see how he manages his time. Check it out if you are also a one-person show, this video might be helpful –

A recipe (sort of) video I found useful —

How to make awesome cold brew with 3 different methods – This Starbucks helped me make my first batch of cold brew coffee this past week. In this one they are making it with 3 different methods. 1st and 3rd methods require proprietary instruments. But the 2nd method was the saviour. A 3-litre jar plus a cheesecloth or a cotton handkerchief plus the coffee will make you 3-4 days worth of cold-brew with this method.

I can totally recommend this to make cold-brew coffee. It was delicious.

Quote I’m pondering on lately –

Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear?
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Before saying “see you next week”
I posted a few pictures on Instagram in the past week. You can check them out here or go to my Instagram for whole stories –

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on Apr 4, 2020 at 12:30am PDT

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on Apr 10, 2020 at 9:40pm PDT

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 179 // Week 15 // 2020

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 178 // Week 14 // 2020

April 4, 2020 No Comments

Hello there!

It gets worse before it gets better.

That’s the current situation we are in with this Global Pandemic. India is still in lockdown, like most of the country. I think the lockdown may get extended till May or further.

I know it is becoming increasingly frustrating, sitting at home for most of us. But again, we should be grateful that we are not away from home alone, or not out on the street, exposed. Well, some of us still are, as who are working in essentials services jobs or medical jobs.

For all those on frontlines, just know that we are deeply grateful for your service. For all my readers, here are a few links for any donations you would like to make towards the relief of front-line workers and for this pandemic’s relief fund –

Coming back to the newsletter and to the book listening progress, I finished the book Nonviolent Communication last week and did move a few bits further with the book “The Sign of the Four” book from Sherlock Holmes series (80% now). Now the next book I started is (inspired by a podcast guest of one of my favourite podcasts) – Becoming a Category of One – How Extraordinary Companies Transcend Commodity and Defy Comparison (2nd Edition) by Joe Calloway. Looking forward to listening to this one.

This past week I released few more short video on TikTok and started sharing consistently on my Instagram page again with the help of a Content Calendar via Later.com. As usual, you can check out the recent content at the end of this newsletter.

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 178 // Week 14 // 2020

An article I found useful —

7 Quick Reminders That Will Help You Slow Down by BeMoreWithLess – Courtney Carver who is a minimalist blogger and founder of the Project333, shares this article in the time when it’s much needed.

Check out this piece which has 7 quick reminders which will help you align back to life and help you get slow down a little if you’re feeling overwhelmed.

A podcast episode I really enjoyed —

Making Sense Podcast (with Sam Harris) – Episode 194 – The New Future Of Work (with Matt Mullenweg) – I really enjoyed this podcast where two of my favourite minds sat together and discussed – how remote work and the new future of work is going to shape the world.

Matt is the founder of Automattic which is the parent company of WordPress. WordPress powers one-third of the websites on the Internet. Matt’s companies including WordPress run on distributed remotely team structure. Means team members can work from home 100% of times, but they do have a physical office as well for people who require office as per their work profile. This way it balances the situation and team’s work productively on remote as well.

Enough said, Check out this episode where Matt shares all of this and much more –

A profound audio experience I listened to —

Mushroom Trip by Sam Harris – Sam Harris is an amazing mind and meditator. He is author of many bestselling books and founder of Waking Up app. In this particular audio experience, he shares his experience of going through a mushroom trip (a psychedelic experience).

The experience he shares is so much intimate as a human being and a must-listen. As a Sam Harris fan, I totally recommend it.

Music which made me feel calm —

432Hz – Healing Music – We all need a bit of healing in this time. So here is a beautiful piece of music which is looped in for 3 hours.

In the evening time, just calm down, put on this music and unwind.

Quote I’m pondering on lately –

The mind is an extremely large place in a very small space.
— Carl Sagan

Before saying “see you next week”
I posted a few pictures on Instagram from my Kerala trip from last year. You can check them out here or go to my Instagram for more –

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on Apr 1, 2020 at 8:25am PDT

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on Apr 2, 2020 at 8:45am PDT

Here is a quick Vegetable Maggie recipe Video I made on TikTok Last week –

@himanshu_sachdeva
Vegetable Maggie Noodles 🍜 in 1 min #quickbite #foodelicious #vegmaggie #featurethis #viral
♬ original sound – Himanshu Sachdeva – Himanshu Sachdeva

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 178 // Week 14 // 2020

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 177 // Week 13 // 2020

March 28, 2020 No Comments

Hello there!

Hope you are doing well!

I know this whole lockdown situation is getting intense and it feels like we are stuck or imprisoned. But I think everyone should take it positively that at least we are able to sit at home and avoid exposure to Corona Virus. Because trust me there are a lot of people, who are forced to go out in uncertain situations.

Secondly, while being home we can do the things which we actually care about, in the time that we save by not commuting to work.

I’ve created a small video as well on this on the TikTok platform. Yes! I’m experimenting with it and let me tell you this is like the Instagram in early stages, so you should also get on it if you haven’t. I’m trying out different videos like inspirational, funny ones, reaction videos and more. Need to learn which ones work out. But as with any platform – consistency is the key.

Now coming to the Corona Virus situation, as we all can see in the US the spread is pretty bad as the preliminary preparations seem to be not enough. I follow a lot of people based on New York and it is a jarring situation there. Healthcare workers are working tirelessly there but I think Govt need to do more.

On the contrary Indian Govt is doing a better job than other countries, they have initiated 21 days lockdown in time as compared to other countries like Italy, US, UK etc. We are completing the first week of the lockdown soon. But in many places like the Capital City Delhi, the situation has gone out of control as well. As many migrant labour workers have a rumour going on that the COVID-19 is spreading in cities only, so they are migrating to their villages in enormous numbers. This is a red alert for Govt. They really need to address the situation. Hopefully, they will soon. But apart from that, they have initiated huge relief fund, pension schemes and free food for the poor (1.7 Lakh Crore Package). But only the time will tell how effective these schemes are.

While at home, being optimistic about the situation is very necessary as one might get into depression due to this kind of situation. So working on a passion project or cultivating a hobby is really great idea to keep yourself engaged along with your usual work.

Coming on to the book listening progress. I actually didn’t make much progress in this past week. As my book listening was connected with my commuting earlier but then I tried to tie it with my daily runs. However, after complete lockdown on last Tuesday, it has become very difficult to make special time for book listening. So I’m at 95% with “The Sign of the Four” book from Sherlock Holmes series and with “Nonviolent Communication” I’m at 90%. Still better than zero progress. But I need to tie my book listening to a special time, otherwise, it’s gonna be difficult to achieve my target.

So without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 177 // Week 13 // 2020

An interesting find (which may be useful to implement in our ATMs) —

Holographic Buttons – A few days back I stumbled upon this tweet from Vala Afshar (Chief Digital Evangelist of SalesForce) and found that Holographic buttons are actually being used at some ATMs in China.

China started installing holographic buttons to combat current and future disease spreading. I think this is a great way to make the ATMs touchless to avoid any kind of contamination from the touch because this is a high exposure area. It may reduce the risk of ATM PIN capturing fraud as well where some fraudsters use a keyboard replica and implant it on the ATM and use the inputs to capture our ATM PIN. However, the Holographic buttons may also impose some unknown threat in future. But for now, this seems like a good implementation.

Check out below video tweet – (if you are not able to see it below, click on the link of the title).

China started installing holographic buttons to combat current and future disease spreading https://t.co/dIfKZ3HbuP
— Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) March 20, 2020

A podcast I re-listened —

The Tim Ferriss Show: Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park – Making Art, Making Music, Getting To 60+ Million Albums (#21) – As I’m doing an episode with a musician (upcoming), so I wanted to have some inspiration. I found this episode of Tim Ferriss show with Mike Shinoda (Linkin Park’s co-founder) particularly amazing. They touch upon a wide array of topics on music. You can check it out as well.

Here is the Spotify link (if you’re reading from an email) and mini-player (for instant play) –

A video experience I loved —

Wim Hof Method & The secrets of successful entrepreneurs – This video is of an event organised by The School of Greatness’s Lewis Howes along with Wim Hof.

Lewis selected a few of his high achieving friends and successful entrepreneurs on this trip to Poland where they experience the Wim Hof method and found it very spiritual. Then they share their experiences in a round table. The whole sharing of experiences is pretty amazing.

Check it out – (if you are not able to see it below, click on the link of the title).

An old film I found amazing –

Lawerence of Arabia – This is a 1962 movie. This is a biography of an Englishman T. E. Lawrence who united Arab tribes in a battle against the Ottoman Turks during World War. The story is pretty complex with all the war scenes and so many characters.

Watching this movie I just wondered how was it even possible to make in 1962. But David Lean produced this splendid movie and it’s a must-watch for any cinema lover.

Check out the trailer below – (It’s available for rent on YouTube for Rs. 120, if you wanna watch, just click the rent/buy button on this trailer)

Quote I’m pondering on lately –

The trick is not avoiding hurt, but it is not minding that it hurts.
Matthew Hussey (School of greatness retreat with Wim Hof)

Before saying “see you next week”
Here are a few TikTok Videos I made in the last week. If you like the videos and want more please follow me on TikTok.

1. How to feel productive while you #stayhome

2. Age = Wisdom?

That’s it for this week. Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 177 // Week 13 // 2020

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 176 // Week 12 // 2020

March 21, 2020 No Comments

Hello there!

Writing this on the first Home-Quarantine Weekend. I’ve been working from home since this past Monday and have been seeing a lot of new things (firsts things) happening in my lifetime, some things are happening for the first time even in my parent’s lifetime. It’s a crazy world right now. But we gotta maintain sanity.

PM Modi has announced a Janta Curfew (One-day stay-home for people of India) for this Sunday in India and on Sunday (22nd March 2020) at 5 pm (Indian time) all citizens are suggested to take 5 mins from their lives and clap and ring bells or Thalis (dish plate ringing is a sign of good, used in some cultures when a new baby is born) to encourage the people on the front-lines, i.e. health workers, govt workers who are working on essential services and all the police and related departments. It’s going to be interesting to see the entire country clapping and ringing bells at the same time (sounds crazy right?).

As I mentioned a lot of first time things above, I meant, seeing streets empty entirely without a single person, the air so fresh that it feels like Nineteenth century. The insanity of daily life (the monotony) has been broken. People are staying home, starting to play board games again, staying in touch with families more. Even though the hatred of communalism still remains but for this cause (fight against Corona Virus) at least the World seems united.

My first week Working From Home went fine, as I got all the setups done and connected and was able to function 100% from home for work. So that made things calmer.

I’m feeling grateful to have been given the chance to work from home because a lot of my friends and close ones are still being forced to come to office and work even in these turbulent time. I’m hoping govt will do something about it shortly. But in these trying times, we gotta stay strong and maintain our cool.

Coming on to the book listening progress, I’m almost done with “The Sign of the Four” book (90% done) from Sherlock Holmes series and with “Nonviolent Communication” (80% done). Closing in, to the goal.

This past week I also released an informative video on Corona Virus (COVID-19) that too in Hindi language (English video is also coming soon). Check it out at the end section of this newsletter.

Stay safe, Be home and help flatten the curve.

So without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 176 // Week 12 // 2020

A resource I found really useful for Working from Home situation —

Remote Life Resources — This amazing repository (Google Doc) was shared by a friend. It contains resources on remote learning, remote exercising, mental health, activities for adults/kids, and how to help out with the #COVID19 situation. Check it out, it might be really useful to you as well.

A course I’m loving (making some better use of the home quarantine time) —

Voice-over Course – As I’m a Podcaster and do Interviews and also do YouTube videos as well, so screen presence and voice delivery become very crucial. I’m still working on my screen presence and yet to find a good course. But for voice-over, I found this particular course by a South-African professional voice over artist really good. I’m learning from this course truly.

If you are also a podcaster or YouTuber or anyone who wants to improve their public speech. This is a good online course to start with.

A new product which got me excited —

The new Apple iPad Pro (2020) – The iPad when it was launched (3 April 2010) almost 10 years back, disrupted a lot of myths about tablets.

Before the iPad, the tablets were being used just as good to have devices to watch Netflix of movies on. But after the iPad, it all changed. The Medical profession started depending on the iPad for a lot of stuff in day to day life. So did engineering jobs.

But it still didn’t become the personal computer fully, which could be used in place of a laptop. Finally, after the recent transformation of OS for iPad to iPadOS, iPad comes drastically close to a real PC or Mac. The latest iPad Pro (2020) takes it a notch further with a lot of great features like a floating keyboard cover design, trackpad support and cursor control. It’s still not a computer but it’s a supercomputer.

Check out Apple’s official intro –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09_QxCcBEyU

An article I found captivating –

One Thing which Separates Great Leaders From All the Rest – This article shares Steve Jobs’ thought process about leadership and how he cultivated leadership at a higher level in his organizations. How he distils this mindset in his management team that – great leaders don’t offer excuses or reasons for why they failed. It makes them own the problems and their solutions as well.

If you are interested in people skills and leadership. This article is a great read.

Quote I’m pondering on lately –

We have stopped seeing emotions, we judge each other by the emojis these days and most of the time real and physically present emotion win against an emoji.
From one of my conversations with my close circle friend

Before saying “see you next week”
Check out this informative video I made on Coron Virus (COVID-19) in Hindi (first Hindi Video ever). If you are interested in more Hindi content, please subscribe and click the bell icon for notification of new videos. –

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 176 // Week 12 // 2020

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