Anubhav Srivastava > Quotes

“We are not meant to be happy all the time, at least in terms of constant bliss. Our brains cannot always be high on dopamine. If they were meant to be then narcotic drugs wouldn’t be so harmful.

A better and more realistic aspiration than constant happiness, is “reasonable peace”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“Happiness does not necessarily come through satisfying your own needs. Sometimes you get greater satisfaction from fulfilling the needs of someone else. And by doing so, you can find fulfilment in your own life.”
― Anubhav Srivastava, Inspirational Sayings: Get Super Motivated and Achieve Amazing Success through Inspirational Sayings!

“What gives society the right to decide FOR YOU that what you do for a living has to necessarily be painful so that you have a “right” to enjoy your time later?

Who said you have to hate Monday to Friday so that you get a right to enjoy Saturday and Sunday? It’s nothing but a myth that we all have bought into. There is no concept Monday to Friday for work and a Saturday/Sunday off in nature. It is simply something we all bought into and our education system perpetuates as well.

And because we bought into that myth, we also trapped ourselves in careers that we genuinely hate”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“Without love, art and nature, there is no beauty in life.”
― Anubhav Srivastava

“Having self-respect and having an ego are two different things. An ego is all about trying to establish superiority over the other person, it’s about trying to show the other person that it is they that wield power and the other person should bow down to their whims.

Self-respect is different. It is about having a healthy self-image of yourself and being confident. It’s about thinking highly of yourself without thinking low of others. It’s about looking at yourself in the mirror and being proud of who you are, instead of being ashamed of what you are being forced to become”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“If you have mostly seen your hard work and strategy pay off, you may probably still be under the illusion that you are self-made and I won’t blame you for that. I have had plenty of such illusions myself.

It is only when you go through circumstances when the SAME hard work that used to work, now gives you failure after failure, will you acknowledge the role of timing and luck.

This is not a "negative" mentality, if anything it is a mentality that helps you tame your ego and be more sensitive to those around you who are not so fortunate.

The first step to bring about positive change in your life, which is confidence if you have constantly been failing, or humility if you have constantly been winning, is to UNLEARN the FALSE notions that modern society has brainwashed you with.

Not everyone who is at the top deserves to be there, and almost no one at the bottom truly deserves to be there.”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“We have been brainwashed into believing that the meaning of life is a rat race where happiness is a reward waiting at the end. And quite often the society, including our parents and other relatives are to blame for it. How are you going to be happy? When you study extremely hard and get into a great college later, you will be happy and successful.

Well, what do you do when you get into that great college and don’t seem all that happy? Well, you better work hard in college and keep your grades up so that you get your dream job and then you’ll be happy! Well, when you get your dream job and are making money but miserable you are supposed to get married because then you will finally have a “happy stable life”.

Finally even after marriage, when life is still a chore and now you are supposed to do everything for your kids, you keep wondering, hey where’s my happiness? I am still not happy, in fact I am miserable!

It is then that society tells you it was fooling you all along. It tells you “Suck it up, the meaning of life is to do what we tell you to do, not to be happy!”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“Inspiration without action is pointless. Action without inspiration is senseless. Inspired action is what makes meaningful things happen”
― Anubhav Srivastava, Inspirational Sayings: Get Super Motivated and Achieve Amazing Success through Inspirational Sayings!

“: People say fear is always bad. It is not. The only fear that is bad is one that paralyzes you and forces you into not taking any action. That sort of fear gets people killed. However, there is another sort of fear that is so powerful that it propels people to success (at least materialistically). That fear is the fear of becoming too comfortable. That fear is the fear of becoming mediocre. This sort of fear doesn’t paralyze you, on the other hand it inspires you take massive action, pursue excellence and never settle for anything less.”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“If you have a goal and you encounter obstacles or walls, You don’t need to break every wall that comes your way!! Sometimes you can just walk around the wall.

Some people want to keep banging their head against the wall, not knowing there is a way around it, or maybe there is a door in the wall or maybe there is a way to climb.

Be persistent, but be informed. Keep pushing on towards your goal but adapt if things aren’t working and look for the simplest solution.

You can tackle complex problems but remember, not every complex problem requires a complex solution.”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“The truth is you can’t plan out your entire life 50 years into the future. If there is a God, only he/she can. It is thus much better to focus on goals that are much closer to the present day because then you will not only be much more motivated to perform because you can see the reward right in front of you, you will also be in a much better position to adapt and change course with changing priorities.

Most importantly you will learn to live close to the present moment and enjoy life while it happens instead of postponing your happiness in the hopes of a reward 20 years later that may not even come.”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“The world is a huge place. Whether it is a romantic partner you are looking for or a business partner or a customer, remember it is better to spend your energy trying to woo someone who is already interested than annoying the hell out of someone who has already said no.

Devote your energy to someone who already sees your worth, not those who are blind to it!”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“Nothing is more important than self-respect.

Not money, not love, not your designation. If there is one thing that matters most in life in addition to mental peace, it is self-respect.
And frankly if you do not have self-respect, there is no way you can be happy in the first place, no matter how much money you make, what position you attain in life or whether you are with someone who claims to love you, because when you can’t respect yourself, there is absolutely no chance of peace in life.”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“Motivational Gurus often ask people their 5-year goals, 10-year goals or even 20-year goals. Those who can’t answer that are considered aimless. We are given the illusion that we can plan out our entire life with extreme precision. You couldn’t be more wrong. Life is not a game of chess where you can plan all your moves ahead or have a backup move for everything. There are countless forces influencing what happens to you.”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“We have a tendency of reacting to various hardships in life by saying "Why me?" We often wonder why it is us who has to deal with pain when everyone around us seems happy. Well, it's simply not true. While their pain maybe different from yours, everyone you see is dealing with pain and hardship in their own way, no matter how happy they seem. Instead of dwelling over the few things that make us unhappy, if we choose to be grateful for the vastly greater number of things in life that work in our favor, we will find happiness even when surrounded by misery.”
― Anubhav Srivastava, Inspirational Sayings: Get Super Motivated and Achieve Amazing Success through Inspirational Sayings!

“A great example in nature of finding simple solutions but being persistent is that of a River flowing through the land.

Now imagine a River. It does not matter how slowly it move. It will always find a way. And it does so by changing according to the situation. What happens when it encounters an obstacle? It adapts. It changes direction. If there is a small hole in the obstacle the water will flow through that hole. If there is a wall, the water will keep rising up until it starts overflowing. Now, if it has absolutely no option at all, it will even cut through stone over a process lasting millions of years.

So, it can work “super hard” when it needs to but it knows when to spend its energy and where to spend its energy.

But adapting does not mean conforming. What is the difference between stagnant water and river water? The river adapts temporarily and keeps pushing on. Stagnant water conforms completely and gives up. River water adapts to the situation only to finds it way. Stagnant water accepts the situation as its final fate. That is why River Water fuels civilizations and stagnant water just stinks.”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“People often work hard all their lives and feel that they will enjoy life when they finally retire at 60 or more.
There are three basic problems with that goal
1. How do you know you are going to even be around that long? Life is unpredictable and is there really a guarantee that one will always live long enough to enjoy the fruits?
2. How do you know whether your health at that age will permit you to properly enjoy the fruits of your hard work? Chances are, with the unhealthy modern lifestyle of society in general, people are going to be spending more time dealing with medical bills than actually enjoying retirement
3. People who are used to working 12-15 hours a day all their life and then retire often report feeling a sudden emptiness in their life and a lack of purpose. While they may feel relieved in the initial few days or weeks to no longer have to work, soon not having to do anything begins to feel gloomy and depressing. Often, many of their cognitive and physical functions decline faster because they are no longer being used like they were used to. Many also feel like they are becoming a burden on their other family members.
My suggestion is, if at all avoidable, don’t work with one final retirement as the goal. Work all your life as long as your health allows you to, but take mini retirements on a regular basis.
The human body is made to work and rest, work again and rest again. It’s not made to work for 40 years nonstop and then rest for 20 years.”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“You should realize that even the thoughts originating in your mind are not always your own. They don’t just happen when you want them to arise, but often arise within a certain dictated framework.

Let me explain. In some ways, our minds have some similarities to AI models of the current era. Just like AI, we are trained on large sets of data and facts, fed by our operator (the society and world around us) and our thinking is limited within the current evolutionary constraints of our own brains, just like other animals cannot possess the cognitive capabilities of a human.

To think beyond this framework is almost a superhuman task, truly demonstrated by only a few known people in history, the Buddha being one example.

In other words, the one who is blind from birth, has no idea what “seeing” feels like.”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“The reality is that businesses fail all the time and if you go into business thinking absolutely positive, selling your land or taking a huge loan and assuming everything will be rosy, you are going to fail, unless you are incredibly lucky.

You may be seen as an inspiration to naïve people, but you are still a bad role model, because your decision-making process will lead to failure for anyone following you.”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“NEVER EVER Invest more than you can afford to lose, no matter how tempting the so-called opportunity looks.
Some people believe massive risk is the secret to quicker success, misguided by popular media of today. The truth is, a person over-speeding and driving his car at 200 km/per hour may reach the destination quicker, but there is a bigger chance that he will crash and never reach it at all.
Drive fast enough to be making significant progress in the journey, but don't drive so fast that you crash and burn.

The most important thing is to know YOURSELF, and be aware of what you can or cannot handle emotionally and financially. That is the only way to stay do ANYTHING term without losing your sleep and ruining your health.”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“In the beginning you really do have to work hard so that you can realize what is worth working hard on and what is not.
If you happen to get some success, over time shift focus to what works and completely let go of what doesn’t. You will find your time frees up. Use it to learn new skills, strategies, upgrade your thinking and processes further”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“People often overemphasize on the importance of goals, particularly in business. They say if you don’t know where you are going, how are you going to get there? They say you need to fix your mind and set your destination and get there within a certain time, otherwise you are a failure.

But business can never be likened to going to another physical destination, because here, the destination is not static, it is constantly moving around randomly. It itself keeps changing its position and coordinates depending on what’s happening in the world”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“The worst state in any organization is not having people who are upset, it is having people who simply don't care. You can change demotivated people, but you can't change indifferent people.”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“If you are always in the “GO GO GO!” mode, you won’t stop to think that there might be a much faster, efficient and less labor-intensive way of doing things.

These are the kinds of people who in the stone age would have preferred to drag slides full of stones and called the person who thought about inventing the wheel “Lazy!”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“A winner never quits and a quitter never wins is not necessarily true. Suppose you really like a person and you want to date them. Now let’s say you approach them and they keep turning you down again, and again and again to the point that they are really annoyed with you. Do you think you should never quit or do you think you should quit?
You should quit or you are going to be labelled a stalker, get beaten up or have a police complaint filed against you.”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“If you are a small business, focus on margins, NOT VOLUME.

When you have higher margins:
You are less likely to go out of business when the volume of your business is impacted due to any reason.
You have more money to spend on advertising, increasing sales further
You have more money to spend on hiring the best talent that grows your company further

Except for the largest of businesses with massive capital and resources, competing purely on price is sure way to eventual failure. You walk on such razor thin margins, that even the slightest of variations could make your business unprofitable overnight!”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“Don't ruin your present by constantly worrying about the mistakes of the past or the uncertainties of the future. What has happened cannot be changed but can be learned from. What is supposed to happen will happen only at the right time. Do your best and enjoy your present, don't make it yet another regret.”
― Anubhav Srivastava, Inspirational Sayings: Get Super Motivated and Achieve Amazing Success through Inspirational Sayings!

“People often delude themselves into believing being busy means actually accomplishing something. One can be busy all day and do nothing.”
― Anubhav Srivastava, Inspirational Sayings: Get Super Motivated and Achieve Amazing Success through Inspirational Sayings!

“Get out of the customer is king mentality.
You are a partner of the customer. You provide something of value and get paid fairly for it. The customer gets value in what you do and that’s why you are paid. No one is doing each other any special favor.
If you insist on the customer being the king, then see yourself as the king/queen of an allied kingdom. If you can’t respect yourself, no one else will respect you.”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life

“If you have a goal and you encounter obstacles or walls, You don’t need to break every wall that comes your way!! Sometimes you can just walk around the wall.

Some people wanting to keep banging their head against the wall, not knowing there is a way around it, or maybe there is a door in the wall or maybe there is a way to climb.

Be persistent, but be informed. Keep pushing on towards your goal but adapt if things aren’t working and look for the simplest solution.

You can tackle complex problems but remember, not every complex problem requires a complex solution.”
― Anubhav Srivastava, UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life