Help – 922

Introducing Open Office Hours with SG

Credits: Canva

So, Open Office Hours with SG essentially means that I will spend my free time (which is increasingly rare these days) working with young artists, entrepreneurs, students and others. On problems that YOU need help with. And if nothing else, listening to things that you may wish to talk about.

In one line, think of a me as a coach. Of course unlike coaches that have no skin in the game, I will put mine on the line.

Here are some details.

What are you doing?
I will spend 1-hour chunks with people who need a bouncing board or an advisor.

I can talk about host of things. An incomplete list include advertising, badly formatted documents, blogging, branding, communication, consumer behaviour, design thinking (not design), entertainment, events, marketing, music, growth (not growth hacking), life, philosophy, purpose, poker, relationships, travel, writing and other things.

I know its a long list. Trust me, there is nothing as cool as being able to see things from multidisciplinary lens.

Who am I? What makes you think that you can dole out advice?I am Saurabh. I run C4 Events (a corporate events agency) and AWSL (a strategy and marketing consulting agency). More about my work is at my LinkedIn.

I have a MBA from MDI, Gurgaon (class of 2006). This means that I have been working for 12 years now. My work has taken me to more than 20 countries and I have worked on some of the biggest brands in the world.

Apart from this, I am an author and a blogger. I enjoy playing poker and pool. And the three things that I will do before Jan 1, 2026 are: Climb the Mt. Everest, create a personal networth of USD 1 bn and impact a billion lives.

Oh and I am on this constant pursuit to be better. Read this post.

What makes me believe that I can give advice?
Nothing. But I want to. You know what they say? The teacher appears when the student is ready. Are you ready?

Why am I doing this?
Few reasons.

a. Working with young people helps me become better. This is thus a selfish endeavour. In fact to become a better marketer, I need to continue to practise my skills. And working on your marketing or growth problems will help me grow. Plus the sheer variety of problems that I will get to work on and the kind of people I will get to see will be an experience in itself.

b. I wish to give back. Thing is, when I was growing up, I was super lucky to have access to a lot of people that helped me without expecting anything in return. This is an attempt to emulate them and help others.

c. Like Steve Jobs said, old must give way to the new, this is my attempt to help the new usher in faster.

How does this work?

Most weekends, I have spare time that I can either spend watching the next season of Narcos or I could sit with young ones that could do with some counsel.

How much does this cost?

Zero.

Serious. This is an experiment. Lets see if I get any takers. There are no hidden costs. Promise.

How do you book my time?

Fill in this form and I will be in touch.

More details?

More about me is at Linkedin or Twitter. The best way to reach out to me is on twitter.

Questions? Thoughts? Inputs? Comments?

I am on twitter at @saurabh.

Thanks!

First published on C4E blog.

Know Goa? Help me!

Hi,

If you are from Goa, if you’ve lived in Goa, know of stories of Goa, understand the quirks that moves people there, I want to talk to you.

Why do I want to talk to you?
I am an author and I am working on my next book. My first one, The Nidhi Kapoor Story, is here.

And since I am the author, I can play God and decide how, where, when do things happen in the book. On a whim, I have decided that I want an important part of the book to happen in Goa.

And since I am an outsider at best, I want to know about the place from people who know it. The ideal way to do it would be to live in Goa for a few weeks, talk to the locals, capture their stories et al. But since I dont have the luxury of an unlimited bank balance, I can do the next best thing – talk over the phone, email, Skype, etc.

What would I want to know?
I dont know. I want a freewheeling conversation to start with. In it, you can talk about one of the following (or more, or less, or anything else altogether)…

How was it to grow up in Goa? How was school? What did you do outside of it? What were you most fascinated about? What were you most scared of? What did you want to do after school hours? How did you kill time?
How is it to live there? How has it changed over the years? What are your earliest memories of Goa?
What are a few cliches about Goa? What do most people get wrong about Goa? What myths do you want to dispel about it?
What are a few best kept secrets about Goa? And what are a few open secrets?
If someone were to read a book on Goa, what must it include? What are other books, films etc that do great justice to the story of Goa?
What makes Goa unique? What are a few things that are peculiar to Goa?
What are the famous folklores of Goa that you’ve heard from your grandparents? Who are some notorious characters of Goa?
What is that one story that is quintessentially Goa?
What incidents have made Goa Goa?
If there’s something that you could change about Goa, what would it be?

I can go on and on with this.

This is just a small list that I put together in about 5 minutes. Once I have had enough discussions with people, done enough desk research, read enough, I will followup with specific questions.

What do you get in return?
Not money for sure.

But I can offer gratitude and send some good karma your way.

Oh, I will also give you credits in the book and send a copy of the book when it comes out (it WILL come out – my first one did and there is no reason why this one will not. Hope you like reading it 🙂

What else?
I dont know. I am very open minded and welcome all suggestions. Please please please help me. I promise I will not waste your time.

Thanks for reading this!
SG

P.S.: The best way to reach me is on twitter (@saurabh) and the second best is to email me.

Help Me!

I sent this email to a few friends and strangers. Seeking help. The version below is an edited one; after I got feedback from some who chose to respond. If you want to help me as well, please do let me know.

Hi,

Most of you know me. The ones who don’t, I met / spoke / interacted with you while I was working on my first book – The Nidhi Kapoor Story. In a couple of cases, you read the book and wrote in. In one case, you are a friend of a friend and you’ve liked what I wrote. And one of you is a person who reads my blog (yay)!

I write to you because I need help.

I have realized that writing makes me happy and if I can get better at it, I can work on my terms, actually make a living out of it and get out of the rat-race. And not just living, I could live comfortably!

For the record, I define comfort as a state where I don’t have to think twice before I buy the latest iPhone. I use the iPhone as a proxy to PPP or the Big Mac index.

So coming back, I know I make a lot of mistakes when I write. My grammar could do with improvement. I even slaughter a few sacred cows! I thus want to create a group of trusted friends, acquaintances that would read first drafts of what I write and give me feedback before I publish those on public platforms.

It will help me in two ways.
A, I will get advice from a trusted group of people.
B, It will help improve the quality of my output.

So, here are some more details on it.

Why you?
Because you have helped me in past. Because you have a view point that I thought was really unique. Because I believe you could help. And most importantly, because I thought you cared about how I write!

What kind of things will I send to you?
These would often be things that move me, things that I need an opinion on, things about technology, life, travel, writing, characters. Things that I really want to share.

And of course things I write for commercial purpose – books, scripts, speeches etc.

Think of this as a private blog or a closed mailing list. Think of this as way to peek into my brain. Think of this as a testing ground for me to test my ideas on. Think of yourselves as guinea pigs. And FYI, guinea pigs are actually rodents!

What do I expect from you?
Three things. Only.

Honest critique on what I send you. This could be comments, praises, edits, suggestions, ridicule, death threats, love letters, friendly fire etc.
Opportunities. If someone asks you for someone who could write, please point them to me.
Links, tips, things that I should be reading, videos that I should be watching, content I ought to be consuming, people I must talk to, practise that I need to put in, to become a better writer.

What is in it for you?
I dont know. Except the rush of good hormones that you get when you help someone. And my gratitude.

Think of yourself as a king. Or a queen. and think of me as an artesian who’s come to your court seeking your patronage and blessings. In the times when Kings and Queens ruled the world, they would often shower artesian with gold, pearls, palaces, princesses and what not.

On the other hand, all I am asking for is your time, your patronage. Too much to ask for?

That’s it!

Over to you guys!

Oh, this IS the first piece that I want your feedback on.

And, as Steve Jobs would’ve said…

one more thing… Who all do you think I can seek help from on writing? Can you please connect me with them so that I can include them in this list? I promise that I would not send more than one email a week.

On that note, if you choose to not receive these emails, PLEASE tell me and I would remove you from the list.

Thanks so much! Please do tell me how to improve this.

Regards,
Saurabh

P.S.: Once upon a time, I read this quote and I just cant get it out of my head. It goes… “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

I have used it so often that I think I am bordering on getting obnoxious. But I love it so much that I cant stop using it. And I will continue to use it. So, dear giants, please help me see further.

Of punctuations and grammar. And on writing.

I have spent a large part of last few days thinking about Nidhi Kapoor and Prakash Mohile. For the uninitiated, these two are the lead protagonists in my latest attempt at writing fiction. I dont have a name for it as yet, I am open for suggestions. But its a novel length piece of crime fiction (about 80,000 words spread over 20 – 25 chapters).

But the thing about cooking fiction is that you have a vague idea of what you want to write about. You come up with a setting, you draft your characters and place your characters in the setting and try to bring that vague idea to life. You take liberal doses of inspiration from things that you have read and experienced in the past. And you mix these and some other things into a concoction. Finally you try and put this mix into words.

And this is where you fuck up. When it comes to actually putting pen to paper. Especially when you are not a native speaker of English and you are brought up in a society that discourages use of Hindi. As a result, you grow up confused and you dont have command over either language. You think in Hindi, translate it in English and then you write. As a result, the grammar and the meaning of what you want to say go for a toss. If you try thinking in English, since your vocabulary is so tiny that you cant find the right words to put your thoughts on paper. So, when you want to talk about a good looking woman, you can only use words like gorgeous, beautiful, brilliant, awesome. Since you dont know synonyms like astonishing, awe-inspiring, breathtaking, exalted, formidable, frantic, grand, imposing, impressive, magnificent, majestic, mind-blowing, moving, overwhelming, shocking, striking, stunning, stupefying, wonderful, wondrous, you get repetitive and monotonous. And despite your brilliant narrative, the text becomes boring. And then you cant pin point your mistake.

So today while I was stuck on the third chapter of the Nidhi Kapoor saga, I decided to make a list of things that I dont know and I need to work upon. Here is the list. If you can help, I am willing to pay for it…

When I use quotes to denote a dialogue or a statement by a character, do I put a full stop after closing the quotes? Or before that? What if my character is asking a question? Does the question mark come after the quotes? And do I put a full stop after that? And yes, I did clear CAT with flying colors.
What is a good way to break paragraphs when you are writing something? And are there any established norms for the same?
The difference between choose and chose, loose and lose, anyway and anyways, even though and despite. And a million other common mistakes that non-native speakers like me make
Vocabulary. I read somewhere that an average human being knows about 15000 words. The great writers however know some ~~100,000~~ 66, 000 words. I am sure I dont know more than 10,000. I need to work on it. Can someone help me with some tips on these?
Formatting for readability. How do I format my text that it is readable. I know that people dont really read every word but they skim through the text. So, how do I format text so that while skimming, you focus on the essential bits, that are important to a crime fiction? Is the F pattern true for fiction as well?
More people like Pressfield? I read his blog regularly and love his advice to people like me. He’s really really good. Are there more people like this? I dont want self-improvement advice. I want insights from people who have been there and who have done that.

Thats it. I just need these 6 things. I already have a brilliant support group – a set of people to whom I email everytime I write something – for feedback. Most of them are busy and cant really respond fast enough but they give me enough insights and I really value their inputs.

Thats it for the time being.

I am also looking for an editor who can work with me on correcting these grammatical errors that I make in my texts. And a researcher, who could help me plug loop holes in my text. Anyone?

Seeking Contributors for Offbeat Mag

I dont think if I have ever posted something like this in the past but here it goes.

I have started working on a side project (not to make money to be honest) where I would write, feature and highlight stories, anecdotes, people, incidents and things that are offbeat. I call the project Offbeat Magazine. It would be a web based community blog and it may eventually evolve into something great or may fizzle down into yet another piece of junk on the web. I am not sure. But I will give it an honest attempt.

For the same, I am seeking contributors, people who can help me identify offbeatness and other such quirks that I can feature on the magazine. And designers and photographers and writers and handymen. I am looking for anyone and everyone who can help me pull it off. And once upon a time, someone said something about standing on the shoulders of giants, I want to invite such giants and hope that they help me see further.

Would you want to be that giant?

To give you an idea, the first few set of articles that I am working on for OffbeatMag are…

How life has changed for a mango wo/man after s/he became a twitter celeb (I define twitter celeb with someone who’s got more than 9999 followers). For the same I want to interview these guys and write an article.
How poker is changing the way kids in engineering colleges are re-evaluating their career options. If you are tuned in the poker scene in India, you’d know what I mean.
How people are re-defining the way they travel by hacking their way into premium lounges, getting free tickets and how international holidays is no longer a big deal.

Ocourse, all these articles have come from my understanding of the world around me. With more contributors, we can look at a broader horizon and hopefully cover more things.

Thats it for the time being. Do you want to help? Get involved? Its easy! Just leave a comment on this post. Or write into me here.