Utkarsh Narang had me on his podcast recently (Sep 13-2025). He opened with an interesting question. What would I tell my 8 year old self today? I was also speaking to Utkarsh after 8 years. When I last spoke to him, he was in Gurgaon. He moved to Melbourne three years back. For the past three years I have been living in Seattle.
The first thought I had was to think of the very quiet eight year old kid who practically lived in an imaginary world. The stories from all the books I read, were illustrated in my head. My first thought was that it would startle the kid if an adult came and tapped him on the shoulder to give him some advice.
- Learn as many languages as you can because not everyone speaks the same languages. I was very keen on learning phrases from different languages – largely made up from different books I read. The Russian books were everywhere. Nyet? I also would encourage my younger self to learn more musical instruments. By that I mean learn it in a structured manner.
- When you feel happy, make two people around you happy. That would double the happiness level in the little world that I lived in. If everyone did that we would be in a happier space for sure.
- Understand yourself from the eyes of your enemy. It tells you what you are missing. Your friends and loved ones don’t judge with the exacting standards that your adversary will. It would make me feel comfortable with criticism.
What advice would you give your eight year old self. What would tell your future self – the 80 year old self? My answer is there in the podcast. What’s your answer?
