A Day In The Life At Pearl Lemon (w/Deepak Shukla)
Reading Time: 5 minutesSo. Writing has become an outlet for me to share my musings over things I’m doing and thinking about and wanted to share what’s top of mind for me at the moment. I’ve just taken on several new sales professionals: Jay (25+ years experience) Marc (5+ years experience) Lydia (internal team member trying out sales […]
My First Date With Arpana, Harry Potter…and my brother
Reading Time: 6 minutesI was 16 years old. And about to head out for my first date. The feeling was surreal. Looking back on it I’m not sure I was ‘mad about her’ – but I definitely liked her enough to be excited about the prospect of going on a date with her. As it turned out Arpana […]
Struggles For Intimacy, Struggles To Be Romantic
Reading Time: 6 minutesDaniela and I are from two different planets. Not only is she a woman as I am a man; but she’s also Italian, and I’m British. We speak different languages in life as well as love and come from such different cultures. As much as my parents are from India, I was born and raised […]
Saving Rajiv From Alcohlism, Anger And Despair
Reading Time: 6 minutesI was hanging out with my buddy Rajiv a few weeks back, and it was his birthday yesterday so it’s why I’m writing about him today. I’m thinking about him. He’s currently in Corfu and headed back today in fact – he was there for the last week. I was with his twin brother yesterday […]
52k Words Is Almost 52 Weeks Old!
Reading Time: 6 minutesShit’s weird. I just dug out my update taken from my blog: Here’s the link It’s about keeping a commitment to writing regularly. And it’s nuts for now to think I’ve been writing this newsletter for 11 months on and off. If it gets sent out 1x every 3 days then we’re talking about you […]
The Property Journey Continued UNFINISHED
Reading Time: < 1 minuteIt’s been several months since you heard about my property adventures when I told you I was in the process of trying to buy 5 properties – so today I thought I’d take the opportunity to update you and let you know where I’ve got to in these months past. This was the title of […]
What Listening To 254 Hours Of Audible In 105 Days Has Taught Me
Reading Time: 6 minutesOn May 15th 2020, I had something of an epiphany. It became apparent that for perhaps the last decade of my life or more (probably more), I’d stopped learning consistently. Sure throughout my time, there were periods of me having to get some kind of specific education in relation to a new venture or otherwise […]
Going Bald, Going Grey And Coping With It
Reading Time: 6 minutesSo I was inspired to write today’s entry because of a video I just made. Over the last 2 years, I’ve slowly noticed my hair thinning out. It’s something my sisters Shanti and Kanti bless them have struggled with for several years. For women, the social and psychological impact it has can be somewhat devastating. […]
Adventures With Hiring A Running Coach
Reading Time: 6 minutesHey guys! Here’s the time and date: And here I am: I’m actually sitting in a Costa Coffee now in Ealing Common as I have my final session as part of a 6-pack plan I bought with ‘The Running School’. Maybe around 2-months ago I finally picked back up the book that I started reading […]
Turning 34, and thinking about next 5 years
Reading Time: 6 minutesI turned 34 recently (August 18th). Who knows how old you are? Who knows at what age you’ll be reading this :p But I thought I’d share some reflections about being 34, and what I’m now thinking about. Well. Pearl Lemon did, back in October 2016 when it was Purr Traffic and a full-service marketing […]
The Death Of My Involvement In 1 More Rep
Reading Time: 6 minutesIt’d been only a month or so since I’d written the newsletter about building out 1 More Rep. I’d wake up and feel a deep sense of unease in my gut. Scott, my business partner was doing an amazing job of running Facebook ads and it was driving lots of local inquiries for his boot […]
7 Months Later
Reading Time: 8 minutesIt was the winter of 2019 and I’d decided to myself – you know what Deepak – you love writing. Words have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. 3 months later, come Jan 22nd I’d written close to 91,000 words. I definitely hadn’t seen that coming. But by […]
What I’d Do If I Lost All My Money, Businesses And Other Means Of Income And Rent Was Due
Reading Time: 5 minutesThe phone bleeped in the middle of the night as I groggily awoke from ym I thought this would be a fun, insightful, and very useful post to write. We’re often taught about visualization. But how many of us think about it a great deal? Over the next 2 emails, I’m going to run two […]
Getting 40% Of My Body Covered In Tattoos
Reading Time: 6 minutesAras bent over my thigh as he worked away, etching Ganesh deep into the back of my thigh. He refused to work on anything that wasn’t a full day and that didn’t contain a lot of detail. He was passionate about all the tattoos he created and became a man of extreme focus when putting […]
I’ve Decided To Continue
Reading Time: < 1 minuteHey guys, I’m back! I missed you all…and as it turns out I still have plenty of stories in me to tell so I decided that I’d continue writing. It got addictive. I managed a 35-day streak and now I want to see if I can keep going for another X days and see where […]
The End Of 52 Days And Reflections Upon Writing 65,000 Words in 35 Days
Reading Time: 3 minutesHey guys, It’s crazy to think that I only decided I’d start writing this newsletter 35 days ago. It goes to show (me) what you can achieve with a little bit of focus. And what momentum can do for you – given I’ve overshot my original target of 52,000 words. I want to give you […]
My 27-Hour Ultramarathon In Madeira
Reading Time: 6 minutesIt was midnight. What a strange time to be setting off! Sleeping in the daytime hadn’t really happened. But resting had. For the rest, I was counting on adrenalin to see me through. As the event came closer and I studied the elevation and length online whilst in Lisbon my nerves grew. My longest event […]
Getting My First Tattoo Drunk In A Bar…..In Thailand
Reading Time: 4 minutesI was 18 and in search of adventure. I hadn’t enjoyed most of my childhood – at least the parts of it I remember anyway. I’d been most nervous, shy, felt ugly like I didn’t fit in, and focused on staying alive. I’d never really thought about thriving. I wanted to thrive. I wanted to […]
Applying To The SAS Part 2 (ATC Pirbright)
Reading Time: 5 minutes(Please note army vets – this is just the recounting of my application process – nothing I write is intended to reveal/mislead/misrepresent anything about the British Army) I’d had an incredible week in Georgia with Davit that showed me there was a pain I never knew. Now it was time to head out for the […]
Training For An Ironman With A Former Paratrooper and National Swim Coach
Reading Time: 6 minutesIn a couple of months, I was going to be on a plane headed to South Africa via Dubai. Right now I was living in Via Vanchiglia in Turin, Italy whilst trying to figure out what to do with my career. It was 2015 and Daniela and I, after my various trips around the world, […]
Preparing To Train With A Former Georgian Special Forces Sniper In The Mountains Of Tbilisi (Part 2)
Reading Time: 5 minutesI touched down in Tbilisi. So far, the journey had been smooth. I was a little worried as I came in about being stopped and searched as I had a load of military gear with me. Furthermore, I was coming to Georgia – I wonder how many British Indians go there on an annual basis! […]
My Heroes; My Gratitude And The Life Lessons They’ve Taught Me
Reading Time: 6 minutesHey guys, I wanted to talk about some of the people that have inspired/enriched my life and attach a lesson to each one of them that hopefully, you can learn from as well. My father – Ram Laut Shukla: loyalty, hard work and responsibility LOYALTY My dad has taught me many things. ‘Happy wife, happy […]
Coming Last In My Very First Triathlon in Lausanne Switzerland (Part 2)
Reading Time: 9 minutesI was wondering what the deal was as I walked along the pathway where the other swimmers were waiting for the triathlon to start. It seemed that absolutely everyone except me was wearing a wetsuit. I wasn’t really sure why as the weather was great and I didn’t think you’d need it. As I walked […]
Coming Last In My Very First Triathlon in Lausanne Switzerland (Part 1)
Reading Time: 5 minutesI’d just flown in from Barcelona where I’d got this awesome tattoo of a muay Thai fighter on my thigh. The plan on landing in Geneva, Switzerland was that I’d stay with Luc for the month at his family home in Lausanne. It was August 2014 and a brilliant time to be in Europe. Once […]
Fighting Muay Thai And Winning via TKO in Rio, Brazil
Reading Time: 6 minutesI stepped into the ring with my headgear on and nervousness living within me. This was it. This is what I’d been training relentlessly for – for the last 7-weeks. I’d have gruelling sessions 5-6 times a week in the general classes with the pro and amateur fighters and then I’d have my own private […]
From Recording My First Rap In School To Battle Rapping At A Live Set
Reading Time: 5 minutesIt’s 11.35 am here in Poppins Cafe near my folk’s place in West Drayton. Here’s me: I’m being mega unproductive with good reason lol I’m listening to one of my old albums on Soundcloud: Road Rap Season 1: It’s crazy to think it’s almost been a decade since I recorded this mix CD. I’m still […]
Preparing To Train With A Former Georgian Special Forces Sniper In The Mountains Of Tbilisi (Part 1)
Reading Time: 6 minutesHey guys, It’s time to go back to my military training. As you know, I decided to apply to the British Special Forces a few years back. At the time, it seemed sensible that I should get as much preparation as possible. I’d already started going through the induction process with 21SAS, and I felt […]
Being In A Physically Abusive Relationship; My Nightmare
Reading Time: 8 minutesMaria was a singer I’d found via Facebook within my 2nd-degree network. She looked pretty; she was a singer, and I was taken by her. So, I angled to try to get her to come and record at my studio. After some back and forth she did come, she did record, and then we would […]
My Parents Arranged Marriage And My Relationships
Reading Time: 6 minutesHey guys, I spoke a while back about discovering my relationship disorders, which ultimately relate to any type of relationship I got into – whether with a friend, an intimate relationship partner or my family. It’s easier to look back at it now and see how ‘the dots connect’. In this instance, the dots I […]
I had 22 jobs I think by the time I was 23. Let’s go through them and what they taught me
Reading Time: 12 minutesIt used to piss me off a bunch when I was growing up – and I was the spoiled one in my family to begin with anyway! But we grew up – 8 of us in a three-bedroom house. My parents were minimum wage employees and my grandmother (her husband had passed away many years […]
Quitting Deloitte And Leaving The Corporate Rat Race Behind
Reading Time: 7 minutesI was an English literature graduate! Getting a job at Deloitte on the graduate tax scheme in 2007 at the height of the credit crunch was like a dream come true. I was among only three people in my graduating class I knew of that had landed such a prestigious job. Hugo had landed a […]
My Dodgy Business Dealings Part 1 – Joining A Pyramid Scheme
Reading Time: 6 minutesHey Guys, I want to keep pulling the curtains back on some things I have done that I’m not proud of – but have still taught me much about business and life and everything in between. Let’s begin with a conference that a girl called Stacey (a PhD student from Aston University I was dating […]
Discovering My Relationship Disorder And The Chaos It Caused Me
Reading Time: 8 minutesHey Guys, I remember when I made the phone call. It was a part of the evening I always looked forward to. At around 9 pm after I finished school – I’d ring Steven Caswell. He was one of my new friends at Bishopshalt since I’d moved schools, and I’d ring him at that time […]
The Story Of How I Met My Best Friend Luc
Reading Time: 7 minutesHey Guys, The time is 12.55 pm and Luc flew in from his adopted hometown of Barcelona yesterday with his British partner Amy and their two children Connor and Logan. Amy is the British half of the couple, and they’re here to spend the holiday season with family. Luc is Swiss-British but right now is […]
The Story Of How I Bought My First Business: 7upsports
Reading Time: 6 minutesIn October 2019 I (via Michelle Rubini’s Facebook newsfeed) stumbled into a whole new world of micro-private equity. It turns out that you can actually buy small businesses that are undervalued; improve the business and then scale it. This simple notion of buying businesses absolutely blew my mind. And yet it makes total sense right? […]
The Biggest Business Mistake I Made Through My 20s
Reading Time: 6 minutesHey Guys, I’m 33.5 years old at the time of writing – and in many respects, I’ve been tinkering with ‘business’ since I was 16 years old. There has been Deep Impakt, Deep Impakt Recordings, The CV Guy, Studiobookers, Meet My Tutor (and more) in no particular order. I’ve done and tried a shedload of […]
How I Create An Additional 100 Hours A Week
Reading Time: 7 minutesYou know what they say, guys – Success loves speed. This is a fundamental approach that will see you ascend in life. It’s what allows me to work on multiple things at (I hope) a pretty decent level – I want to walk you through how I do this in practice: Let’s begin: ______________________________ The […]
Hitchhiking from London to Estonia, Tallinn For A Stag Do
Reading Time: 7 minutesHey Guys In July of 2011, I decided to join my future brother-in-law Gary for his ‘stag do’/’bachelor party’ in Tallinn, Estonia. I was a little short on money at that time, being in the midst of my recording career at Deep Impakt Recordings (I’ll go on to talk about my business adventures in my […]
Why Being Skinny, Brown, Poor And The Son Of Migrants Was The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me
Reading Time: 7 minutesHey guys, The time is 11.38 am and I’m sitting in a Pret A Mange in Westfields whilst Daniela goes shopping. I was meant to be going shopping with her. But then I saw my credit card bills come in and I sh*t my pants and decided it’s time to get my head down and […]
Being Broke, Living on Job Seekers Allowance & Housing Benefit On An Estate In London
Reading Time: 7 minutesHey guys, This will be a difficult letter to write but I wanted to get this in here. Talking about this fills me with a deep sense of disappointment about my first years with Daniela and how I let her and myself down. When we met – I was living at my mum’s place in […]
Living Homelessly For A Week In London
Reading Time: 8 minutesHey Guys, In 2011 I’d just come out of a violent relationship and business that I’d driven into the ground – and I felt lost. I was unhappy and in need of a distraction that would completely occupy my mind. I’d sometimes seen my uncle selling The Big Issue in West Drayton, and knew equally […]
Applying to 21SAS Part 1
Reading Time: 6 minutesHey Guys, I want to talk about a journey that I went on at the beginning of the autumn of 2014. Of applying to 21SAS. And getting some way into the programme itself. 21SAS – for those who are unfamiliar, is the British Special Forces reservist programme. As someone with no previous military experience like […]
Welcome To 52k Words With Deepak Shukla
Reading Time: 5 minutesHello guys, Deepak here. So right now it’s 8:09 am and I’m sitting in Costa, West Kensington with my hot chocolate determined to start writing for the next 60 minutes and just to see what happens. I had the harebrained idea after reading Indie Hackers blogs voraciously over the last several weeks (well maybe a […]
Things I Would Like To Get Back Into Doing
Reading Time: 3 minutes Morning all, The time is 6.50 am on Sun 28th August. It’s nice to get back into writing again. I find it a most comforting place. As time passes, I find being around people more and more tiresome. It’s weird to think that a decade ago – all I enjoyed was actually being around […]
My At Home Blood Test Journey and Thriva Blood Test Review
Reading Time: 8 minutesHi guys, Late start to my day today: Not sure I’m going to reach my blog and writing targets but we can only try. However, I rang my local doctor this morning to set up a phone consultation as I got my at-home blood test results last week and discovered that my iron levels are […]
Why I Choose Progress Over Perfection & How I Implement It?
Reading Time: 7 minutesHullo all, Here’s the time again: I’m writing a 2nd blog for the day again today – but I’m following my impulses and running with it. I haven’t recorded any videos today but oh well – I feel like writing more – which leads me onto this point: _______________ I recently read a book called […]
Trying to Figure Out My Internet Journey
Reading Time: 7 minutesMorning all, I was just sat randomly getting lost in Nat Eliason’s content and the following the dude has built online. Very smart guy, who built a 7-figure content marketing agency, Growth Machine – and is in the process of moving away from that. Then I discovered he has gone Elk Hunting, written a book […]
The Problems With My Blog I Need to Fix
Reading Time: 7 minutesMorning all, I’m starting my writing block much later today so I feel pressed for time. That’s why I’m curious to see what I’ll output today. And this is inherently what’s wrong with my blog I’m sure. I make things up as I go along. This was something I was justifying to my friend Courtenay […]
Why I Devote 4:30 AM to 10:30 AM Mon-Friday To Learning + Reading?
Reading Time: 7 minutesSo, right now the time is: I’m not sure how long this post will end up being as I’ve just spent a solid hour or so continuing a different blog post about my hair transplant lol. But I felt motivated to write this up quickly because it outlines why exactly I do what I do. […]
My Daily Musings, Sat 2nd Jan 2021
Reading Time: 6 minutesEvening all, Just wanted to make sure I made a start on this before the end of the day beckons. 2nd day of the New Year, and one of the big components of it in the back of my mind is breaking the 312k-word mark. This is what I managed in 2020 (more or less) […]
My Aspirations for 2021
Reading Time: 7 minutesSo, Here’s the time, this time. And this time it’s another stream of consciousness in planning for 2021 and outlining what my hopes for this coming year are. You know – a lot of people are setting goals for themselves, their businesses and all… And I’m realising I have no interest in setting goals. I […]
Secret Obsessions With Reaction Videos
Reading Time: 6 minutesIt feels good to be writing again! Here’s the time this morning: Here’s how my day is looking: Not too bad – three of those entries are the same – from a webinar I gave this morning. Anyway – I wanted to share with you what I spent the last 15 minutes, and a good […]
Lessons Learnt In Recovering From A Hair Transplant
Reading Time: 6 minutesHey guys, Here’s the time and it’s been exactly 8.5 days since I got my hair transplant. Currently my head it itching like it’s literally got severe eczema or acne or whatever might cause intense itching. In this cause I gets it’s the healing process and the thousands of tiny scabs that I’ve got atop […]
The Ghetto Netflix Productivity Hack I’m Attemping Because of Atomic Habits
Reading Time: 3 minutesHey guys, So I’m waiting for someone to show up for a call and thought I’d take the time to share with you this interesting hack I’m now going to use with my love; Netflix. Full disclaimer this idea is taken from James Clear – Atomic Habits – amazing, amazing book – you absolutely must […]
Thoughts From 30,000 Feet in the Air
Reading Time: 6 minutesHere’s the time now – I’m actually on my way back from Istanbul – on the plane headed back to Heathrow airport and then onto my parents. I met Joe something in Wow Airport who got the same procedure as I did with Longevita. Those guys are crafty buggers – you can see from the […]
The 100km Running Challenge With My Siblings
Reading Time: 4 minutesMorning all, For me at least anyway – I’ve got a Jolt webinar starting in 80 minutes which will last around 75 minutes and I’ve not yet done any preparation for it. Thankfully it’s an area that I know very well – Of course, the challenge is, is that I’ve got to follow a prescribed […]
Insights on How I Get Shit Done
Reading Time: 6 minutesRight, It’s that time again: My first call of the day starts at 8am and now that Lockdown in the UK has ensued – the only journey I made outside was to grab a cup of tea from Gregg’s Check me out – I even managed to look in the camera when I shot this […]
A Look Into My Chaos at Pearl Lemon
Reading Time: 5 minutesHi guys, I’m back at it! Here’s the calendar/time right now and I’m on a 35% battery so plenty as according to my last run out. It’s 10.52am and I’ve got a F2F meeting at the Vistajet offices in around an hour from now so will start making my way in around 30 minutes or […]
How I’ve Changed My Eating Dramatically Over the Last 9 Months
Reading Time: 6 minutesI’ve always been massively into fitness. What I mean by that is the marathons, ultramarathons, and more that I’ve done. Right now at aged 33 – I’m probably living the most sedentary lifestyle I have lived in many years – and I’m training 3x a week to move into amateur boxing. However, I want to […]
How to Become a TEDx Speaker?
Reading Time: 16 minutesIn this blog post, I’m going to take you through the EXACT process I underwent that led me to become a TEDx speaker. First of all, let’s discuss: What TED And TEDx Talks Are For those of you who aren’t familiar with Ted – it’s a not-for-profit organization that leads with the idea of sharing […]