NAVAL in my closet
Updated: Feb 13
The world is going digital. A zero waste earth we've got to create and yet I ended up scribbling in 36 by 18 inch of paper , upcycled from a sticker black -board leftover. A sustainable advocate that I am.
I scratched up a plan , where I wanted to go. A nostalgic moment flashed my eyes , " "If you plan to Goa from your said destination , you need to define your destination , analyse a safe & sound route to reach your destination, " my production head said while we were planning on a producing accessories for a season back in 2015.
The plan cried a huge difference of what I wanted to be , and where I was.The scribble framed my mind with a sub-concious thought , to reach plan A , It swung a rope from home to the destination.Everything on paper.
Every now and then I fed myself into the thinking what can be that one thing I knew , that I could do , and that cannot be trained to replace me. Naval whispered into my ears , late at night when I looked at the blank night sky gushing out air in the room. The ceiling stayed silent and the mind drummed with questions . A whirlpool of what if's knocked me out of my sleep , Naval sat in my closet.
I got introduced to Naval through my brother's bookshelf. Sleepy as I felt thanks to the covid recovery pills and the aftermath of the traumatic experience I went through , all I heard was to keep my body sane and my mind quiet. I brushed through the Almanak , wondering what it might be. Twitter came as an easy option. Easier to browse , enough to not make you sleep. Short & Crisp. A rough skim over the account introduced me to another writing style - Twitter threads. Let's keep that for another day.

I drifted to sleep after some time. And there I played with the word " Specific Knowledge". It sprung from a nowhere-land into the mystery solving puzzle of what path shall I take to the place I want to reach. What is it that cannot be taught ? What makes me unique in my own way , something no one can take away from me.
Mr. Theil , a German-American billionaire entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist.[1][2][3][4] A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, Founders Fund , the author of Zero to One said in one of the podcasts to Tim
ZERO TO ONE EVERY MOMENT IN BUSINESS happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them.”
Often we think of copying someone else's style and doing things as it has been already done.As a business entity , a manufacturer needs a sample to make the product as it is while a Designer looks around , stares wide-eyed into what others would feel like a blank sapce and ideates a product out of nowhere. Ever business has it's own set of rules to follow. One answer might not fit all.
The question is , if you are one from the startup revolution too , are you doing something that has already been done? Are you re-creating a formula that is out there in the world and you are repeating an nth version of it , or are you diving deep into the realm of your own potential and hunting for the treasure no-one else has found yet?
What makes you unique in the crowd of millions will make your business different . It's funny that it has been widely stated that your idea may already be taken , while you think it's an original idea. More specifically also said , it isn't the idea that makes the startup work , it is the execution. The better you execute , in an irreplacable manner the more you'll be happy not being the 3rd or the 4th or the person standing at the end of the assemply line bcoming a part that can be replaced with another person with same eligibility.
It's just not being unique , it's beyond that. Probably a combination of a couple of things you naturally connect yourself to , coupled with 1-2 ingredients that blends with the recipy of making you incredibly good at something that the combination cannot be made or replaced else where.
What makes your Specific Knowledge , ever wondered ?
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