February 2023 was my best month yet
February was a great month. I learned something new — both for my body and mind. I made new friends and created lasting memories! Here are my reflections/lessons for the month
- Never stop learning. I learned so much from the coaches at Simple Strong ( a fitness community I joined) and made a lot of progress with my Spanish lessons. It feels great to be engaged and stimulated both mentally and physically.
- Say yes to new experiences. It can either be great or terrible or ok but the lessons that it will teach you will be invaluable. Most of my reflections for this month are from a trip I decided to go on last minute.
- Stay curious. I’m genuinely interested to know about people and look forward to conversations that will teach me new things. Not all conversations are productive and that’s ok but being open and curious is a great way to get to know someone, learn new things or generate new ideas.
- Consistency is key to any habit formation. I never considered myself a morning person — I just assumed waking up early is not my thing. I was up at 5.15 AM during the entire month of February to make it to my 6 AM class at Simple Strong. It’s now become a habit that I hope to keep up with now that I’m back in San Francisco.
- Try something new every month — In February, I tried climbing for the first time, traveled with strangers, immersed myself to a new fitness routine and did some handstand drills! Not everything will stick, but you’ll never know until you find out!
- Show up for the people you care if you’re able to — Adulting is hard and creating time to maintain relationships is not easy. There are different ways to show people you care even if you don’t talk to them everyday. Find something that works for you and your relationship.
This past month has been nothing short of amazing. I saw my best friend get married, celebrated Narayan’s birthday with friends we’ve known for more than half our lives, began Spanish lessons on Zoom, immersed myself in a fitness routine learning from some of the best coaches in the city and travelled to the mountains in the north of India with a bunch of strangers.
I was in Chennai, India to see one of my best buds, Jith, get married and visit my family. The wedding was beautiful. I fought back tears watching him walk down the beach with his gorgeous bride as the sun rose over the sea. The same week, we celebrated Narayan’s birthday with our friends who were in town for the wedding reminiscing the good times we’ve shared together in the city growing up. It’s not often that we’re all in the same place since we live in different parts of the world so this was pretty special.
I wanted to stay active while I was in Chennai so I visited a climbing gym that I’ve seen a few times and discovered Simple Strong — a fitness community focused on mobility, functional fitness and animal flow. It only took me one class to get hooked! The coaches are absolutely rockstars and that’s an understatement. Having been active most of my adult life, I was grateful and humbled to learn to do the fundamental functional movements well.
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A week into my training, I discovered that Simple Strong does fitness retreats periodically and they had one planned to Rishikesh, Uttarkhand at the end of February and had activities planned like white water rafting, kayaking, hiking etc to name a few along with some simple strength training. I greatly enjoy being outdoors so this was right up my alley. Having spent all my adult life in the United States, I had never travelled inside India. I was immediately interested but also apprehensive to travel with people who were essentially strangers. My friend Madhuri Ezhilan told me, “I’m sure you’ll have fun but if you don’t, you’ll at least have a good story to tell!”. I figured that was a good theory and booked my tickets!
Rishikesh was absolutely stunning and the people I travelled with were kind, warm and so fun! I listened and learned so much about most of them in 4 days and I’m so grateful for the time. I met musicians, a venture capitalist, a journalist, doctors, an actor, a photographer, an ex-TV host and businessman to name a few! I’m not sure exactly what it was but when this group got together it was magic — it felt like we’ve known each other for decades. We talked about our lives, our interests, our families and our plans for the future. It’s amazing how much you can learn about someone in a short span of time. They are no longer strangers — we are friends and I hope to get an opportunity to travel with them again on another adventure soon. I greatly enjoyed my conversations with Shiva, Jishnu and Pon Arul. Shiva is a musician and we discovered we like the same kind of music! We talked about everything and anything which was pleasantly surprising given the short amount of time we’ve known each other. I loved listening to Jishnu’s adventures throughout the country and it was truly inspiring. His passion and interest towards fitness and his will to constantly improve and better himself is something I truly appreciate. Pon Arul talked to me about startups, tech and investing and I learned a lot through those conversations.
At Rishikesh, we spent the first night socializing and getting to know everyone and enjoyed some delicious food by a bonfire. The next day, we headed for some white water rafting on the Ganges river over the churning rapids. As our guide yelled “forward” we stabbed our paddles into the river and attempted to remain in sync as the ice cold water splashed all over us. I swam in the river and it was amazing though I couldn’t feel my hands after a while because of the cold! In the evening, we practiced some animal flow followed by dinner by the bonfire. On our second day, we went on a 16K hike scaling a mountain which offered some breath taking views of the Ganges. We stopped in small stores eating Maggi , drinking chai, talked about our lives and the company made the trek so much more easier. It was an exhausting day but we had a great time. On the last day, we had an easy morning and hung out by the pool and in the evening, we headed to a beautiful white sand beach and played some fun games! In the night, we enjoyed some BBQ and rum punch. It was the perfect end to our trip and we headed to the airport the following morning feeling grateful and refreshed.
Thanks for reading! I hope March will be as fun and productive!
