Rakesh Menon's Linkedin Analytics

Imagine walking into a room surrounded by mirrors. Each mirror doesn’t show your face, but a version of you as seen by someone else. Your boss sees the ambitious performer. Your friend sees the supportive listener. A stranger on the internet sees a filtered photo and a clever caption. And then, in one corner, your younger self watches, still full of hope, confusion, and questions. You turn around, looking from mirror to mirror, and the question quietly creeps in: Which version of me is real? We all live inside this room in some way. We carry versions of ourselves shaped by other people’s eyes. By compliments we clung to. By criticisms that stayed longer than they should’ve. By expectations, we never paused to question. And the more mirrors we collect, the heavier it gets. That’s when something cracks, not the mirrors, but your belief in them. You start seeing that these reflections are not you but ideas about you. Ideas born out of circumstances, opinions, moments in time. And most importantly, they are just thoughts. This realisation doesn’t arrive like a lightning strike. It doesn’t turn life into a motivational montage with background music. Instead, it shows up quietly. Like a whisper when you’re sitting alone, or a pause in the middle of a chaotic day. It’s not about smashing the mirrors. That would be denial. It’s about learning to stand in the room without flinching. To look at each reflection and say: "This is not who I am. This is what someone else sees." And then, to go a step deeper, "This too, is created in my own mind." Because even their opinions are filtered through your interpretations. A friend forgetting to call back becomes, “I’m not important.” A boss’s rushed tone becomes, “They’re unhappy with me.” But these are our own projections, not facts. So, what do you do? You don’t run. You watch. You breathe. You notice which mirrors you give too much power to. You gently ask: Do I really need to carry this version anymore? The freedom doesn’t lie in finding your "true self" in one of those reflections. It lies in realising that none of them are the whole you. You are the person watching the mirrors. The one who can choose which reflection to take lightly, which one to learn from, and which to let go of.

We’re smaller than we think, both in time and in truth. Earlier this week, I caught myself spiralling into a familiar loop, overthinking a decision I had already made. My mind was loud. Every thought felt like a warning, a doubt, a second guess. Then a quiet question surfaced: “What if all of this… is just a thought?” And just like that, the noise started to fade. It made me reflect — In the grand timeline of the universe, our existence doesn’t even register. Yet within this flicker of time, we build massive constructs—identities, fears, ambitions. But most of them? They’re just stories we’ve told ourselves. Not facts. Not truth. Just thoughts. And if it’s just a thought, maybe it can be rethought. The illusion isn’t that we suffer—it’s that we assume the suffering is fixed. What if it isn’t?

Have you ever felt off during a time when everything was supposed to feel right? That’s been me lately. New chapter A role I’ve worked years for External wins lining up But inside? Foggy. Restless. Like I’m outgrowing something I can’t name. It’s the feeling of saying yes to a future you want… While quietly grieving the version of you that fought to get here. Like waking up one day and realising: Your old routines don’t excite you Conversations feel a bit emptier The "next goal" isn’t hitting like it used to... That’s when I stumbled back into Spiral Dynamics—a model of how our inner world evolves. It describes this exact phase. Not burnout. Not failure. But a transition between identities. You’re not stuck. You’re shifting. From striving to questioning. From control to clarity. From doing to being. And that shift is disorienting. But also sacred. If you’re here too, give yourself space. Growth doesn’t always look like progress. Sometimes it looks like stillness.

I sat on a Sunday morning asking myself, "What is the goal?" Not a title. Not a number. This felt closer to the truth. Sharing my personal compass, not for ambition, but alignment. What will be in your compass?

We think we’re in control. Most of the time, we’re just lucky and too scared to admit it. We like to think we’re being logical. We like to say we’ve “thought it through.” But if we’re being honest, Most times, the decision came first. The mind just built the logic later, to make it look clean. To make it feel earned. I’ve done it too. Made a call. It worked out. Felt smart. Built a whole story around how it was my clarity, my reading of the situation. Later, if I look closer, It wasn’t strategy. It was timing. Or luck. Or both. But the mind doesn’t like loose ends. So it writes the next story: "Now I’ve figured it out." "Now I see clearly." Truth is We overestimate our control. We downplay the randomness. We package it up and call it “planning” when it clicks. The harder thing is to just notice. Notice when the mind rushes to explain. Notice when we grab at certainty. Notice the stories we tell ourselves to feel safe. Because sometimes, all it takes is a small pause, to realise the story you're living...might not be the truth.

A sum up of last week's thoughts and ideas.

When people call out your differences. It's rarely about you. It's about what they are not able to sound out loud.

You are not your thoughts, you are the one watching.

We often confuse control with freedom. But real freedom isn’t about control. It’s about recognising what’s beyond us and being okay with it. Letting go isn’t a failure. It’s intelligence. Read the full piece here:

Distraction isn’t the real enemy. Escape is. Every time I sit down to think, write, or reflect, there’s a moment. A small, almost invisible itch. An emptiness. A friction. A whisper: “Do something else.” And without even realising it, my hand reaches for the phone. Not because I’m bored. Not because I’m curious. But because my mind wants an exit. It doesn’t like discomfort. It doesn’t like uncertainty. It craves noise over silence. Email. A search. A scroll. Anything to avoid being with the uncomfortable. And in that tiny exit, I lose more than just time. I lose the clarity I almost had. The insight that needed five more minutes. The idea that was forming. This happens everywhere In conversations. In work. In creative flow. Even in stillness. We’ve forgotten how to sit with ourselves. A single hour of uninterrupted thinking now feels like a luxury. But maybe it’s the luxury we need the most. Because distraction doesn’t just steal minutes. It steals truth. It weakens our ability to think. To see clearly. To know ourselves. And I wonder What happens to a generation that escapes before it reflects? That reacts before it reasons? We lose our depth. We lose our edge. We lose our mind. Maybe the real skill today isn’t speed. Or even knowledge. Maybe it’s the ability to stay. To sit with discomfort a little longer. Because just on the other side of that discomfort, is the clarity we’re all searching for.

I recently asked myself a question Friedrich Nietzsche posed over a century ago “What if a demon were to say to you, This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more..." If you were to live your life on repeat, again and again, for eternity, which parts would you carry forward without hesitation? And which would you desperately wish to discard? My first instinct was to list everything I’d change. All the time I spent rushing toward goals that never felt like arrivals All the ways I tried to win approval from people who didn’t know my full story All the moments I missed being in life because I was too busy trying to get somewhere All the wanting. The endless wanting. But when I sat with the question longer, something more subtle emerged. There are parts of me, undeniable, grounding parts, I wouldn’t change. Not even if given infinite chances. Not the silent pull I feel when I write. Not the weight of stillness after a good workout or a deep conversation. Not the feeling of walking through the world as me, with all the quiet thoughts, contradictions, and longings that shape my inner landscape This reminded me of philosopher Thomas Nagel’s thought experiment: “What is it like to be a bat?” Nagel argued that even if we understood everything about a bat’s biology, we could never truly know what it feels like to be a bat, from the inside. There is something impossibly subjective about experience. In the same way, there is something it feels like to be me. And that feeling… that persistent “I am-ness”— I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Even if the content of my life changed a hundred times over, that essence is the part I will keep. When I think of death, I don’t just fear the loss of people, time, or opportunities. I realise the part I will miss most is this particular experience of being myself. And yet, paradoxically, I’ll never be around to miss it. Such is the permanence of disappearance. The urge to be me doesn’t come from ego. It doesn’t come from achievements or from what others reflect back. It’s deeper. Quieter. Like a hum behind the noise. It’s the same hum that made me pause at Nietzsche’s question.

The Unexpected Philosophy of an Ice Cream Cone - We get so caught up in the chase. The daily transit. The performance. The weight of becoming someone. Somewhere in that rush, we forget the simple joys of quietly sitting by the roadside—like an ice cream stand on a hot afternoon. Yesterday, after lunch, I had this strange but honest craving for ice cream. Not the “it’s summer, let’s cool off” type—this was deeper, like a call from childhood. So I walked down, bought one, and ate it without a care for the world. And in that small, silly moment, I felt genuinely happy. Not just because of the heat. But because of everything that ice cream represented. It reminded me of my childhood walks after school. Of messy faces and sticky fingers. Of a time when joy didn’t need planning or permission. A friend who saw me said with a smile, “Aren’t you living the time of your life? Eating what you want, doing what you want.” And it struck me. Two realisations, sharp and sudden. First, how wildly different others’ perceptions of our lives are compared to how we experience them ourselves. And second, how rare and precious it is to actually live life the way we want. We forget that life is finite. And in that finite space, we spend so much of it watching others, measuring our steps, playing roles. We look at someone else’s “ice cream”—their joy, their freedom—and think, That must be sweet. I wish I had that. But sometimes, all it takes is to stop. Listen to that quiet craving inside you. Buy the damn ice cream. And remember: you’re allowed to enjoy life while you’re living it. Not after you’ve figured it all out. P.S. - This post is not about eating ice cream.

The moment that reminds me I’m here. Every morning, there’s this tiny ritual. I reach for coffee. Sounds basic, a warm drink, a caffeine hit, a routine. But somewhere along the way, I realised it’s not about the drink. It’s about the shift. The moment the mug touches my hand, something in me settles. I’m not just awake. I’m aware. Because here’s the thing: I’ve always chased clarity. Not the kind that solves problems or gives you a perfect plan. But the kind that helps you see yourself, before the day starts pulling you in different directions. And strangely, coffee became my anchor. A pause. A pocket of presence. It’s not about fixing the mind. Not about having a quiet head or a calm to-do list. It’s just about contact. With the moment. With breath. With now. That first sip reminds me, I don’t need everything figured out to feel grounded. I don’t need silence to feel still. I just need to notice: Where I am. What I feel. And what I need to let go of. That’s the real ritual. Coffee’s just the doorway. Maybe you have your own version. A small habit. A rhythm. A cue. Next time you reach for it — pause for a second. Ask yourself: What part of me is this really feeding? Sometimes, that question alone…is the most honest moment of the day.

There are two sides to me. One sits in a room — reads, writes, thinks. The quiet one who has every part of his life played out in his head. Who knows what to say, how to act, how to lead. He imagines how he’ll show up in meetings, with friends, in new spaces. Everything feels clear in that space. And then there’s the other side, the one that steps outside. Into the mess. Into people and noise and unpredictability. And more often than not, he does the exact opposite of what was planned. He’s loud. Emotional. A bit reckless. He reacts instead of responds. I’ve always liked the first version more. There’s order there. Calm. A sense of control. But I’ve slowly started seeing the value of the second too. Because the first one prepares. But the second one lives. The world outside doesn’t follow the script I write in my room. People have their own intent. Things happen without warning. And maybe that’s the point. One version of me trains. The other steps into the ring. Some days, I come back with a win. Some days with bruises. But both versions are me. And both are needed. We’re not meant to be one version of ourselves. We’re a mix — the thinker and the doer. One creates clarity. The other creates growth. We only evolve when both versions are in conversation. The one that reflects, and the one that gets thrown into the deep end. Growth comes from this loop, awareness of our patterns, action despite the mess, and acceptance that we’ll always be a bit of both.