People love to blame dopamine and overstimulation.
100 years ago people blamed books now its TikTok/ X.
I get it. Losing focus is the real fear. I’m all in on singular focus myself.
But too much novelty is not the enemy, it’s actually the prime ingredient.
My inner world has a management team. I thought I was the CEO - turns out, I’m not
It’s been 40 days since I attended a Jhana retreat with amazing humans of Jhourney.io and I still haven’t found the perfect word to describe what happened.
If Vipassana was like learning to walk again, Jhana was like riding a bike with training wheels, then realizing one day you don’t need them anymore.
Before this retreat, I used to do Vipassana meditation. Vipassana taught me how to accept reality as it is. Jhana, on the other hand, was an invitation to go deeper, an altered state where I could change my perception of reality.
Walking out of a steam room (130°F) as if nothing happened.
Over the past few months, I’ve had the privilege to speak with students at IIT Delhi, IIT Roorkee, IIT Madras and many others. They invited me to share my founder journey with the upcoming aspiring founders. But instead of a typical presentation, I walked in with memes.
Every slide was a mirror of my own journey, of what broke me, what shaped me, and what I wish someone had told me earlier.
No jargon. No filters. From PMF highs to lows and burnouts to breakthroughs.
Here’s a glimpse to what it takes to be a founder.
I had to unlearn my perception of China. The people, the culture, the clarity with which they operate. The amount of protein they have in their diets, haha! What struck me most was how self-sufficient, and meritocratic the environment felt. I came in curious, I left humbled. This wasn’t just a trip, it was a privilege. An eye-opener.
I wrote a long tweet sharing my observations from the experience.
I survived 21 days in China, as a newbie with no Mandarin skills. The country's heartbeat is efficiency, and the warmth of its people left a lasting impression on me.
— Kush Taneja (@iamkushtaneja) March 13, 2025
🧵 Here are 21 observations that I didn't know before pic.twitter.com/om5EjGIyAY
I had to find a new way to feel alive.
Running didn’t just heal my body. It gave me rhythm, pain I chose, and mornings I wanted to wake up for.
I initially used to think running is boring. How is constantly doing the same thing fun and that too at the same location and I saw most of the people running in circles 😂
This isn’t a fitness story. It’s about chasing freedom through pain and finding clarity in motion.
I wrote a tweet about it and to my surprise, many people found it golden.
It took me 2 years to do a half marathon (21k) under 2 hours. I began with walking and couldn’t run even 0.1k 🫠
— Kush Taneja (@iamkushtaneja) January 8, 2025
Here’s what worked out and what didn’t🧵 pic.twitter.com/anYx6lAmPS
I finally did something I’d been putting off for years, my first Vipassana retreat.
10 days. No talking, no phone, no writing, no reading. Just observing my breath, my body, and my mind - moment to moment. Most importantly an open mind.
I went in with 3 expectations:
Time to think, reflect, and nurture my intuition
Rebuild my attention span
Test my limits through a tough challenge
