Vinita Ramtri

𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐗𝐓 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐒 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆

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Hello from !

So I arrived here last night (local time) and having checked into the Hilton West Bay, I made my way to the nearby mall, which is open until midnight. It was great to get a quiet walk in the city at night, something I’d highly recommend, whenever it’s safe to do so.

Naturally then, I woke a bit later, and so my day’s begun from 7.00 am as opposed to 4.30 am.

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I’m sharing this with you not to chronicle my travels, but offer perspective on lifestyles, habits and individuality.

Several times, people watch me wake up at 4.30 am, and say that they wish they’d be able to do that. Others ask what time I go to bed? Some feel frustrated at being unable to do so for various reasons.

But you see, in the life that I lead in London, with grown up children, it suits me to do an early to bed and early to rise routine.

If I were at another place in another time, perhaps I’d discipline myself to another routine, who knows.

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So the only thing for today is that context changes everything.

💁‍♀️ If you’re inspired by someone, and want to be like them, try and see how you can integrate some of the principles as opposed to mirroring every habit per say.

💁‍♀️ This is true of organisations as much as individuals. For example, wanting to expand into , or legacy banks wanting to mirror , just because something works for someone, doesn’t mean that it’ll work for you.

- Study the competition for sure.

- But then finesse your goals in the context of your ecosystem, your resources, your challenges, and then execute thoughtfully.

Take care and be well.

Photo? One from the City Centre Mall in Doha last night.

Look forward to speaking at the 4th MENA Insurtech Summit and the inaugural MENA Fintech Summit on the 11th of May.

The landmark event will gather 1,000+ attendees, 130+ global thought leaders, and 45+ top VC firms under one roof—making Doha the region’s ultimate hub for financial innovation and digital transformation!

As I fly to Doha tomorrow, I’m really looking forward to a few power-packed days, starting with DuneBashing and dinner on Saturday!

Please give me a shout if you’ll be there - and let’s speak.

𝐒𝐀𝐈𝐃 𝐎𝐗𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐀𝐈: 𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐍 𝐌𝐄𝐄𝐓 𝐔𝐏!

Good morning!!

What an absolute pleasure to have organised the London Meet Up for those of us doing an course together!

Given I’ve already convinced so many people to get on it, the course should be paying me, and not the other way round 🤣

Anyway, here are some of my thoughts and musings from the evening!

💁‍♀️ 𝐃𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐏

When I left home to get there, my son saw the name list of people coming, and said, ‘that’s such a diverse group…’

He was so right.

With people from various ages, industries, backgrounds, aspirations, what connected us was that we were keen on learning. I mean there were some of us from financial services and fintechs, some from the health sector, lawyers, regulators, entrepreneurs - you get the idea!

💁‍♀️ 𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄

As such, many of us are constantly consuming content online - some via video, some audio, others are reading, and so on.

But simply because there’s enough content online to get someone through several lifetimes, isn’t reason enough to distant yourself from people.

The tech is great, and I love that it democratises learning, and access to so much else, but people love people - and dogs 🐕 of course 🙂

💁‍♀️ 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐊 𝐘𝐎𝐔

Everyone said, ‘Vinita, thanks for organising,’ but the truth is, every single person present there made a journey to get there. What’s an event without the energy and will to want to be there.

So thank you to all those of you who took the time out of your busy lives to show up!

As I always say, showing up is half the battle!

**

Right, it’s 6 am, and time for me to show up at the gym! 🏋️‍♀️

You have a good day!

PS: I’m flying to Doha tomorrow as I’m speaking at a and event, and more on that later! Follow so you never miss a post.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐓𝐇𝐘 𝐒𝐍𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆

Hey and Happy Wednesday.

Often when we hear the word snacking, we’re thinking food - healthy snacks 🥜 & unhealthy snacks! 🍫

For today though, I want to stretch that concept to other things in life, and as example movement snacking.

Many of us who exercise, think of it was something that needs to be done in longer chunks, such as increasing your heart rate for 20 mins, doing 5K runs, or so on.

But for today, I just want to shed light on the fact that in the same way as we snack on food, we can snack on exercise.

Although longer workouts 🏋️‍♀️ have their place, just as you snack between meals, you can integrate bite size workouts into your day.

While some of us already take the stairs when we can, I’m talking additions like a one minute plank while the kettle boils, or perhaps a few squats and lunges when tou get home from work? 🛌

Have a think.

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If you like the idea, maybe even apply the concept to your wider life:

For example:

🤷‍♀️ Instead of snacking on Instagram, maybe you can snack on the news? 🗞️

🤷‍♀️ Instead of snacking on buying unwanted items on Amazon, maybe you can snack on selling unwanted stuff on Vinted.

What else?

Go on, I’d love to hear your ideas!

Or has reading this made you hungry 🤦🏻‍♀️ and your mind’s saying that it’s time for a snack.

As for the photo, that’s me - the dramatic overthinker, 𝐬𝐧𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠!

𝐌𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒 𝐎𝐍 𝐅𝐀𝐈𝐋𝐔𝐑𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐅𝐔𝐋𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓

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Good morning and Happy Thursday!

For today, I’d like to share with you a chat with one of my coaching clients.

Their Worry?

Well, they have a successful career and a decent life overall.

So what’s the problem?

They feel unfulfilled.

They wake up, pick up the safe things to do. At work. In personal life.

They do it.

It’s working.

It’s successful.

No failures.

No highs.

No lows.

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To be honest, as I’m observing the world go by, I wonder how many seemingly successful people feel similar thoughts?

In my experience, too many.

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The thing here is this.

To succeed is great.

And to move from strength to strength is great too.

Yet, if you haven’t really failed at anything; and I mean really fallen flat on your face, and as they say, had to pick yourself up, and dust yourself off, then I doubt you’ve ever pushed yourself enough.

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I mean no one loves to fail. 🤷‍♀️

It hurts.

But the learning is in that pain.

Every athlete and entrepreneur will tell you that.

For that matter, even ranging trading charts 📈 try to push their resistance levels.

My trainer at the gym too says, if you never have to dial back down, how do you pushed your limit?

And if you didn’t, how will you grow?

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So then, for those of you feeling successful yet unfulfilled, my question to you is this.

Are you pushing yourself enough?

If not, why not?

Are you afraid of failure?

Would you rather feel unfulfilled?

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As for leaders, you must create a culture of psychological safety, and make it okay for people to try things, fail, and learn from it.

Or might you be implying to the team that success is all that matters, and failure is final.

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Drop me a note if you want to chat through it, because true learning is on the other side of failure.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐓𝐈 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐒 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄

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Hey and Happy Sunday.

It’s been quite a day!

🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️🏃

For starters, it was the London Marathon today!

As many of you know, I live in Greenwich, the place where the Marathon begins!

Needless to say, its been super busy around home, and at the local train station - though despite the chaos, it’s a moment of pride to be a resident of this beautiful part of London!

A huge congratulations 🙌 to everyone involved!

🇶🇦

Next up, it was a Sunday morning discussing , as I bounced a few ideas for a keynote I may be doing in (Doha) soon.

So let’s watch this space.

🏋️‍♂️

Following that, was my regular gym session, possibly the most predictable of my engagements today - yet it never gets easier - does it? 🤷‍♀️

🎨 🧑‍🎨

Finally, the Leake Street Arches!

You see, although I live in London, like many others, we’re so busy getting from A to B, optimising down to the precise carriage to position ourselves close to the exits, we seldom enjoy the city!

For today, a friend and I had brunch booked at Draughts, a board game club definitely worth a visit!

Following that, we decided to walk this spectacular tunnel with incredible street art.

Graffiti and street art is not just permitted here, but actively encouragd. As artists work away with the spray cans, this raw, unfiltered street art continues to evolve, and I believe the tunnel looks different every day!

If you feel inclined to give it a walk, the place is called The Graffiti Tunnel, and located just under Waterloo Station.

And for those who want to give it a go at graffiti, you can check out the website and sign up for a workshop, or even book in a corporate workshop for your team!

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So there goes…a little tour of the graffiti within the graffiti of my life.

Spontaneous, expressive, and while we’re at it, making an impact & leaving a mark!

Take care and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐖𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐖𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊

**

Good morning and hope you're having a nice weekend.

I've been up early and rather thank hitting the gym this morning, I'm tucked in my couch studying. As I shared a few weeks ago, I'm doing the Oxford Said AI Course - and as with all other learning in my life, I'll do my best to share.

In one of the discussions today, I was looking into when AI began to become part of our lives. For some, it was the moment when Deep Blue took on Garry Kasparov, and for others, it was something as basic as Amazon's recommendations.

While each of us will have moments very personal to our lives, the thing I want you to think about is the difference between (1) when you experienced AI in action, (2) when you paused to think about how it's all coming together, and (3) when you felt, 'I need to apply this to my own life/business.'

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For example, one of my first experiences with and might have been a point when began shortlisting friends for me. Yet, as a customer enthralled with proposition that enabled me to reconnect with long-lost friends, I was so deeply immersed in the , that I wasn't thinking of the tech that made this possible.

Roll forward to this moment, and I'm so immersed in the how, what, when of the discipline, that using FaceBook for long hours goes into my diary as wasted time.

And it's entirely possible that come next week, I'll be so deeply immersed in applying the technology, that while application will be front and centre, the learning will become the backdrop / iterative process.

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While the above is a really simple example relating to , my point here is a lot broader and extends into all facets of life.

As we go about our lives, we see (experience), several products/services - and as we do so, we choose between various options; such as refusing to engage, choosing to engage, learn, adopt, embed, promote, and so on.

This series of micro-decisions and micro-actions determines who we become.

To summarise, it’s not about what we see, but how we think about what we see, that shapes who we become.

𝐎𝐍 𝐄𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐘 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐉𝐄𝐕𝐎𝐍’𝐒 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐗

**

Hey and my wishes for Good Friday.

For today, I have a thought about efficiency and productivity from my freewheeling brain.

It began somewhat like this.

When showed that it could run (Large Language Models) with less compute power, companies, such as , lost significant market cap as people assumed that ‘efficient’ use meant that if you can do more with less, then you’ll just use less.

Right?

Well not exactly.

While this is true in situations of inelastic price or demand, where these variables are elastic, you can expect the demand for the underlying item to actually go up.

For example, if I get a new washing machine that’s more fuel efficient than my previous one, I won’t start to do more laundry just because it’s more energy efficient.

But if aircrafts became fuel efficient, and flights cost less, people may fly more. ✈️

This is called , as William Stanley Jevons pointed out that the efficient use of fuel tends to increase, and not decrease, its demand.

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So let’s triangulate that with efficiency in our personal lives then.

I sometimes say that the more we do, the more we can do; and people ask, ‘how does that work?’

It’s somewhat correlated to the above.

The way I see this, at a unit of one, when we become more efficient at doing a thing, we don’t just do less, and waste the time that we claw back, but we take on more projects, set loftier goals, and so on.

As we achieve more, we get more confident in our ability to execute efficiently, become more competent, and build on that…

You get the idea.

As example, I woke early and was sorting my personal notes when I found a note about Jevon’s Paradox; which then inspired the thought for this post, and given my writing frequency, I knew I could execute upon it efficiently.

All in all, efficiency is not a linear game, but an intricate web of mysterious multipliers.

Have a nice rest of the day.

𝐎𝐅 𝐌𝐎𝐌𝐌𝐘-𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐃𝐘 𝐉𝐎𝐁𝐒

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Hey and Happy Friday!

What an absolute pleasure to have spent time exchanging thoughts, ideas, and a few laughs, with some absolutely phenomenal women, at the Women in Power event, hosted at the House of Commons last evening.

As women try to make sense of work spaces, and why they’re sometimes side-tracked, while other times, totally unable to keep up with highly demanding jobs while balancing responsibilities at home, here’s two terms to help you put that into perspective.

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𝐌𝐎𝐌𝐌𝐘-𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐉𝐎𝐁𝐒

One on side of this dilemma are mommy-track jobs.

These are jobs when women in the workplace aren’t really given the challenging stuff, but left to sort things like arranging the Diwali 🪔 do, or the next offsite, or maybe take minutes.

Needless to say, these jobs impact women’s careers over the long-term - not because its not okay to organise an offsite, but because you then struggle to see these individuals are strong leaders who make tough decisions, and envision them as followers, coordinators and carers.

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𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐃𝐘 𝐉𝐎𝐁𝐒

One the complete other end of this spectrum, are greedy jobs. As the name suggests, these are high stakes, high reward jobs, that almost mandate you to sacrifice work life balance.

Studies like those of Nobel Prize winner Claudia Goldin, show that these extreme roles can impact women disproportionately, as they somehow need more flexibility to meet responsibilities at home.

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So a quick note for any women trying to make sense of how you go from feeling completely underutilised and feeling like a wallflower, to then feeling totally exhausted and failing at work and home, give this a thought.

Let me know if you can relate.

I certainly can.

Thanks to everyone who put together such a brilliant event, and the women who brought it to life! I look forward to seeing you all again, and rooting for your continued success.

𝐒𝐎 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐃𝐄𝐂𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐃?

**

Morning!

Many of you constantly ask for ways to make better use of time - systems, habits and so on.

While I have several principles and microhabits that keep me on it; it’s difficult for me to document it in a post.

I have sometimes considered converting it into a course or book, but that’s not a priority for me - yet.

For now, I’m focussed on my job hunt because incase you haven’t yet heard, I’m looking for my next challenge. 🤷‍♀️

𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞.

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Speaking of systems and habits, my key point for today is about the brain drain that decision making can be - especially day-to-day decisions, that matter - yet can be sort of automated.

For example:

👖What you’ll wear today?

🏋️‍♀️ Should you go to the gym or not?

🍳 What to have for breakfast?

And let’s not even speak of erratic decisions when we make a decision, only to change our mind again, second guessing ourselves. That’s a double waste of time and not good for your confidence!

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That said, decision making is a key leadership skill and some decisions require significant considered thought.

For example:

🏤 What career do you want?

❤️ How to shape a fulfilling life?

🏖️ Maybe even where should you go for your next holiday? You see, holidays are important and I’m going for a spa break to Buckinghamshire next weekend, and for summer, it’ll be Abu Dhabi.

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Finally, if you’re unsure how to separate decisions that are worth your time from those that you should default to habits, here are some criterion to consider:

❓Is this a recurring theme? I mean are you willing to spend 30 mins daily deciding what to wear and another 30 deciding what to eat? 🤦🏻‍♀️

❓Will this decision matter in the long-term?

❓Is it reversible, and if so, at what cost? The recent discussion on Tariffs💰comes to mind.

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Life is a sum total of decisions we make - and deciding which decisions are worth your time is in itself a key decision.