This blog is about something I have in my mind—situations that have been disturbing my flow.
Over time, everyone develops motivation, resolutions, everyday routines. I'm doing it, and whoever is reading this might have an everyday ritual too. The intentions behind all such things are building our career, our life, our inner peace—whatever it is. Everything is on the positive side. It's not followed to destruct anything. Whatever habits or daily things or intentions we have, they're meant to completely construct our life, career, peace, and well-being. And obviously, it might help others as well.
Most of the time, people don't understand this intention.
The Outer Circle: Critics and Judgments
Let's look at it from different circles. People in our very outer circle—we know them, but we don't have a personal connection. We talk to them through different channels, maybe a professional connection. Sometimes their judgments or their critics might just halt us.
People ask me things like: "Why are you writing this? It doesn't make sense." Or "You're wasting time." Or "It's not good." Or "It's not helping them personally."
Such comments might harm. We might need to take only the positive side—if we're not conveying it properly or if we're completely off about something, okay, that's fine. But if it's gaslighting, sometimes in the past I've felt it completely diverts me, distracts me. It halts our motion. "Oh, they told that. Is it wrong?" And that thought comes every time we write. "What will he think?"
I was reading a book, and over time I found myself thinking: let them criticize. Let them have their bad judgments. It's completely fine.
There are two aspects, as I mentioned in previous blogs. One is the DNA we develop—the thought process over time, how we understand problems, how we think, how we see this ecosystem, what our intentions are. These are completely different from others' intentions and motives. They need not always align.
Most of the time, people expect us to be interview-ready, or they expect us to meet the objectives of a collective narration. If you're writing on LinkedIn or Twitter, most people expect it to be for interviews or tutorials. But it need not be that. A lot of people are doing that already, and some of it is very redundant.
It's always good to share unique perspectives and unique efforts—that's what I feel. It might be bad, it might be wrong, but this is my current opinion. When somebody badly influences us, they're disturbing and distracting our flow.
We have to let them go. We have to go away from them. As long as we reduce conversations with them, it's very good. Otherwise, they'll keep hindering our thought process and flow.
Personal Connections: The Bandwidth Problem
The second aspect is from personal connections. Sometimes your mind is always occupied with motivation or thought. Today I have to run some code. Today I have to build something. I have a project idea. I have to learn or read something. I have a blog to complete. I was reading a couple of chapters on machine learning architecture.
This keeps running in your mind. Sometimes that actually reduces the bandwidth with people. A lot of your cognitive bandwidth is being spent on this particular mission—learn, read, work on code, deploy something. Your objective is very big.
They might be doing the same, but their objective is very seasonal. If they're not looking for a job, they don't do it. If they're not looking for something, they don't write on LinkedIn. If they don't read a book, they won't talk about it. It's seasonal behavior and seasonal characteristics.
Sometimes they feel, "Oh, I need a job," so they start talking about what questions to prepare, what industries are working on, what projects to build. But you or me—we're doing it all the time, every day showing up. What can we learn? What can we do today to move forward? Because it's not to get a job. It's to do something else—building a company, getting a better opportunity, not just some interview but getting into frontier labs, bigger companies, bigger roles.
Here everything is big. There, it's more like surviving the game itself.
Sometimes these two bandwidths or mindsets may not go along. We feel like, "Oh, you're not spending time," or there are issues in understanding situations. There's nothing wrong on any side, but the motives we have define our day-to-day behavior.
When our motives are big—we want to achieve big, win big, build companies, build better projects, learn something interesting—our behavior will always be channelized that side. The conversations will always be channelized that way. If the other person is not inclined towards that, if they're seasonal or only interested in the subject intermittently, you may not find that connection.
The Speed Mismatch
Sometimes these conversations create a bit of insecurity. In Columbia, in the beginning, we had a lot of conversations within our batch. A few people, one or two guys, used to talk to me on an everyday basis. Over time, the conversations evolved, but they couldn't cope up.
One of my seniors told me: when they're not able to come along with you, when they're not able to make conversations or do projects with you, don't worry—the speed is mismatching.
Even I'm not able to match the speed of some other people, like PhD students. They have very high speed, very pinpointed focus on something else. And I may not be able to go with the speed of undergrad students who are obsessed with finance or building fancy cracked products.
We're all different distributions trying to match. I keep thinking about it—people are going away from us, people are getting disappointed with our everyday things. That will obviously happen because the journey itself won't be on the same road. Sometimes the roads may not even cross paths.
It's a multi-dimensional chess. We won't be able to see multiple things—where our friends are, where our competitors are. We shouldn't let these relationships disturb the thing. We have to maintain it in a way that we express it: "This is what's happening. We'll find the right time—lunch breaks, meetups." It may not be as frequent as the older days. That's there.
Health and Family: The Foundation
All the while, we were talking about individuals and how we deal with the environment. But we also need to see how we deal with ourselves in terms of health and family.
Sometimes I get a flu. The flu makes me tired, my brain goes dead. That might hinder two or three days of process. "The last three days we didn't do anything—didn't read, didn't code, didn't learn, didn't even talk to anybody." We're just locked in a room.
We cannot avoid that. What we can do is avoid silly health issues—indigestion, allergies, getting hurt. To keep our energy brisk, we have to be active. I have to walk, I have to move my body. That's completely needed.
When we're moving the body—walking, roaming the city—the body is doing its work by default, autopilot mode. The body is active, and you're not spending consciousness on it. You're walking, running, going somewhere by default. Meanwhile, your brain can slowly digest what you learned, your thoughts, plans, preparations.
But if we're bedridden, the body is not active. When we're bedridden, we won't be thinking either. We'll just be scrolling Instagram. That's tied up with mental and physical health.
Family: The Variables That Matter
Another aspect is family—they have to be happy. I talk to my mom every day through video call. I talk to Leo, my sister's son. I watch him playing around. It's a very good relaxation session. They're happy, and I'm trying my best to make them happy.
I gifted my sister an OTG oven for baking. She's also exploring her capacities, what she can do, what she can build. Me and my sister are both trying to build our own ventures. I want to build my company, trying to find my forte. My sister has had this long-pending dream. I gifted her the OTG. I want to see her, and she's very interested in starting a baking or cafe kind of thing—maybe down the line in two years, once she's learned things perfectly, somewhere around Chennai or Bangalore.
My mom is quite happy. She's still coping with her health conditions. I always tell her: don't eat too much rice, don't eat too much carbs. That's degrading quality of life on an everyday basis. Sugar, diabetic conditions—our family has a history of diabetes. We have to stay away from carbs and starch.
Being in New York, my rice intake is very less compared to Bangalore. In Bangalore, every day I used to find happiness with curd rice, biryani, full meals at Nagarjuna—all starch content. Now here, weekly twice or thrice only I'm taking rice. Other times it's purely chicken, sometimes falafel, salad, avocado toast. I'm making it scattered and diverse. I need to make it more protein and fiber focused.
I'm closely watching my family's happiness. I'm planning to get a pure silk Kanjivaram saree—after coming to New York, I've gifted my mom six or seven sarees, different fabrics. One thing is pending: the pure silk Kanjivaram. I'll gift it to her on her birthday. I have to earn for that.
My family's happiness—my mom's happiness, my sister being able to do things, Leo growing every day—these three people are quite important in my life. My dad, brother-in-law, aunt, and others are there too, but they'll be able to tackle things. It's like in optimization: if you take care of a few key variables, other things will be able to manage and settle. Mom, sister, Leo—this lineage, and obviously my grandmothers. As long as they're happy and cared for—they deserve to see my growth, they deserve to be in a good life and atmosphere.
Comparing last year 2024 and now, I can see how the happiness and well-being is grounded in family. They're quite happy with my US venture.
Contributing Beyond Family
I used to tell my friends: once I start earning, I'll contribute more to my village. Till last year 2025, I've been contributing to my school where I studied from 6th to 12th. I'm giving prize money to the toppers. Over time, I'll increase it.
One might wonder: why do I need to earn more or build companies or do all these things? People might judge: "Oh, you want to earn more, earn more." But obviously, that gives a lot of things. Taking care of my health keeps me running, keeps me alive more days considering my past. Obviously family. And contributing to the ecosystem where I feel I belong—my village, the data science community. I'm supporting people from different backgrounds who want to build and grow. I want how I grew to happen with others also.
The Evolution of Prabakaran
When we have such bigger dreams and aspirations, the relationship with people, how we deal with health, how we deal with family happiness, our focus, our mental well-being—all of this becomes very important.
I'm quite happy that my friends are supporting me—Abhinandan, Valiyappan, and my F of 21 people. They understand this. They always motivate me: "Start your company. That's your destiny." Many people see that potential in me, and I'm also feeling it.
Sometimes we wonder: why are you talking about yourself? But who will talk about the evolution of Prabakaran? There is something. From 2019 to 2026, how the thought, how the capability, how the well-being has evolved over time is very important. It gives the flow.
That's why: do not let others disturb your flow. This is very important.
External Validation: Only for Materialistic Things
External validation is needed only in materialistic terms, not in terms of thought process or beliefs. For example, if you're building a company and getting revenue, you might need validation or need to learn something to adjust. Or if you're gaining weight, not looking good, not dressing well—these materialistic things need to be validated against some culture or trend so we keep upgrading.
If we write something or work on some commodity, then to improve quality we need comparisons. But the thought or belief system is very hard to compare against others' belief systems.
How we can develop it is by exploring ourselves—reading books, learning theories from scientists and big brains. Not like, "Oh, this guy is very chill, so I have to be chill." Or "This guy is focused on interviews, so I have to focus on interviews." Or "He's fearful about the next job, so I should also be fearful."
I don't think we need to worry about that.
Protect your flow.