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On a busy afternoon, Suresh Sadagopan of Ladder7 Advisories allowed us a sneak peak into his daily routine. The conversation introduced us to his life mantra ‘Simple living and high thinking’ and also to his personal side which pays attention to household chores.
Here is how Suresh normally spends his day.
After waking up at around 7:30 am, I kick start my day with some simple back exercises to strengthen my back and sit comfortably through long working hours. Thereafter, I sip a glass of turmeric water, arrange household stuff and water plants. Turmeric water acts as a natural immunity booster, doing household chores is my modest contribution to family tasks and caring for plants satisfies me. Meanwhile, my wife prepares coffee, which I peacefully enjoy post the routine chores.
After this I read news online, take a shower, get ready for work and have breakfast. Upma and dosa are my favourite delicacies but I also have idli, muesli or fruits.
At 10 am, I leave for work. My office is situated at Belapur, Navi Mumbai, which is 23 km away from my home in Chembur. Less traffic, smooth roads and FM radio make this 40-45 min drive enjoyable. However, I still favour train travel as it allows reading while commuting.
On reaching office, I first have a glass of water and then sit down with my team for tea and some casual conversation. Such informal dialogues create friendly work environment.
As my team gets back to work, my senior advisor briefs me about the scheduled deliverables and team activities. We also engage in client-specific discussions. I largely play a strategic role and devise manpower, marketing and other strategies. I handhold and train my squad to ensure speedy and quality client servicing. For this, I keep sharing with them educational content and I also conduct a couple of training sessions every week.
Later, at 2:00 pm I enjoy home-cooked lunch like sabzi-chappati, dal-chappati, idli-chutney or idli-sambhar. However, when I am at home, I seldom touch chappati and have only rice with sambhar or rasam, one sabzi and curd or buttermilk.
Meetings with RIA Associations, media interactions, TV/online appearances also form a part of my daily schedule.
By around 7:30 pm, I call it a day and drive back home. After a quick shower, I sit down to dine. At around 9:00 pm, I read or watch some educational content. In between, I talk to my wife and son to enquire about their day.
Finally, by 11:30 pm, I retire to bed.
My team rotates and works on alternate Saturdays. But, I work six days a week. Maybe you can call me a workaholic but I thoroughly enjoy my work as it never seems like work. This is a strong sign that I am doing what I really love.
On Sundays, I prefer staying at home. It rejuvenates me. Cleaning, rearranging shelves, loosening plant soil, watching action/thriller/romedy movies and listening to music shape up my day. Besides, I also land up reading more on Sundays. I read various genres - self-help, economics, historical, spiritual, etc. Recently, I purchased seven books. I intend to complete at least 40 books by the end of this financial year.
Our conversation with Suresh took us closer to a variety of home plants, different books, and music artists. We have listed a few of these here, which you might also like to consider.
Do you have any other recommendations to add? Do let us know by the way of the comment section below.
