Why I decided to go the SubStack way

Resisting the allure of the AI and social media cocktail

I had been hearing about Substack for a while, but never got to explore it. Two days back, something hit me that made me start this. I was attending a cultural event within my condominium where I ran into many people I know. At the back of my mind, I was thinking about how to meet my daily step count target.

Finally, the event performances culminated, and I decided to cheer for everyone and even walked up to the performers to give them my best wishes.

Then there wasn’t much planned by the organizers, so just as a filler, they started playing folk music at high decibel levels. Instead of walking away from the event, I decided to use this very event to meet my 10K step count. I gathered a few of my friends and convinced them, like Tom Sawyer, that it was a great idea to dance to the music and enjoy the last leg of the festive season together as a community.

Slowly, a bunch of my friends and people I know from my gym, drama society, badminton group, as well as my Buddhist circle came together and joined in. As the group dance picked up momentum and my step count counter raced, I felt compelled to introduce people to each other who were meeting for the first time in the chunky dancing circle we had formed.

This is when it happened. Not once, but twice. My brain just refused to recall the name of one of the two people I was introducing to each other. And I stopped my efforts to make the introduction mid-sentence twice over, on two separate occasions.

While I didn’t let this strange occurrence deter me from meeting my step count for the day, the next day I laughed about it with a friend over a walk. And then it began to bother me. Why is my memory or brain becoming weak? Could it be over-reliance on AI tools over the last one year? Too much dopamine through social media and OTT content?

It’s the beginning of January, and some of my U.S. clients are yet to start off their new year projects. I have some spare time on my hands. Instead of becoming a mindless consumer of AI and social media, I’ve decided to use these tools mindfully and keep my brain ahead of the curve.

I’ve decided to use AI and social media as tools to boost my brain performance, as a coach, and not as a crutch that makes my brain weaker.

So this Substack is my attempt to stay connected to my real voice while trying to make sense of what is happening in the world of AI and social media. I’m excited to create here daily and follow the 1 percent daily improvement rule to make 2026 the most memorable year till date, one step at a time.