Your NameShikhar Agarwal
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Cohort AssignmentHybrid In-Person/Online with Intensive in Lisbon, Winter-Spring 2025
1. What do you see as your primary work at this stage of your life?

My primary work at this stage of my life is to become financially, locationally and professionally secure. I am emerging from a few years of heavy uncertainty and instability, and there is a strong need for me to shore up my adulting basics.
On the other hand, my primary work is also the co-creation of the Prisma regenerative business that I am undertaking with other TRP graduates.
And on a third note, my primary work is to become well versed with understanding the financial system and how it is transitioning towards a decentralized, blockchain based operationality.

2. What role do you see as yours to play?

My role, in general, is always that of being the person who can see and balance multiple streams of consciousness, diverse perspectives, realms of knowledge and synthesize them to yield insights and ways forward. I am the person who is able to keep track of the pulse of the group trajectory and keeps grounding the group back in tangible actionables.

Additionally, I see my role as that of someone who can bridge the realms of social science and technology, of non-profit and for-profit approaches to solving business needs, of the need to be regenerative while also ensuring financial viability.

3. What goals or aims do you have in regard to the above?

The following are my goals:
1. get stable paying job which challenges me to grow
2. become adept at synthesizing and communicating insights in the realms of financial decentralization.
3. learn the technical basics, especially in the realm of AI and blockchain.

4. Where do you feel your next arenas for personal growth are?

I need to become more disciplined in instituting and working on processes and systems for not just my work but my daily life. I can achieve a lot more with my time and skills if I go about executing my personal routines and work regimens in a structured manner.

I also need to upskill myself in a number of adulting areas - financial management, handling my data, nurturing relationships, etc

5. And for professional growth?

I need to pick up more tangible skills - where I can apply a skillset and get demonstrable results. My current skillsets, while very useful, are largely generic and in the realm of writing and relationship building. As mentioned above, data analysis and coding skills are top of the stack.

6. What have you invested in to get you where you are?

I have invested a lot of money, time and belief in following an extremely unconventional path (for my demographic) - which for the most part has not brought me he results I needed. I have sacrificed my need for structure and regimen to work on open ended projects in the realm of systems change that have left me permanently stressed out - unable to see regular outcomes of energy put in. I have sacrificed my need for working with physical teams and on-ground projects to support ambitious global campaigns that have reconfigured how I interact with humans and left me significantly less confident in live human interactions. I have invested in people who talked about high hopes and big dreams, only to be left waiting and scrambling to deliver actual impact.
To be honest, I am not a fan of what I have invested so far.

7. What fields of learning and which thinkers have been important in your life?

I really like Buckminster Fuller, especially the concept of 'trim tabs'. I like Jean Levi Strauss and the theory of structuralism, especially 'bricolage'. Geertz's work on thick description has also been influential, as has Richard Norgaard's work in Ecological Economics.

8. Can you frame your philosophy or cosmology of life? What role(s) do humans play in it?

Life is an infinite stream of consciousness. Humans are the most efficient creatures on Earth that can channel this consciousness through free will. Every single human has their own will and agency that they must use to live out their best version of life, without actively curtailing another's ability to do so. The ultimate purpose of life as embodied through humans is to become whole. The end-game for Earth, from my perspective, is the psycho-spiritual emergence of a collective consciousness - where through cultivating our minds, hearts and senses we are able to tap into the energy fields around us and act in accordance to what the environment needs.

Date CreatedFebruary 27, 2025