#23 Visakan Veerasamy - Kindness is More Important than Winning

Winning feels great. But kindness feels even better.

Visakan Veerasamy is the Internet's child. I call him that because he jokes that The Internet is his mum. In 2018, he quit his job in software marketing to write full-time. Today, he writes and tweets extensively on a variety of topics, which all converge on recurring themes around friendships, life, love, ambition, and nerdiness.

Having interacted with Visakan before on Twitter, I reached out to him for a conversation after someone responded to my tweet where I asked which two people will enjoy being friends. That person said Visa and I will likely enjoy talking to each other, so here we are.

Visa (as he's known) has a unique take on life and I try to capture all of it in our hour-long conversation.

== What we talk about ==
0:04 - Introduction
1:27 - What does ‘Friendly Ambitious Nerd’ mean?
5:05 - EVERYONE should write their own book
9:57 - Do you think about the words you want to use while writing?
13:38 - Who is your audience? Who are you writing for?
17:45 - The value of friendships
22:58 - How do you maintain the friendships you have or build new ones?
27:58 - How have your friendships helped you personally?
35:04 - Do you nurture your friendships in a specific way or is it a natural process?
46:46 - Being authentic is the best compounding game you want to play
55:25 - Can being friendly and being ambitious go together?
1:01:27 - The feedback loop in friendships
1:10:21 - How do you define taste?
1:17:33 - Have you seen anyone completely changing from being a negative person to a positive one?

== Useful links ==
Visa's book (Friendly Ambitious Nerd): https://visakanv.gumroad.com/l/friendlynerdbook
Visa's homepage: http://visakanv.com/