Lauren and I have been re-watching Breaking Bad.

Amidst the meth labs and money laundering, one of the more unusual things I love about the show is all the funky nicknames.

There’s “Hank the Tank”, “Skinny Pete”, “Mad Dog Tuco”, “Crazy-8”, “Badger”, “Captain Cook” and of course “Heisenberg” himself.

All these nicknames got me thinking about nicknames we had at school.

They weren’t quite as snappy and sinister as the nicknames in Breaking Bad, but they still packed a punch.

My history teacher one year was known as “Curly Bill”. One of the religious studies teachers was “Holy Joe”. Mr Arscott was another RS teacher who earned a creative nickname (I’ll leave that one to your imagination).

The schoolkids weren’t let off the hook either when it came to nicknames.

Thus my nickname during Years 7 and 8:

Mahatma Grundy

While it was nice to be mentioned in the same breath as the barefoot sage himself, I don’t think I can still lay claim to this nickname. I’ve put on too many pounds, own too many books and I enjoy a tipple too much to be compared to a skinny, minimalist teetotaller like Gandhi.

As it happens though, I’ve got a better nickname in mind.

This new nickname was prompted by a newsletter subscriber (hi Jai!) who was chatting with my sister (yes, Jai is a big friend of the Grundy family).

And the context here is that my sister is currently travelling the eight-fold path.

After 10+ years of studying, meditating, teaching and silent retreats, she’s a lotus petal away from being ordained as a bona fide Buddhist.

That must’ve been the topic of conversation between Jai and my sis.

Hence Jai’s comment to my sister which was relayed to me after:

“Tom is probably the most Buddhist non-Buddhist I’ve ever met”

I’d say that’s close to the mark.

After all, the Buddhists and I might be taking a different path up the mountain, but it’s still the same mountain.

All roads lead to ohm, so to speak.

This is what prompted a new nickname to float into my head a couple of days ago:

The Buddha of Banking

Not exactly The Wolf of Wall Street, but it has a certain charm to it, don’t you think?

It has a certain truth to it too.

Ever since I quit my London banking job four years ago in a fit of burnout, I’ve been figuring out how timeless age-old wisdom can help with today’s workplace woes.

And help it does.

This is crystal clear to me now I’ve returned to the corporate playground. 

I’ll be writing more about this over the coming weeks.

In the meantime, if you’re ready to bring more calm into the chaos of the 9 to 5, you might like this:

https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com