Transcript

[00:00:00] Jivraj: I think the conventional wisdom is mostly around, what can you do to get to a point, that figure it out? I never knew how it would get to this point and I hope it’s only going to surprise me even further. So many things that we think we want to do. There’s so many goals that we think we want to achieve, but if we’re not doing things to move the needle a lot, if you’re not prioritizing it, then the simple answer is it’s probably not important for us.

[00:00:28] Amardeep: Welcome to Mindful and Driven podcast, where we help you to not lose sight of what’s really important whilst chasing your dreams. Today’s guest is Jivraj Singh Sachar, who’s the host of the Indian Silicon Valley podcast. Whilst also working a day job at AngelList, by the time this episode comes out, Jivraj would have interviewed over a hundred entrepreneurs from the Indian space, including some of the biggest names of billionaire and unicorn companies. And he’s only in his early twenties. It was a pleasure to chat with him, and we went on for ages after we finished recording. I hope you enjoy listening today.

[00:01:05] Welcome to Mindful and Driven podcast Jivraj. It’s a pleasure to have you here. 

[00:01:08] Jivraj: Thank you so much. I’m really glad to be here Amardeep. Really excited about what’s in the conversation. 

[00:01:14] Amardeep: How I actually heard about you is because one of my friends, Vaish, she’s been on my podcast, she put on to somebody else’s post and they asked, what are your favorite podcasts? And she listed mine, yours, and a couple of others. So I was like, oh, who’s this guy? I’m going to check them out. And then I’ve listened to a few of your episodes and you’ve, you’re only 23 and you’ve managed to get such great guests and it must have been so much to be able to learn from them. And through that experience, you must have heard so much advice. Is there any other common advice that you disagree with along that way? 

[00:01:45] Jivraj: Yeah. I mean, common advice that I disagree with, in that aspect, one of the things is, you know, just, I mean, a lot of people talk about building expertise and a lot of people talk about being satisfied. A lot of people talk about it like goal-setting right? But I think all of that does not meet reality when you hit the ground. And I think what’s worked for me is that let’s say you don’t just experimenting, not trying to be good at just one thing, punching above my weight, and just trying a bunch of things before I get there. So I think conventional wisdom is mostly around, okay, what can you do to get to a point? But I think defining that point because very, very important at the very start, and what’s worked for me, I mean, with the podcast is, I guess pretty much just trying to like figure it out. I never knew how it would get to this point. And I hope it’s only go to surprise me even further. But what I, what I did continue doing is at no point do I listen to conventional wisdom stating that, okay, you may not be able to get this person, you may not be able to continue this for awhile, you’re probably not utilizing your time, the best. Why don’t you get an internship with [unintelligible], and all of these anecdotes that I heard. I thankfully did not listen to. Not to say that it was any, in any way disrespectful or anything. [unintelligible] everybody came from a place of concern, but that’s mostly, you know, the general advice that you’ll get, but instead you are do something [unintelligible]. It makes sense to, kind of once in a while, do what you want to and not listen to all of this conventional [unintelligible], maybe just explore, by yourself I would say. 

[00:03:18] Amardeep: I think that’s such an important point about experimentation because sometimes people think they have the perfect plan before they make a change. So they’re not happy at the moment and they don’t change their situation because they don’t know exactly what they want to do, and sometimes it’s, you’re not going to find out what you want to do just by sitting around. Sometimes it’s just try things out, maybe you like it, maybe you don’t, but you only find out when you actually start it. And I kind of worry about some people who will make a really detailed plan, about this is what I’m going to do, but it’s like, you have no idea if you’re going to enjoy that or not. So it’s good to like experiment a little bit, not put too much skin in the game, then if it goes wrong, that’s okay. You can try something else. If you decided this is going to change my life. This can make you much happier. Everything’s gonna be much better. Now what happens if you don’t enjoy it? Did you have any thoughts like that when you were going through the podcast?

[00:04:07] Jivraj: I did, and in fact this is not the only time I tried. There were a couple of things. I mean, again, I’m not as drastic as it may seem. However, I had my shadow of doubt to myself wherein I actually joined a job which was not as calculated a decision, which did not work out. Before the podcast, I had a project which is again, a passionate project, but I was speaking to a bunch of folks and writing down their stories in different format and publishing it on a blog. I had to leave that midway because it was not compounding as well. And so even after that, I pursued the podcast because I felt like, I mean again, by talking to so many people, I’ve realized that it’s never about getting the decision right or wrong. It’s more about how deliberate can you be about that pathway, right? Because, I think as you mentioned, sometimes we’re just too blind about a process because we feel we’ll get to a destination, that once we get there, we realize that maybe it was not worth it, right? And that’s too costly a journey to go through. And then instead of being, you know, instead, why don’t you be deliberate about the pathways? I think, and each one along the way, I just told myself that, okay, even if it did work this time, I did all the things I could, right? And I was as focused, as deliberate, as conscious about that choice as I possibly could be. And since I had done that, I felt it brought out the best out of me either way. It’s always difficult. I mean, this person defined, I had a guest on the show who talked about the speed of shit. When everything feels like, you know, it’s not going your way, because then you’re starting something, it’s very [unintelligible] and feels very nice because you know, you have that young energy, but then there comes a point wherein you start questioning, whether or not [unintelligible] value, whether or not it’s going well, whether or not it’s just me listening, right? To the podcast as well a few times and, I’d be like, okay, is this at all adding value to anybody? But only to realize that it doesn’t matter. I mean, am I enjoying it? Am I loving it? Am I out there, you know, having fun? And when all those things said, yes, and am I deliberate about where this is leading? I knew my answer. So I think, it’s just like going back to the fundamentals of, just like trusting yourself at that point in time and being deliberate. If you’re blind about it, and even if things are going well, it’s better to pause, reflect, and be true to yourself than just going, because any good thing or a bad thing is, those are outcomes, right? Those you can’t control, but what you can control is the process because if you start controlling only the outcomes, then you’re just praying, right? You can get lucky, whatnot. Right? But if you can consistently follow a process, you ought to get there once, and then the outcome gets taken care of either way. 

[00:06:42] Amardeep: You mentioned before we started recording that you don’t want to monetize your podcast because you’ve been growing it so much, you want to keep it as that pure hobby or something you enjoy doing without needing to be like, oh, how can I make more money? Or how can I get adverts? All of that kind of stuff. And can you talk us through your thoughts behind that?

[00:07:00] Jivraj: I think of course the caveat there that I mentioned to everyone in personal conversations is also that I come from a privileged point, where my life sustenance does not depend on the podcast, but even without it, what I’ve realized is, the objective for me with the podcast is to learn, to grow, and to just like experience new things, have new conversations. The day I think about, you know, what sponsor to get, what bank to get, and whatnot it just gets a bit maligned, right? And that is something I never thought I wanted to do with a hobby because it’s pure, right? It started off with the pureness of my curiosity, and it still continues to do that right? At any given point, when I think I’m not researching as well or something of the kind, I question myself and I’m not liking the process. And that I enjoy. And that’s a personal feat I enjoy because I haven’t gotten the groove where this is purely a learning activity that nobody’s holding me accountable for. But I get, I continue doing this week on week for, and I’ve done that for the last one and a half years. And that’s only because my objective is to have an amazing conversation and make it extremely fulfilling for the guests as well. And when I keep it as pure as that, it just works out well. So I think just not trying to deviate myself from what the original goal is, in fact, one, another thing that I do, and again, I don’t know this conventional or not, but everybody talks about, you know, why didn’t you build a team around this, why don’t we scale it, why do you, give up, you know, the editing process? One thing that I hold so dear to my process is editing myself, because I feel that keeps me very, very close to what I’m doing, because I get to, you know, understand what it is that I’ve done through a show, what it is that I did right or wrong to an episode. I in fact, get to learn and grasp my own content as a listener when I’m listening to the guests I’ve hosted. And that is amazing. I mean, there have been times when I’ve, you know, edited for four or five hours because it took me that much time, but I was with an exercise book, taking notes from that conversation because I was so fascinated by what was being produced in and of itself. And I think that kind of vigor only stays if your pure, because if I was money minded about it, no disrespect to anybody who is. I’m sure [unintelligible] economy. So those doing that, I really laud their efforts, but for me, I am sure like if it was a money object, I probably wouldn’t focus on, let’s have mechanical things such as let’s say editing, right? But I am to do it because I do this by will, by choice, and I love doing it. And that’s what I mean keeps driving me in that direction. So I’m happy to spend a night on editing, not because It’s a financial objective at the end of it, but because of the kind of learning, the kind of difference it makes to my process and that I truly cherish. I mean, these are the small things that kind of fulfill me, and that’s why it becomes a very wholesome process, to be very honest. 

[00:09:53] Amardeep: One of the things I’ve done myself is I’ve outsourced my editing because of just trying to balance my time and my efforts. And I really enjoyed the conversations. And like I said, I do enjoy listening back to it as well, but I find that with the editing process, it often became something which I always did last, so I was always trying to do it last minute, just with with the episode that’s come out and it put me under quite a lot of stress. So now release that, and what I tried to do is, instead is, once the episode has come out, I then listen to it again and I write about it. So I removed myself from some of the editing process, but then that’s the way I tried to like take the lessons back out of it again. And obviously with what you’re doing, cause you’re working at like the AngelList, you’ve got pretty long hours there sometimes. How are you able to manage this all? Has there ever been a point where you really struggled for your balance?

[00:10:42] Jivraj: There have been multiple times that, I mean, that’s a constant struggle to be honest. But it doesn’t feel like one. I mean, it doesn’t feel like it is a struggle, or a major challenge. Of course I have my days where it feels overwhelming, right. It feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. It may not necessarily be so, but I mean with work, I often dabbled with this question myself and the answer that I’ve tried to come to is that, you know, I never forget sleeping and I’m sure you don’t either. You don’t forget your meals, right? So the way the podcast has been engineered in my system, is by becoming a habit, I don’t think there has been any, like, I could maybe think of one in the last 10, Friday evenings or nights that I’ve been out or been doing something else and not editing the podcast. I can’t think of a Sunday morning, but I’m not a, you know, worked on the post-publication aspects of the podcast. It’s just become a part of me. And so that’s why I’ve been able to carve out time because when it becomes a part of you, it becomes, I think, I don’t know, you’re just prioritizing. I remember the guests on my show mentioning that it’s less about time management, and more about energy management, or prioritizing. Because nobody has the time in the world for things that you do want to prioritize. And everybody has the time of the world for positive energy people, for positive energy interactions, for things that don’t feel like work. And I think that has really helped me. And I guess I was lucky but, before I joined my full-time role. I was dabbling with a couple of things in my career. I started the podcast already. So I was in that frame. I understand it’s incredibly difficult, and I truly empathize with people who can still do it with like a full-time job or at least start with a full-time job for that commitment and then continuing, because it’s incredibly difficult that way, but I was already [unintelligible]. I had much to lose because I knew what the experiences could do to me and do for me. And so I kind of just made it a point to keep at it, weather the storm. You come into the routines, build the small things. I think, I don’t know. For instance, I’m trying to now develop a habit to become healthier. It would be like a very small thing, but I haven’t been able to take time. And when I questioned myself, honestly, I don’t think I don’t have the time. I just think it’s job priority for me. Like I mean, if I can take out three hours to edit, I can definitely take thirty minutes to, you know, go for a run. So I mean, that’s there, it comes down to the basics, but yeah. I just don’t think of it as work. It doesn’t feel like it. And that’s why, with workers, thankfully I’ve met some amazing colleagues. It doesn’t feel like, you know, after days of work, I have to do the podcast as well. It feels like, oh! It was an amazing day of work. I now have to do the podcast as well. And just the changing tone, I think, manages energy decently well for me to keep at it. Even in this interaction as well. For instance, we blocked out an hour for this, right? We are now speaking for the first 14 minutes ourselves, and that didn’t feel like any time utilization or not, you know, optimal time usage. It just felt like a natural extension of positive vibes being exchanged. It didn’t feel like time utilization, whatnot, right? 

[00:13:57] Amardeep: And I think what you said there about energy management and priorities, I think the phrase is true. It’s that your priorities aren’t what you say your priorities are. They’re what you actually do. If you say I prioritize my health, but you don’t prioritize, you don’t do anything [unintelligible], then you do prioritize your health. That’s what you tell yourself you do. [unintelligible] Maybe there’s people listening today who are going to be thinking, oh wait, yeah, that’s true. Because I said it myself, I’m going to do this or I’m going to do that, and then I don’t do it because I’m doing something else instead. So the thing that I do instead of what I wanted to do, that’s my real priority. And if I don’t like that, if I decide that’s, I don’t like that reflection of myself, of who I actually am. Then it’s up to me to change myself to do that. And it’s the difficult thing of sometimes our actions aren’t really in line with who we think we are or what we call, what we label ourselves.

[00:14:49] Jivraj: I love that. Right? Because there are so many things that we think we want to do. There are so many goals that we think we want to achieve, but if you’re not doing things to move the needle a lot, if you’re not prioritizing it, then the simple answer is it’s probably not important for us. That’s a tough truth to swallow, to be honest. And it takes a lot of majority and I’m guessing, I’m also not completely out there, but you have to call yourself out. And that’s probably one of the toughest things to do, right. Because it’s difficult to fool yourself very often. And you often get into that trap where, if we will and we console ourselves, we tell ourselves an alternative truth, while not accepting what the reality is. And I think that’s a tough pill to swallow, but if we could only just get into that habit, I think that’s a great point you mentioned. If we could just like, accept the small things, like, if I didn’t do this, it’s probably not a priority. And for the things that I did that probably was, I think I love that. I think that that sums it up very well. 

[00:15:45] Amardeep: I think it’s also looking at why isn’t it our priority. So you said, for example, with your health. Is that, when you think logically, right? Health should beat all of our priorities because nothing else works if we’re not healthy. Like you can’t do the podcast if you’re not healthy. I can’t write if I’m not healthy. I can’t enjoy time with my friends or family if I’m not healthy. But it always gets kind of left behind. So it’s really looking at why is that the case and trying to like really get down to the bottom of that. 

[00:16:10] Hi everyone. I hope you’re enjoying the episode so far. I want to take a quick break to ask you to check in with yourself. There’s many people struggling with balance and it’s nothing to be ashamed about. It’s tips that my guests might share can hopefully help you along the way, but if you already feel overwhelmed or burnt out, it’s probably best that you ask somebody for help too. For some, this might be a friend or family member, while others might feel like they have nobody they can talk to. If you’re one of these people, check out the link in the show notes, it’s for United for Global Mental Health. They’ve got health plans all across the world, with people willing to listen on the other side. It’s important to let somebody know how you’re feeling. Now, back to the show.

[00:16:46] And then with your balanced, like you said, like you’re really enjoying the podcast and that’s something which comes easy to you. Are there any other areas you’re struggling with? Is that to do with trying to fit in this weekly run or trying to get the health side fit in as well? 

[00:16:58] Jivraj: Yeah, I think, you know, like, I mean with health and with a bunch of things, I’d say there was a point where I was just very driven in the, in the best possible sense. You tend to, you’re always missing out. I think that’s like the concept of balance is so personal to everyone, right? But you define it yourself. And so sometimes prioritizing maybe your cardio, maybe your podcast and not prioritizing other things like eating habits, personal relationships, friendships, right? And I mean, if that becomes the case, then it’s a bit, [unintelligible] I think it boils down to not just looking at the immediate thing, right? So much of what we do, like it’s easy to get swayed by a short-term impact and very difficult to imagine what things can do in the long run. So maybe I don’t get to see the difference, as you mentioned, in our health, we don’t get to see the difference like every other day, but maybe like five years down the line I see. You can become obese, that I’ve, I’ve not like there’s some health issue that I can’t control, and then it strikes us. So that becomes the problem. With, you know, like maybe friendships, it feel like, okay, how’s it going to impact our friendship if we don’t meet for a week? That week becomes, then becomes a month, that becomes, I don’t know, a couple, a quarter, and then you just distance yourself, right? So I guess those are things, I mean, thankfully I recognize that. Those are the, it’s one of the things I’ve been able to tell myself that, okay, now you, you got to figure it out and you got to be decently, you know, balanced in that aspect, but I think what also helps, and again, this is another thing somebody mentioned on the podcast is, that instead of striving to do so much, it’s about striving to do a little thing really, really well, right? And this comes with maturity, [unintelligible] first line of thought, right? But I think once you’ve found those couple of things that you can let compound. The idea should be to just focus on it. And I struggled with this lot because I used to get swayed by almost every new project that comes on the docket. I would want to follow it. I would want to do things. I’d want to create, I don’t know, groups, I would want to tell people, or help people, talk to a lot of people, but [unintelligible] okay, that’s not sustainable. Can I focus on my work? Can I focus on my podcast? Can I focus on myself? And that is where I was like, okay, this is what I need to do. Now let’s figure it out under all of these [unintelligible], what works best. And I see [unintelligible], like I asked people what they would do to build better routines because I mean, with the podcast as well, I do have a routine, but I mean, if it gets broken, I can always manage it myself, right? But with some other things, you have to just be, again, very intellectually honest with yourself. I can’t tell myself that if I didn’t go for a run every morning, I go in the evening, then not skip it and stuff like that. Let’s just say mechanism, as I mentioned, lie to ourselves because it’s easy, right? But yeah, actually find balance in life, personal plus professional aspect, and that’s not being at its best, but I think I’m getting there. And yeah, hopefully I’ll be there, but yeah, I think somebody told me, when you take a decision, it’s about following through on that decision, and if that balance for you [unintelligible], that’s fine, but at least following through on that decision because you’re being cognizant about it, because what I love about founders is founders that again, not the most balanced folks, in my opinion, they, because so much of their time is skewed towards building something from scratch, which requires incredible effort to say the least, but then they commit to that. And them, that is the reality. That is that balance that they could do. They signed up for the fact that okay, 80% of their time is going to go into building and maybe the rest 20% is going to go to themselves, the family, whatnot, and then they’re okay with it. So I think the more important aspect is if you sign up for what you do, and if you can build the expectations for yourself, not for anybody external, I think that works out best because that oftentimes that we are not debate with ourselves stating that, I knew my life is probably going to be 70 30, but I want to strive towards 50 50, why? If you wanted [unintelligible] to a 70 30, then don’t follow somebody else’s definition of balance, maybe because the perspective, try to grasp it in yours, in your decision making framework and build from there, as opposed to like, you know, striving for a goal, which may not be achievable because you’ve committed to something else, and if you want to strive for it, maybe manage expectations for yourself better. 

[00:21:20] Amardeep: So what I was going to say there is, it’s an interesting contradiction, you said, right? Because at the beginning you said you should need to experiment all at the time, then now you’re saying about keeping to a few lines, and what I think the gap is there is that, you experiment more if you’re unhappy. So if you’re unhappy, then what you should do is experiment. You should try to find different things that can bring you more joy. When you’ve got things that bring you joy, then that’s when you need to experiment less because you already have the things that are going, right. So I don’t think you should ever stop experimenting completely because you’re always going to have some things that spontaneity, like spontaneous and something’s a bit different, but that’s where I think the, the sort of experimentation goes is that if you’re a very unhappy experiment tons, try all these different things. Like maybe you want to start dancing, or maybe you to start a sport. Maybe you want to start this, or maybe you want to start that. If you’ve already found, let’s say, you already love playing cricket, then you don’t want to then take up another sport because then you might not be able to have enough time to play cricket anymore. And I think this is something I do, right? It’s like, I enjoy lots of different things, but I can’t do all of them at the same time because my body wouldn’t take it. My mind wouldn’t take it. So I’ve got to choose a few things to really focus on because I enjoy them more. And I think about it in terms of some people say like, oh, you’ve got 10 passions. You can’t have all of them at being as 10 out of 10, because you don’t have, like, there’s not enough space or not enough energy for you to give all of them properly. So sometimes by doing more things, when you enjoy them, you’re actually giving less mental energy to each one, which decreases their value. So it’s sometimes a hard choice to choose to not do something that you like doing because your overall life is better because of that. Have you found things like that in your life where you’ve given them up, even though you’ve enjoyed them because you can’t balance them with everything else you’ve got going on?

[00:23:11] Jivraj: I, firstly, I think that that’s completely spot on and that brings me to the point of, you know, an important realization that I don’t think I’ve practiced well enough is the art of saying no. I think, we often just store, so I think to your point of trying to understand, like, I think experimentation works great in the short run, but once you find something that you want to do, it makes more sense to keep pursuing it while at the same time, you’re experimenting on things that you still want. So I think that there’s a good, fine balance there as you imagine, right? I mean, in the long run, I think it’s best to, you know, strive to be great at the thing that you most enjoy and not having any divided venture, but in the short run, it makes more sense to find that long-term thing. I think I actually like that. But I think to your point of just trying to, you know, say no, right, of just saying to like find out things like you have to say no to eventually or drop. For [unintelligible] was such a thing, right. Which is like a very small initiative that I started. It became decently large when we hosted like 250 odd folks, we didn’t host them on a podcast but we did like, Zoom calls with them. We usually recorded, we [unintelligible] a bunch of these stories. We built a team super close to two folks from that team. Still they’re very good friends. We still have that website. We still have that Instagram page because it began as an Instagram blog, but there’s a point where I could take a step back, and at the end I said, okay, this is not maybe compiling as well, and there are gaps to be fulfilled there. So maybe I, you know, helped the two folks who really took charge of it, but I took a step back. And even now, you know, I mean, it’s the small things that you can’t respond to every email right away. And you find like a better, you can’t possibly strive to do that at the expense of you. You can’t possibly be a part of every new initiative that comes out. As much as you’d like, because, when you pick a time for something else, you’re taking it out, you’re not producing time, sadly. So you are taking it out of something that you already are doing. So you did not enjoy that aspect or you’re going to, you know, like cover up for it in some shape or form to make time for something else. So I think that understanding that there’s going to be a trade off and then, because we often, you know, we, again, it comes back to fooling ourselves in the sense that we could easily say that we’ll manage it, we’ll take our time somehow. I’ll sleep less. I’ll maybe eat less, I don’t know what. But it barely happens. And then you’re just playing catch up in all aspects. So I think this is something I’ve started learning at work, in fact. Somebody told me once that you have to equally be good at saying no than saying yes. If, sometimes even more. And that is almost again very counterintuitive to imagine because why say no to have income opportunity, right? Like, you’d probably be tempted to say yes, but if you can go back to the fundamentals of thinking that, okay, what is that going to do to you? And if it’s going to hamper what you’re already doing, because you can see a short term desire to battle, you should probably steer away from it because I think one of the single most important principles that the podcast has taught me is of compounding rate. In the first three months, I barely had listeners, but we had great speakers in the textbook sense of it. In the next three, it was rising, but it’s been 18 months now, and I can tell you that if I would have given up in the fifth month, I would have never, myself been able to imagine the impact of it. And I’m sure that if I do this for the next five years, I can’t predict where it’s going to lead. But what I can do is know that it’s going to lead to something and keep at it and let it compound, but not expect results in the next two years. So, I mean, just speaking that long-term perspective, this is also a learning that I’ve taken back from a bunch of founders that I holsted because for founders, it’s just superhuman how they’re able to think about the long run and be insanely focused towards building that outright. I mean, they have these 10 year goals, which can seem very imaginative to begin with, but I think it’s amazing how they can continue [unintelligible] until they reach that point after a while. And it’s incredibly difficult. I think practicing compounding is perhaps the most difficult thing that we can do as people. And I think I thought about that a lot and it’s easier said than done. Of course. Yeah, I guess seeing was being one takeaway and for the instincts, I think [unintelligible] bunch of other things that I consciously now don’t take up because I don’t have the bandwidth for and try [unintelligible] about it, as opposed to just like setting wrong expectations. That’s been a very important takeaway on which time to manage everything because I’m not super human and I can only do so much.

[00:27:46] Amardeep: In the long run, what are your goals with what you’re doing at the moment? You’re doing, you’re really enjoying what you’re doing at AngelList. And you’ve got the podcast on the side. Do you want to keep it that way in the future or are there other projects which in the future you want to kind of take on and you’re really excited by? They’re not for right now but in the long term, you think those would be probably you’d make time for? 

[00:28:05] Jivraj: Yeah, I think one thing I can tell you for certainty is that I probably can’t predict the future because my life has taken such a 360 degree turn in the last two years. Thankfully, so I hope I continue getting surprised by myself in the next, in the near future as well. But yeah, the way I look at it, all of this is, I want to create something of value. Now, how that happens is a factor of mode and so the podcast is one way to make it happen wherein I try to, you know, add value to more people like myself who want to learn about entrepreneurship, who want to learn about building companies. And I think that’s how I kind of simplified it for me. But I want to keep at it so, it could be in the form of me starting a company, which I really want to do someday. So I hope I can, you know, achieve that goal. That is definitely one that I would certainly want to take up in my life for once. But till then, I mean, that’s [unintelligible] till then I try to explore my career. I wouldn’t say creative, I would say building side. The aspect that makes me want to, you know, build something productive and useful, valuable for a large group of people. One of my initiatives in terms of the podcast or at work is where the ideas can I be of value to every stakeholder that is at work. How I do that by [unintelligible] maybe my role and maybe what new things can I do, how efficient I am, how responsible I could be with with the podcast. It’s about time to think from the end [unintelligible]. Constantly taking feedback, constantly improving on the experience that our speaker has, constantly improving the experience for myself. And that’s what I try to do in this near term, but in the long-term yeah, I want definitely stay close to startups because I think that they are the best forms of innovation, of value creation that could possibly be. And hopefully, you know, create something of massive value in terms of, you know, impacting tangible lives in more ways than one. And if I could do that, I think I’d feel really satisfied. And that’s a feeling I want to have. 

[00:30:11] Amardeep: It’s been a pleasure talking today Jivraj. Where can the people listening hear more about you, obviously about your podcast, and other things you’re doing? I’d love for them to listen to you too. 

[00:30:19] Jivraj: I’ve been lucky to kind of have the podcast, so please tune in if you’re a, you know, a podcast person, or if you are an enthusiast about the Indian startup ecosystem. I love to talk personally to one-on-one with folks as well, so feel free to hit me up on LinkedIn. I’m usually very responsive there, or Twitter, I’m usually very responsive there as well, or anything else. In fact, if you’re up for conversation around venture, around cricket, around table tennis, around podcasting, and if you’re ever in that spectrum, I’m more than happy to chat and [unintelligible]. So feel free to hit me up and thank you so much Amardeep for having me. It’s been such a pleasure to know you and have this conversation. I think in the brief period that we’ve known each other, it’s been amazing to have these conversations and I’m so excited about what’s next to come for you with the kind of amazing things that you’re doing. So thanks for having me. And this was absolutely fantastic. 

[00:31:18] Amardeep: You’re more than welcome, and it’s mutual. Me and Jivraj had a call before and we spoke for an hour and a half, two hours, as it was meant to be half an hour or an hour. Then like before we started recording today, me and him were talking for ages again, and we’re going to carry on talking after we finish recording the podcast. So he’s just a really nice guy and I really recommend you check him out. And the final thing to finish up on the podcast is, what’s one small thing that’s brought you joy recently?

[00:31:44] Jivraj: I think very recently, like my friends planned a surprise for me after I was very fortunate there. That was like a very, I think, a small newspaper publication that posted about the podcast. And my friends took me out on a Sunday morning and then a very small snippet [unintelligible] People [unintelligible], you know they had a couple of things written on it and I found it really nice that these were my sister, my parents, my girlfriend, and a bunch of my friends. So that felt really nice. And yeah, I think the smile, I’m [unintelligible] of a gestured person somehow. I’d much rather be, you know, if somebody listens to my episode and is like, you know, I loved it, then, you know, send me a large gift because I feel, you know, the fact that they could spend time and, write me a message mattered more, but this was like a great gesture, in fact, really nice. And it felt like I had a lot of great supporters around me, which felt really glad and none of it would be possible without them anyway. So I think yes that was the thing that really mattered to me.

[00:32:48] Amardeep: If you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, I’d love it If you could leave me a five star review, it really helps get the message out further. Wherever you’re listening, it would be awesome If you could subscribe and share in your social media channels. If you want to see more of my work and advice, you can find all of the links in the show notes. 

Thank you again for listening and I hope you have a lovely day.