Latest / ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence / Karthik Srinivasan on Using Your Personal Brand to Escape the Rat Race (#012)

Transcript

Karthik Srinivasan on Using Your Personal Brand to Escape the Rat Race (#012) · ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: So it's just that it need not be engineering.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: It can be any field that you're starting up in a career, or even before your career, even before you you're in school, you can actually do that.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: Instead of wasting time on Instagram trying to post random photographs, you can first define what you want people to know you for and then work in a direction towards it that's slightly more possible.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another edition of contact.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode, I'm conversation with Catholic.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Over to my conversation with Kartik.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hi Kartik.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks a lot for joining me in this Contraminds podcast.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's an absolute privilege to have you as a guest in my podcast today.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Very, very glad to be here for me.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Good to be here.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Kartik, when I went through your past work that you have done, the body of work that you have kind of put together, the fact that you are probably one of the pioneers in talking about personal branding in the country and also publishing a book, Be Social, on the various aspects of personal branding.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: You've literally walked the talk in terms of putting a personal branding framework together.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Before we talk about all that, Karthik, I wanted to really start off with your early years because you are a small town boy, you are from Salem in Tamil Nadu.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: How was your upbringing in the earlier years?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: How was your schooling?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And what was the learnings that you had early in your school that has an impact today in your career as you uh look behind?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's nothing that stands out in my schooling period at all.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've been I've been in schools across India because my dad was in a bank, and every five years there is a transfer, and and that's probably a boon in hindsight because I have studied in Bhopal, I've studied um in Bhubaneshwar, I've studied in Kwaimtur, Trichi, Salem, all over the place.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: A fair bit of north and fair bit of south.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: So my Hindi seems reasonably better than an average South Indian in terms of uh at least pronunciation.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a Gavame Kisandra Gutata.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's much better than that, at least.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a that that's a benefit.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, the kind of Hindi that you hear in Bhopal is probably the purest form of Hindi, the best form of Hindi.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's very beautiful.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: So that really helped open up perspectives and and and just appreciate that people are different and states are different, cultures are different, and all can coexist perfectly normally.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's probably the biggest learning.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: Apart from that, it's a very normal, normal middle class upbringing, extremely normal middle class upbringing.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's largely it actually.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um apart from all those cities that I've studied, uh, I mean, Bangalore is probably now the city that I've lived the most in.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's 20 plus years that I'm in Bangalore.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: This is a city that I have been most in, and this is almost like a cornucopia of all the other cities that I have lived in, it's so cosmopolitan, and um that's the best part of Bangalore, I think.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's just an accumulation of all the experiences of India that I have had in one city in the past 20 years.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: So now that uh you know it's interesting that you're saying you did schooling across uh various uh states, so to speak, or cities, so to speak.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: When you look back and look at the schooling in India, what does it do?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: How does it prepare you for a career?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And what do you think could have been done very differently?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if you were uh looking back at your schooling, what were the four or five things that you think could have been done better in the schooling system when you started?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: I honestly think the schooling system doesn't prepare you for a career at all.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: Career is something that you prepare for yourself or your parents and peers, and ecosystem pushes you once you are at the precipice of 12th plus and then college kind of stuff.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: It almost starts at 11 these days, 11th, 12th, and then college.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: That's when all the kind of thinking starts coming up from a career perspective.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: Till then you're just having fun at your parents' expense.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's literally it, and it's good fun, of course.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, everybody should have that fun, that's part of growing up.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I honestly think probably starting 8th standard onwards, um, students need to be exposed to the kind of careers and professions that exist.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: That is probably happening now in schools.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: Some of the more progressive schools are calling professionals from various kinds of fields and asking them to talk to kids.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: Because the kids may not naturally gravitate towards career options in eight and nine, but it's absolutely essential that they put the thought into their heads so that they can start reading up more, at least not preparing themselves academically, but at least reading up more, saying, if I want to be a DJ in standard eight, that you make up your mind, what are the things that I need to know beyond just interest in music?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: I need to have some kind of scientific backing, also.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, to to actually get music at a creative level is one thing, but to get music at a technical level in terms of the kind of tools that you need to use is totally another thing.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: And if you do botany and then you want to be a DJ, of course, you can be one, but it'll be easier for you to prepare if you know the technical things also, besides the interest part of it, the creativity part of it.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: So it's good to actually expose children to that kind of uh perspectives early on, at least starting 7-8 kind of stuff that would really help.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I I know for sure that it's happening because my son's school, I mean my son's earlier school did that, and they called me to speak about marketing and advertising.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: So, actually, it's happening, so it's a good thing that's happening, it should happen more often, actually.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Where did your uh interest in marketing uh get triggered?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you went to a B school after your uh commerce undergrad degree, and uh how was the learning in the B school and uh did it trigger your career path as we speak today?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Is that something that you discovered there?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Is that something that you saw as a path that you could take in your career?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, no, because in hindsight, when I think about it, in fact, I had a conversation about this on LinkedIn also.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: In hindsight, when I think about it, um I used to be a huge fan of an advertising and marketing magazine called AM, which used to come in the 90s in India.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: I I used to be obsessed with that magazine, it's a fantastic magazine.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: It was it's I mean, I don't think there is any magazine like this in India even now.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: It was fantastic at that time.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: I totally agree.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was a phenomenal magazine, and I used to wait for each issue of that magazine back in the 90s when I was in school, and I really used to wait for it, and I used to live very far away from the only store in Koimutur where I used to get it.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: That used to be in Raspuram, I used to live in Vadavali, so I used to cycle all the way about 10 plus kilometers to that Raspuram place to one particular shop who used to store that magazine on a frequent basis, and then buy that magazine and then go home and read it.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I tried subscribing to the magazine, but it never I mean it never came home at all.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I always used to go there and buy issue by issue, one one after another.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: And then, because of the reading that magazine so often, just after I finished 12th or BCOM, I tried applying to a couple of agencies.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: I used to be an agency called Ideopraxist in Koyam Tour slash Chennai at that time.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: I I mean I was so taken by that name Ideopraxis, such an interesting name for an agency that that was there, and then I tried uh applying to SASI advertising also, which was one of the leading advertising agencies, headquartered out of Koyam Tour, and that it didn't go anywhere.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, both of them didn't go anywhere.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: Probably my application was terrible.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I understood because I was a school student or a college student at the time, it didn't go anywhere at all, and then I went on to do my MBA and PGDM and etc.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: And then life presented itself with a corporate communications opening, which was very different from advertising, but it's still rooted in communications at an overall basis.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: So that's how it took.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I got into advertising much later in life after going through the earned media cycle of Corpcom and PR.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's just that life presented itself into an advertising through a digital spectrum, into and then I just grabbed it basically.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, what was the inspiration or the trigger for you to take off as an independent personal branding and a communication consultant?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And what were the real triggers that made you do that?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: The the biggest trigger was the fact that I was spending about four hours on travel every day from office to work and work to office.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: Bangalore traffic can be killing.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: And the place where I live and where I mean, like where Ogilbi office was, it takes about one and a half hours to two hours in the morning drive, and then about one and a half hours to two hours plus in the evening drive.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: It was grueling.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, I made it slightly more interesting by listening to audiobooks during my drive, but that's beside the point.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: It was terrible.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's an assault on your senses and a waste of four hours of your life.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: That is the biggest trigger.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't want to waste time and travel anymore at all.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's number one.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: Number two is to some extent boredom actually, because I mean after I finish one or two years, three years, I just some kind of boredom sets in.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, apart from boredom, I mean, that that boredom is also triggered by a by by um by a forced group think that um a full-time employment accords you once you are completed about 10 to 15 years, because if you completed 10 to 15 years in a career, you are no longer seen or wanted as an independent thinker or a professional.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: You are automatically forced, at least in India, to be a managing person.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: You need to manage people, you need to have people under you.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: The more people under you, the more successful you are in life.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: And your individual thoughts don't matter as much as you can make other people think and everybody thinks together and brings up a crowds full, I mean grounds full of knowledge up in the air.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's okay.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I can think with people, but I love thinking on my own.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: I want the time to think on my own and then articulate my thoughts.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's something that I really value myself in.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure there are agencies that allow that, but I've lost the patience to search for such agencies and do such work.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought I'll do it on my own.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: Let's see what happens.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: And this was also an opportunity for me to test the personal branding of my own brand that I have done for the past decade to see whether it works or not.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: So far, it's been working well, touch wood.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: So that's also a trigger, basically.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, how has it been working for somebody else and working for yourself?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, what are the differences that you see?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: The biggest difference is time.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have to work for a city's wins and times because when I work for somebody else, you need to be present at some point, and you need to be physically and mentally present for their sake at some point, and then work with others.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, working with others is fine, but you can't force yourself to do that on an everyday basis.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have much freedom to move away from it.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, these days, because of the pandemic, the whole freedom has opened up completely.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: But those days were very different.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: It was basically a 9 to 6, or if not 8 to 12 kind of job, literally.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's the kind of job, which is which is a rat race to be fair.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, at some point, I mean, something like the rat race seems to be good when you are slightly younger in age, maybe say 25 to 35, that rat race seems very good.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I can go to Bombay every week, I can go to Delhi every week, all those things.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's quite nice, but after some time, you just get I mean, like get into a rut and saying, This is happening way too often.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: I need time to pause and think on my own.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: That is the biggest uh biggest difference, actually.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, now I don't even have an alarm to wake up in the morning, and I actually have a nap in the afternoon.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: All these things are important to me.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: That's something that I realized much later when I quit.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, before quitting, I wouldn't even have known the value of things like this in life, small things in life, but now I really value the these things in life.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's important to me actually now.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm moving into the most important aspect of what you really talk about, which is the importance of personal branding.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: As I really went through your body of work that you've written about personal branding, what are really the pre-preparations before you start branding yourself?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because I see a lot of people trying to brand themselves, but what I've really known about branding is you need to have a value proposition and you need to have the right ingredients to be a brand, right?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, therefore, what are the pre-preparations needed for building a personal brand?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: Probably the most important thing, which is very similar to a product branding or a service branding, also in the marketing world, is to be able to define your brand very clearly.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't define your brand, you would probably talk hundred things which won't let your audience hold on to a few things and saying, if I think of this area, I think of Karthik as a person.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's the linear connection that you need to make in your head.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's what all product branding and all marketing is, basically.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you think of Coca-Cola, you think of happiness.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I mean, like, do you think of happiness?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: Not necessarily, because I think of sugar and then um, I mean, a bad product for your health.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I think.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: But the brand is trying to imprint on people's minds saying Coca-Cola means happiness.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's what, and that's probably what most of the people think, Coca-Cola happiness is what most people think.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's just brand definition 101.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: And if they can do it, why can't individuals do that too?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: The only problem is individuals are slightly more complex because you are not black and white.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: We are all grey actually, we are all in between.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: We have multitudes of interests, some interests are very important to us, some are second layer, third layer, some are completely hidden also from the closest people that we have.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: We have a lot of talent, some are very, very upfront that people can notice, saying, Oh, he can sing very well is a talent that you can think, but some are hidden and something that we don't want the world to know, those kind of talents basically.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: But you need to pick and choose a couple of those facets of yours and then build a profile of yours which becomes your personal brand contours.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, these are the personal brand, at least from an outside world point of view.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: These could be just five or six contours that you build, but there could be hundred more behind that you don't need to showcase to the world because it's a conscious choice.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you can't talk about hundred things, as I said.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: The one analogy that I use very, very often to explain this is assume that you are living in a house with 100 windows and you choose to open only five windows for the world to see you.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: Now, out of the 95 windows that the world doesn't see you, people can't make up their mind about who this person is.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: But from the five windows you consciously choose to open and then stand in front of them once or twice a day to say something, people consciously create a perspective in their head about who this person is.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: Out of this, now you can obviously argue saying, aren't you faking this whole thing?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: Because that 95 is such a majority, and there's only five you're opening.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: I would say it's not faking, it is still you because that five is something that you live in your own house, and people known to you also see the same five, and people don't know you, strangers outside the world, they also know the same five.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's just that you choose not to live your life on a 24 bar 7 streaming, which is opening all 100 windows.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: You don't want to do that because you are not that kind of a private, I mean public person.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: You are a private, I mean we are all private people, but we consciously choose those five windows so that the more the outside world, which is strangers, see you, the more they imprint on their mind saying one of the windows stands for say marketing and advertising.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, if I think of marketing and advertising, I think of karthick.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: That's the kind of connections that that make.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: That's largely the preparation.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: The brand definition is the preparation.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't define, you would just talk about any and everything online or offline, and not try to brand yourself in specific directions, which is pointless in terms of branding.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: You need to go in specific directions, ideally.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: One of the challenges of doing a personal brand is uh you also said you know you are like a product brand and you need to think of a right product definition for yourself.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: There is also a lot of things a brand does to invest in itself, right?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so uh it's very easy to go back and then say, Oh, I'll start a LinkedIn uh profile, I'll do a blog, I'll do this, and I'll do that.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the questions that I have is what kind of investments uh do you see very, very critical to build a sustainable brand value for yourself for yourself.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, the most critical investment is time.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: You need to invest time in it because if you don't invest time, everything is everything goes kaput.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, if you say decide that you want to be known for your opinions on social media marketing or digital marketing or public relations, anything it is, you first need to invest in time, that's layer one, and then using that time, you need to fill your head with what's happening in the world of social media marketing or digital marketing or public relations.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't fill your head, where will you form your perspectives from?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't read more about the industry that you want to brand yourself in and as, where will you form the perspectives?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: So read more.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: Then you would ask saying, Where do I read?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: There are no magazines on public relations anymore.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, there are, but they are all online, they are not in print, they are all online.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: You need to build a pipeline of content so that it comes to you every day, like email, so that you are up to date on what's happening in your industry.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: Now you say, How can I build a pipeline?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: There are tools completely freely available online, there are feeds that are that are from RSS feeds that you can build.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: There is there are email subscriptions you can build, you can follow people on social media who talk more about these topics, but you need to build this pipeline.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: The problem is if you don't build the pipeline, you would start a Google blank page saying, What do I read today about public relations?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then the internet is a bottomless pit hole, actually, and you will just waste your time and all over the place.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: If you build a pipeline, your time that you're spending and investing becomes more purposeful.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: You don't waste time all over the place.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: You have about 20 to 30 sources where you gather information from on the topics that you have branded yourself for or defined yourself for, and spend the time purposefully assimilating what's happening in the industry that you want to be known for as an expert or as a practitioner or a professional.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: The more you read, automatically your mind will start making connections.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, this is happening, that's happening.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: The follow-up to this is the time that you invest in articulation, not just in your head, but articulate your thoughts.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: Think more about what's happening in the industry.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: Are there any anomalies that you can find?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: Are there any connections that you can find between two seemingly disparate things, or are there anything that you can find, something absolutely new that new that people would have missed, and then talk about those things?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's literally the kind of investment and effort that you need to do.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: If you miss even one of the steps, that is the time investment or the reading and content consumption, purposeful content consumption investment, or the articulation investment, the personal branding uh cycle will actually break in between.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: All three are important: the time, consumption, articulation, all three are important at the same time.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: As as you really look at different fields, right?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: You have engineering, you have management, you have analytics, you have technology.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Many uh there are you know lacks and lacks of engineers who come out, and uh literally there is a need for building a personal brand for themselves because more and more there are startups, more and more there are smaller companies that are uh you know evolving in the space.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: So the need for personal brand for uh I almost call a lack of engineers as a commodity, and you need to build a brand for yourself, right?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: Stand out, yeah.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: To stand out.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so if I were to kind of look at it and then say that uh you know there are uh you know people who are starting their careers early, there are people who are in their mid-career, and there are people who are pretty senior.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, one of the things that normally gets construed is if you're a very senior person, you can build a personal brand because I don't have enough experience, therefore, I'm somebody starting out, therefore, I don't have enough body of work, therefore, I can't build a personal brand for myself.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so therefore, uh, how would you define the uh need for personal branding at an early stage of your career?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: And what should be done in those uh early years?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, it's a very good question, actually.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: I like quoting a couple of kids who are active on LinkedIn and not on Instagram.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, they are also active on Instagram and Twitter, but they primarily chose LinkedIn.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, there is a Chennai Bay school girl named Tanya Elizabeth Ken.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: She was in standard 11 last year, maybe she is in standard 12 this year.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: She's quite active on LinkedIn if you notice her.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: And she does not have a body of work.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Of a 40 plus year old person or a 50 plus year old person who has experienced work for 20 years.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: She's a c is a school student actually.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: Her profile or personal brand is based on her body of interest areas, not body of done work, work done or lived work, basically.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's interest areas.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: She's interested in education as a field, and she's helping other children be educated in specific directions.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: There is an even younger girl, she's a 10-year-old girl, she's active on LinkedIn again.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I mean, technically, I don't think LinkedIn should allow her to be even uh on the platform because there is some age limits to be on LinkedIn because Facebook says you need to be 13 to be on Facebook, something like that.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: But she's a 10-year-old girl, and her body of interest plus some amount of work is baking and cooking.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: And her her interest in baking has made her create a profile.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: Her name is uh Vinusha.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: Vinusha on LinkedIn.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: You can look her up, very interesting profile.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: And she, because of her interest in baking, she's talking about baking a lot.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: Now, just imagine when she turns 18 or 20 and wants to become an entrepreneur or an employee, or if she probably studies something to do with baking and food and catering, this starting period would be a boon to her personal brand because she already has a body of interest and work for a decade when she starts working, and because she started at standard 10.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: So these are kind of inspirations for all the engineers that you're talking about who needs to stand out.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: So if you don't have body of work to start with, start with body of interest areas.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, you can argue saying I'm just interested in the topic.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: What the hell does it even matter?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: Is it like stamp collection as a hobby that you used to do earlier?
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's not like that because even when you're collecting stamps, you're not just borrowing or exchanging stamps, you're trying to research on stamps, saying which country is this from, how old is the stamps, is there a history behind what is mentioned in the stamp?
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_02: You're trying to learn more and more, you're trying to go deep into the topic.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's what you need to do with the interest areas also.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: If it is aligned with your engineering skills and engineering interest areas, even better.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: Even if it's not aligned, it's perfectly fine.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: You at least portray yourself as an engineer with an interest in X, Y, and Z, which can be completely different.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, um, I have not learnt music formally at all.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I I can probably sing reasonably well, but I've not learned music, I don't know the notes.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: I can't even, I mean, like, I can't even I mean, like explain some of the complex terms or basic terms in music.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: I have absolutely no clue at all.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: But I I am very, very interested in music plagiarism as to how this song is copied from that.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is an interest that my dad put into my head when he was interested in this topic when he was growing up in Calcutta.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I I took on to that interest really well, and I built a website on music plagiarism back in 1999 when it was infant stages of internet in India, because I had some I had some free internet in my college and then in my first job in Delhi, and I thought, okay, let me try to build it.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: Started building it still alive.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's not active, but it's still alive, and there are so many people who have seen that website over the years, and when they finally find me on Twitter saying, Oh, you are the one who ran that website.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: I have shown this website to so many friends, such a fantastic website.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: I have no clue that it was so popular virally on an underground basis at all.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: It was an interest, but not backed by any talent whatsoever at all, because I have no clue in music, but it was an interest that kept me going, saying I need to do it's almost like stamp collection.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: The only difference is instead of a stamp collection book which resides inside my shelf, it was a public-facing interest that I both built along with people and uh with myself, actually.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's a way to learn together with the public because people used to send me links saying listen to this song and listen to the song, they seem similar.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: And then I used to research saying what is the original, how old it is, what is the copy to and how old it is, and I learned from people.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I uh and I also used to credit people saying who sent me this link, thanks to them, I was able to search more.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: So it's just that it need not be engineering, it can be any field that you're starting up in a career, or even before your career, even before you you're in school, you can actually do that instead of wasting time on Instagram trying to post random photographs.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: You can first define what you want people to know you for and then work in a direction towards it in a slightly more purposeful manner.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, how does it change when you are probably five years or ten years into your career?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because I would call it it's the forming stage of your career, and uh it's very, very critical because it's very easy to get promoted, to get uh you know some designations in the first 10 years, and uh it's a huge climb for the next 10 years or the next 20 years, right?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I call every 10 years a very important stage to uh you know scale the next peak.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are in the mid-stage of your career, if you want to build a personal brand, what do you think would be the difference and what should be done in those stages?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh what would be the tenets that you would change your gear on?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: So when you're starting out, if you start with areas of interest and not areas of body of work because you don't have any, it's perfectly fine for starting out.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: But when you've done about five to ten years, you probably need to add a couple of personal branding tenets which are not personal anymore but more professional.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: Have you done anything of reasonable interest to the outside world within your body of work that you can add to the definitions that you have?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: Because when you're starting out, your definitions may be three or four, but they're all personal interest-based, saying I'm interested in traveling, I'm interested in photography, I'm interested in gardening, those are the things.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: They don't need to have a bearing on your work because you're just starting out, you're just learning the ropes about how to start getting work and whatever it is.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: And the work need not be about music photography or gardening at all.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: It could be a nine to five job, it could be a bank job, it could be an engineering job, it could be anything, but you're just showcasing your interest apart from work.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: But once you've started working, add a couple of more tenets or contours about your work also, and add it to that.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: So from three, it becomes five or six, so part professional, part personal, and then talk more about both.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: But I would say, as you have gained more work experience, tone down the personal part of it, the hobbies part of it, and tone up the professional part of it, the more of that actually.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: So, because I talk much less about my hobbies these days, it's more work related.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: But if I didn't have work, or if I'm in an early stage of careers, I would talk more about my hobbies.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: That's how I would try to blend it.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: But once you get more experience, start talking more about the areas of work that you operate in, even if you have not done anything outstanding or one awards, it's perfectly fine.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: Showcase relentless interest and passion for the kind of work that you're doing by simply spending more time reading more about that work, exactly because it's all available because back in the AM days there was only one magazine read about advertising.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: Now there are hundreds and thousands of websites all around the world, and the whole world is open to you through internet, it's all free.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're not using that resource to first fill your brain with that information and then assimilating it and forming newer thoughts, then we are just wasting the internet completely.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's all there, you just need to utilize it in some direction or other.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Then, when you move to the next, you know, the 20-25 years, and you really are at a stage where really the value of a senior management or a senior professional becomes very critical, a personal branding is important, and uh, how would you then change the gears at that stage vis a vis your mid-year career aspirations or plans?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, to be entirely honest, some of the personal branding workshops that I do for corporates when they when they are initiated by the HR team, as again the learning and development team in large organization, the HR team, some of the HR people have told me in confidence saying they want to do it for this set of employees.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: They're all senior employees about 45 plus in terms of age or 50 plus in terms of age, spent about 15 to 20 years in the same organization.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: And they honestly tell me that they would be let go very soon because of age and uh CTC pay brackets.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: They, I mean, the the organization wants to hire younger people.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is just ageism at work.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, is it bad?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: Is it good?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's just a way of life, unfortunately, which we need to deal with.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: So they say that the reason why we are initiating this personal branding workshop is when they are let go after, say, three years or five years, this would at least help them start something on their own if they want to go independent as a consultant or a freelancer.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: They would have done a body of personal branding impact so that people know that this is what they offer as an individual.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: So that's literally the next step in terms of when you're at least turning 40, start taking it seriously and assume in the next five to ten years you will go as an independent person, independent because the industry is moving towards hiring younger and younger people, which is an which is which is a sad state to begin with, but that's what we live in, unfortunately, in that world.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: So when you're turning 39 and 40, have a chart for yourself saying in the next 10 years I would be out, or next five years I would be out, and I need to build a personal brand for myself to get my own work and my own clients.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: Here, what happens is most people, when they start on their own, they start with the presumption that the kind of freelance jobs that I will get would come from people I've already worked with, people I already know.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's a fallacy.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: It usually comes from complete strangers.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: For me, 99% of the work comes from complete strangers who have no clue who I am or who they are, whatever it is.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we have no connections at all, but they read more and more about what I write and then ask around people, saying, Do you know this person?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know this person?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: And then they come to me.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: They form the first introduction based on my words and try to validate those words through asking somebody else, and then they come to me.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: They are strangers.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: So the first thing that you need to do is put in your head saying your work as a freelancer would come from strangers.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: How to set your brand in the minds of strangers is what you need to work with.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: Most people work in the reverse.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: My work will come from people that I already know.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_02: I have built a connection set on LinkedIn of about 2,000 people.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: They would be giving, they are the last ones to give you work and for.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's just the way it is, the world it is.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: So, all the more recent, see yourself as an as a person not working for somebody when you turn 39 or 40 and then work your way towards.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you're still working for somebody at 50, be happy with it.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: So, but but plan for the worst case scenario as that.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: I have a very famous analogy that I use again and again here.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's like health, actually.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you go to a doctor when there is a problem.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: You don't go to a doctor when there is no problem at all.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_02: It should be the reverse with your personal branding.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: You need to start working on your personal branding when there is absolutely no need, and you are at the happiest position working for somebody else in an organization.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: The happiest.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: Most people think you need to start working on your personal branding and having an active LinkedIn profile when you're looking for a job.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: At the time, when you do that, you won't get anything.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: You need to set the preparation for about five years and then only it'll work.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, it won't work at all.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_02: It is as simple as the same health again.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: You need to work out every day.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, what goes in and what goes out, it was matters.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, because health is a just combination of what goes in and what goes out.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: You eat right and then you burn the calories right.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's the combination of health.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: Similarly, you read right and then talk more right based on your reading, articulate right.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: That's the basic nuance of personal branding, quite literally.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant uh analogy, Kartik.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I just want to pause a bit on what you said, you know, the senior management and uh, you know, uh the fact that you know they need to build a personal brand on their own.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: So clearly, one of the challenges that I see is if you didn't do your personal branding, which is and I I read an article where you call it the mental gym, right?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Where you really say that, you know, are you having your mental gym every day and do you have your life structures in place?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: Early stage in a career, if you don't do it, mid-stage of a career you don't do it, you end up in a senior management uh stage where the mental gyms are so hard to really work on.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, literally, the need for mental gyms at an early stage, because I think that becomes so critical, and I would say you know, organizations won't care for you, you need to care for yourself, and therefore, what is the kind of mental gym that each one of them have to prepare themselves for?
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because you when you look back 25 years later, you will realize that I should have done it 20 years back, right?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, therefore, what is the kind of mental gym and preparation that people must be doing?
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_02: This mental gym is nothing very different from what I just spoke about earlier.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's reading right and articulating right.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: You need to put more and more up-to-date, interesting thoughts on the few subjects that you've chosen for yourself for your personal brand, and then read as much as possible, and it's all available on the internet.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: Internet is not just fun and crap.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_02: There is so much to consume, so much to get information from, there is so much knowledge available.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_02: The more you read and the more you question them, be hyper curious why is this working this way, why is this not working, why is this successful, why is this unsuccessful, the more you question, and you need to probably set yourself a time every day for this thinking, not just mindless consumption.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just watching something on Netflix or Prime video, which is fine, which is just fun, which is entertainment.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: But even that you can actually question.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, there is a science fiction series called Black Mirror, which, if you have watched all three or four seasons, you would be able to plot a lot of lines from the themes there and in what is happening in social media platforms right now.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_02: There is so much connection that you can directly.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's fiction, but part of the fiction is just happening in front of us on social media platforms, so you can make the connection.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: There is one more series in Netflix called Love, Death and Robots.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's phenomenally thought-provoking, it'll make you think a lot.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: So, everything that you consume, whether it's for fun, entertainment, or the internet serious stuff for knowledge, you need to just take some time off and think about them.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: You can't just put it and then where does it go?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: You have no clue at all.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: You need to assimilate that.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: Which is why I actively recommend people to write every day, whether you're writing in front of the world on LinkedIn or a blog, or you write your own diary, when you write, you would actually hear your mind thinking and talking for the first time.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_02: Because when you're just consuming, you are just hearing somebody else talk.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: And when you write for yourself, because if you don't write, you won't form sentences and you won't articulate.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: When you write, then you will really know.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, this is my thought process.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: Is it okay?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: I am framing sentences like this.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: This sentence doesn't sound good.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_02: Is there a question here that I can ask myself and read more?
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: All this is the mental gym basically.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: And if you have not done it in the early part of your career, it'll be slightly difficult to get into that habit when you are older because now you I mean, to some extent, I think complacency would set in when you're 40 and 40 people saying, I know everything, why should I write every day?
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, people should know that I know everything.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: I've spent 20 years in a company, and people should automatically understand that 20 years equal to so much knowledge, which is just not true.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_02: You need to demonstrate snapshots of that knowledge every single day to strangers who will eventually work with you.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't do that, they will have no clue because what matters to them is their lives, your life doesn't matter to them at all, and just seeing your LinkedIn profile and saying that you work for 20 years does not say anything, it just says you have worked for 20 years.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: How good you are, it doesn't say anything.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: So you need to articulate it on a constant basis.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: And if you learn articulation skills with your own mind, which is mental gym, and then expose it to people, be open to feedback, get comments, read more, have a conversation online in front of the public.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: How to hold that conversation online in front of the public without trying to have the last word or getting angry or argumentative, all those things matter.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, we can still get argued, uh I mean, we can still get angry argument.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_02: We are human anyway.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_02: I also get I mean get into that rut at times.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: But I consciously tell myself, saying, I am here to learn, I am here to offer something useful to people through my articulation, not have a fight here at all because there's no there's no end to that fight.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: You can have a fight with hundreds of people, there's no point at all online.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_02: But when you keep on telling them, you'd probably make less mistakes, you'd probably have 10 fights instead of 100 fights a month, which is good, which which really helps.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: So it helps to get into the mental gym practice early, but even if not, set yourself as a as a as a as an idea saying I need to get into at least now, I need to be open to new stimuli in terms of information and knowledge, and I want to articulate it every day to understand how my mind talks to myself.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: That really helps as you age.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, one of the contradictions uh in personal branding when you're working for a company versus when you're working for yourself is uh there are a lot of theories which say that put the company first and the personal brand later.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, there is always this contradiction between you becoming larger than the company and the company being larger than you.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, how do you really balance your corporate profile and your personal branding profile?
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, at least to me or in my head, a company where you work is your income earning capability, nothing more than that.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm sure if you speak to HR person, it would say lifelong loyalty, you you part-own that company, it's a snapshot of your life.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, like jigarka tukra and all that stuff, which is okay, which is their perspective, perfectly fine, but I really don't believe in that at all.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, companies may come and go, you would be there, your family would be there with you, your peers would be there with you, friends would be there with you.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's the that's the truth of life, anyway.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I would put the self more than the company any day, which doesn't mean that you being disloyal to the company or unfair to the company.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: You can be completely fair to the company and you can work to them, but company is an outside entity, no matter how much perks they offer you, they are an employer.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's about it.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: They are not family, they are not family.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, people within the company could become part of your family or your peer set or extended, extended social circle.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: But the company is a brand, you work for that company for a period of time in your life, which is say about 70 to 80 years, and then you move on to another company.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_02: So there is no need of overtly sentimental uh feelings towards one organization or company.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you want to have those feelings, which is perfectly fine.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: I don't believe in having those kind of sentiments at all, and not having the sentiment doesn't mean you're not serious towards the company and the work, you can be perfectly serious, there's no problem at all.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the starting point.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_02: If you start with that as a starting premise, I would put the self more important because when you talk more about the company, you would end up sounding like a brand brochure, which is which is not wrong either.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's just that from the public's perception of your perspective, they would think, ah, he always talks about the company that he works in.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: He seems to be an extension of the company.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: Which is a brand that you are ending up building, and and and the fact is, I'm not saying this is wrong either, it's just one more way to build your personal brand.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, one of the best examples of this is Manu Kumar Jain, who heads Shawmi India.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: If you notice anything and everything he shares across LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, no matter what the platform is, it's always about Shaumi, Shawmy, Shaumi, nothing else.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_02: He lives and breathes Shaomi.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_02: Even when he's sharing a holiday photograph from Goa, I mean, I would be thinking I'm seeing a photograph of family and a dog in a beach, and then he says, I took this photo with Shaomi's this phone.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm wondering, is he selling that phone or is he sharing a photograph?
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_02: But that's his brand, that's his chosen brand.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_02: In his head, Shawmi is not somebody else.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_02: Shawmi is him, Shawmi is part of his family because he started Shaomi in India.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: He extended the brand in India and he's been phenomenally successful in growing the brand in India.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: So in his head, Shawmi is him, he is Shaomi.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_02: Shawmi is part of his family.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, his wife, kids, dog, and there is Shaomi.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's the extension that you want.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_02: So it works very well for him as a personal brand, as his corporate.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, because he doesn't see a difference between a corporate brand and a personal brand at all.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's all amalgamated to one.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_02: But for others, it could be different.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: If you are employed in a company, you could choose saying I would probably spend about 10 to 20 percent of my content reading to do with my company, and I would spend 80% about the kind of work I'm doing.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, it could be an engineering company, but you are in the marketing team of an engineering company, so you read more about marketing and B2B marketing or how to market engineering brands, engineering companies.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: You read more about it instead of hardcore engineering or the company's area itself.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's 20%.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: Rest you read about your area of expertise or interest ideally.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I was reading in one of the psychology journals.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, in one of the psychology journals, what they were saying is there is a very strong correlation between career aspiration that a person shows to the kind of personal branding imprints that they leave.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: So do you think there is a strong correlation?
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: Have you seen uh you know such correlations in people with a very strong career aspiration?
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: There are some people who just want to do a day job and then they are doing something else, versus there are people who have a very strong career aspiration and they want to build a personal brand on their own, which has a very strong correlation and is a very strong indicator for hiring, actually.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, because then I know the person is driven, the person wants to be the best in what he does or she does, and therefore I know the need for personal brand is so critical to that person.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: And as I was reading the for the for the research that I was doing for you, I saw this interesting article around the correlation between career aspiration versus personal branding.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think it is very uh interesting uh uh study?
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: And do you believe are you seeing it with people around when you do workshops, you do it with uh companies, you talk to people?
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see a lot of uh such correlations?
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: I don't actually.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, personally, I don't think you can build that line of connection, even though they may have contradictory proof based on which they arrived at this kind of uh connection.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, um, I know of um friend, his name is uh Dipta Kirti.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_02: He used to head uh marketing for Manipal group earlier.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: Now he he has moved to I mean, like one more company, I think Bajaj Insurance or Bajaj Finance, one of them.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: And um, he has written quite a few books.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he used to head marketing, but he has written books on Bollywood trivia, which has got nothing to do with his day job at all.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he has spent about 20-25 years in the industry doing marketing, sales, and whatever it is, and the books that he has written and published, which are quite successful, have got nothing to do with his body of work or profession or career at all.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: They are about Bollywood trivia, so it's a very fascinating lack of connection between his career and then his interest areas.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_02: So, would you say the fact that he pursues those interests, non-career interests, so vehemently and so passionately, would it translate to his career also?
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, would he put so much passion into his career?
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_02: I have no clue at all.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he could probably be doing it because it's his personal interest, not a professional interest, and he's doing it and he's written books, and he probably likes the attention that he gains from writing books on a topic which is fairly niche kind of thing.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Bollywood trivia is not a very famous kind of area of expertise or area of knowledge at all.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_02: But you can't draw a connection saying because he's doing it passionately, he would be passionate in his work too.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_02: He may not be able to do it.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I I know of quite a few people who have done noteworthy things outside of their careers and continue to pursue that completely.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I myself still pursue trying to write on music on an everyday week basis.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, on a weekly basis, I write reviews of new music in spite of the fact that I have no training in music at all.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: I just write music as a common man, normal hear what I hear.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: I I mean, my only advantage is reasonably better English knowledge skills.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_02: That's about it.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_02: That's why I used to, I mean, articulation skills, that's about it.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_02: Musically, I'm a zilch completely.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just interested in hearing newer, newer, newer sounds in music.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I write about.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's got nothing to do with my profession at all.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_02: But it keeps me rooted to a passion that I want to be interested in, continue to be interested in.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's music basically.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: But the but the way I would put it, Kartik, is uh the fact that you're doing it relentlessly also tells me how that you can be relentless in something else.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_02: Fair enough, fair enough, which is pointing.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think that's the point probably persistency because otherwise, you know, otherwise, what happens is that somebody gives me a job, it's a task I completed, and I have no uh, you know, but is there if you can find a link here?
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_02: You can be persistent there, so you can be persistent.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's a that's a very good point, I think.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a very valid point.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's really what was coming out of that uh you know study.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I just want to move to uh brands uh because that's something that uh you know uh you handled a lot in your uh uh you know earlier role.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: I believe brands are not marketing machines, they are also personal brands, right?
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because today the engagement rates of brands are very low in social media because it's just a marketing message that uh you know goes in, and therefore, is it time for brands to behave not like you know marketing machines but as personal brands?
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because then there is a lot of engagement and connection.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: For example, I was looking at something like a GoPro, which is actually having uh you know millions of followers because there's a connection between the brand, the passion that people have, and therefore a huge amount of engagement.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, therefore, uh, do you believe that brands also need to start thinking like personal brands and marketers need to look at social media marketing very differently in terms of personal uh brands being personal brands?
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_02: I would personally think it will be difficult for corporate brands to behave like personal brands for the very simple reason that a corporate brand is not handled by one person whose personal brand can affect the brand also.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_02: But it happened, I mean it's it happens to be handled by a group of people across teams.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_02: Basically, it could be a PR team, marketing team, uh, communications team, social media, everybody.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_02: All of those individuals who handle the brand would have an imprint on the brand eventually, and they need to come to a consensus saying we have we have 200 people handling this brand together across teams.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we take some of the best from each people and then put it plus, there is also agencies, external agencies that come in as partners, and their brand also gets imprinted.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: So, first task is literally to define the corporate brand in the way that you would design, I mean, define a human brand, saying what are the personalities of this brand?
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_02: Is it a happy brand or is it a fearful brand?
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_02: For it's insurance brands are generally built using fear also.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_02: Is it a fearful brand?
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_02: Something that people should take pride in, or st or something should people should find interest in buying because it's cheap.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_02: What kind of personalities can you build?
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then once you build a structure in terms of personality, tone, approach, and etc., then you need to get people to buy into that tone and personality and then imbibe that for a time period to actually give that the give that kind of tone and personality a meaning or an articulation.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: The articulation could change from time to time depending on who is handling what kind of people are handling, but at least you have written down the architecture of the personality of that brand.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_02: Once you have done that, it will be easier for assorted people to come together at various points in time and then stick to that brand and then build that brand over a time.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_02: Which doesn't mean you can't change that articulation.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_02: Eventually, if the brand has spent 10 years in the market and people are getting bored with that personality, you can shift that personality.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's like an individual brand, basically.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_02: You started getting interest in newer things in life.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, maybe you're not interested in classical music earlier in your life, but eventually, after you turn 40, maybe suddenly interest for classical music blooms in you basically because of the exposure or whatever it is.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_02: So things can change for corporate brands also.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_02: But the first thing is you try to create a personality exactly how you do with a personal brand.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_02: The only thing is with a personal brand, it's only you talking to yourself to understand saying what are my interest areas out of the hundred things?
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_02: Let me pick this five.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_02: But with a corporate brand, it's a consensus-driven decision.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_02: You need to come to a conclusion saying what makes most sense to sell the most products in the market.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_02: Towards that, how do we create or uh conceptualize a personal brand architecture for this?
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, not a personal brand architecture or a tone and a personality for this brand, and then stick to that persistently over a period of time so that it sets in people's minds.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh now I'm coming to your book, uh Be Social, where you really talk about this one interesting thing saying that personal branding is a conscious act.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you have to be aware.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, how do you build that awareness?
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because uh, you know, it's a it's a very difficult thing, right?
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because you get up in the morning, you go to office, kind of you uh do many things uh just you know, almost like a uh machine, if I were to call it.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you build the awareness triggers in you as you've written in that book?
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that was a very interesting chapter that I read.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, therefore, how do you build the awareness?
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: So, I would say this the starting point is using actively the kind of social media channels that we have.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's a very, very important tool, and and uh and and I would probably explain how that works also.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_02: Just assume we don't have any social media channels at all.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_02: There is no Facebook, there is no Twitter, there is no Instagram, there is nothing, there is no WhatsApp, there's nothing at all.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, even though WhatsApp is a social networking channel, not a social media channel, but assume there is no other channels.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_02: Who do you talk to on a day-to-day basis?
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_02: You would talk to your family, your kids, wife, parents, you talk to them on a day-to-day basis, you would speak to your colleagues and peers at work, and you would talk to your friends and social circle in the evening when you're playing or walking or jogging, whatever it is.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's the that's the circle that you would speak to.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_02: All these people know you, and you know those people to some extent.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have the opportunity to speak to strangers at all if you didn't have social media at all.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_02: You would speak only to people you know.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they know you, you know you, I mean you know them to some extent.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, your family knows you probably 100% age, your colleagues know you say about 50% age, your social circle probably knows about 40 to 70 percentage.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's about it.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_02: But they are all people known to you, they are all people you know reasonably well.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_02: There is zero opportunity to speak to strangers and bounce off ideas as to seeing how is the public perceiving this kind of information from my head or my perspectives.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's exactly what social media offers you.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_02: The the power and the the fact that you can talk to complete strangers anywhere in the world, even if there are five strangers or hundred strangers or one million strangers, it doesn't matter, to put forward your point of view.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, think about it, read about it, articulate it, and put it forward and get some kind of feedback mechanism saying this is what this person says.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_02: Or they say this sucks, you are an idiot, which is fine.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's also a feedback that you're getting.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, you need to look at who's saying that is it a very informed person, or is it a is it a troll who has got no bearing at all and anywhere at all, or can you find out who this person is, where she is working, whatever you can find out.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_02: But all those feedback matters because they're coming from complete strangers who have no clue who you are.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_02: That is the first step in getting that awareness about your personal brand because personal brand, when it works with strangers, it's probably the most impactful because they are the ones who are going to work with you eventually, or probably partner with you on an interest area or something eventually.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_02: The fact that when you're speaking to people you know, there is a level of comfort between you two, so they would probably quote the kind of feedback they give you based on their preconsumption of how you take the feedback.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_02: That goes completely out of the window when it when you get feedback from strangers.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_02: So, first be open to that kind of feedback and just put things out there with strangers in front of strangers more and more often.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_02: The more consistent you are, the more consistent they would become as your readers and audience.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_02: And the more feedback you get, you can actually craft your brand accordingly, and you can think saying, Okay, if I use an antagonistic tone in my writing, it looks like people don't take it well.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, how do I take an antagonistic tone and still sound civil?
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_02: What kind of words sound civil, but yet show that I don't agree with this point.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_02: So the way you actually do this on an everyday basis, you actually hone that skill of how to articulate really well, and again, this is not you trying to tone down your uh perspective, you're still putting what you are, but you are actually toning down the articulation perspective.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean how you're articulating changes, but the content is exactly the same.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_02: Instead of saying this product sucks, you're saying I am reasonably disappointed with this product for this reasons one, two, and three.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_02: For the first opinion, people would say no, it doesn't suck.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_02: I had a great experience with the product, but when you explain it more carefully in a more nuanced way, saying I was disappointed with the product for these reasons, people won't say no, no, no, I loved it.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_02: People would say, but it worked for me for these kind of reasons, and then you're having a civil conversation.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's the starting point of getting that awareness, saying that here is how you actually are aware that you are actually on a journey towards your personal brand.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_02: That really helps quite well.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_00: And once you build that awareness, how do you then, you know, is if there was a ladder, if I were to put it, uh, on the ladder, is it just about building content in your area of interest?
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the only way you start building deeper and deeper content?
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the ladder that you talk about building your personal brand?
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_02: It is, it is content in various formats.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_02: Is it um is it images, is it videos, is it text, but it should be a lifelong persistence.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_02: You need to be at it at no point you you actually slack on having a point of view on the areas of interest that you've chosen for yourself.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you can consciously choose not to have a point of view on a client, obviously, because it's just a matter of basic civility and decency.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_02: You are working with a client and don't say anything bad about them, however, civil it sounds.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's just not I mean, like it won't just gel at all, basically.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_02: But other things you can have a point of view.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_02: So there are two routes you can look at.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, the influencer model, the online influencers model, is basically that you make money off your content, which is basically you write, and then people ask you to write and pay money for your content, and you gain money from the content.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's one model.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_02: The second model is you make money off your content, not through your content, but off away from your content.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_02: That is, you write more and more, and it impresses somebody for them to hire you or consultant or a or a kind of work kind of stuff.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the model that I have chosen.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_02: The influencer model is getting money for the work that you write.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_02: I don't take money to write at all on any topic.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_02: I generally refuse that.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I actually keep getting it from agencies and brands, but I refuse that if something really interests me, I write about it completely free of cost.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_02: There is no need at all because it's interesting me personally.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_02: So there are two models that you can look at.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_02: But yes, content is a thing, and you need to get obsessed with the fact that you are able to think on a new topic, you are able to think on new connections, and I mean there is a famous quote from Steve Jobs: creativity is nothing but finding connections between two disparate things that somebody else missed, which is also the creativity in ad agencies.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_02: If there is a great concept that you see in an ad, it is just that they are able to make the connection between something and something which others have missed, but these people have done it because of the insights they have done, research they have done, or the sheer amount of reading they have done on those topics.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_02: The connections is creativity, and if you get obsessed with making connections, it'll be a lifelong pursuit, actually.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_00: A couple of general questions.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me some of the books that have inspired you.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um one most inspiring book, which I also mentioned in my book, is a book called Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's a pre-50s and 60s book on sociology.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's supposed to be one of the most important books on sociology.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's a very interesting, I mean, it's a very dry book because it's almost like an academic sociology book, but it's a very interesting premise, and the premise is explained literally in the first chapter.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_02: It says when a person goes to an interview, the person sits in front of the interview panel, the panel has about 10 people.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_02: Even before this person opens his mouth or opens her mouth, the panel forms an opinion about this person based on so many things.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_02: The body language is it stooping, is the shoulders right, are they well presented?
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_02: Are the shoes shining?
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_02: How the dress, whatever it is.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_02: Same with the person.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_02: He would form an opinion about every one of the panel in the interview based on how they look, how they talk, how they talk to each other, how they talk to the person, how they greet this person.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_02: So much happens, even without opening the mouth even for a second.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_02: The same thing happens with us on social media.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_02: You haven't opened your mouth to that particular person, but that person can look you up on Twitter, look you up on LinkedIn, look you up on all your blogs, and then form an opinion about you even before you opened your mouth to say a single word to that person.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a hugely powerful thing that you are wielding.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_02: So the more the more you think about this power and more you try to craft this power and put the right things on for strangers to form an opinion about you, it really helps from a personal branding.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_02: So that's literally the artistic.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_02: A second book is um is something again I've I have spoken about a lot.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, this is by author Scott Adams, who created the Dilbert character.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_02: I am not a fan of Dilbert anymore.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it used to be interesting at one point, now I've lost interest in it.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_02: But he wrote a non-Dilbert book.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he's written a couple of non-Dilbert books at all.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_02: This is almost like a life perspective kind of book that he wrote.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's called Um How to Um How to How to Win in Life, and I mean uh uh I forgot the exact name, it's a very long name.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_02: How to lose in life and still win big in life, or how to lose in life and still win big in life, whatever it is.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_02: That's a kind of thing.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's a fascinating book about some life hacks that he has done for himself, which work wonderfully for a very interesting thinker of his sort.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_02: Because he actually speaks about how did he conceive Dilbert on on which point in time when he conceived Dilbert and why and how successful it went, and those things he speaks about.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_02: And there are many life hacks that he talks about which are fascinating, and you can apply them to your own life.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_02: These two are some of the more inspired more most inspirational books for me, actually.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_02: Fantastic.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_00: So here is my final question, Karthik.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you were to give an advice to your 10-year-old self today, uh what are the three pieces of advice that you would give to yourself?
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um not three, just one actually.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_02: That should be more than adequate.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_02: And this is something that I I have learned from my dad, and uh probably I've imbibed it more, I mean, I mean like more subconsciously, also.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um we generally tend to define success in terms that the world defines it in, saying you have X amount in your bank balance, or you have this kind of a car, you you have these kind of awards in your work kind of stuff.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_02: But actually, it's it's an endless pursuit, it's like a rat race.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there is no end to that success at all.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_02: You can keep on going because my dad was in a bank job and he consciously didn't take a couple of promotions so that he can stay close to the family.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_02: For him, that was his priority.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_02: Being close to the family for the whole of life is a priority, then going around the world and taking promotions and working away from the family, working in Bombay and Delhi, whatever it is, away from the smaller cities that he enjoyed life in.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's his priority.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I probably learnt it slightly later in life, maybe 30, 35 plus, after having traveled all over the place and worked.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I used to travel to Delhi every single week from Bangalore.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_02: It used to be killing.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, I've enjoyed it at one point, but after a point, I think this is not working at all, I should not be doing this.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_02: So, that success you define, it's not just how the world defines success at all.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, for instance, there is no middle point in life that people talk about at all.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_02: That is, if you are having a decent standard of living for 80 years in life, it is probably a much better life lived than you have a spectacular standard of living for about 20 years of life, and the rest of the 60-year life you struggle to get the 20.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_02: Which means your average becomes 20 and 60, as against 80 of very peaceful normal life.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_02: That peaceful normal life nobody is caring for, everybody wants this, that's what everybody is looking for.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_02: But actually, that middle point is worth aiming for, even though not many people aim for it, they just land upon it and say, Okay, let me just land and live here.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_02: It seems nice, but that should be worth aiming for also the middle point.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to, I don't, I mean, the the fact that you don't have extremes in your life and have a peaceful, stable life is a very big deal, actually.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_02: But not many people take it seriously, they they actually take it for granted.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's something that I would tell my 10-year-old self, don't just strive for everything.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_02: Have a normal, peaceful life for the largest part of your life.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's a very good thing to strive for, actually.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've never heard such an advice, but uh you know, I keep asking this question.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is a very interesting perspective, Kath.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's lovely talking to you.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was amazing and uh learned a lot of things about personal branding.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very, very interested with the body of work and uh giving the talk that you do.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_00: And uh thanks a lot.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for taking the time to talk today.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to my conversation.com.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_00: And let us know the podcast.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you're listening to contrast on other podcasts, don't share your comments and go to the link.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_00: You are keeping all what you think.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you're listening to the podcast on YouTube, hit the subscribe button and stay up to date on all our releases.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening and stay safe.