Send us Fan Mail A résumé can look inevitable in hindsight, but the human story is usually messier and far more useful. I sit down with Jack Madrid, whose career spans Citibank, Ayala, MTV Philippines, Yahoo, Multiply, and now IBPAP, the organization that represents the Philippines' IT-BPM industry. We talk about what actually travels across industries when your job title changes, and why relationship management is not only about clients; it is also about learning to manage up, sideways and d...
Jul 23
52 min
Send us Fan Mail Your brain is designed to keep you safe, not to help you change, and that single fact explains why so many goals stall, so many training programs flop, and so many leaders feel stuck repeating the same patterns. We sit down with Desikamani (Mani), founder of Mental Learning and creator of result-oriented learning engineering, to explore behavior change through an unusual lens: metallurgy. When people buy steel, they do not care about steel; they care about properties. Mani ar...
Jul 9
56 min
Send us Fan Mail If someone audited your life like a portfolio, would it show only a career or would it reveal real compounding assets like health, relationships, curiosity, and courage? I sit with that question and share what changed for me after six conversations in the Portfolio Life series, because the biggest insights weren’t about collecting titles. They were about building a life that stays meaningful through different seasons. I reflect on lessons that stuck: the power of “brin...
Jun 25
13 min
Send us Fan Mail Money can be the one topic we avoid the most, even while it shapes nearly every choice we make. We wanted to change that, so we invited Anu Seth, financial coach and co-founder of Paid Forward, for an honest conversation on financial confidence, leadership, and the portfolio life many of us are already living. Anu shares how she became an “accidental investor” after starting out in technology, and why earning well is not the same as understanding money. We dig into compoundi...
Jun 11
47 min
Send us Fan Mail He started as a software engineer, tried building systems on the side as a fresher, and once quoted a potential client four motorbikes as payment. That mix of boldness and curiosity becomes the throughline of our conversation with M D Ramaswami, an engineer turned entrepreneur, investor, mentor, and ecosystem builder who keeps evolving long after most people settle into one lane. We talk about what really connects a portfolio life: risk taking without recklessness, staying a...
May 28
40 min
Send us Fan Mail Most careers are built like ladders. Nikki Barua argues for something braver: a portfolio life built like a constellation, where every role points back to one central quest. We sit down with Nikki to explore how insatiable curiosity can become a life design strategy, and why the point is not stacking credentials but getting radically clear on what you are here to unlock. Her hub-and-spoke metaphor grounds “multi-hyphenate”: one hub, many expressions, zero fragmentation. We g...
May 14
49 min
Send us Fan Mail Part 2 of this 2-part conversation with Professor Rajiv Vaidyanathan. Two invisible forces shape almost every awkward moment, workplace conflict, and relationship argument: we want to feel good about ourselves and look good to others. When either one feels threatened, we snap, defend, withdraw, or blame. We sit down with Rajiv to unpack how behavioral science and self-awareness can help us catch that reaction in the moment and respond with clarity instead of heat. We talk th...
May 7
31 min
Send us Fan Mail You can be smart, informed, and highly motivated and still fail to do the things you swear matter most. That’s not a character flaw; it’s often a pattern. I sit down with Rajiv Vaidyanathan, a professor and researcher in behavioral decision science, to unpack the intention-action gap and the hidden forces that pull us away from our own best plans. We get practical fast: why “life gets in the way” is true but incomplete, how present bias and hyperbolic discounting tilt us tow...
Apr 30
35 min
Send us Fan Mail We sit down with Nikita Jain to talk about Portfolio Life in real time, where career, identity, and values are still being built under constraints. We explore what makes public policy work humane, why implementation fails, and how writing and proximity create durable judgment. • rebuilding system literacy after moving countries • building judgment in complex systems • using writing to make invisible work legible • spotting early signs that policy will ...
Apr 16
46 min
Send us Fan Mail A polished career can hide a quiet price. When you spend decades in newsrooms, close to ministers, bureaucrats, elections, and crisis, what happens to your inner life when your outer life never slows down? We kick off our Portfolio Life Series with Rakesh Khar, a veteran of India’s leading news brands, to talk about resilience that is not performative. He opens up about being displaced by the Kashmir tragedy, carrying loss alongside professional highs, and the values his par...
Apr 2
59 min
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