Author, Podcaster, Polyglot and Self Taught Coder Denis Murphy talks about Self Education, Self awareness and Benefits of having side Projects along with a full time job.    Questions from the Episode  You studied Business and French. How did you Pivot towards Coding and Technology? (02:02) Why did you earlier believe that you could not be good at Technology? (05:52) Why did you learn to code yourself? (08:36) What problems do you see with University Driven Education System? (14:13) How do you find peers when you are learning something yourself? (21:12) How did teaching while you were learning help you refine your own learning? (24:20) You were coding, learning languages and writing blogs. Why did you start a podcast? (32:08) Most of us afraid of being ridiculed while creating anything new. Do you think people really care when trying something new? (33:09) What problems do you see with the self help world? (38:48) You have completed 115 episodes from your podcast without monetizing it. What keeps you going?(42:57) What kind of side projects have you tried over the years and how have they helped you? (52:21) How can having side projects along with a job help? (58:28) 3 big take-Aways (01:14:13) 3 Big take aways from the Episode  Self Education doesn't mean doing everything yourself  or you cannot take help of peers or teachers. It just means you choose what you want to learn. It means you understand what mode of learning works best for you and design your own system. Of course, you can find peers and teachers who can best teach you and learn from them.  Conclusion without Effort - We often believe we are not good at something. It could be writing, investing, communication etc. When you honestly ask why are you not good at it? You might realize you haven't really put in enough effort. May be you you tried but found it too difficult to learn. This is were self awareness comes into picture. Try to understand how do you learn? Do you learn best by reading books, by listening to someone or watching animation videos etc. Find resources and teachers that are best aligned with your learning methods. Of course. this takes time and may be  expensive but at the end of the day you will learn what you want to learn. People Don't Care -  If you are hesitant to start something because you are afraid people will laugh at you, then remember, people really don't care about what you do, as much you think they do. Everybody's got their share of problem. And if somebody does laugh, Remember we discussed what do when people laugh at you? Simple, laugh along with them 

Artist, Designer and Founder of Design Consulting firm IdeaSutra, George Supreeth talks about a designer's approach to solving problems, Divergent thinking and power of observation.   Questions from the Episode -  Why did you choose to pursue a degree in Art and Design? (02:05) What kind of challenges did you have in finding a job? (05:05) How did you have paid assignments while you were still in college? (06:19) Have you intentional taken breaks to take a step back and reflect on your life and career? (09:42) What kind of dogmatic belief do entrepreneur nurture because of media noise? (13:40) What is design from a lay man's perspective? (17:20) Balancing Form (Visual Representation) and Function (Purpose) while designing (20:19) How does a designer approach a problem? How is it different from analytical way of solving a problem? (30:33) Is Design Thinking the new Buzz Word? What are its limitations? (38:33) How can different kinds of creators, over a period of time, develop an ability to see like designers? (41:42) What is Explorative learning? (48:27) Most parents don't want their kids be artist because they are afraid their kids may not earn enough. Your thoughts on that? (58:48)? 3 Big Take Always (01:03:58) 3 Big Take ways from  the Episode Attention to Detail -  What separates an artist from a non artist is that an artist pays close attention to the details. A stand up comedian may make you laugh for 15 minutes by talking about normal everyday experience. A writer can help you visualize a normal place in rich and vivid detail. A photographer may tell a beautiful story out of a normal everyday picture. If you want to turn what you love into an Art, pay close attention to the details. The beauty and essence lies in the boring details Divergent Thinking -  In schools, we were always told that there is just one correct answer to a problem and our job is to arrive that answer.  As a result, we often believe there is only one or two solution to our problems. That’s not true. It is possible to generate more solutions if you broaden your thinking . For example, let’s say you want to move to the hills but you need to sustainably earn well. Instead of thinking that you could either stay in the city and earn well or move to the hills, you can think of ways in which you can move to the hills and still earn well. May be develop a skill that helps you earn remotely or develop some passive source of income before you move to the hills. May be take a sabbatical and go live in the hills for a few months and see if you really like it. Once you have multiple solutions, you don’t have to choose just one the solution. You can figure out how can you have the best of all of them.  Just Say it - Some times when you have a problem, especially problems where you need more clarity, all you need to do is explain that problem to someone else. It doesn’t have to be real person. You can explain it to a wall. The goal is get your thoughts out loudly, so that you can see the inconsistency or gaps in your understanding. This is why they say teaching is a great way to learn because when you teach something, you see the gaps in your own learning. I did not know this process had name in programming called rubber duck debugging, where programmers try to explain their code to a dummy duck in order to understand where they are going wrong. 

On Oct 29th 2019, an IIT Hyderabad student killed himself by jumping of his hostel. He wrote to his friends that he did not find life interesting and his courses were not going great. This is the 3rd suicide at IIT Hyderabad this year. The incident made me wonder, Why do we need to score high marks, Earn more money, Seek comfort? What is really the purpose of our lives? On the first anniversary of The Break School, I reposting one of our older Episode that helped me deal with one of most the difficult question all of us grapple with No! This snippet won’t tell you what is the purpose of your life. It will not answer that question. Rather, It will compel you to change your question! You can find the complete snippet of the episode at - www.thebreakschool.com/tbs04

I studied in a school, where we rarely spoke in English. English was not a language but just another subject you had to score good marks in.  After school, I got into a college where my new class mates were from some of the top notch schools of Bangalore. They had incredible command over English. Their fluency both awed and intimidated me. I hesitated to speak in front of them. I stopped asking questions in my class. I was constantly afraid being ridiculed  Luckily, I met two incredible teachers who taught me How to learn even when you don’t have a teacher to give you feedback. What to do when people laugh at you. This snippet looks at these two teachers that all of us have but very few of us ever learn from. They are the two most under-appreciated teachers because they don’t give you easy answers. I Hope you will learn from them😊 Find the complete transcript of the Episode at https://thebreakschool.com/under-appreciated-teachers

Public Education Enthusiast and Founders of Swataleem Foundation Ananya Tiwari and Vaibhav Kumar discuss about their learning from building a Social Enterprises, raising funds, building their team and myths about development sector for aspiring social entrepreneur. Questions From the Episode -  Why did you guys start Swataleem? (02:40)  Haven't you been told by your family to first earn money then think of social service? (09:59)  How does being part of a community of problem solvers help? (13:47)  Why did you directly start working in the social sector? Why not take up a good job and then work on the side on Swataleem? (16:08)  How did you fund to build Swataleem? What are you major funding streams? (18:17)  What kind of leanings have you had around crowd funding? (22:42)  Any fundamental mistakes that you made in raising funds that aspiring social entrepreneur can learn from you to not make? (26:29)  What factors do you consider while recruiting people? (31:23)  How do you measure intangible factors like drive, adaptability etc while hiring?(34:36)  Any learning about good hiring basis mistakes you have made? (37:36) What kind of feedback loops have you developed to evaluate the work you are doing is making a difference? (40:11)   How do you decide what kind of interventions will really help you solve the problems that you are solving? (44:44)  Any myths about social Enterprise that you would want aspiring social entrepreneurs to be aware of? (49:10)  3 big Takeaways (57:21)  3 Big Takesaways from the session -  Big changes take time -   As Vaibhav mentioned, the process of convincing himself and his family about pursuing a career in development sector did not take place overnight. It was a result of many conversations and smaller decisions that he made over a period of time. Understanding this is important because we often look for quick results or immediate gratification, which is not available when you are trying to make a big shift in life   Importance of Community - Most people I have had at The Break School have pursued journeys that fills them with a lot of self – doubt. This is natural, when you are doing something that is not conventional. You are bound to feel alone and have a lot of questions and reasons to quit. This is where a community of like minded people plays a crucial role. The realization that you are not alone and there are others who are also solving difficult problem, gives you the strength and hope to keep moving forward. So find your communities. And if there isn't one, build it. Own your trade offs - As Vaibhav aptly said, when you choose to go into development sector, you must be aware that it is as much a selfish decision as it is go work in a corporate for money. Or in other words , when you make a decision, own it. Do it because it gives you joy and satisfaction. Do not expect anyone to come garland you.  If you quit a well paying corporate career to work in a village because you want a lot appreciations, you will mostly likely not stay in the village for a long time You can find detailed show notes of the episode at - http://thebreakschool.com/Swataleem/

Former National Tae - Kwon - Do Champion, Hatha Yogi and founder of Sailum Martial Arts Academy Acharya Babu T. Raghu speaks about learning to absorb pain, achieving mastery and doing everything one loves, even if you cant make a living out of it.   Questions From the Episode -  You have worn many hats. Armed forces, Martials Arts, Adventure sports, Writing etc. What prompted you to pursue so many things? (03:22)  So how did you financially support these activities in last the 30 years? (06:14)  How has cross disciplinary learning helped you apply lessons from Martial Arts & Adventure Sports to Stocks markets and vice versa (09:26)  What is Martial arts and why is it called an art? isn't it a sport, a violent sport? (11:48)  If Kunga Fa is a classical art form, then why do most people know only about the physical combat element of it? (15:10)  What does Zen has to say about developing the mind? (17:13)  What does it mean to take the journey inward? (20:07)  Why do you think it is difficult for people to sit quietly for even 10 minutes? (22:14)  What was your approach to learning martial arts? (25:36)  What do you think are barriers to achieving mastery? (28:05)  How do you transcend pain? How do you get better at absorbing pain? (29:40)  How do you help students over-come the fear of pain? (37:42)  Summary of Takeaways (50:02)  3 Big take away from the conversation -  Absorb a little Pain Everyday - As Acharya mentioned, The gap between where you are and where you want to be is Pain of learning or effort. Learning something new or making a big decision is painful. However, you don't do it in one go. Just as in martial arts, you can inflict a little pain every day. You can learn a little everyday, you can take little risk instead of trying to do what you want to do at once. Transferable Learning - A podcast student of mine once told me "Hey, I'm a software engineer, I dont' think I can write creatively". This is an example of Indian education system where we often becomes prisoners of our past education and degrees. Acharya Raghu applied his learnings about risks in adventure sports and quick decision making from martial arts to stock market trading. This is a wonderful example of cross disciplinary learning. I'm not suggesting that learning martial arts will make you a great Stock market trader. However, the mental models or Behavior you pick up from a deep involvement in one activity often helps you navigate other discipline in unexpected ways. So you don't have to be a prisoner of your past experiences.  Mastery is when you can detach your mind from the activity - I loved this definition of mastery from Acharya Raghu. You've achieved mastery in something when you enjoy it like a kid. When you can perform what you've mastered with pleasure and not pressure. You feel absolutely carefree and completely detach your mind from the activity. Mastery is when what love doing becomes a part of your muscle memory. You no longer deliberately do it. You just enjoy the flow.

There are so many things that make us curious, so many things that interests us, so many things that we want to learn and master. But we rarely start because we are terrible at it now. It is painful to acknowledge we do not know. It is painful to learn something from scratch because there is no immediate reward.   But worst of all, we exaggerate our fears of trying something new. We over anticipate the pain of failure pushing us into a vicious cycle of pessimism.   This snippet explores why we exaggerate our fears & how to pursue what we love despite being afraid of it.  You can read the complete snippet at www.thebreakschool.com/adaptability

On Guru Purnima, We express our gratitude to all the teachers and mentors who offered us knowledge and directions to help us navigate the journey of life. On this wonderful occasion, reposting our episode on Finding mentors to do what you love   In this snippet, we focus on two aspects - What do you need to convince someone to be your mentor and two, where can you find mentors.   You can find the complete transcript at - https://thebreakschool.com/mentors/ Happy Listening and Learning

One of India’s best known Social Commentator and CEO of Futurebrands, Santosh Desai talks about pitfalls of MBA education, importance of synthesised learning, his process of Developing Original Perspective and thoughts on what constitutes meaningful work. Questions from The Episode Does being in the hills have some kind of impact on your creative process? (02:55)  You started as a marketeer, How did you end up writing? (03:39)  Did you’ve self doubts about your writing when you were asked to write for the first time? (06:35)  In one of your article in 2012 you mentioned " It  [MBA] did not open my mind enough to new modes of thinking, and while it spoke of 'thinking outside the box', it spent all its energies in building the box instead  " about MBA. Can you elaborate on this further? (09:14)  What Do you think is holding the institutes like IIMs from changing their teaching approach? (14:45)  What got you interested in Tik Tok? (19:01)  But do you think I t really adds tangible value to peoples life? (21:12)  In another article you mentioned “Management education…. helps you reach to the level of order from disorder, but falls short if you want to reach from order to creation. It does not teach you synthetic thinking but advocates disparate thinking.” Can you please elaborate a little more on synthesized thinking and disparate thinking? (24:28)  Does MBA help people deal with uncertainty, which is extremely crucial in the process of creation? (30:41)   You write on diverse subjects - education, gender roles, Indian state, family etc. How did build up your background knowledge to write on these subjects (39:27)?  What do you mean by "Understanding the structural aspects of an issue or topic at hand"? (42:39)  Once you have asked the basic question, how do you build your observations around it ? (48:48)  How do you sift through the flood of content on the internet to build your understanding around problems that you are interested in? (01:00:12)  Are there certain simple ideas that you practice repeatedly that has helped you improve your writing? (01:05:11)  What kind of fundamental ideas should freelancers understand in order to communicate their value preposition better? (01:07:33)  From you experience as leading multiple organization, what do you think holds people in an organization?  (01:14:37)  Creating a space where people can explore ideas is an ideal scenario but don’t you think most organizations do not allow this because it takes time, they would rather refer to the best practices and templates?  (01:18:17)  DO you think with the advent of internet, a lot young people would be inclined to work as individuals rather than be part of large organisation (01:23:40)  3 Big Takeaways  (01:26:11)  3 Takeaways from the Episode  Developing Original Perspective - As Santosh mentioned, Developing an original perspective doesn’t mean developing a unique perspective. It means gaining fundamental understanding of issues or problem you trying to solve. Very often, in order to save time, we use templates and quick hacks. Which is fine, as Santosh mentioned, for example, If your computer isn’t working, you just need 5 ways to fix your computer rather than understand how it works from scratch. However, When it comes to subjects you are deeply interested in, or subjects that your livelihood depends on, just gaining a superficially understanding and using templates doesn't help. When you do your own thinking, when you ask simple questions and compare your ideas with other alternatives, you not only develop a deeper understanding but begin to realize the limitation and utility of existing templates or solutions Importance of Thinking by First Principle - One of the ways to develop original perspectives is doing First principle thinking - It is basically a mode of thinking where you constantly ask the "why" question until you reach a point that has no underlying “why”. For example - Why do you listen to The Break School. Because you want to learn how to do what you love and make a living out of it. But why is it important to do what you love? Because you spend at least 9 to 10 hours on some activity everyday, to earn a living. So if you are going to spend 70% of your life's time (ignoring the time you sleep) on something, isn’t it important you love and enjoy what your do. But why is it important to enjoy what you do? Because otherwise you are constantly stressed, you don’t feel the motivation to get better, you seek superficial and harmful ways to gain pleasure and most importantly you are not happy. But why is it important to be happy? Well I leave you with that question. You may also want to check out this article on first principle thinking by Farnam street. Second Order Thinking - Second Order thinking is when you don’t just look at the immediate consequences of your action but you understand the chain reaction it will cause. As discussed in the episode, Monetary incentives in organisation do work, people at an individual level, do respond to it. However, in the long term, it creates a culture where everything becomes transactional, people begin to hoard work and internal competition supersedes Collaboration, which is extremely crucial to produce great work. To develop second order thinking, you have to stop viewing your actions in isolation and look at the entire system you are operating in. In our example the system is the Organisation. You can check this article on second order thinking by Farnam street. 

Journalist, Media entrepreneur and India’s leading Podcast Consultant Chhavi Sachdev talks about limitation of Radio that led to emergence of Podcasts, Challenges and opportunities for independent podcasters and myths associated with working as a freelancer. Question from the Episode (Complete Questions list shared at the end) How would you explain Podcast to someone who hasn’t heard of it? (02:35) Why do Radio in India have little diversity in content? (05:04) How did you end up with podcasting? (07:41) How did you learn Podcasting? (09:41) Apart from chronological order, In-what other ways can you structure a story? (12: 03) Any other feedback you received that made a difference to your podcasting Journey (14:07) Alex Bloomberg said you need something new every 45 to 90 seconds to keep the audience engaged. How practical do you think it is? (18:37) How do you balance between letting your guest speak and making sure the answers are not way too long? (20:16)? What are some of the myths or misconception that people hold when before starting a podcast? (24:35)? What impact would high budget Podcast from giants like Spotify and Audible have on independent podcasters, who work with bare minimum budget? (28:59) While the number of podcast creators are growing, the numbers of listeners aren’t growing. Your thoughts? (33:24) You are not very aggressive on social media. Do you think you are missing out on opportunities due to that? (37:08) How did you find clients for Sonologue initially? (38:07) What kind of myths do people have about freelancing. (45:31) Summary of Take Aways (51:50) 3 takeaways from the episode What makes Podcasting special is the idea of choice – Unlike radio, that has limited options and limitations of Location and time, you can listen to podcast anywhere, anytime. Not to forget, the rich diversity of content available for listening. And if you don’t find a podcast of your interest? Why don’t you start one? That takes me to lesson number 2 As Independent Podcaster, your greatest strengths are your curiosity and a niche space. As Chhavi mentioned, the big production companies are not interested in niche space because this is not where the big audience is or the big money is. So that leaves you with an opportunity to create content in areas that you are deeply curious about. Being your own boss is a myth – I love the idea of being your own boss, but no matter who you are – An employee, an entrepreneur or a free-lacer, there is someone who always demands your time. It could be your employer or your client. What you certainly choose is who has this control to and to what extent. The tradeoff generally is time and freedom instead of more money. If you can afford to make this trade off, then great.