WorkYogi Diaries Podcast: Recent Episodes
Santosh Shiva
In this podcast, I bring you conversations with people who are either masters of their craft , or on a journey to becoming one. They see work as a form of self-expression and discovery, not merely to pay bills. I believe what the world needs it for us to come alive, and the podcast is my 2 bits to amplify inspiration and perspective.
You will take away specific ideas, strategies , core principles that may inspire your to game to the next level , or rethink your view of work itself.
In conversation with Vidya Iyer, Founder, and CEO of Unbound Solutions on her mission to empower women. Women traditionally have had to take breaks from careers due to various reasons including parenting and family priorities. Getting back to the workforce after a gap is often riddled with a lack of opportunity. This is primarily due to hiring managers having concerns about the loss of skills during the gap years. Unbound solutions provide Agile scrum master training that's helping women come back to the workplace after gap years. Unbound through its services is helping customers access a talented pool of professionals equipped with the latest Agile methods. We get behind the scenes of this amazing entrepreneurial journey with a mission.
Chapter timelines
0:00 Background and intro
2:35 Unbound Solutions founding story
6:37 Bridging the gap on the demand side
7:35 The challenges of being agile
11:06 What is an Agile mindset
17:24 How does one develop an Agile leadership mindset
20:00 Qualifications for becoming an Agile coach
22:47 Are women more amenable to being Agile
23:25 Challenges of placement
24:55 What’s the future of Unbound Solutions
27:40 The last word
In this episode, pleased to have Uday Kumar, an old friend, and a technologist, who has been passionately on a quest to document and preserve the local history of one world’s most important cities, Bengaluru.
If you thought Bengaluru is a colonial city that mushroomed into a metropolis because of the industrialization and technology boom, you are in the majority However, the truth is that Bengaluru has had a history that goes back to 1000+ years. Through his passion and drive, Uday has pulled together a citizen coalition that searches, preserves and in some cases recreates ancient inscription stones that tell local history. This project will serve the many future generations to come.
Our guest today describes herself as someone who is passionate about the future. Her focus is to anticipate, strategize, activate and infuse the future into today's organizations through futures studies, foresight, strategy development, and planning.
Additionally, she applies this expertise to some of the current societal challenges, one of them is in the area of mental health and suicide prevention, through her involvement in the Texas suicide prevention collaborative. We dwell on what got her attracted to becoming a futurist, how does one trains to become a Futurist, the importance of future planning, her choice of suicide prevention as a cause, and what's next on her horizon.
You can learn more about the collaborative at https://texassuicideprevention.org/about-us/
Episode Youtube link https://www.youtube.com/c/WorkYogiDiaries
careers #music #journey Vishwesh Bhat has been a senior IT professional for over 2 decades and has lived in India and the United States. He is also a versatile musician, composer, singer, actor & cartoonist.
He is trained in both Carnatic and Hindustani styles of music and has developed his own style of singing multiple genres seamlessly leading the Indian classical creative band, “SvarAmrita”.
We unearth how music entered his life, how he built his rich body of work while having a full time IT job and where his musical journey is headed next.
Youtube link https://www.youtube.com/c/WorkYogiDiaries
montessori #career #coaching #americandream
In the house today is Magdalena Ponurska, an Executive and Leadership Coach and an AMI Montessori Administrator, founder of Zone of Genius, and co-founder of Global Montessori Network. She has worked for 15 years in corporate settings and having trained in team management and leadership development. From her roots in Poland to arriving in America without the knowledge of English, to getting her education and then thriving in the American corporate, followed by a pivot into her passion for education and coaching, it's a dream come true. We explore how she did it, and what gave her the courage to plunge into her passion for education and launch her own business.
In conversation with Shyam Gopal who took the plunge in pursuing his passion after decades in a successful corporate career. His first innings took care of his survival, the second is driven by his love and passion. It takes courage and immense patience to stay in the game. Beginners' mindset is easier said than done, managing one's pride takes immense maturity and focus.
We delve into the origins of his love for acting and cinema, the courage to commit to a journey, the pitfalls of working in a less organized industry, and where he is headed next. Shyam Gopal has to his credit movies like Hindi Medium, Bhoomi, Baazaar, Kolaigaran among many other Indian TV series and OTT platform series on NetFlix, Amazon Prime etc.
growth #csuite #executive #management #leadership #people Satish Dhanasekaran is the senior vice president and chief operating officer at Keysight Technologies. As a chief operating officer, Dhanasekaran is responsible for growing orders and increasing annual recurring revenue for the company. He oversees the functions that contribute to these objectives, including market and technology research; development of new technologies, products, and solutions; services; marketing; and sales.
In conversation with Santosh Iyer, SVP and Head of Strategic Account with a leading technology consulting company.
We explore the basic question of pros and cons of a career in sales and cover ground across important and yet topics that include mindsets, value creation, effective relationships, and the advent of AI on sales.
My guest today has crossed many milestones to get where he is today as one of the pioneers of podiatry in India. We speak about his journey and his choices, and what makes him who he is.
From studying ayurvedic medicine to administering a troubled college, pioneering telemedicine, and more recently pioneering podiatry in India, Sanjay lives on the edge and makes a difference.
Chef Biju is a lifelong entrepreneur, cyclist, and food industry pro who has worked his way up from scrubbing floors and dishes to being a food writer and co-author of the best-selling Feedzone Cookbook series with Dr. Allen Lim. Born and raised in south India, Biju found his love of all things food while growing up on a small family farm and cooking alongside his large family. Biju has been the executive chef to The Amgen Tour of California, The USA Pro Challenge, The Tour of Utah, The Nissan / RadioShack pro cycling team, BMC pro cycling team, Quickstep, and Dempsey Del-Piero Racing team along with numerous high-profile clientele globally. In 2014 Biju launched the Little Curry Shop restaurants in Denver which would go on to spread the message of bright, flavorful, and lighter South Indian-inspired food to Americans. Biju has appeared along with Guy Fieri on the Food Network's DDD, the show "Scraps" on A&E, dozens of local and national TV shows, podcasts, and is a sought-after speaker to businesses, entrepreneurs, and anyone needing a change of view.
Lavanya finds opportunities to recreate herself every time she sits at the canvas. Each frame captures and relives the most tender and beautiful experiences of her personal life. Color brings her joy. Painting professionally now, at first seeking inspiration in nature and then expanding to visually illustrating emotions. Her art represents the drama in life through color.
Lavanya’s free spirit and desire to go beyond expectations, inspire her art. she is constantly engaged in “finding peace in the bad, messy and ugly”. In her childhood, Lavanya found bursts of art even in her mother’s molecular biology lab. As a trained architect, college days were filled with sketches of building forms; historic, contemporary, and imagined. Art by Joan Mitchell, Kandinsky, Rothko, Van Gogh, and Monet, continues to awe her.
Lavanya has lived in Hyderabad and Bengaluru (India), Princeton, and Dallas (USA). Her varied life experiences allow her to experiment while enjoying the process of discovery and the jubilation of the outcome. Several years of strokes have led to this moment of livening up a canvas with her imaginative play of color and joy. Finding relationships between colors, emotions, and nature, Lavanya wants to move people, one painting at a time.
Youtube video version at http://bit.ly/workyogi
In todays’ episode, we are in conversation with Padmaja Nagarur, CEO of Artflute a leading online portal connecting artists and consumers who value high-quality art. She has been featured in leading publications like the economic times, the Hindu, and Femina. She serves as the board member of dream a dream(NGO) that empowers young people from vulnerable backgrounds to overcome adversity and flourish in a fast-changing world, using a creative life skills approach.
We talk about her work journey, her decision-making approach to work(and life in general), what's behind leaving a lucrative marketing job to start a venture of her own, the pro-Bono work she does with NGO dream a dream, and her vision of the future.
From a degree in medicine followed by disillusionment in the medical practice, our guest today charters a journey that eventually brings her back to her true calling.
We discuss the key pivots and mindset that helps her navigate this journey amidst big changes and life events. Give this a listen/view and let us know if you took something away from this conversation.
Youtube version on :
http://bit.ly/workyogi
In conversation with Hiren Modi, former Landmark Education Forum Leader and subsequently Area Director for multiple organization transformation companies.
Consider this quote; "If we are to release the full potential of human beings, spirit and technology must exist side-by-side.". Hiren believes developing people and leaders of all ages and levels into their most powerful, unique selves is imperative today in every culture and company.
He is hard at work at that imperative and making a difference every day. And he isn’t being casual about it, Hiren is someone who has been working with people transforming their lives. He has to his credit lead transformational programs for over 140,000 people.
He humbly acknowledges his early struggle for lack of a big degree but seems like spent his life making a huge difference with people who had big degrees.
We had the opportunity to talk to him about his early struggle, the evolution of his life’s purpose, the jolt from personal transformation to organizational transformation, what is needed to have high-performing organizations, and finally what’s next for him.
My guest today is someone who has spanned a career in engineering and general management and scaled the ladder in corporate America. He describes himself as a serial intrapreneur, business, and technology leader with a track record of incubating, building, and growing businesses in large organizations in a world wide capacity. HIs story epitomizes the American dream. He is a Product creator and a technologist with a PASSION FOR user experience. He has been the Founder of HP's Wearables and Cloud/Mobile Printing business,. Created 'Engineered by HP' as a sub-brand, CREATING Wearables/ for consumer lifestyle brands like HUGO BOSS, COACH, TITAN, FERRARI, and MOVADO. The former head of all products and Engg for Digital Home at Comcast. Chief Product Officer, EVP/GM at SharkNinja working on Appliances, Foodtech and Robotics. Board member IOTC He currently heads the Robotics business for a growing company that's expected to disrupt the world as we know it in robotics and artificial intelligence We get to talk about his journey from a humble beginning in India, how failures create new opportunities, the importance of a learning mindset, a recipe for success in corporate life, the evolution of his role into a product creator, brand marketer, and the future of AI/Robotics.
My guest today is a creative powerhouse. Her story is of finding self-expression through her values, passion for food, and photography to work. Through her plant-based food Instagram handle #yummyyatra which grown to over 37k followers, she brings joy, happiness, and ideas for people on a journey of healthy living. We get to talk about how it all started, what got her into the plant-based lifestyle journey, what's behind its growth, challenges, and joy of being a digital creator, how does she make brand choices, and what's next on the horizon. You can reach Anusha at https://www.yummyyatra.com/ and Instagram handle @yummyyatra
My guest today is one of the few who followed his heart for the love of a craft Back in the mid-80s and early 90s India, life was about survival, the obvious options were to pursue engineering or medicine, it was a sure shot to making it to the middle-class life, but he traveled a road less traveled First, as a photographer later morphing to cinematographer in Indian cinema working with big names like Kamal Hasan, Nagesh Kukunoor, and K Ravi Chandran. Later in his second chapter, co-founded The Vault, a unique service, that it offers a never-before curated collection of artisanal whiskies, rums, tequilas, cognacs, gins, and other spirits. We get to talk about what got him started on his journey of the road less traveled, the travails and the challenges, what's behind the decision to go cold turkey on one career and start one in his mid-40s, where does he derive the courage and passion and what drives him to stay in the game.
All projects have a back story, and it mostly involves your immediate circle who buy into one crazy ideas . This is about that, and why WorkYogi Diaries.
Work is core of our existence in the world, its what gives us being, without work, we have no bearing . This channel is about work ( of all kinds , as along as it brings joy and satisfaction to your life)
Srinath's story is that of a beginning with self-doubt and half-baked conviction, to embracing opportunities with a growth mindset. His grounding on core principles is unwavering, and its not every day you stumble on individuals who stand up for their principles even it means losses. Thats his story. Hope you will listen and take away inspiration back to your work.