To challenge yourself out of your comfort zone

One the most magical things that happened in 2020 is the I ❤️ARR journey. This is a journey that I hadn’t imagined.

As most of you who are reading this blogpost would have watched the Podcast with A.R.Rahman Sir. I had mentioned about how things were getting gloomy at the very beginning of the Pandemic. There was a lot of rumours / speculations and negativity surrounding the Pandemic.

I am usually someone who is high on energy and the enthusiasm levels are top notch. But when things were getting gloomy, I started to struggle a little bit. I decided to (continued) to do things that made me happy / keep my sanity levels up, like Fitness, getting creative with food art (I used to work as a Junior Chef during my University (Masters) days), listening to ARR Sir’s music (always plays 24/7) and of course my little champ 🐶 Happy would keep me on my toes.

One of the mornings whilst making my coffee, I opened up social media and saw a lot of negativity surrounding the pandemic. I decided I wanted to create something that would bring a smile / spread happiness. But I had not clue what it would be. So with that thought in the back of my mind, I started with my regular office routine. And later during that day, I also had a Technical Podcast where I was invited as a guest. It was a good hour long chat. Once I wrapped it up, I made my way to the couch being exhausted. I thought of looking up for a ARR Podcast on Spotify. And to my surprise nothing came up. And the very next minute I knew what I was going to create. I quickly had a chat with Sir and mentioned that I wanted to create something that would bring a ray of hope and positivity during the interesting times we are in. And most importantly, I wanted to create something that would celebrate ARR Sir’s music. Sir’s response was a smile 😊. That was pretty much a go ahead for me and I wanted to get the ball rolling.

I made my way to JB HiFi (electronics store here in Australia). I had no clue what to buy / how to host / where to start, I just didn’t want to wait until I figured it all out. I wanted to put myself in the adventure where I wanted to learn the hard way and figure / evolve as I progressed. I was ready to make mistakes / rather heaps of mistakes. I knew it was only going to get better.

I was determined that the Podcast was going to be the way forward. I did also want to be clear on the intent and most importantly do it with integrity, love and respect. I wanted it to bring a smile for me when I looked back after a few years and also be happy about creating something for my idol that will make me proud.

I set a tiny list of guidelines for myself even before I started:

The journey will be done with integrity
There will be no returns (monetary)
No expectations whatsoever
Do the journey with love and respect
Wrap the journey the way I started

I got all the gears that I needed to get the Podcast going. All the research for the gears was while I was at the electronics store and a quick research / review and swipe the card to buy them.

One of the things that kept lingering in my mind was that – this journey was going to put myself out there and most importantly going make me being vulnerable. I didn’t let this affect me in anyway. I knew I was going to do it no matter what. I was fully. determined that I was not going to stop no matter what.

My first ever Podcast was on the day I made my mind to do the journey and had made my way to the electronics store. I returned home from the store with all the gears, I remember getting myself a takeaway sandwich on the way home so that I didn’t lose time at home by having to cook. I focussed on setting up the gears the minute I returned home. It took me a couple of hours as I had to figure things out before I could set it all up. So the set up was done! I picked up the phone and called my very good friend Sreekanth Hariharan who had already sung for ARR Sir. I told him that I was starting of a Podcast journey and it will be dedicated to ARR Sir. He was excited about it as asked me when I would like to record it? I replied saying: Today. Let’s do it this evening. He was surprised and without a hesitation he said “Yep! let’s do this!”.

So my first ever Podcast was recorded. It gave me a high that I could never describe. It was magical, the right word would be fulfilling. This is the feeling that you get when you do something that you absolutely love. But in my case, I just set out to do something for someone I absolutely love.

I wanted to get into the research phase, the outcome was a very complex spreadsheet with a very long list of people who I had to speak with. More than intimidating I was even more excited.

The journey began there. I have had no scripts whatsoever, I wanted to converse from the heart, like a curious child wanting to know the creative process behind the magic.

I had never imagined that I would be a Podcast host. As I write this blogpost, I have had 109 guests in this journey, and a quite a big long list to cover.

This journey has had a tonne of hours of my personal time invested in this, lot of money, sleepless nights and learnings in every single step. I decided to do this journey no matter what. Work on my office stuff during the day and then on the Podcast journey after office in my personal time.

The journey has helped me evolve as a better person. I can’t deny this. I am definitely a better version of myself compared to what I was prior to the start of the journey. Every single guest has inspired me, learnings and ultimately a continuous evolvement. The quality of the Podcasts started to evolve through the process too. The journey taught me a lot of things like, creating posters, co-ordinating, scheduling, recording, post production and what not. The number of softwares I have learnt as part of this journey is just phenomenal. This makes me happy. I have learnt a lot of stuff. The journey has taught me better time management skills too and most importantly multi-tasking. I have been doing the whole journey single handedly whilst juggling with a lot of other priorities. It has been fun.

This whole journey is out of my comfort zone. I had never ever pictured myself as the guy in the Podcasts. The best part is, this journey has had a positive impact in my professional life too. I am even more confident in my meetings and workshops. It has changed in my outlook.

The Podcast 1.0 journey (with 99 Podcasts) is a journey that’s very close to my heart. I knew I wanted ARR Sir’s Podcast to be aired as the 99th one.

I remember when ARR Sir had come on the Podcast, I had already recorded about 35 guests by then. I mentioned that to Sir during the Podcast. Sir very kindly replied saying “Your intent is right. You shower so much love on me. I am not even sure if I am worthy”.

I would like to wrap up this Podcast with a little note. It’s all about the intent. Keep the hustle, do things that makes you happy and enjoy the journey. Magic happens when you step out of your comfort zone.