Inspire Someone Today
Inspire Someone Today
E160 | Life by Design | Navyug Mohnot
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What if you treated your life like a design project, not a rigid plan? We sit down with Navyug, a transformation coach and life design educator, to unpack a practical way to build your future through small, innovative experiments. Instead of chasing a perfect blueprint, we talk about wayfinding—how to navigate from a shifting point A to a shifting point B—and why clarity often follows action, not the other way around.
We trace the roots of Designing Your Life from Stanford’s design school to workshops that help people move from default choices to deliberate ones. You’ll hear how three core mindsets—sensemaking, reframing, and iteration—turn uncertainty into opportunity. Expect concrete tools: writing your work view and life view, tracking energy and flow to find fit, and building Odyssey Plans that map three different five-year futures. The real unlock is blending elements from those futures into your life now, so meaning doesn’t wait for someday.
We also face the storm of AI and automation head-on. Navyug predicts more profound disruption than most expect, which makes human skills like empathy, creativity, learnability, and possibility thinking non-negotiable. For leaders, we explore culture-design questions that matter: how failure is handled, how physical space fosters collisions, and how organizations advance each person’s journey. And for anyone wrestling with the “follow your passion” advice, we offer a better path: follow interest, put in the reps, get good, and let passion emerge from competence and momentum.
If you’re ready to move from overthinking to action, this conversation gives you the tools and mindset to get started. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review telling us the one experiment you’ll try this week.
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Welcome And Theme: Life By Design
SPEAKER_01What if, what if we could take some of these principles, methods, and tools and work on the most important project of our lives, which is our life. And so they repurposed and studied, and of course, you know, at Stanford, it's 15, 17 years since they started. So it's evolved. But they came up with the idea, published a book that became a bestseller. They started offering the course at Stanford, became very popular, then they started offering it worldwide. And that's how I got associated. And so what I am now doing, because uh it resonated with me in my life, is to teach it, to develop it, to do research on it, to work with people and help them to be quote unquote designers of their lives. And the last statement I'll say is you know what, we already are designers. It's a very exciting world. And I keep joking with people in my office and at home as I wish I was 28 years old in this world. Although maybe easier said than done, they have a lot to deal with in social media and everything that's uh messing up with their lives, but it's actually an exciting world for people who are willing to engage with this fluidity and they're okay with ambiguity and they relish in building something out of nothing because the world is is you know to be defined by us. So I think it's an exciting world.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to Inspire Someone Today Podcast, a show where we dive into the stories and insights that has the power to create ripples of inspiration in your life. I'm your host, Shrikan, and I'm thrilled to be with you on this journey of inspiration. Hey my dear visitors, welcome back to yet another episode of Inspire Someone Today. Step in, settle down, and open your heart. This is Inspire Someone Today, where voices
Grand Vision Versus Small Experiments
SPEAKER_00turn into inspiration. And today, we're just not talking about careers or leadership or even success. We are going to talk about something far more expansive, the art and science of designing your life. And in true inspire someone today's style, we'll also step into a special segment where we don't just reflect on where we are, but explore what lies ahead. And today's guest is Naviuk. He's just not an entrepreneur or a transformation coach, but you're meeting somebody who is a designer of possibilities, pioneering the idea of life by design. Naviuk has lived many lives. It's shaped not by chance but by conscious choice. He helped lead us reimagining organizations, guided individuals to reinvent themselves, and built pathways where others saw walls. His philosophy is simple yet radical. Your life is not a default setting. It can be redesigned. On this note, it's an absolute joy to have Naviuk join on this episode of Inspire Someone Today. Welcome to the show, Naviog. Okay Shrikant.
SPEAKER_01One thank you for having me, and uh I'm really looking forward to the conversation.
SPEAKER_00Naveog, what intrigued me when I was looking at your profile was life by design. How many people look at life with that kind of a lens? And that's the reason we are here today talking to you to get to know more about what you mean life by design. It sounds inspiring, but where do I even start? Do I need to have a grand vision or can I begin with small experiments? Tell us about what's life by design, how did you go about uh coining this phrase and what was your inspiration to get started with this?
SPEAKER_01Sure. So Srikant, so um, you know, and let me start by your first part of the question, and which is do I need the grand vision or do I start with smaller steps and experiments? And and my view here is the grand vision emerges from all the steps that we take. One of the mistakes, or I would say, things that we assume is that we know our grand vision. We assume it. Sometimes it's the default setting based on the stories and the narratives we grow up with, only to realize later on that's perhaps not me or my passion or my career. And so what designing your life says is that before you commit to the grand vision, you need to discover it. And discovery happens as a designer would do through an iterative process, um, moving things forward and unpacking. So that's that's really the philosophy here that it's a designer's view of um creating things. There is no equation to be solved in life, there is no maths, you cannot intellectualize it. And you should not also take the stories and narratives and everything that we've heard from society, but take it all and then iteratively let it evolve, let it align, let it resonate, and with it you evolve and your ultimate goals and destinations and grand visions evolve. So it's an iterative process. Now, how did this all get
Stanford Roots Of Designing Your Life
SPEAKER_01started? Well, it got started actually at Stanford University by two very eminent design professors. One of them had worked at Apple, another one was at Electronics Arts. They were teaching design for a long time, and you know, and clearly they were very proficient and understood the methods, tools, mindsets, and they themselves were designers, so obviously they knew that very well. And then one day over a coffee they said, well, um, you know what? What if, what if we could take some of these principles, methods, and tools and work on the most important project of our lives, which is our life. And so they repurposed and studied, and of course, you know, it's Stanford, it's 15, 17 years since they started. So it's evolved. But they came up with the idea, published a book that became a bestseller. They started offering the course at Stanford, became very popular, then they started offering it worldwide, and that's how I got associated. And so what I am now doing, because uh it resonated with me in my life, is to teach it, to develop it, to do research on it, to work with people and help them to be quote unquote designers of their lives. And the last statement I'll say is you know what, we already are designers. All of us have made conscious choices as well in life, and we've got to where we've got to. We are designers. And yet there are techniques, there are tools, there is sharpening that can be done, and there's a sense of conscious competency that can be built. So we are better life designers. So my aim is to inspire and empower and enable people so that they can be better life designers, even though they may be already awesome life designers.
SPEAKER_00I love this take. One, looking at from a designer's lens, two, applying the elements of design thinking, and then designing your life as if you're the architecture of your life, which which one is. Now, with that uh mindset, that philosophy, it's very, very intriguing. So I'll get to hear more about it. Uh now one other piece you did mention that you run a lot of workshops around uh this particular concept of uh design your life. I think what the question that is there on people's mind is career or life is not a linear thing, right? How do you help people design not just a plan, but ability to redesign when life changes? Right.
SPEAKER_01And that's the whole point of designing your life. A, it starts with the recognition that we may, in our minds, have a plan for going from point A to point B. It never works that way. Life happens, we evolve. So, in this journey, the first thing is an a realization and an acceptance that there will be these uh zigzags as we go along. Now, when we are not ready for that, then it creates a certain amount of stress and emotion. However, if we have tools and we have the mindset and we embrace this, what we call in designing your life, this concept called wayfinding, right? And what, and I'm gonna take a moment here to explain it because you brought up
Wayfinding: Navigating Shifting A And B
SPEAKER_01a very important point. You know, in Google Maps, you say, I want to go to point B, you feed it in. Google Maps knows where you are, and it gives you a best route from A to B. In life, you actually think you know point B, but most of us, as we go along, are surprised that our point Bs keep changing. And we think we know who we are, and and that is point A, but that also keeps evolving. So wayfinding as opposed to navigation is the art of um knowing to an extent where you want to be, which is point B, and knowing that you cannot have a precise point B, and knowing where you are, which is point A, and knowing that it's not a precise point A, because we think we know ourselves and we know the world, but that's a work in progress journey. And then how do you navigate from the shifting A to a shifting B so that there's um it's a fulfilling journey, an exciting journey, an adventurous journey rather than a stressful one. Because A is going to keep shifting and B is going to keep shifting. And when we embrace that, accept that, and are enabled with the tools and techniques, then life becomes an adventure, life becomes a wonderful game. And like in a video game, we keep solving and leveling up and leveling up and and discovering new things. So it's that's how it all plays out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I think it's a nice uh way of uh putting that analogy that A and B are not static. Yeah. Right? A and B are moving and how do you kind of evolve around those moving uh points? And that that also is a tension between dream and reality, isn't it? That how do you balance this? How do you balance encouraging people to dream boldly with grounding those dreams in the practical constraints of say family, finances, culture? So, how do you kind of go about doing that?
SPEAKER_01You know, so A, life does have constraints. We all live in a certain context, we all have a set of competencies, and so I can dream very bold, but and we should and we must. And yet, what Diva L and this framework and what we say is start taking baby steps and start doing experiments to see and to calibrate and to know and yet be energized by the larger goal and the bold dream as you call it. But the bold dream must also get validated by and through baby sex and actions in reality. Otherwise, 10 years later, five years later, or 20 years later, we might be terribly disappointed. So, designing your life is a series of validations, a series of prototypes, a series of experiments towards our goal. And in my experience, and in so many of the stories we read, is as you go
Dreams, Constraints, And Prototyping
SPEAKER_01along, that bold goal shifts because we discover something about ourselves. And yet we have a new bold vision. So on the journey, point B shifts, and we have a new bold vision. We might have the same one, but the the bottom line is that we keep taking steps forward and validating and making progress rather than saying this is my fixed bold vision and creating a plan only to be disappointed and having negative emotions five years later. So so it's the designer's approach. You know, let's take iPhone. There's iPhone 17 today, but once there was an iPhone 3, and you know, it evolved. They didn't know what features would be an iPhone 17 and what customers would want. And in designing your life, we are our own customers. Okay, we are the client and we are the the vendor, so to speak. We are in product design, we empathize with our external customers and designing your life, we empathize with ourselves. And that evolves. So we are going from version one of ourselves to version two, maybe to version 17. And that's the the beauty of this journey.
SPEAKER_00I think what I hear you saying is while you can have a big dream, big vision, A, it is iterative, B, it is small steps, C, recognize the fact that that big vision doesn't happen overnight. It is a series of small incremental stuff, version after version that you build out. So if all of this were to be the case, what would be the start point for somebody? If somebody were to be listening to this conversation, say, okay, this sounds interesting, but where do I even start from? Right.
SPEAKER_01No, uh Srikant, you have summarized it beautifully. Let me try and take a stab at where you start from. So the first thing we say is, you are here. Okay? So we ask our folks on this journey to drop the baggage of, oh, I'm late, oh, I can't do it. I should have been doing something else by now, I should have figured things out by now. And we are really weighed down by that baggage. So what we say is start from where you are at, start from here and now, and today is the first day of the rest of your life. Now, this is a this is a mindset thing. Okay, and I'll I'll explain the journey forward, but it's very important to have a mindset, a day zero mindset saying I'm going to build from where I'm at. Otherwise, we'll keep regressing to our old state. So that's one. Now, once one is ready to undertake this journey, the one of the first things we do is we ask people to sit down and reflect on what's their worldview and what's their life view. What is their work view and their life view? What does work mean to them? What does a profession mean to them? What does life mean to them, et cetera, et cetera? So there's a deep reflection and they write it down. We ask them to, you know, look at what values drive them. You know, so are you, what are your values? What incidents in your life have those values showed up? Do you like to be an artist? Do you like to be a problem solver, impact maker? Because so many of us have never sat down and said, these are my top five values. Then we go in a different direction and then we don't feel so happy because they're not aligned with our top five or seven values. So there's a series of exercises and reflections to know yourself and to know what might be of great interest,
Know Yourself: Values, Energy, And Flow
SPEAKER_01to know what motivates you, to know what your worldview is, to know what your life view is, to know what energizes you, to know what puts you in states of flow. So these are series of reflections and exercises. For you, you know, podcasting or having conversations like this is something you're good at and puts you in a state of flow, and time just flies. And therefore, it'll work for you. Now, if this was a if this was stressful for you, you would probably not put in greater effort and get very good because uh maybe you're not good at it. But since you are good at it, you're getting better at it. So that's the starting point of the journey. To empathize with self, to know thyself. And I'm, you know, that's just a sentence, but to unpack who you really are, and you'll be surprised when you do that. You learn so much about yourself, including the limiting beliefs that we carry and the social narratives that we carry and the societal stories that we carry, and to accept, acknowledge, and reframe all of that to know which direction you want to head. Okay.
SPEAKER_00And I would play a bit of a devil's advocate or an ACS hat here, Naviog, is when the world feels so unpredictable, uh, we are surrounded with uh AI layoffs, burnout, mental wellness. Can life really be designed? Or is it more about adapting, or is it more like a utopian uh feeling to say that yeah, life can be designed when everything else is kind of aligned, but not for me? Got it.
SPEAKER_01So you can say, can life be designed? I would like to reframe that by saying this is the act, or we are proposing the act of continuously designing your life. So life is a project that is never finished till the last day of your life, right? And therefore, what is important is the verb designing and not the noun which is static, which is design. So you're not ending up with a design, you're ending up being a designer who's going to constantly design in this uncertain world, and therefore, it becomes even more important to be a designer and to see it as a verb because there's never one design. So the shift goes from a designed life to the identity of being a designer who is constantly, constantly, every day designing their lives forward towards greater flourishing and well-being and happiness. Given the uncertain world and given how the world changes every day, we we engage with the world and we design every day. So there is no one static design blueprint. But there are visions and there are directions, and we work towards it, and we have the tools and to look at the signals, and then we we know when to pivot, and we we are in a constant state of design.
SPEAKER_00So for starters, Naviuk, somebody listening to this conversation, what's the first design principle they should anchor themselves to in this journey?
SPEAKER_01Okay,
Designing As A Verb In Uncertain Times
SPEAKER_01so maybe let me give more than one, but some of the core mindsets or principles or the essence of design. The essence of design is number one, is deep understanding of context of self, which and in this case, context and self. And the humility to know that we only know that much and that it'll keep evolving. So designers are always willing to understand and to interpret and make sense make from the signals around them, and and then to so that's a design mindset, or the one of the essence of design is to continuously do sense making and understanding in this case, sense making of the world and of self. I would say the second very critical or very um, what should I say, material mindset of a designer is um the ability to reframe. Designers always question the problem and ask themselves, is this a problem worth solving, or is there a better problem to be solved? Now, in in a personal life context, is this the way we should be uh interpreting this, or is there a better frame? So reframing. And the third, um, I would say characteristic of a designer is the willingness and the appreciation of an iterative approach. As because in life there is no fundamental law of physics that'll solve your life or mine, it's iterative. And with every iteration, we learn something and then we build our way forward. And so so iteration is, I would say, the third element of a design mindset.
SPEAKER_00So those are the principal mindset that one needs to have to design their life. Can you give some examples from what you have seen working with individuals or with organizations? Some examples that kind of relate to these elements of sense making, reframing, or uh iterative process.
SPEAKER_01Sure. So I'll I'll give you a human example and also a product example. So, you know, the power of reframing, let's start with that. And I love to say it because it's so dramatic, but it's a product example. Nokia was at one time a cell phone, the king of cell phones, 95%, 98% market share. And Nokia kept on building a better cell phone, a cheaper cell phone, better voice quality, more robust, multiple models, so on and so forth. Today, what's the market share of Nokia? Maybe zero or close to zero. What happened here? The reframe that happened in between, they missed. They kept building better and visualizing and understanding the customers' needs of a cell phone. And the others said, you know, what if we reframe cell phone and called it a device? The moment that you think of it as a device and start imagining the possibilities, you say, well, my device can be something in my hand for banking. This device can take photographs, this device can help me consume content. So the reframe from phone
Core Mindsets: Sensemaking, Reframing, Iteration
SPEAKER_01to device changed the history of companies and fortunes of so many, right? That's a dramatic reframe. So the same thing happens in our personal lives elsewhere. It's a reframe. And therefore, let me give you an example of one of the people I was coaching. Now, he was in an audit, he was a chartered accountant, and he was doing it and he was 10, 12 years into his job, but not happy, not feeling fulfilled. And through this exercise, he realized he wants to be in the impact space, he wants to do good to society, he wants to educate, and he wants to serve the underprivileged. But he was in an accounting job. Now, once he started, we started to explore that, unpack that. He realized, but he won't be able to get the pay that sustains his family that is needed. All of us need to work and have a lifestyle. So, in the end of the whole journey, Shrikant, he ended up staying at the same place, but with a much happier mindset, knowing what the job is giving them, and doing summer work with the underprivileged during weekends with the underprivileged. So the, you know, the reframe was that this job is drudgery and the job is killing my soul, to a realization that this job is providing for my family, for my child's education and for my comforts. And I can have a parallel life which fulfills my other values. You know, and then you were so much more at peace with it. And there are journeys like that. Designing your life doesn't say chuck everything. It says what is your other possibilities, what is exciting you, and is there a way to bring that into your life and at maybe someday pivot to it completely? But can we even run two parallel lives? Because A gives you some benefits and B gives you something else. And sometimes you don't want to chuck A for B or chuck B for A. And designing your life allows for the possibility of A and B.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So while it is A and B, while it is iterative in process, I think in design thinking, prototyping or failing fast or celebrated, how do you help participants embrace failure in their own life experiments when when feeling defeated?
SPEAKER_01So again, this is a reframe. We have to reframe failure. I work with people so that they can truly reframe failure. And you know, it takes some effort, but we all know failure is equal to learning. So the key is to take baby steps because if the failure shouldn't kill you or put you into so much of emotional distress. So the first thing we do is let's fail if we have to learn, let's have very small steps because then those failures don't feel like failure, they start feeling like learning. But if you take a very large step and fail big, then it causes damage in either emotionally or financially or otherwise. So one is failure is learning. The second is around seeing failure as data and not defeat. That's a reframe. Failure is data and not defeat. So slowly, slowly, you know, that shift happens in the mind that failure is data and not defeat. Um we also work with people to, because of the small steps, it's easier to do that. Is failure is not shifting or challenging
Reframing In Practice: Nokia And A Career Pivot
SPEAKER_01your identity. Because we feel a lot of distress when there is problems to what we thought our identity was and now it comes crashing down. So do we do not equate, you know, the the the trap is separating oneself from the outcomes of the experiment. So there's no identity shift because that's very damaging. So separation of self from outcome, separation of identity from experiment. So these are all the kinds of conversations we have. We reframe failure as a growth tool. So once people start to understand that we are growing, then they're able to deal with these small failures very well. And I would say that the last one, which also works very well, is when we reframe and people start to see failure as a small proof of courage. I had the courage to take this small step and put myself out there. I put myself in the arena. And nothing is more valuable than getting off the stance, being a spectator to becoming a player and on the ground in the arena. So small failures are also reframed as small acts of courage. Now, this is an iterative process, and then people suddenly start to see failure in a very different light, and in a very positive and a constructive light.
SPEAKER_00So, in a lot many ways, what you're saying is status quo is not an option, and this is also elements of the growth mindset. I I like this point of uh failure as a data. If you can just dwell a little more on that. And just prior to this recording, you did mention about the ODC plan. Uh, if you can talk about both of these elements, one is elaborate on failure as a data, and what what do you mean by the ODC plan?
SPEAKER_01So let's take a step back. I tried something new and I failed. I took a step and maybe I failed. Now, this is data. Now, let me explain. In a product context, you know, people will create a small prototype of a product and put it out there. They call it an MVP, let's say. Customers download it, use it, or they don't download it and use it, or they download it and unsubscribe after a week. So the company is generating a lot of user behavior data. And then they improve their product and they fine-tune the product, right? So that's in the product context, failure, small failures are failures of features or of concepts, which then you you collect as consumer feedback and data and then pivot and change your product. In life, for example, hypothetically, I want to, let's say, move from my consulting job to a teaching job. I've done consulting and run a company for the last 30 years. Um, now I'd like to be someone who's standing in a class. So the first thing I would do is go and put myself out there. And I said, okay, I'll I'm gonna come and teach this course at, and I started with Ashoka University, put myself
Failure As Data, Not Defeat
SPEAKER_01out there, stood there, and you know, it worked well. In certain pockets, it didn't work well, and whatever didn't work well through the feedback forms, surveys, conversations, was data for me, which I could then work on so that I could make it more valuable to the students in the next itary. And so one is constantly collecting data, i.e., feedback, i.e., perceptions, i.e. reflections through reflections and iterating oneself. So the course that I'm teaching now is vastly different from the first one I taught some years ago, because um every every feedback and every conversation is data. And some of the exercises that didn't work, let's just call them quote unquote were failure components, which then we rehashed. So now it's it's really continuously evolving. So am I, so is the course, so is what we are getting from it. And it's just um a wonderful journey of uh, you know, like anything else, it continues. The other thing that you talked about were Odysseus. Now, this is a very exciting or the culmination of the, let's say, the coaching or the training that we do is after all these exercises and reframing and values and worldview, life view, energy, flow, everything that we do, all the tools that we use, people have suddenly they start to know themselves better. And then we ask them to create three five-year visions of themselves. The first Odisi, Odisi, as you know, is means adventure from the Greek literature. The first adventure is the story you're telling today. That means this is who you are and what would happen over five years in an exciting way in your career and what you'd like to do differently in the space you're in. And they pick color paper chart and they draw, and that's their Odyssey one. It's a vision one. Odyssey two, the prompt is, you know, your your job went away. This, you're no longer the AI scientist in Google. What would you be doing? Now, suddenly, in that, in that silence and in that space, people start to say, oh my God, you know what? In college, since college, I've been wanting to be this part of a band and a musician. And wouldn't it be lovely if I would and then they start to envision Odyssey 2, which is the second adventure of their lives, given that the first one is not possible anymore. And the third Odyssey we ask them to sketch out and to reflect on is what if you had no constraints, Shrikant? You had all the money, you didn't need prestige, you didn't need to impress anyone, you didn't need social status, you got all that. How would you live your life if there were no constraints? And that also throws up so much about a person because a lot of what we do is because we need to earn, because we need status, because we need what if there were no constraints, that's tapping into another part of. And that becomes another five-year journey. Then they look at the three five-year Odysseys and they can do a mishmash between some of those things.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Thanks for sharing. That sounds very, very interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And you'll be amazed, you know, your from your fantasy Odyssey, which is the Odyssey number three, you will pick up one part and put it in your current life. And then the current life suddenly becomes more exciting because that's buried inside you. So people start playing the guitar and with their friends they jam over weekends. And it's not a career. They're still doing their career, but they've picked up a piece which
Odyssey Plans: Three Five‑Year Adventures
SPEAKER_01was buried inside, which kind of came out because of this thought experiment called Odyssey number three.
SPEAKER_00What's an Odyssey plan that you cannot stop smiling at after doing so many workshops?
SPEAKER_01Oh, people have come up with lots of interesting things. And these are thought experiments. So one I remember, he said, I want to be a monk on Mars. And it was so interesting because he was interested in the spiritual space. So he talked about all the his journey to becoming more spiritually evolved. But he was also a person into astrophysics and rockets and Elon Musk and everything. And he imagined what might be, what if there was a colony on Mars of small people and he was the monk on Mars. Monk on Mars. Yeah, it's the monk who who went to Mars. Now, it was it was a thought experiment, but what that did was it brought out a lot of, you know, interesting energies in him and and unpacked his spiritual journey, but also unpacked his interest in in rockets and science. And then, you know, he can go back and you know dabble with one of the two while he's doing his job. And his plan was in five years, he would actually do the spiritual journey and be the monk and be the teacher. Mars was a little bit of a stretch, but I think he's going he's on that path to being a teacher, a monk.
SPEAKER_00Oh lolly. Now we'll wrap up this uh segment of life by design conversation with this one last question, which is if you had only three questions to ask yourself every morning to ensure that you're living by design, what would those be?
SPEAKER_01So three questions in the morning that I would ask myself to make sure I'm living a life by design. So the first question would be am I asking myself three questions?
SPEAKER_00Yes, you're asking yourself three questions.
SPEAKER_01And my and my first question, the metacology.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's a question.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because if I'm asking myself three questions, I'm living intentionally and with awareness. So it's a subtle point but an important one. Am I even asking myself these questions? Is my question number one. Because that points towards intentionality and awareness. The second question I would ask myself is how alive do I feel? What's the level of aliveness, vitality, excitement? Um, because if one's energy is low, the body is telling you something. Um, there's a lot of neuroscience, there's it's in design, it's in BYL, it's you know, energy is a great signal for where you are at. Now it could be one day you're not feeling well, but over a period of time, if your energy levels are a little low, then it's saying something about whatever your job, your career, your relationship, your whatever, or play or love. So one has to go back and look at the root cause. So how alive am I feeling? And the third thing I would ask myself every day if I'm living a life by design is the first one, of course, was about intentionality and awareness. The second one was about flourishing and feeling energized. And the third one would be that how often am I engaging with possibility? Because, you know, we could keep going with the flow, we keep getting swept by the flow in this rhythm of life day after day. So the question to ask oneself is how much risk are we taking? How much possibility are we engaging with, or how much of imagination are we doing? Or are we just living a routine life? So these are the three questions I would say.
SPEAKER_00Wonderful. Great questions to ask. Thank you, Naviuk. Naviuk, we have spoken about your journey and your philosophy. Let's now look beyond the here and now. Into what was
Daily Design Questions And Aliveness
SPEAKER_00the horizon. What shift do you see shaping the way we live, work, and design our futures? What does a design life look like in the age of AI and automation?
SPEAKER_01I would say that whether, you know, whatever the context, and if AI is coming in, even in whether it wasn't there in the past, some of the fundamentals don't change. And yet a lot changes. Let me explain. As humans, right, we have aspirations, we have values, we have needs, and a lot of the fundamentals remain the same. What is changing is or what is changed is that there is greater uncertainty. Okay? Which therefore, in a way, um is very interesting because designing your life actually is saying that there is no fixed point B, and one has to continuously evolve oneself based on the evolving context and evolving self. So I think designing your life becomes even more interesting today. And as we've seen that with you know a lot of the college students we work with, there's so much of uncertainty in their lives that they're stressed. You know, the interesting thing after the whole 10-week course that I do at Ashoka University, let's say, Srikant is they don't have the answers at the end of the 10 weeks. But they're just feeling more upbeat and prepared for an uncertain world. A little bit more equipped mentally and otherwise. Which itself is a big win because they were feeling very stressed about the uncertainty. So I would say that now the part B to this is what is AI going to do to all this? My personal prediction is that it's going to disrupt our lives hugely. Much more than we think. Or, well, a lot of people have raised alarm bells. A lot of people say that no, it's just one more technology. My personal belief is there's going to be a lot of change. And and therefore, what starts to become important in that uh in the new world is, you know, competencies or qualities like empathy, like creativity, like learning ability or learnability, um, humanity or your humanness. So I think these are all designer's attributes, if you if you remember, I talked about. So I think in the world of automation and AI, and more and more things will become mechanized and done by AI, it becomes even more important. Or let's say
AI, Automation, And Human Skills
SPEAKER_01the mindsets or the competencies of designers, i.e. creative problem solving, empathy, looking at possibility, becomes even more important. And therefore, I urge all the younger students and all of everyone at all ages actually to develop that that set of competencies. Let's I might call it the right side of the brain, but I think it's more than that. Um, so that we are able to navigate the change that we're about to see, and if there's going to be a lot of change.
SPEAKER_00So it looks looks like a this is a perfect storm kind of a situation, and uh life by design is the right kind of a mindset or the tool that's available for everybody to embrace that perfect storm and be prepared for that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because it's look, it's a coping tool in a way. It's saying that there is no, you know, designers know that, and that's the mindset and the approach of designers is I don't know. So I will build something and test it and see how I react or how my customer reacts and then build some more. So in a changing world, we have to b keep building for ourselves, and it's really a mindset thing. And so I feel people who do this or who already have a designer's mindset are much better placed in the years to come.
SPEAKER_00And Namviuk, if you could redesign education or careers for the next generation, what would you change first?
SPEAKER_01See, we don't know what careers are going to be useful five years from now, or we don't even know what skills are going to be needed. We don't even know what roles are going to get automated. So I really don't have an answer to that part. What we do know is people will still need to work. Um, and that's a challenge because a lot of the work will be automated in some sense or you know, taken over by AI. But they will need to work not just for earning money, but identity and self-worth comes through work. So it's very important that people, as and now I'm coming to the education part, that good education is equipping people to be able to be flexible, to be great learners, um, to navigate uncertainty and keep reinventing themselves so they are gainfully occupied, gainfully employed, so that there is a sense of flourishing and identity and self-esteem, and you're occupied doing work. So, in summary, I'm saying that education has to go from a particular skill or a particular career to this set of mindsets where um you're equipped and enabled to deal with the evolving world. And education should really focus on that.
SPEAKER_00So the underlying theme in all of this is fluidity, agility, ability to reshape as things change around you.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Absolutely. And ambiguity and agility, you said it, Svikan, and fluidity, and and that's where we are all at. And we need to be able to cope and thrive, not just cope, but not just survive, but thrive in an exciting world. So I'm not even painting a negative picture. I think it's a very exciting world. And I keep joking with people in my office and at home as I wish I was 28 years old in this world. Although maybe easier said than done, they have a lot to deal with in social media and everything that's uh messing up with their lives, but it's actually an exciting world for people who are willing to engage with this fluidity and they're okay with ambiguity and they relish in building something out of nothing because the world is you know to be defined by us. So I think it's an exciting world.
SPEAKER_00Exciting world for sure. And Navi, personally, for you, what are you redesigning in your own life, uh, in your life right
Rethinking Education For Fluid Futures
SPEAKER_00now?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Shrikant. So for 30 years, I ran a consulting company that was around process improvement and quality management. And it's ironical, but process improvement and quality management really the end product is that there should be not much variance. It should be predictable and quite fixed. And while I'm an entrepreneur running a company telling and we're helping organizations to build processes and reduce variability and reduce variance and increase predictability, in my mind and as a person, I embraced ambiguity and fluidity. So it was a nice dichotomy. So anyway, the company has been running and we've been doing running our consulting firm. And then I got to become and and I was interested to become a seeker, which then translated to be teaching and using my learned and lived experiences and this framework and the wisdom, little wisdom that one has collected over the years and the learnings, and to share that with as many people as possible. So this is my Odyssey two, by the way, which is to be uh a life design coach, teacher, educator, evangelist. And I'm playing that role, which is my Odyssey two. And my Odyssey three, and I would like to tell you is which I at the, you know, was I was at a crossroads and I almost went there right after IIT, but I didn't because I was following the linear path. But I'd like to be a filmmaker and an artist. Now, that in maybe three, four, five years, I will be done with this coaching teaching, or not done, but I can pivot a little bit to the creative and the arts side, which I almost went in that direction as I was graduating, as I graduated from IIT, but then decided to continue on this path. And I didn't uh I think have the courage to say, no, no, no, I'm gonna drop all this and go into film and and the arts, which is where my heart really is.
SPEAKER_00How wonderful this is. So is this in some way finding the ikigai of every individual? If you were to kind of go through design your life, put your ODC plans, in lot many ways you will kind of get closer to what your ikigai is.
SPEAKER_01You're right. So the ikigai helps you to to know to some extent the what, you know, the that that intersection space. And designing your life is is amplifying that or informing that, but it's also providing you the torchlight for that journey towards that.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01Just knowing that is not enough. You also need to take the steps towards that. The means towards that. Yes. And and therefore, a lot of the literature, a lot of other stuff will, well, in some ways, attempt to. I'm not saying pretend to, but attempt to help you to get to knowing your iki guy. But the question is, again, your iki guy might shift. I need guidance for the first step and the second step and the third step. I need to know if I'm making progress. I need to know how to navigate this journey towards
The Host’s Journey: From Quality To Coaching
SPEAKER_01my ikigai, because that's where the the challenge is.
SPEAKER_00So, Naviup, for all the listeners who have been uh listening to this conversation, what's the first step for them? Do they kind of go attend your class or do they go buy the book? What is your advice? Where do they start? What is step number one?
SPEAKER_01Whatever works for them. You know, some people like to take a leap of faith and just jump in and and you know, they might come to the workshop or do something even more dramatic. Some people, and that's perfectly fine too, iterate your way forward, let them read the book and see if the philosophy resonates, let it incubate in their heads, and then um take the next step forward. And therefore, I would just say to everybody is you know, the easy way is to just watch some videos, do some Google search, then go read the book. If you think it's working for you and you're resonating with the philosophy, then take the next step forward and then the next step and the next step. So the important thing in designing your life is, and we reiterate that again and again, is what we call the bias to action. The most important thing is take that first step. Don't worry if it's the workshop, it's the workshop. If it's the book, it's the book. If it's the TED Talk, it's the TED Talk. If it's a you know a book summary, it's the book summary. If it's a discussion forum, it's a discussion forum. But take that first step without overthinking it. That's my only advice.
SPEAKER_00Navi get into the power of three rounds. So, Naviuk, here is the first of the power of three round question to you. What are three small daily practices that you personally follow to keep your life intentional and by design? One is meditate.
SPEAKER_01The second is I would say to reflect not just in meditation, but in action. Okay. Um, and to build that muscle. And the third thing I would say is I ask myself, what new am I going to do today?
SPEAKER_00Great. Navi, for someone just starting out in life or career, what are three principles you would urge them to lead by to ensure that they don't drift but design their future?
SPEAKER_01Right. So if you're starting your career, my advice number one would be try stuff. Yes, you've whatever you've studied, and but try stuff to know more. That's number one. Number two would be talk to as many people from diverse fields as possible, even if they if you think it's unrelated. And the third is try to do small gigs. It could be a small project or an internship or volunteering or whatever it is, because it's very important to know yourself and to know what lights you up. So try stuff, do some gigs and the other piece of advice.
Ikigai Meets Design: Steps Over Static Goals
SPEAKER_00The next question might be a little broad-based, but uh nevertheless, uh, if you can give me those three responses to that, which is if a leader wants to redesign culture or organization, what are the three questions they must be asking before starting on such a large redesign of culture or organization?
SPEAKER_01I think um if I were a leader, I would ask myself the following. Number one, in in the current culture or in in the proposed one, to what extent do we accept, even celebrate, failure? The second one would be in my organization, to what extent, because I think the physical space matters so much, to what extent is the architecture of the physical space creating collisions and innovation and connection? Because space also informs culture, okay? And and the third thing that I would do as a as for culture and as a leader would be is to what extent do I think that my job is not just the journey of the organization, but equally important the journey of an individual in my company?
SPEAKER_00Wow, that's a brilliant answer. You definitely brought in the element of design in this, right? It was just not do this, do that, or these kind of questions, but you brought in an element of space, you brought in an element of individual, that is where the empathy piece uh holds there. Wonderful. Well, you wish to be at 28 years old, uh, but I'll kind of take you forward, which is your future self. If there are three pieces of advice that Naviuk would want to give to his future self, say 10 years out, what would the three pieces of advice be, Naviuk?
SPEAKER_01I would say that, you know, have fun. Keep having fun. That'd been one motto. Because whatever, okay. So have keep having fun. Keep trying new stuff, right? And always, whatever with new stuff, with fun, does it make a difference to anybody else? Because the third is important, Srikan, and we haven't talked much about it, but a great life or a great life design or evolving life, designing your life, meaning and purpose plays a great role in creating well-being, flourishing, and happiness. So, in in my own personal journey, whatever I've done, yeah, it's it's it's an organization, but blah, blah, blah, blah. But underlying all that is does it make a difference to anyone? And that's bringing meaning and purpose into the equation. So wonderful.
SPEAKER_00Naviuk, the last of the power of three odd question. What are three life lessons that came to you the hard way? Lessons you wouldn't trade, but also you wouldn't wish on someone else.
SPEAKER_01Lesson that came the hard way. One, you know,
First Steps: Bias To Action
SPEAKER_01one thing I've learned is that you know, this is a little bit of a dichotomy, but I've pursued too many things. It's nice to pursue many things, but it's not nice to pursue too many things. So focus is important. But to get double down on what to focus on, you need to do many things and to iterate and to experiment and and then to know what to double down on. Right. But I've always got attracted by so many things in life that I'm not saying I have regrets, but um I think a little bit more focus um always is very valuable. Um other than that, um I really don't know. I mean, uh I can't even think of anything else. If I look back, God has been kind, people have been nice, um, things have played out, but um what did what else? I just think, you know, anything that do not regret anything that money can buy. So yeah, we'll have some here and there, but if money can buy it, I don't worry about it. What's important in life is your relationships, your health, your self-esteem, your respect, credit, everything else. And none of this money can buy. So so never, so one of these things is not to focus on anything that money can buy.
SPEAKER_00What's next for Nabib? Vir from here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so Srikans, we've set up a life design foundation, and what I'm doing is we are funding faculty and professors from various universities to get trained by Stanford so they can start teaching designing your life in their colleges. So the next some years, I would be very keen, very focused to get dozens of colleges or universities in India to be teaching designing your life. Because I think that's of great value to students and young people at that age. I personally am teaching at ISB, Ashoka, and NID, and that's about all that I can do given my bandwidth. So to scale impact, we need so about 14 people have already got trained, and uh at 14, so now, you know, one by one, I think in their universities or in their colleges, designing your life will start getting taught. And then for me, over the next N number of years, if I can create multiple
Power Of Three: Daily Practices And Career Advice
SPEAKER_01dozens and dozens of universities and colleges to be teaching and helping their students to get equipped and enabled for the uncertain future by being and shifting their identity a bit or adding to their identity. So each student sees themselves as designers, designers of their life, designers of their future, and with a sense of agency and empowerment. And I think that'll create a sense of well-being and happiness in them and equip them as well for the uncertain world we are in. So the immediate future is about scaling impact.
SPEAKER_00Super. What a noble thought and noble gestures that you're working towards, wishing you continued success on that. I'm sure you're aware of the compass question, right? For all of our listeners, uh, if there's one single compass question to return to whenever they feel lost, what would it be? Does it align with your values? I think that's clear.
SPEAKER_01When you're hiring a person, when you're taking a partner, when it's in business or any or for yourself, if it doesn't align with your values, you're not going to feel coherence and then you'll start to feel dissonance and unhappy. So I think the way I've lived my life is doing stuff that aligns to my values, and that's really served me.
SPEAKER_00That's an excellent compass question. So now this show is all about creating ripples of inspiration. Before you and I sign off, what's your inspire someone today message for all the listeners?
SPEAKER_01What's my message to the listeners? It may not be inspirational, but it's a message which I consider important, and that is don't jump in and follow your passion. And I'm saying don't. Everyone will say follow your passion. In our literature, in our research, in the designing your life, uh, my advice is don't just follow your passion. Passion is an output, effort is the input. Follow what you're interested in, get good at it, know that you're getting good at it, and then double down on it till it becomes a passion. But pursue stuff and find what you're good at. Because if you're not good at it, passion will evaporate and you will feel miserable. So don't follow your passion, follow your interest and put effort and discipline and get so good at it that you become passionate about it.
SPEAKER_00Be so good at it that you become passionate about it step by step, bit by bit. That's a message out there.
SPEAKER_01Yes, absolutely. And that's it, it's subtle, it sounds simple, but it has a profound effect on one's life. So um it's so important to be good at what you're doing because all energy and self-esteem and all the success, everything comes from being good at someone.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for joining us on this episode of Inspire Someone Today. This is Srikant, your host, signing off. Until next time, continue to carry the ripples of inspiration. Stay inspired, keep spreading the light.
