E170 | Stories that Stayed | Change Makers Series - Srikanth

Clarity is overrated. The real beginning of change is that uneasy feeling you keep trying to outgrow, ignore, or rationalise away. We close our Changemakers series with a reflective summary of the conversations that lingered long after recording ended, and the seven lessons that reshaped how we think about agency, purpose, and impact. 

We talk about what it looks like to live fully while carrying illness or disability, and why the hardest barrier is often other people’s assumptions. When someone asks, “Are you sure you can do this?” the honest answer might be “Yes, not the way you think I will.” From thoughtful systems and shared decision making to dignity at work, the thread is simple: capability has many forms, and inclusion is built through everyday choices, not slogans. 

We also unpack practical ideas that apply to anyone trying to build something meaningful: purpose is built, not discovered; you don’t need permission to begin; inner work is harder than outer work; change is slow and deeply unglamorous; and no one creates impact alone. We connect these lessons to life skills for a fast-changing world, to caregiving as a learnable set of skills where love isn’t the same as preparedness, and to the moment when speaking up stops being a choice because silence does more harm than good. 

If something here hits home, don’t wait for certainty. Grab a pen, write the one thing you’re postponing, and take the first step today. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a nudge, and leave a review with the lesson you’re taking into your own life.

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Transcript

Snapping Out And Taking Agency

SPEAKER_03 0:00

If you don't snap out, you know, at some moment in your life, you'll never snap out. So I thought I have to snap out. You know, we have so much inside us, we just don't give ourselves the permission to explore ourselves. And that's the second act.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

So we define life skills broadly as any kind of skills, capabilities, behaviors that every individual needs to deal with demands and challenges of daily labor. So, like you rightly said, this is a skill that we all need, we all develop and we all have to navigate life's complexities.

SPEAKER_04 0:33

A next silence that we want to tackle is actually young people as decision makers, not just participants, because we've often realized that young people, they are now a part of decision-making tables, yes. But much more as beneficiaries rather than co-creators.

SPEAKER_05 0:48

It was very important that I still had a life. So I refuse to believe that my mobility was the only element of my life because it wasn't right. So for me, it was very simple. It was like, okay, there is an illness in my body, but it just has that. It doesn't have me. For me, resigning was never an option. With a disability, without a disability, being sick, not being sick, resigning is just not an because, like I said, I wanted to live. I have been asked this so many times. Oh, you have a disability. Are you sure that you can do this? I'm like, yes, I can. Not the way you think I will, but I can. More importantly, I have been asked, are you sure you're not a liability to your organization? Okay, yeah, I mean, I I think the biggest challenge is people's mindsets of what a disability is or isn't.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

You know, in the Hundram of life, I had forgotten the motorcycle. And um, on this trip, we felt if we could have a motorcycle. So I got he got me a motorcycle for my birthday, and um that was fun. I got back to riding, it felt very nice. I got into a group simultaneously at the work place. I wanted to, I had been in HR for a very long time, and uh I just felt that uh the entrepreneurial world was um shaping up, and I'd like to do something that I could call my own.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Not everything that matters needs to be loud. Some conversations help you pause, some help you see differently, and some stay with you long after they end. Welcome to Inspire Someone Today, my dear listeners. A space for honest conversations about life, wealth, and the choices that shape who we become. No quick fixes, no borrowed certainty, just real stories, thoughtful reflection, and the quiet courage to live with intention. This is Inspire Someone Today, where conversations are human, reflective, and meant to stay with you. The start of 2026 began with a simple idea to continue with the same humane conversations, but with a sharper focus, and we chose Changemakers as our first theme for the quarter. What followed wasn't just a series of conversations, it was a set of encounters with people who had quietly defied odds and are going about their work without noise, without fanfare. And honestly, what I'm taking back from this series is not just insights, it's the people. The stories that stayed, the moments that lingered, even after the recording was done. It's an absolute privilege to bring this summary episode not as a recap but as a reflection. In this episode, I am sharing seven lessons that emerged from these conversations. Lessons that made me pause and, in some ways, rethink how we look at change itself. Some conversations inform, some conversations inspire, and some quietly stays with you. And this recap is one such conversation that I would want to bring it to your notice.

SPEAKER_05 4:23

It was very important that I still had a life. So I refuse to believe that my mobility was the only element of my life because it wasn't right. So for me it was very simple. It was like, okay, there is an illness in my body, but it just has that. It doesn't have me. For me, resigning was never an option. With a disability, without a disability, being sick, not being sick, resigning is just not an because like I said, I wanted to be. I've been asked this so many times. Oh, you have a disability, are you sure that you can do this? I'm like, yes, I can. Not the way you think I will, but I can. More importantly, I have been asked, are you sure you're not a liability to your organization? Okay, yeah. I mean, I I think the biggest challenge is people's mindsets of what a disability is or isn't.

Living Fully With Disability

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Seven lessons that stayed with me. Lesson number one. Change doesn't begin with clarity, it begins with discomfort. None of the guests had it figured out, and what they had was a feeling that something wasn't right, and they chose not to ignore it. Swami Ta spoke about train to agency. Visha looked at things differently by designing thoughtfully and taking responsibility for the systems that we shape. Because no slogans, no shortcuts, just a humane reflective conversation on what it truly takes to become a change maker.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

We are so stuck in the comfort of the life that we are given, whether it's good or bad. Even if it's it's a miserable life, but it's a comfortable, miserable life, and I don't want to disrupt it anymore. Uh so I think that fear of like saying, Oh, I'm already going through too much, I I'm okay with it. I would rather lead my life like this rather than just trying to reselect everything. One is definitely that. Second is again this whole thing of about spending money. You know, am I investing to am I spending? I think this is the second lesson that I've learned in life. That everything that you do for yourself, if it gives you, if it evolves you as a person, you know, it is investment. It is not spending. So give yourself, you know, as many opportunities as you can to invest on yourself.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Lesson two. Purpose is not bound, it is built. No lightning bolt moment, no grand revelation, just small steps taken consistently until meanings started to emerge. Manuj focuses on narrowing focus, lessons learned about leadership, advice to the younger self, and Bhana helps us to look at perspectives through her motorcycle journeys, to what she has done through caregiving. So that's lesson two, my dear listeners. Purpose is not found, it is built. And lesson number three is you don't need permission to begin. No one told them you are ready, and they started anyway. That's the crux here. You don't need permission to begin.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

So we define life skills broadly as any kind of skills, capabilities, behaviors that every individual needs to deal with demands and challenges of daily labor. So, like you rightly said, this is a skill that we all need, we all develop and we all have to navigate life's complexities. Life skills become critical in the case of kids growing up in adverse circumstances for a couple of reasons. One is that the pace of change in the world is increasingly faster than certain. There's enough evidence and research around in the world which says that kids in the schooling system today are going to enter jobs and careers that are not even being invented yet.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

Your thought process that makes you tap the right opportunity. I mean, today I think youngsters have a lot of ideas. So if you are passionate about making a change, I think you should start gradually and build up. You should be playing a test match and not a T20. And unless and until you have patience, please don't mention to this. You cannot eat an egg and then look at your biceps. It will take time for muscles to build. So it's a marathon. It's a marathon, absolutely. And you have to be emotionally strong to build up this kind of a system.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

So number four, inner work is harder than outer work. The real battle was never external. It was always self-doubt, fear, conditioning, imposter syndrome. Sometimes one at a time, sometimes everything together. So as much as the challenge was in the external world, it was also about overcoming those ghosts within. So lesson number four is inner work is harder than outer work. And the next lesson is change is slow and deeply unglamorous. No all night success. Just showing up again and again and again. Even when nothing seemed to move, they showed up. That's where they are change makers for a reason. Change is slow and deeply unglamorous. Love doesn't equal to preparedness. You might love somebody in the family, but that doesn't give you the skills, the ability to be prepared for an eventuality like this.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

So um one of the things that I I really didn't want to be as I was growing up was my mother was an educator and a school teacher. And uh a lot of people told me that you know a working woman being a teacher is a good idea. You can be a teacher or a professor. And um if there was one career that I did not want to have coming from a family of academics, was being a teacher. I uh want you to be different, and uh there's nothing you can do about your DNA and stuff that's in your blood, right? This whole context is to tell you that learning certain skills is absolutely essential. So, first recognizing what are the skills that are required for caregiving and picking up those skills is absolutely essential. What we have done through caregiver saathi so far is create the awareness, education, and the possibility of picking up certain skills.

SPEAKER_04 11:38

Speaking up becomes a responsibility when when staying quiet does more harm than doing good. I think that's what I've often realized, right? You need to speak up for a cause, you need to speak up for change, you need to speak up and take up responsibility when you think, no, my staying quiet is doing much more harm than doing good. And I think that will be a moment in everyone's life. There will be moments that come in for a topic that you're extremely passionate about when you're like, no, no, this is my moment, and I need to speak up for it. And at that point, to be very honest, it doesn't remain a choice anymore. I think it's about looking out for people who have been affected by it, or maybe using whatever voice, space, platform, uh opportunities, resources that you have to make sure that you are doing your bit.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

The secret of success in this journey that each of us change makers went down. That's the next lesson, which is you cannot do this alone. Every journey had people behind it, be it communities, allies, support systems. No one builds impact in isolation. And if you have that great idea that you want to do, think about it. Build a community, seek out for support, and you'll be surprised how much support you'll get back. So you cannot do this alone. Every journey had people behind it, so will be yours. The last lesson, the final one, lesson number seven your story is not your limitation, it is your leverage. The pain, the struggles, the experiences, the very things we try to hide often becomes the foundation of meaningful work. So that's lesson number seven. And just to recap, lesson one through seven, my dear listeners. Change doesn't begin with clarity, it begins with discomfort. Purpose is not found, it is built. You don't need permission to begin. Inner work is harder than outer work. Change is slow and deeply unglamorous. You cannot do this alone. And the final one, your story is not your limitation, it is your leverage. So what stayed with me during this series of conversations, it was definitely not the scale of impact nor the titles of the guests, not even their achievements. What really stayed with me was a quiet sense of responsibility. Like Bhavna choosing care over victimhood, Manoj choosing depth over scale, Archana choosing reinvention over comfort, Swamita choosing dignity over everything else. None of these individuals were chasing recognition, they're just responding to something that felt necessary, and that changes how you look at your own life. And were there any surprises? You bet. It was definitely not the courage of any of the guests, but they're normal. Even superheroes, they had their doubts, they had their struggles, they in fact question themselves constantly, and yet they moved forward. That's a superpower to be in discomfort but still do something about what's bothering you. This is not an exceptional behavior. If you think it is acquired behavior, this is an available behavior. That's the uncomfortable truth. That we'll have a self-doubts, but we can still overcome through the behavior that's all available to all of us. So if this series has impacted you in some shape or form, I invite you to take some action. My call to action is if you can have paper, pen, or your digital notes handy. What's that one thing you have been postponing that you know matters? Not someday, not when things settle, now. Start that conversation. Take the first step, ask the uncomfortable question, explore that idea you have been sitting on. It doesn't have to be big, but it has to begin. Make that start. Because if there is one thing these conversations have shown us, it is this. You don't need a perfect plan. You don't need certainty. You just need to care enough to start. If something from this period has stayed with you, don't let it pass. Sit with it, act on it, share it. Again, want to call out a big round of uh acknowledgement and applause to all the guests who are part of the Changemaker series. Swamita, Vishon, Manoj, Archana, Bhavna, and Palak. And as always, stay curious, keep reflecting, and inspire someone today. Thank you, my dear listeners.