E172 | From Curiosity to Career | Portfolio Life Series - Nikita Jain

We sit down with Nikita Jain to talk about Portfolio Life in real time, where career, identity, and values are still being built under constraints. We explore what makes public policy work humane, why implementation fails, and how writing and proximity create durable judgment. 
• rebuilding system literacy after moving countries 
• building judgment in complex systems 
• using writing to make invisible work legible 
• spotting early signs that policy will fail in reality 
• staying emotionally resilient in uncertain pathways 
• learning that infrastructure targets do not guarantee behavior change 
• unlearning quick fixes by studying incentives and system design 
• developing disciplined doubt and “taste” for substance over performance 
• translating corporate skills into credible policy contributions 
• earning practitioner trust through proximity and communication 
• applying Chesterton’s Fence before “fixing” a system 
• running a 90-day experiment to build real pattern recognition 

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Transcript

Invisible Work And Life Design

SPEAKER_00 0:00

A lot of my work is invisible. So if I can take ambiguity, politics, data, competing assets, and distill all of that into something a decision maker can move on, I think that is helpful. Early in my career was realizing that building something does not mean it will be used. So even when performance is louder, you try to understand, you try to gravitate towards more meaningful change, more meaningful reform.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

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, work, and the choices that shape who we become. No quick fixes, no borrowed fertility, 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. Exhibition feels uncomfortable. This is Inspire Someone Today where Purpose Meets Practice, and welcome back to the series Portfolio Life. We often talk about portfolio life after decades of experience. Then there's hindsight, clarity, and stories that neatly join the dots. But what does portfolio life look like when you are still building it? When you're in your twenties or early 30s? When every decision feels like it matters. When you're choosing cities, degrees, careers, causes, and trying to figure out who you are becoming along the way. Today's conversation is with Nikita Ajain, a public policy professional who has studied at LSE, worked across ecosystems, and navigated the question. Many young professionals quietly ask, Am I building a resume or am I building a life? This isn't an episode about cracking exams or collecting credentials. It's a conversation about building credibility, belonging, and clarity in real time. It's an absolute joy to have Nikita Jain join this episode of Inspire Somewhat Today. Nikita, welcome.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Thank you so much, Shika. I'm super happy and super excited for this talk today.

From Delhi To Public Housing

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Let's hear about a bit about Nikita.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Absolutely. So I'm from Delhi. I have lived for almost three decades in Delhi. I started working with Quality Council of India and I really enjoyed uh understanding government systems. I started working with Swatch Parat Mission, and we did swatch surveyation, monitoring, and evaluation of schemes of projects, how it's happening across the country. And that was something I really enjoyed doing. I realized even not being a civil servant, I could understand, learn, and be a part of nation building. I enjoyed it so much that I continued doing it for almost five years. Then with different governments and through different bodies. Then I came to Malaysia. I went for masters. Here I joined a think tank called Think City. I am working on public housing. So it's called PPRs here. So we are working on improving the livability. So what the government does, the government does working in terms of physical improvements like physical infrastructure. The government will build a lot of buildings, a lot of units. But how do we ensure that they are livable enough? How do you ensure that people living are happy, whether they are not going through mental illnesses, the social fabric, the software aspect of it. So that is something that I'm working here in Malaysia. And this is something that I really enjoy doing. And I see the rest of my life doing the same.

The Portfolio Assets She Builds

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Wonderful. What a big vision that you have. Helping the community, helping the human community to kind of build a life. And we are here talking about portfolio life. We'll see how the portfolio life is like when it is unfolding, which is truly the way you kind of look at it. If your life today was a portfolio, what are four or five assets you're building right now?

SPEAKER_00 4:27

So if I think of my life as a portfolio right now, it's not very glamorous. It's very foundational. I am rebuilding context from scratch in Malaysia. It's kind of system literacy in a new country. When you don't grow up in a system, when you don't instinctively understand the language, humor, hierarchy, you need to understand the informal bit of systems. Like for any country, frameworks or SOPs, they only tell you half the story. But the other half are in things that actually work. That you know they work through relationships, through trust, through timing. And learning those unwritten dynamics is important. That is one. Second is judgment. I am working on that, the ability to see what actually matters in complex systems. So not just what looks good on paper. And knowing then you know where and how to intervene in a system so that effort actually converts into movement. So that recognizing which problems are technical, which are political, and which are simply performative. Third is I am building uh very passionately on influence through writing. A lot of my work is invisible. So if I can take ambiguity, politics, data, competing assets and distill all of that into something a decision maker can move on, I think that is helpful. Next is I am sharpening my implementation instinct. So while my work in India as well, I have seen enough of policies failing on ground. So if we can sense that early, if we can sense something early when it won't survive reality is super helpful. And lastly, in terms of my personal growth, I think that's emotional resilience. So staying steady in a new country where language, culture, and career pathways they aren't fully always in your control. It sometimes tests your confidence professionally and personally. So staying constructive in that environment is important.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Big element of the asset class that you're building is career. So you're doing everything to be known as that public policy expert in your field. And when we talk about a portfolio, the portfolio consists of the other asset classes as well. You spoke about building your own resilience, emotional resiliency. That's a great asset class to kind of build on your own self. How about other asset classes, like your focus on say relationships, health, curiosity, values? How about some of those areas that helps you in the long run? And like you rightly said, these are foundational elements. If the structure needs to be stronger, the foundation needs to get that sharpened focus, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Right. I think in terms of curiosity and learning, I would really credit LinkedIn for that. I have recently started enjoying pouring out my thoughts, my learnings there. And it really helps me to refine my own thought process. And because I try to write as frequently, I try to express whatever I see or notice, I try to express it out. A lot of times I get really good criticism or feedback. It's very constructive. And I get to see a different perspective. And I think, oh my god, this is I didn't even think of such a use case, or I didn't even think of such a flaw in my thinking. And second, I think in terms of curiosity and learning and development, this also helps me read more and more. If I am disciplined in terms of writing, it also helps me to read more. It just makes me read very religiously on a daily basis. I think that simple tool helps me out on a daily basis.

Career Basics That Actually Last

SPEAKER_01 8:11

So to be good at your trade, you are doing other elements. One is writing on LinkedIn. So for you to write better, you want to read. So you're reading. So how are you preparing for all of this? How are you preparing to build a career that endures over the next couple of decades?

SPEAKER_00 8:27

So I think when you uh come to how uh how do we build a career according to this? If you talk about the first 12 months, let's say uh how somebody wants to enter or how somebody would look at the first 12 months for this, I think it's very simple. First, I strongly believe in writing clearly. Second is listening without ego. Third is following through when things get boring, and that's it. You know, everything else is a noise. And I say the third one also because you might be coming from a different work culture, you might be working in a fast-paced environment, and sometimes with government, getting a single sheet of data might take you from three weeks to three months. So all of those things really, really help you from the start. And these are very, very fundamental traits.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

And while you do this, uh Nikita, does it tempt you to kind of focus on multiple other things that it might be interesting, it might be tempting to do something else while you're doing this, and you're intentionally avoiding those temptations and saying, let me stay put on what I'm doing?

SPEAKER_00 9:33

So honestly, right now I'm not in that phase of turning things down. I'm not chasing shortcuts. Also, in a new system, shortcuts cause you cost a lot more later. So when you really want to understand the system, when you really want to understand a different geography, you tend to just go deep instead of going into the depth or the width.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

And in the space that you're in about public policy, what was the moment that made you realize I want to work on problems that are bigger than me? How did you get into this?

When Policy Hits Human Behavior

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Okay. So I didn't grow up dreaming of public policy. I grew up listening to complaints, a lot of complaints. I grew up in a business family in Delhi, India, and paying heavy taxes was a big deal in our home, and we and so were the complaints and frustrations with the government. So potholes that at the entrance of my colony they would stay there for years, basic civic failures and all of those, endless rants. There would be endless rants about what the government wasn't doing. And of course, all of that was factual also. But my mother would always say something very simple that, you know, either you solve it or you accept it. But don't sit and complain. And that stayed with me. At some point, I realized I don't just want to sit and critique the system from outside. I want to understand it from the inside. And my first job at the Polity Council of Pink was eye-opening, like I mentioned. So suddenly I was sitting at the Ministry PMUs, getting reports on how different programs like Skill India, Swaj Bharat Mission, they are performing, traveling to different cities, inspecting sanitation schemes, seeing how schemes were monitored. I think that is when I realized I was more interested in understanding the system and be a part of the solution rather than criticizing it. So I just wanted to be on the other side and do my bit from that moment.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

I loved the way your mom put it across solve it or accept it. That's the great attitude, right approach to have. And doing all of this work, did anything of policy work surprise you emotionally, intellectually?

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Yeah, I think many. So one of the biggest shocks early in my career was realizing that building something does not mean it will be used. You know, during Swaj Bharat mission. I think many of us can relate with this. So thousands of toilets were constructed, and on paper, this looked like rapid progress. But when we sent inspectors for inspections, we saw so many were logged, some were being used as storage room, a few had turned into small shops. That stayed with me. You can build infrastructure, you can meet the targets, but you cannot assume that behavior will follow. So that's when I understood that government isn't just about constructing assets. Governance is beyond engineering. It's about understanding people, their habits, incentives, dignity, fears, and that's far more complex. This is behavioral, this is cultural, this is political. And this was huge for me to realize. Also, another shift for me was moving from India to Malaysia. So in India, many of the problems that I worked on were basic and urgent. So, like toilets being built and not use, water supply failing in peak summers, district juggling just to submit accurate data. So you were often dealing with gaps in access. In Malaysia, the conversations and roundtables I sat in are different. So they were about traffic congestion despite high car ownership. They were about improving livability in public housing, not just building more units, but the software, not the hardware, like we spoke. So about the pedestrian, bicycle lanes, long-term urban design, social cohesion, and so on. So the problems here aren't easier. They are just at a different stage. So in India, the question was often how do we make sure this service reaches people at all? In Malaysia, it's more how do we make an already functioning system work better? So the contrast was very interesting for me. And it also reminded me that development stages, you know, they shape the nature of policy problems, but complexity exists at every level, just in different forms.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

And then those narratives change as well, given where you are, the country, the society. And like you rightly said, the policy might look great on paper, but nothing on implementation. And again, from your own uh experience, why do you see that gap exists today? Is the intent is there on paper the policy looks great, but execution fails, or it doesn't achieve what the paper described it would have achieved.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

So a lot of times when we spoke to uh the people on ground, uh the residents of those households, a lot of times they would say in Hindi kiosar kana garki and the other, which means the toilets should not be inside the premises of your home. So they should be outside. They were fine defecating outside of home on railway tracks or in community grounds, but it is not good, it is not pious of them to do it inside the home. So such such cultural nuances need behavioral, you know, they need icy interventions that you tell them you, you know, no, that that might not be true. If you do it here, this will not affect your piousness, this will still keep your home pious. If when you look at the you know, the reasons why it's like that, they are very basic, they're very simple. And you know, sometimes when I when you see a shop, if you convert a toilet that was made by the government, you convert it into a shop. Then you realize that maybe we were solving the wrong problem. That house first needs an economic mobility before they needed toilet. So I need I need money first, then I will think about my health or hygiene. So sometimes we need to see whether we are solving the right problem. And if we are solving the right problem, maybe education, IEC behavior is something that should always go along with the changes, with the infrastructural changes.

Unlearning Toward Systems Thinking

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Has that got to do with the phrase you you commonly use that unlearning is what you kind of focus more on? Tell me a bit about that particular piece when you say unlearn and relearn, what do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Basically, what I used to think was that the idea that being right is the same as being useful. So I was always uh solution-driven. That if there's a pothole, fix it. If there are toilets not being used, and force usage. You know, I approached policy like a problem-solving exercise. Identify the gap, plug in, move on. That's it. Simple. But and even though I had already seen complexity on the ground in large systems and like in India and in many states across the length and breadth of the country, I knew human behavior was messy. I knew districts were overloaded, or, you know, so it wasn't always, it wasn't new that things are complicated or nuanced. But still, maybe some kind of toolkits, whether it is LSC or maybe whether it is some learnings on the ground, it posed me to confront voice where I was locating the problem. So my reflex, especially coming from an implementation background, was to diagnose failure at the level of individuals, you know, who did not execute, where did the chain break, who dropped the ball. But at LSC, mostly I feel we were constantly pushed to zoom out who benefits from the current arrangement, you know, what incentives are shaping this behavior, what institutional constraints are making this outcome predictable, what power structures or what politics is in play. So I began to see things that many outcomes I had interpreted as weak execution were actually products of system design. So the that relearning was structural. I moved from diagnosing effort to diagnosing architecture, from quickly jumping to solutions to interrogating assumptions, from fixing systems to understanding systems. And that shift I feel is very important in now how I design, how I critique, and how I intervene.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

That's a great point in terms of uh how the paradigm shift changes. Is there anything else that you learned at LSC or in practice that changed how you think, not just what you know?

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Uh I think uh also a very basic thing. What changed at LSC wasn't that I learned policy is complex. I already knew that. I think India teaches you really well. If you work for some years in the domain, it'll give you a very beautiful flavor of what works and what doesn't. But what changed was how I relate to certainty. So before I would value having answers in implementation spaces, you know, decisiveness, signals, competence, or you're expected to respond quickly or take a position, move forward. At LSC, I realized that the smartest people in the room were often the most precise about what they did not know. And that was super surprising at first. So I began to understand that strong thinking isn't about confident solutions or confident conclusions. It's very much about disciplined doubt, about being clear on your assumptions, about your evidence, about and about the limits of both. And that changed how I think. I became more careful about causal claims, more attentive to unintended consequences, more aware that policy operates in probabilistic terms, not guarantees. And you know, also another thing that I had to unlearn while at LSC was unthinking on policy as a national context. So I was in classrooms where people from Latin America, Africa, Europe, Middle East, we kept on hearing the same frustrations in different accents. So informality, slow institutions, behavior not shifting. And all of this was, I realized that these were, I thought all of these were Indian problems, but no, they were governance patterns. And they were everywhere. So they exposed, they changed the behavior, they changed my sense of scale, that local issues, they started to look like versions of bigger global governance dynamics. It made me less defensive about context and more curious about best practices happening around the world.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

What would that personal takeaway for you would have been? What shifted Nikita from before LSE to after LSE?

SPEAKER_00 20:40

I think that is taste. Why I would say that is you develop an internal standard, you learn to distinguish between rigorous analysis and a confident opinion, and between serious reform and a performative reform. So what is between clean slides and grounded thinking? So that calibration it stays with you. You start gravitating towards substance over performance, over things that are just decorative. So even when performance is louder, you try to understand, you try to gravitate towards more meaningful change, more meaningful reform. So that taste, that thinking, that internal uh build, that taste is something that they shape you with.

Pivoting Into Policy With Real Skills

SPEAKER_01 21:31

I'm sure Nikira, in your role that you are in, there are a lot many youngsters wanting to reach out to you to know more about public policy. So when people ask, how do I pivot into policy? Is there a question behind the question? Let's pause here for a moment. You may have noticed one idea quietly settling in. Something that doesn't need an answer, right? Just awareness. Today has always been about conversations that stay with you beyond the episode. Sometimes they continue reflection, sometimes in action, and sometimes in community. If you'd like to engage beyond the podcast, there is an IST community where these conversations are carried forward thoughtfully. And if you prefer your own quiet space, the book, Inspire Someone Today, gathers many of these ideas for slower reflection. Let's continue. So when people ask how do I pivot into policy, is there a question behind the question?

SPEAKER_00 22:36

Yes. So basically, what they are actually asking is will I matter if I do not have a traditional policy background? Am I too late? Does my experience in corporate tech consulting actually count? Or do I have to start from scratch? And there's also fear policy spaces can feel insider-driven, acronyms, hierarchy, institutional language. So people worry, they'll walk into rooms and feel out of space. So the real anxiety I feel is less about entry and more about relevance. And the honest answer is you do not pivot by proving you care about impact. Most people do. Most people care about impact. You pivot by being specific about what you want to solve or what you can solve. And it's very simple. If you have managed large teams, you understand incentive. So that can be translated for public incentives. If you have worked in operations, you understand process bottleneck. If you have worked in finance, you understand trade-offs and resource constraints on public projects. So policy isn't an abstract world. It's a system just with constraints. And that shift people need to make isn't getting a new identity. It's just translating their existing skills into public systems. That's it. And it is honestly one field that I've seen people with very diverse backgrounds, with almost every background you can think of.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Does this specific unconventional background really help in policy and why?

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Yeah, if there could be one unconventional background that really works well, it could be operations and project management, to be honest. Like people who have run things, they understand constraints. So they don't romanticize reform. A lot of times you we just stand on the road and say, Oh, why can't the government just do this? You know? So people with such backgrounds know that, you know, no, you can't romanticize such a simple solution dealing with millions of people with varied types. And yes, you do not romanticize reform. So those kind of people, they understand constraints, they understand nuances, on-ground nuances really well.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

What are some of the typical or essential skills that one would need to have to pursue something in the domain of public policy?

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Um, I think we spoke about it uh earlier in terms of judgment, in terms of implementation. Some things are very, very common irrespective of the field. Judgment is one, implementation instincts, and to be able to put the complex problem in just five words. So, you know, so that you understand things so well that you don't play behind the jargons and you don't need to hide behind the truth.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Okay, so basically ability to synthesize, simplify things, and have a broader understanding of what that problem would look like and go about finding answers, finding solutions.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

Yes. And slowly when you you build a trust from practitioners, it is very important in this sector that you don't appear like an outsider in the office, you know. Somebody, let's say, coming from Maharashtra and working for a state, uh, let's say in Sikkim. So people shouldn't uh worry that, you know, oh, you don't know about our context, you you don't know about our culture, how can you come up with solutions or recommendations for us? That trust from practitioners is very important. Understanding of on-ground nuances is very important. You should know where the perfect plan will hit the reality of the state and break. And the track record for implementation is very important. No matter whether you don't have that experience in policy, in whatever role you had, you know, you should have a portfolio of real-world results, not just a library of theoretical plans. And lastly, I think just I think communication with the stakeholders is very, very important. I think throughout the seven years, communication with different kinds of stakeholders has been very, very crucial part of my job always. Like if it's a minister, how do you some people love data, some people love words, some people love to define the problem in as crisp and a simple way possible? Sometimes you need to explain to 500 agitated villagers. So, what kind of statements do you use then? So I think that is very important. You need to master the subject so deeply so that you can explain it to different stakeholders in different ways.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

It's interesting. And how do you prepare for these scenarios when you have to interact with the policymakers versus the receivers of the policy or the implementers, different stakeholder groups? You said communication is the key. As a public policy professional, how do you prepare for these different stakeholder groups or these different scenarios?

SPEAKER_00 27:26

I think proximity is the key. The more you are on ground, you try to understand the thinking between the issues that different stakeholders are dealing with, and that that gives you the best taste. And that is why I say it's very important to go through when things get boring, go through, stay through when things are very slow, stay through and listen through without ego, listen with all ears open, without having, and that is very difficult. We think it's very easy, but it's very difficult to stop the urge of not responding and only listening with very attentiveness.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

So Nikita, why did you choose ZMPP and why LSE specifically?

SPEAKER_00 28:13

Okay, so in my case, I didn't go to LSE to enter policy, I was already in it, and I went because I wanted sharper tools. I did have field experience, I did have inclusion, I did have the intent, but I wanted stronger grounding in evidence, political economy, and comparative thinking. And LSC appealed to me because it sits at the intersection of power and policy. It has the quantitative uh aspects to it, and that is enough to discipline your claims, but also qualitative enough to understand politics and institutions. So that balance is something that you find at LSE. It's not too qualitative and not too quantitative. It's a right balance of both the world of thought process.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

When you do courses like this, what's the ROI return on investment? Or what's the intangibles that doesn't necessarily show up? But they are there.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

I think the ROI is in terms of your thinking. And you know, that doesn't show up in brochures, that doesn't show up on websites, but you develop an internal standard and you try to solve things in a very fundamental way. You don't straight up come for solutions, you go very much on ground before coming to conclusions and just solving problems.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

And on the similar note, if somebody is interested to kind of pursue a path in MPP but can't necessarily afford the time is not right, the financials are not there, but still want to do something in this arena. What are some of the credible alternatives that you can recommend so that they can build their portfolio?

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Right. So absolutely, if uh there are many credible pathways, field fellowships, policy labs, lateral hiring in government through young professional programs. Like I the maximum number of policy roles I've ever seen in countries, it's either India or in the UK. So if you are in the UK, you not just think tanks, international organizations, even the civil service is accessible right straight out of the university. You can enter through a couple of interviews and access almost most of the departments relatively very smooth. However, of course, visa is a constraint for internationalists, that's real. But structurally, the internal entry routes, they exist and they're not too difficult to crack. And that's so that's so beautiful. You know, you can work right in the systems and make an impact. However, if you are in India, I think there is no better place to build them. When I started in 2017, it felt like there were fewer such opportunities. Now almost half of the state governments have young professional programs. So roles exist for people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, depending on your experience. And they are for multiple uh areas. It could be for sanitation, if you are interested in education or AI or anything. There are so many hiring, there's so many such programs throughout the country. And there are also growing ecosystems for public sector and social impact consulting. Organizations like GDI, they're doing serious work. And Quality Council of India, where I started, is an incredible starting point. I would strongly recommend. The pace is intense. You'll work across health, governance, and so on. The exposure is unmatched. So you for sure do not need a degree to fall in love with public systems and this kind of work. You just need proximity.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Proximity in the opposite is if one can look into those two elements, then there's definitely way for people to kind of pursue a career role in public policy, not necessarily those degrees, at least to start off with. Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Absolutely.

unknown 32:03

Right.

Humane Systems And A 90-Day Plan

SPEAKER_01 32:04

So, Nikkira, let's look at a scenario of joining the dots here. Right? Let's uh look at some of these elements. Since we are talking about portfolio life, uh let's look at uh joining the dots. If at this stage of your life, if you had a thesis statement, what would that be?

SPEAKER_00 32:24

I think building systems that are humane and stay human while doing it.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Well, slowly, building systems that are humane. Tell me a little more about it.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

So a lot of times we only focus on building roads, building the building infrastructure. Like say I'm living in a condominium, everything is there, there's a good lobby, there, there's a garden. But how about the livability? How do you ensure that I come and there's a place for me where I sit and meet new people? How do I ensure that, let's say I'm talking about Malaysia, this biz building is filled with expats and they are lonely, they have mental health issues. So, how do you think of those elements? How do you not stop your thinking just beyond the physical infrastructure? How do you get into the human side of building things? Very simple things. Sometimes we see, you know, the government is doing some construction and all of a sudden, okay, it's night, they cannot finish the construction, and then they will just leave it. Somebody, I think just de before yesterday, we saw somebody fell and they died. I mean, how can you not think that somebody might walk or somebody might pass and you need to cover that area? It's not that difficult. It's not that difficult.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

You make a very interesting point. You might be living in an condominium, or high-end gated communities have everything, but you don't know there are other elements that is not there. Spoke about mental well-being as a case in point. How do one expand their own reference point beyond the obvious? What are some of the things that you do as a professional to think beyond the obvious? It's very straightforward. You have a policy document, you need to do certain number of things. But what is not obvious is that taste or is those lived experiences. How do you develop that tenacity to understand beyond what is out there?

SPEAKER_00 34:27

I think uh starting point is looking out for there are a lot of cities around the world. If you look at so many cities in the Netherlands, at the point at the at the ground level, they think of humans is so beautiful. So, for example, uh before I went to London while I was in India or in Malaysia, I was very much thinking about solving fundamental issues. And when I went there, I saw people are discussing such issues that I never even thought are issues, like noise pollution or something, some such very basic, intricate things that you don't even think of. You only think of basic infrastructure. Oh, the roads are great, oh the roads are clean, or there are parks. Whether are you using those parks, whether those parks have clean benches, whether people are coming to that park, whether women are coming to that park, is is that park not famous for you know notorious activities? And so all of those things they require you to be embedded on the ground. You need to be on the ground to see through a very human lens.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

So very true. And Nitika, as you're building your career, as you're building your life, what are you learning about ambition? What is useful, what is not useful?

SPEAKER_00 35:52

I think uh useful ambition is capacity building, it pushes you to get better at something real. Toxic ambition is comparison-driven, it's about titles, visibility. So one builds stamina, the other builds anxiety.

SPEAKER_01 36:10

Oh, lovely. Very beautifully put. Capability, capacity building versus comparing. And what's one choice that you're making today that your older self will thank you later?

SPEAKER_00 36:22

I think it could be for not panicking in a slow season. Moving countries can shrink your surface area of opportunity. It's easy to react by grabbing the first visible thing. But I chose to build context to understand how systems work in Malaysia, who influences what, how decisions really move, what is happening on the ground. So it's quieter, it's slower, but it helps me build depth under constraints. And I think depth, building depth under constraints is far more durable than momentum built out of anxiety.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

I think to all the listeners out there, if there's one takeaway from this whole conversation, if somebody wants to take it out, is building depth than building anxiety. That that's a lovely statement out there, uh Nikita. Thanks for sharing that. What's one book or idea that has shaped your thinking about people policy or choices?

SPEAKER_00 37:20

A concept, a very simple concept, the Chestertons fence. I have always thought about it. Why? Because the concept says uh never tear down a fence until you understand exactly why it was built in the first place. So it taught me that bad policies they usually exist for a reason. And if you do not respect the history of a problem, I'm by the way, I'm also a history student. So if you do not respect the history of a problem, you just create a new one. And if you look at an example here, imagine a new policy consultant who uh sees a rural health clinic that takes two hours in waiting process for a single patient. And they think, you know, it's a disaster. Let's automate and check in and uh do it in five minutes. So the fence is your two-hour wait. But you think that it is bad management. It's the only time these isolated villagers they socialize, it's the only time they share news, they look out for each other. It's the community hub disguised as a waiting room. So the result of tearing it down is that you fix the efficiency, but you destroy the social fabric of the village. That is leading to another problem that you did not think of, that is leading to higher rates of depression and lower trust in the government. So the lesson is you did not understand the social reason for the technical delay, and that delay was very much intentional. So if you fix a broken system without knowing why it was built that way, you might just be breaking the only thing that was actually working for them.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

It's a lovely example, lovely context of uh why you shouldn't fix something that is not broken as well.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

Right. True.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

What's one small practice you have tried that has improved your focus or the quality of your decision making?

SPEAKER_00 39:19

I think by now you might have already realized, but I'm a fan of writing down my thinking. So I would say that yes, writing down my thinking helps. It improves the quality of my contribution.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

And what is that one underrated skill that compounds fastest in say in policy careers or in writing or in storytelling?

SPEAKER_00 39:42

I think synthesis. The ability to connect the dots that others do not even see as related. It really helps.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

Is there a magic formula to kind of help connect the dots?

SPEAKER_00 39:55

I think the more of uh the more stakeholder meetings you have, you are able to understand different the mindset behind different people, their rationality, and I think that helps.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

So conversations and having those discussions.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

Yes, yes. That's very underrated.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

So, Nikita, if we had to give all of our listeners a one 90-day experiment to build a portfolio life, what would that be?

SPEAKER_00 40:22

It could be three steps. I think first is uh writing publicly once a week. Uh, it could be anything you come across a beautiful best practice that your city council did, uh, or it could be analyzing one real problem that you came across while walking on the road, anything. Just write it publicly. Second, choose one public system and study it. Ideal is if you can physically shadow it, but it's not always possible. You might not have the time and space or the permissions. So just read its annual reports, audit findings, parliamentary questions, local news coverage, and understand how things actually function there. Anything. It could be any public system or any public scheme or any public program. Third is every two weeks speak to one implementer. It could be a teacher, it could be a municipal officer, it could be an NGO worker, civil servant, anybody. And ask them what frustrates them operationally. And by day 90, you will not just have opinions, you will have pattern recognition, and that really helps.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

Wonderful uh lovely experiment that people can do. If you are passed at about solving a public problem, passionate about solving a problem within your community, these are lovely uh steps for you to go about doing it. Thanks for sharing that, uh Nikita. Uh again, in your very short but illustrious career that you had in public policy or in life in general, what has been your best learning and what are what is something that you looked at it saying that how I wish this would have done differently?

SPEAKER_00 42:09

I really enjoy it. So, for example, I started working uh at the ministry PMU level. So a lot of things I could not understand there, you know, you were at a vantage point when you when you are at a ministry PMU, you would just call district officials asking for progress reports or basic documentation. And from that vantage point, you know, things feel very straightforward that there is a scheme, there's a format, so why can't you just send the file? But when I later on went and worked at the district level, I saw the other side. So sometimes I understood that there are no dedicated data officers. Sometimes the one person who knew how to compile the word document and share the format was the only person handling sanitation drives or election duties or disaster response or public grievances, all in the same way. So what looked like inefficiency from the top was often capacity overload at the bottom. And that's when I understood policy failure is not always about laziness or intent, it's about bandwidth too. So such experiences were very beautiful in terms of understanding things from a top level view to a state level and also at a district level to understand things. And I think had I done that early on, it would give a more nuanced approach. And also, I believe the more I could be on the ground, there were a there were times when I would be in the office, but I wished I was on the ground more and more to get nuances, to get the understanding of nuances head on early. So the more you can be on the ground, I think that is fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

So lovely. I love the way you kind of bring that perspective of the intent is there. A lot many times we don't understand what's happening on the other side. Only when you kind of this is from a design thinking standpoint, it is all about empathy. Bring in that empathy in what you do, you have a better nuanced version of what it is or what it is not. Great. So where from here for Nitika? What have you kind of put as your your own goal? What's the road ahead for Nikita?

SPEAKER_00 44:31

Um, I think I want to continue doing what I have been doing. I really love this domain. I love uh working for nation building. If I am living in Kuala Lumpur, I I really want to do as much as I can do for here. If I am or for any reason, you know, the world is our canvas. There are endless number of issues that you can try to solve, or you can you can try to give your bit in solving them. So I think I really feel that the world is my canvas, and I I just want to keep doing my bit, and it could be very small, uh, starting from my local area to a bigger geography, but that is what I aim for and I keep doing. I just want to hope for making a larger impact and more effective impact.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

Wonderful. So, Nikita, this show is all about creating a ripple of inspiration. Before you and I sign off, what's your inspire someone today message to all the listeners?

SPEAKER_00 45:29

I think just keep doing whatever you are doing with all your heart. That's it, I think. And you will make the world a better place. Not just for yourself, but for your community and your immediate geography.

SPEAKER_01 45:56

It often comes from better questions. Not to grand gestures, but to everyday choices. That belief still holds now with a little more depth and a lot more listing. If something from today's episode stayed with you, carry it forward, share it, sit with it, or explore it further through the IST community or the book Inspire Someone Today. Until we meet again, stay curious, keep inspiring, and inspire someone today.