E174 | Unlocking Potential | Portfolio Life Series - Nikki Barua

Most careers are built like ladders. Nikki Barua argues for something braver: a portfolio life built like a constellation, where every role points back to one central quest. We sit down with Nikki to explore how insatiable curiosity can become a life design strategy, and why the point is not stacking credentials but getting radically clear on what you are here to unlock. Her hub-and-spoke metaphor grounds “multi-hyphenate”: one hub, many expressions, zero fragmentation.

We go deep on alignment as the real source of performance and fulfillment. When your work matches your wiring, you stop living on autopilot and start operating in your zone of genius. Nikki shares how entrepreneurship becomes a fast track to self-discovery, why reinvention is really an identity problem, and what she had to shed along the way, from inherited beliefs about hierarchy to the pride of being “the hardest worker in the room.” We also talk about immigration as an ongoing identity negotiation, and how the pursuit of freedom and autonomy can shape every decision.

Then we get practical. Nikki breaks down her writing practice: a nightly question, a 90-minute morning block, and only then research and AI, so your original thinking stays intact. We discuss the AI future of work, the skills machines will not replace (creativity, relationships, judgment, wisdom), and how to manage energy instead of time so a full life does not become a depleted one. The closing challenge is simple: dream even bigger and run a 90-day identity experiment where small steps make your new self real.

If you want a portfolio career with focus, a reinvention toolkit that actually works, and a clearer relationship with purpose, productivity, and AI, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who feels stuck, and leave a review with the “hub” you are building around.

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Transcript

Fear, Momentum, And Small Steps

SPEAKER_01 0:00

So that becomes the second unfolding of that of, you know, how do you overcome the the fears and the obstacles, even when you can see the right answer in front of you? And then finally, it's the continuous evolution from there, which to me is a lot of like, you know, when you surround yourself with people that are like-minded in some way, uh that share in that curiosity and that courage and all of that. There's a multiplier effect that then happens. Your growth becomes exponential, and that's how you become truly limitless. One of the most public examples of that portfolio life and that singular sort of quest that drives someone is Elon Musk. You gotta lay the bricks for the monument you want to build. Everything is possible the moment you make a decision and take one small step in that direction.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

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, work, 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.

What Portfolio Life Really Means

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Hello my dear reasoners, welcome back. We are in Portfolio Life series, and who better to talk about portfolio life than the guest we have today? What does it mean to live a life that isn't defined by one thought? Nikki Boro's journey is one of reinvention, identity, and choice. Not just building a career, but designing a life on our own terms. This is portfolio life in practice. Nikki, it's an absolute joy to have you on this particular show. Welcome to the show. So, talking about portfolio life, I couldn't kind of think of a better guest than you who has kind of been there, done that. Yeah. So I think this conversation just not under portfolio life is just not only about career. You know that. And we kind of get into that particular element. Right from that time you decided to leave shows to what you have done, what you have established. Even before we get there, when you look at your life today, Nikki, not your resume, not your LinkedIn address. What are the different parts that make you as you?

SPEAKER_01 2:48

I'd say the through line of everything I've done in my life has been really about pursuing insatiable curiosity. That's been the driver for everything, whether it's curiosity about places or cultures or problems that I was obsessed about solving. I didn't put boxes in how something excited me, nor did I put myself in a box. You know, it was just giving myself the freedom to chase my curiosity and trusting that wherever it leads will be in a beautiful place and another layer of something that gets added to my own identity. So I, you know, it's been a mix of so much of you know, the things that I've done have been at the intersection of creativity and technology and invention and deep interest in understanding what unlocks human potential. You know, like what is it that holds people back, but also what unlocks people? And just that pursuit of though that singular question has taken myriad forms. Some of it, which has unfolded in career choices, some of it has unfolded in business ideas, some of it has unfolded in things I do out of creative passion, like writing and speaking and uh meeting people. So I'd say it's really about that. I mean, you describe the, you know, when I think about what is a portfolio life, it's not about stacking on credentials. It's not about stacking on one job title after another. It's looking deeply inside to figure out what is the quest that you are so deeply curious and passionate about that that quest leads you on a lifelong adventure.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

So true. You're on that adventure now. You did mention about what unlocks potential. Some of the things that you had done, what do you think is the secret source to unlock that potential?

Alignment As The Unlock For Potential

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Deep alignment is certainly one of the foundations, you know, because when you are not deeply aligned with who you are, what your own wiring is, what you know you were designed to do, what you're passionate about, when you're misaligned with that, you operate at a surface level, even if your potential is far greater than that. You know, you go through the mechanics of life, kind of being an autopilot, but you never go deep enough because you're not operating in alignment. I found that the moment someone clicks into alignment, there's something profound that changes about them. And I've seen this with people on my team where, you know, they might have been like a generally average performer. And as soon as they find that thing that like they get locked in, you know, like that they find that thing that they realize, oh my God, this is what I was born to do. And it's not being a job or a career or title or anything. It just becomes like this wow, I feel completely aligned to who I am and how I'm applying myself. When that happens, something magical comes over them and they just start operating at a whole different level. So to me, alignment is the foundation. And then, you know, from there, it's also figuring out, well, you may see the path, but are you going to be bold enough to pursue it? Or are you going to let people's expectations or your own fears get in the way? So that becomes the second unfolding of that of, you know, how do you overcome the fears and the obstacles, even when you can see the right answer in front of you. And then finally, it's the continuous evolution from there, which to me is a lot of like, you know, when you surround yourself with people that are like-minded in some way, uh, that share in that curiosity and that courage and all of that, there's a multiplier effect that then happens. Your growth becomes exponential, and that's how you become truly limitless.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

I'll get you to unpeel one more element of it. Most people can name their job, fewer can name their life. When did these two things start to feel different for you?

Entrepreneurship As Self-Discovery

SPEAKER_01 6:44

I think for me, it was really around like after I stepped into entrepreneurship. And it certainly didn't happen in my first business because my first business, in many ways, was an extension of my corporate career, just doing it independently. But somewhere along the way, I feel like what in my experience, entrepreneurship became a journey of self-discovery. It wasn't about the business success, the financial success, the fame, and all of that. It was that you experience so much hardship, you know, and there's nowhere to hide, right? Like everything about you gets exposed. There's no one who's gonna come and rescue you. There's no like safety net and all of that. When you go through something like that, you get tested in who you really are. And you discover, okay, well, that's, you know, maybe I'm braver than I realized. Maybe I'm more resilient than I was aware of. You start discovering yourself. And once you find your your true self, it becomes clear what your, you know, real path is about. And that's when to me, it was no longer about pursuing a career or a business idea. It just became about like there's so many parts of me that I wanted to bring to life. And it was really about being intentional, about how do I nurture every single part and do it in a way that it feels like they're all in the quest of the same idea, not like 20 different things lacking focus.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

In a true sense, that's the portfolio life that you're kind of building, knowing or not knowing what it was.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

You know, if I take my example, and if I think of it like a circle, like a hub and spoke model, right? The hub at the center of it is my lifelong obsession with unlocking human potential. That's somehow that topic has obsessed me throughout. And I think part of it comes from wanting to unlock my own potential. Like I believe, I've always believed had more potential than what I was operating at. And so the question was like, what's it gonna take for me to like become 10x myself in every possible way? Right. And so that my own curiosity and desire for that led to like, okay, if I could figure this out for myself, how can I share that with other people so they can benefit too? Right. So that central idea of unlocking your potential is the hub for me. And the spokes of it are just various things, whether it's writing, whether it's speaking, whether it's you know, building communities or building businesses or advisor or whatever, they're all connected around the same exact idea. Even the board seats I've held have all been about like something around a cause about unlocking potential. Nothing is misaligned from that core idea.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

And that's a beautiful metaphor as well. Hub and the spoke, right? That is what defines what you do. And for you to get to that realization, that moment, was there a specific instance that happened? How did you kind of get to that moment saying, okay, this is what it is, my journey of unlocking the potential?

SPEAKER_01 9:46

You know, it wasn't quite like a singular moment as such. I think it was rather than finding things, it was more of shedding things. You know, sometimes we think focus is about what you choose. I found that focus is about what you choose not to do. And when you start to shed things, it's sort of like the statue of David, right? It was like the piece of marble and you know, how the artist talks about like, well, all the David was already in that block of marble. He just had to chip away the things that were getting in the way. And it's really that when you start to realize, okay, why am I doing this? This is not really aligned with what drives me. This is not really my greatest quest. I'm just gonna stop doing it. I'm gonna stop putting energy or time or my talent against all of these things. When you start to do that, slowly it becomes more and more of the portfolio that truly reflects yourself. And the more of that you do, the more confidence it builds in you because like that deep awareness, right? Like, I am truly in my zone of genius. Like this is truly my identity. And then it makes your decisions even more concrete as a result. One of the most public examples of that portfolio life and that singular sort of quest that drives someone is Elon Musk. You look at like every single thing, he's running six companies, and every single thing on one hand could seem like, okay, he's in the automotive industry, he's in the space industry, he's in social media and all of that stuff. But really, at the core of it, it is just about like, you know, his his desire to like elevate human consciousness. Um, and it just takes different forms and solving different problems. But all of it is completely aligned to one idea.

Freedom, Scarcity, And The Immigrant Shift

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Let me take you back down the memory lane, taking you back to Mumbai. What did success look like from there? And how much of that picture are you still carrying?

SPEAKER_01 11:38

You know, the idea of success for me at that time was more than anything else, it was about freedom and autonomy. And I think back to growing up in the 70s and 80s in India, where it's certainly not the India of today, right? Like that is a global society that's very progressive and has, you know, all kinds of resources and all of that. I grew up in a very different time where it was with very few resources available and basically they fought for survival and very little to rely on. And when you have scarcity, part of what also happens is scarcity also limits freedom, you know, because when you're barely focused on surviving day to day, you don't have the luxury of freedom to say, oh, well, I want to travel places or I want to like take a month off or do things like that. You're just in survival mode. So I think for me, the idea of success really became attached to the idea of freedom more than anything else. It wasn't about wealth. It wasn't about some climbing the corporate ladder or doing anything like that. It was just, I really wanted to experience freedom. And especially as a girl, you know, growing up in Indian society, at that time, like the idea of freedom was a really big deal. And freedom, it meant like freedom to live and work anywhere, financial freedom, it meant like creative freedom, intellectual freedom, all of those things. I I was like really, really drawn to that. And that's still true for me. I'm completely drawn by that, which is why I'm, you know, fundamentally unemployable because I like having the freedom of being an entrepreneur. Yeah. And and so experiencing that after coming to America and just seeing like the opportunities that exist that you could like truly pursue anything. And, you know, the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness, like that's you know, just an idea that I completely align with.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

That's a very interesting take. While the pursuit was for freedom and autonomy, one thing that that is a reality is about immigration, right? Immigration is an identity negotiation that never really ends if you actually look at it, right? What did you have to hold on to that tightly? And what did you have to let go quietly?

SPEAKER_01 13:52

A lot of conditioned beliefs uh from my childhood and from my upbringing of, for example, respect for hierarchy is an example. It's you respect your elders, you don't question authority or hierarchy and all of that. And that was, you know, I didn't even realize how deeply rooted that was, but that became pretty challenging in you know the American work environment to operate like that. Because if you operate like that, you remain a worker, you never become a leader if you don't challenge authority, if you don't question existing things. So shedding that part became, you know, a very conscious effort. And it was uncomfortable because, you know, there was a time when I had like people twice my age reporting to me, and it was so uncomfortable. It's like I wanted to call them uncle, but you know, just because of my upbringing. But you kind of learn how to shed those parts of yourself and adapt. The parts that I've never let go of are, you know, the things that I value so much about, you know, my about Indian culture and you know, the richness of, you know, our heritage, spirituality, just the diversity of Indian society. Like that's very much a part of who I am and continue to believe and and be guided by that.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

And to a large extent, your journey has also been a journey of reinvention.

Reinvention Through Identity Changes

SPEAKER_00 15:17

You're somebody who has reinvented yourself multiple times. What has endured you across each of these reinventions? The thing that is unmistakably still you.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

I'd say the the part that hasn't changed at all through all of these different reinvention phases is that insatiable curiosity. Without question, I think anyone who knows me, who has worked around me, is I have this childlike enthusiasm for learning and discovering new things. And and that has often led to the next version of me because it's like even the version I'm going through right now, just diving deep into new areas in such a way that, like, you know, it almost like if I compare it to the version of me from 10 years ago, it's totally different. Um, but it doesn't matter because I'm I'm looking forward. It's like, you know, leading life looking through the windshield instead of the rear view mirror. Always looking forward with curiosity. So I would say that that's and in my ability to do that, I've found that it also inspires people around me because they feel hope and inspiration and excitement about the future because of that.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

How do you line up the tools or the ways with all to go after one reinvention after another? How do you prepare yourself for that?

SPEAKER_01 16:36

I I think each one is really about identity at the core, right? Because if if you think about why don't more people reinvent themselves, why are so many people kind of stuck in that same version of themselves for decades on end, right? It's the biggest reason is safety. Because we feel safe in who we are, even if we're miserable and unhappy. You know, there's there's something about human wiring that it's better to be safe and comfortable and unhappy than to be to take a risk and operate in uncertainty and the unknown, even if there's a better life for you. If you think about like, why don't more people leave their homes and travel into the land far, far away? Why don't more people become entrepreneurs and quit their jobs? Why don't more people take massive risks? It's safety is what drives us. And at its core, that safety is about safetying the identity that protects us. That identity becomes like a like a cloak, an armor, right? You're sitting inside that, you know, armor and it makes you feel safe. The moment you're willing to challenge that identity and say, okay, you know, that was, that was, that served me well up until now, but now it's time to like try on a different armor, try on a different outfit. When you are willing to do that, a whole new world opens up. And then it's like, you know, it's like X-Men. You can, you know, design and you can figure out what superpower does this new identity have. And, you know, what does it, what impact does this new identity create? What behaviors, mindset, habits does this person have? And you step into that. And this isn't just some like, you know, crazy woo-woo talk. There's like science behind it that shows that when you're able to shift identity, you actually become that. And one of the most famous examples of that is the artist Beyoncé. She used to have massive stage fright. And even though she was an incredible singer and performer, she just had a horrible stage fright. So she created an identity called Sasha Fierce. And every time she would go on stage, she would shed her identity as Beyonce and she wouldn't become Sasha Fierce. So she took on the identity of Sasha Fierce and was confident and, you know, like a worldwide performer and a great singer and all of that. And eventually she became that. She no longer needed that identity to protect her. But it's the same idea for anyone that, like, when we think about nothing in our biology is fixed. So then why do we treat our identities like they are?

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Why treat your identity as fixed? It is as flexible as any part of your body.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

And that was it difficult to let go of any of your identities so far?

SPEAKER_01 19:25

That's a great question. I I think uh probably the hardest one was shedding the identity of a hard worker. And let me explain what I mean by that. So much of my conditioning and umbringing was about work hard. Hard work is the secret to success. And you know, I remember even my mom and dad telling me, right, like work hard, study hard, like hard was always that, like we hear that in India so much, right? And that became associated with the only path to success is hard work. And so what I found was that when success came easy, I rejected it. I almost didn't appreciate it because if it wasn't associated with struggle or sacrifice or pain, it's not success. It wasn't success. And I could not relish in it. And the better I became at my craft, things became easier, right? Like anything. Like it doesn't mean you stop the practice, but things just get easier when you get better at what you do. And I found that I start stopped enjoying success. And when then I really dug into it, it was my identity as a hard worker because I took so much pride in being the hardest working person in the room. You know, it's like no one can outwork me. I'm gonna be like the hardest working person in the world. And you start appreciating effort. And what I found was it that focus on the effort was taking attention away from focus on impact. If the impact was possible with more leverage, with better resources or different strategies, I was not choosing that because I stuck on my identity as a hard worker. So that was the hardest one to shed because it took a lot of like unwiring up decades of belief.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

And you're somebody who went from being an executive to an entrepreneur, right? And again, you had to shed certain things as you all, as you can. It was just not a title change, so to say. It was more about your own self-identity. What did you have to unlearn the most in this process of executive to entrepreneur?

Brick By Brick And No Permission

SPEAKER_01 21:37

That I had to roll up my sleeves and do all of the work myself. There was no leverage, no team, no executive assistant, no chief of staff, none of that. I I think that was, you know, like even though you know that when you're a founder, especially a bootstrap founder, you know, in your building things from the ground up, you know intellectually, you realize you have to do it all yourself. But it doesn't hit you how much what that actually translates into until you step into it and start doing it yourself. Like I remember the first office space we got, and I had to go buy toilet paper and stock toilet paper in the bathroom for the employees, for the staff, right? Like every single thing, like, you know, whatever it is, like putting furniture together or, you know, creating invoices, sending a contract, like, you know, every single thing, brick by brick, you gotta lay the bricks for the monument you want to build. There is no, you know, you don't get to just lay out, you know, share your vision, lay out a strategy and tell other people to execute. You are the execution engine for that. And so that was the first time that happened. That that was definitely a bit of a shock to the system. I had to adapt to that. But now, 10, 15 years later, I think my greatest joy is that I have built the businesses brick by brick. And the fulfillment that comes from knowing every single part of your business and knowing that you did that is greater than any financial reward.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

And you do talk a lot about don't ask for a seat at a table, but make your own table there.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

So help us understand a thought behind this uh line.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Simply put, too many people wait for permission. If there's something you want to do and really believe in, don't let the idea of permission and access limit what you're able to pursue. And we see this across so many aspects in society where maybe you really want to build a career in something or a deeply interested in topic, but the people that are the best in class there, they're not inviting you to that, right? Like you don't have access to those rooms. Just create your own society, you know, build your own community around that. You know, make yourself the center of gravity. And the more you dedicate yourself to it authentically, you'll find that other people will gather around you. One example for me in doing that was, you know, I early on, like I, you know, even as an entrepreneur, like when I was first starting out, it was really hard to like break through. And, you know, I wanted to learn from top entrepreneurs and want to learn from other people, but I just didn't have access. And I wasn't getting invited to those meetups and things like that where like successful entrepreneurs were, because I was just failing and struggling. And I just made the decision that I was gonna like build the community around like other people that were at the same stage as me and level up from there. And, you know, before I knew it, not only did I lift other people, but like my success eventually gave me access to those very same rooms where the doors were shut. So instead of knocking on doors that aren't opening, just build your own room, set your own table.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

That's a lovely way to look at things. And who do you become when nobody's applauding or nobody's watching?

SPEAKER_01 25:12

I I think that's I'll answer it a different way. To me, I feel like one of the things I'm most grateful for is I don't have the need to be liked or applauded. And it's the most liberating feeling in the world because so much of what people do is because they're seeking external validation. Maybe they want the approval of their parents, their family, their siblings, eventually their bosses or their spouse. They want people to like them. And when you have that need, you may not be fully aware of it, but many of your decisions are likely shaped by trying to be a people pleaser, trying to do things because it'll, you know, lead to greater belonging with the tribe, if you will. You know, people will appreciate you more. On the other hand, it also stops people from pursuing things that they really want simply because they're afraid of the rejection or the criticism and the judgment and all of that. So to me, like the fact that I've really never cared about that, that I'm willing to fail publicly, I'm willing to endure humiliation, I'm willing to take risks, even with a high chance of failure. It's incredibly liberating. So it really doesn't matter what anyone thinks, whether there's validation or applause or not. I'm just beating, you know, to the tune of my own drum.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

This is fantastic, Nikki. And again, a lot of the stuff that you have been doing, that you've been talking about, needs a whole lot of inner work, a lot of preparation for you to kind of have that mindset, for you to operate the way that you operate day in, day out. What's the practice? What's the rigor behind all of this? How did Nikki become the person that she is today?

Writing Practice For Original Thinking

SPEAKER_01 26:52

If I had to think about like one single practice, it's writing that has really helped. Because I write because it helps me think. I don't write because I want to publish or share or for someone else's opinion about my writing. I write as a way of thinking. And the more I'm able to put ideas down on paper, it helps me with greater self-awareness and reflection, insights that come through. And that daily practice has been absolutely game-changing for me.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

And this writing is uh journaling, or this writing is just free-flow writing?

SPEAKER_01 27:30

No, so I do have a specific way in which I write. Um, so every night I frame one question that is top of mind for me that day. It could be anything. It could be As an example. I mean, it literally it could be like crazy things like, you know, like, why do some birds fly higher than others? Like literally random stuff. Whatever grabs my attention that day. I don't even try to like make sense of it. It's just whatever question, you know, grabs my attention or, you know, like something about history or geography or politics or business or tech or whatever. It's completely different questions. But if there's a question that like pops up, and sometimes it's like a decision, you know, like why am I struggling with this decision? You know, I write that question the night before. And the following morning, um, I always write in 90-minute blocks. So like have a 90-minute block, and during that time, I just free ribe whatever comes to mind about that topic. And sometimes it's a topic that requires research or like knowledge of some kind that I don't have, but I don't go do the research. I just literally write whatever I know. The advantage of doing it that way is we, especially now, you know, both with like having like AI, but also like just the Googling behavior, right? Like we live in instant gratification where the moment there's something that we're curious about or some question comes up, we don't stop to think. We just go find the instant answer through some other mechanism. And which is fine, like you'll get the answer. But the beauty of the human mind and being able to connect dots and see things that aren't instantly manufactured, your original thinking that comes out of that. There's something really beautiful about that. And to me, this practice, what it has done is help me like sometimes I don't even have an answer to the question that I've framed, but it just helps me write and share perspectives. See things in a way that no, you know, AI chat bot is gonna give me a ready-made answer for. And and being able to not only train yourself cognitively to think deeper, to think, to connect dots, but to express yourself that way is an incredibly powerful skill.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

So still in the age of so much of happening around us through AI, it is still that rooted human skill of curiosity, wanting to kind of go do that real work.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Yeah. And then, you know, like it doesn't stop at just whatever I wrote. That then gives me a framing to say, well, here's my point of view through which I'm looking. This is the lens with which I'm looking at this problem or looking at this idea. After the 90-minute block, I'll go do research and use AI and do all of those things, but I'm only layering it on top of what I've already framed for myself. And the result of that is a deeply original point of view, something that no one else can replicate. And in a world of AI slop where everything looks, you know, exactly the same, everyone, you know, drifts to the median and like everything feels average, nothing stands out more than authenticity and originality.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Very true, very well said as

AI Future And Human-Only Skills

SPEAKER_00 30:46

well. And no conversation is complete these days without talking about AI. We briefly touched about that particular piece of how AI has changed, how we work, how we think, and you being in the forefront of what you do back to your organization. Tell us what do you kind of, if there is a crystal ball, and if you were to kind of say that, okay, this is what the world, the working world, and the individuals in those organizations would be doing in the next couple of years. What would it, what would that world look like? And what should people be raising up themselves for?

SPEAKER_01 31:22

Yeah, I think it looks like a world of abundance and prosperity. I'm a total optimist when I think about it. Yes, in the short term, there'll be a lot of job losses and transitions are always painful, right? Anytime there's disruption, transitions are painful. When you think about like the agrarian economy turning into the industrial age, farmers lost their jobs. But in, you know, the industrial age created far more jobs and factory work and things that helped society become more prosperous and scale through technology. And that's the same thing that we're seeing in the AI age now, is that there's entirely new kinds of opportunities emerging that never existed before. So I think the future is bright and filled with opportunities for everyone, but it does require people to shed previous identity. If you think of yourself as a doer and you're and the work that you do is grunt work and work that machines will always do faster, better, cheaper, then you have to shed that identity and think about who you want to become in this AI age and elevate it to the things that machines will never replace, things like creativity and relationship skills and judgment and wisdom. And when you do that, you're essentially freed of all of the drudgery of decades of doing work that was frankly not even worthy of humans, right? We're being elevated to higher level thinking and higher level of work. So that's a great thing for people. But don't wait for that change to happen to you. Get ahead of it and discover what your innate genius is and how yeah I can amplify that.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

And the operating words that we have been using all through our conversation is two words, which is reinvention and identity. So if people are listening and still catching up on what it's may, I think, focus on these two words. And Nikki, you have kind of played multiple or wearing multiple hats, an entrepreneur, author, keynote speaker, founder, thought leader. Does playing all of these roles affect you from context switching? Or does that help you to kind of feed into one another?

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Definitely the latter. Like I said, for me, all of these things connect in a hub and spoke way, right? And the core of it is the quest that drives my life purpose of unlocking human potential. So everything I do is just different expressions of the same idea. Writing helps me, you know, define visions and ideas. Speaking helps me scale that publicly. It also helps me inspire and build community, which then has been foundational to the businesses, um, the business success I've had and you know, the relationships that I've built. So all of it kind of they all feed each other. And it doesn't feel like context switching because they're all rooted around the same idea.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Humber and the spoke with the hum being intact.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Nikki, what's one thing you have added to your life recently that had nothing to do with output, productivity, or purpose? Just because it made you feel alike.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

Um well, I wouldn't say I added it recently, but it it's something I've always had in my life is cooking. I'm a really, really good cook.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

And what's what's Nikki's speciality?

SPEAKER_01 34:41

Well, uh a lot of different cuisines, but I still enjoy like, you know, home cooked Indian food, you know, making that. But I really enjoy the process so much. And I don't follow recipes, like it's just my like downtime and creative time, and I absolutely love it.

SPEAKER_00 34:57

So how do you manage the energy of a life this full? What's the secret behind that?

Energy Management And Self-Worth

SPEAKER_01 35:03

You know, there is a there's a formula to it that I think is accessible to anyone anywhere. If you think about our minds and our bodies, we're like batteries, right? Like that hold energy. And everything we do drains that energy. But there's some things that we do that add energy into us. As long as you're doing more things that add energy, you'll never be depleted. The reason people feel depleted when they're like, oh my God, thank God it's Friday, or you know, even the nine to five job is so exhausting and they have no energy to be present with their family and they're getting through the daily chores and all of that. The reason for that is there's not enough in your life that is filling you with energy. And if you change that equation, it the hours don't count. It's you're not managing time, you're managing energy. Just be intentional of, you know, having a positive balance every single day. So there's like, you know, I do a lot and I travel a lot. I and I'm fully present with my family. I'm taking care of my father and father-in-law. There's a lot of responsibilities, personal and professional, as well as the, you know, just just the energy it takes for like traveling and being in multiple places all the time and all of that stuff. But everything that I do is designed in a way that it's fueling me more than depleting me. And if there are things that deplete me, I'm also quick to kind of I do like a weekly reflection. And if there's things that deplete me, I cut it out because I can't afford to have that negative balance.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

Nice. That's how you manage multiple things. That's how you make success out of portfolio life.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Yeah.

unknown 36:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

And I think that's why you kind of portfolio life is important because if you if your life is defined only by the work that you do, and if you're not lucky enough to do the kind of work that fills you, then all you're doing is literally burning hours and wasting your life. That's the reason for feeling depleted.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

We're getting closer to home than Nikki here. I'll get you uh get to a couple of uh quick questions here. What are you still figuring out? And are you at peace with not having figured it out yet?

SPEAKER_01 37:16

I hope I never figure it out. I think, like I said, I'm so insatiably curious. There's just so much in the world that we don't know. And there's so much, you know, the beauty of the human mind is the consciousness and the vastness of that. How can you ever have it all figured out? And so I love being in the not knowing. It keeps me interested and engaged. I think if I had it all figured out, I'd be like, okay, well, I'm done now. What else is there? So yeah, I enjoy the process of not knowing.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

There was a reason why I asked this particular question. Even for somebody as accomplished as you are who has kind of figured out things, you're still figuring out things that you are not and you're okay with it. And at times what happens to a lot of us is that we get lost in the process of figuring out. And we don't give ourselves that validation. It's okay not to get everything figured out as well.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

I I think what you're describing though is attaching self-worth to accomplishment or having it all figured out. That is never a good idea. I don't attach my self-worth to where I'm at at all. Like I could be a huge success, I could be a huge failure. It doesn't matter. My self-worth stays constant. So that's why not knowing, not having figured it out, like, you know, I just launched a new company, we haven't figured it out yet, doesn't make a difference to my self-worth at all. Because it's the learning, growing, becoming, you know, the joys in the journey, not in the destination. And if you think of it that way, then everything becomes fun. It's like, think of it like, you know, if you're playing a game, you're doing it for the joy of playing the game. But if every single time you win or lose, you feel like a loser, you know, and you're defining identity based on that, you'll stop enjoying the game. So do it just for the joy of the adventure.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

Do it for the adventure. And Nikki, if you had to name the phase of your life, not a chapter, not a title, but the feeling of it. What would you call this phase of your life as?

SPEAKER_01 39:28

Every phase has been the same idea. It's just a new adventure. I I just like I just feel lucky every day. I feel lucky, I feel full of enthusiasm of just another new adventure.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

And there's a next adventure.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

Off to the next one. If you know one adventure wraps up, it means it's just time for another one. So I don't look at it as chapters or sections or like the first half of my life or second half. I hope I'm 97 years old someday and starting a new adventure. I don't like I can't stand the idea of I hate retirement. Like retirement, like I don't even know what that means. Like, why would you retire when if you're still alive and you're mentally engaged and you know, if you have health, why would you want to retire?

SPEAKER_00 40:20

If there's a book or an idea that has quietly rewired how you think about identity, choice, or what a life can do, everything that we have spoken about, what would that book or an idea be like?

SPEAKER_01 40:33

I'm a huge voracious reader. I read like one or two books a week. So, but the one that I find so practical in how you can change yourself, which is one of the hardest things for people to do, is atomic habits. I feel like it's such a practical, simple way that anyone can apply. It doesn't have to be some like philosophical pursuit that feels too grand or unachievable. I think atomic habits is the kind of book that anyone can apply and literally change their life and change themselves.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

You had no privy to my next question, but it's related to atomic habits. So, what's that one small practice or the micro experiment that you would recommend to our listeners, which has genuinely improved your clarity, calm, or decision-making ability?

SPEAKER_01 41:23

Writing, hands down. Without question. It almost, if someone had asked me, like, what is the secret to any of the successes I've ever had, I would say it's actually writing more than anything else. You know, and I don't say reading because reading to me is consuming. Writing to me is about creating. It's very easy for us to consume things, you know, whether it's social media, books, movies, all kinds of inspiration. And in that moment, when you're consuming something, you feel limitless, right? You read an inspirational book and you're reading that and you're like, oh my God, I can do it too. Or you read some, you know, Twitter posts about like someone who did amazing things and built a business from scratch. And, you know, suddenly they went from like being broke to a millionaire overnight and all that, and suddenly you're like, oh my God, I can do it too. But you're consuming passively. The moment you stop consuming and you start creating, your life changes. And to me, writing is a very simple daily practice where I'm not consuming, I'm actually creating. And so not only has it helped me think and come up with original ideas, and the more I see my body of work over time, I see the same idea surfacing to the top. And that starts to tell me, well, those are the principles that matter to me. Those are the values I live by, those are the ideas that I'm obsessed about. And it starts giving you direction and greater conviction about your beliefs, right? Like you're not limited by, you know, some surface-level things. If you write every single day for 20 years of your life, you kind of know yourself pretty deeply. And that's a huge superpower.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

And that writing can be anything. It can be self-reflection, it can be an idea that you're contemplating or it's an issue that you're kind of worried about.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

It just forces you to stop and like be in the moment and like really kind of connect with yourself with an idea.

The 90-Day Identity Experiment

SPEAKER_00 43:21

And if the folks listening to this conversation were to build their portfolio life without quitting their job, without kind of not breaking their status quo at this point of time, but still wanting to do something, which will not blow up their life, so to say. What's one experiment you would give them for them to try over the next 90 days to build a portfolio life?

SPEAKER_01 43:43

Start with an identity. You know, like give yourself permission and dream. And think about like who is who are your heroes? Like who's that person that you want to be that you've been afraid to commit to that scares you? But you really, really want it. And once you know that, you know, I believe anyone can change their life in 90 days. You know, as soon as you know exactly what that identity looks like, then start to think about like what are the behaviors, daily practices of that identity and start to adopt things in your daily life. Right. So if, for example, if you are an employee and you want to be an entrepreneur, and there's an entrepreneur you admire, whether it's someone in your community or someone in media, define your identity similar to that hero. And then think about well, what does that person do that is key to the success that you're not doing today? So maybe that person is just great at like picking up the phone and talking to people, right? Maybe they're great at relationship building or whatever. And you don't do that. Well, start doing that bit by bit. You're not gonna see the change unless you start taking small steps in that direction. And it's easier to take steps with a new identity than to take new steps with an old identity. That's why I think of it as I define that identity first, think about what those behaviors, habits, mindsets are, and then use the 90 days to start adopting, you know, bit by bit, those same things. And at the end of 90 days, you'll start seeing that some parts of your old self have already disappeared and new parts have emerged from that.

SPEAKER_00 45:25

Well, end of 90 days, you can come back to this podcast and drop a note to Nikki, saying that how that was transformative for their life to change.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

Yeah. Everything is possible the moment you make a decision and take one small step in that direction. That's it. That's all it takes.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

One single decision.

Dream Bigger And Closing Message

SPEAKER_00 45:43

Yeah. If the anger Nikki, the one who has just arrived, trying to figure out the rules could see your life today. What would surprise her the most?

SPEAKER_01 45:55

That every dream I had at that point, I accomplished many times over. And what that tells me is how important it is to dream big. Because we often dream what we believe is possible. Because impossible feels scary. And so our dreams are somewhat limited and small too. For someone who came from, you know, a poor family, just having a job or graduating college is a dream. For someone who is living paycheck to paycheck, having a little bit more income is a big dream. But it keeps us, you know, you can never exceed the size of your dream. So if your dream is here, your success will be limited by that. That becomes the ceiling of your success. So the most important thing we can all do for ourselves is dream really big. Have an impossible dream that feels so out of reach. Because if you do that, you've raised the ceiling of what is possible in your life. So yeah, the younger me would be blown away that I'd have 100x achieved the dreams I had at that time. But the older me is telling the younger me, dream bigger. I wish you had bigger dreams.

SPEAKER_00 47:07

The older Nikki says 100 to the power 100x.

SPEAKER_01 47:11

Yeah. Yeah. So even the dreams I have today, I'm sure I'm gonna accomplish them. But now I have to keep pushing myself to say, well, what's an even bigger dream than that?

SPEAKER_00 47:20

Oh, loudie. I think there is a message in itself, the underlying message for portfolio life to kind of see the light of the day. Dream big. There's nothing that is a ceiling, dream big, so that you can make your portfolio life happen. Yeah. Nikki, this has been one wonderful conversation. In a lot many ways, it travels between what is the art of possible to what it takes for you to kind of make that art of possible come true, which is about changing identities, alignment, and reinvention. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for this wonderful, lovely conversation. Before you and I sign off, this show is all about creating ripples of inspiration. What's your inspire someone today's message to all of our listeners?

SPEAKER_01 48:05

Dream even bigger.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

There you go, my dear listeners. Dream even bigger. Nothing is impossible. Thank you for spending this time with us. Conversations like these remind us that good doesn't always come from answers, 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 listening. If something from today's episode stayed with you, carry it forward, share it, sit with it, or explore it further through the IST capability or the book Inspire Someone Today. Until we meet again, stay curious, keep inspiring, and inspire someone today.