Podcast Finale: Celebrating Growth, Lessons, and Personal Transformation

In this heartfelt conclusion, the host, Dr. Sirisha Kuchimanchi, reflects on the remarkable journey of creating this podcast. From the initial idea and challenges of startup to the growth and impact, Dr. Kuchimanchi shares her personal transformation and what she has learned from the conversations and experiences. She emphasizes the importance of perseverance, building a supportive tribe, and seizing opportunities. This closing episode is a tribute to the listeners, guests, and everyone who has been part of this inspiring podcast. Tune in to hear Dr. Kuchimanchi's reflections and words of encouragement as the Women Career and Life podcast comes to a graceful end.

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I'm a former tech executive, a podcast host and  an entrepreneur. I work with Universities on Organizations to transition students to the corporate world   and building successful leadership pipelines ensuring a healthy financial future.

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Transcript

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:00:03]:

Hello everyone and welcome to the final episode of the Women Career and Life podcast. This is your host doctor Sirisha Kuchumani. I'm a former semiconductor tech executive from Texas Instruments, an entrepreneur, of course, a podcast host and a working mom. I first want to thank every one of you who's been here to support over the last two and a half to 3 years on this journey of podcasting that I've been on. I can't believe it's coming to an end. It's been a very hard decision to make of letting things you love and letting them go, but I'm at a crossroads and this seemed like the best decision now. I actually sent out a survey on LinkedIn asking people what they wanted to hear on this final episode and overwhelmingly the Once was on my own personal transformation. So let's dive in.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:00:58]:

I thought of the idea of podcasting over 3 years ago around the holiday time and, actually ended up recording a few seconds on my iPhone on some of the topics I was interested in. And the reason for starting this podcast was on empowering women and enabling them to reach their goals and achieve career and financial success. This came out of my own journey of trying to figure out my own career path as I was growing. You know, especially when I returned to work after being a stay at home mom, I I felt like my mindset had shifted, and I was looking for pathways to address and take. And having a lot of mentors in the support system really helped, but there were also a lot of questions and it was quite hard to figure out the answers. And I often found that having conversations with the women around me, whether they were close friends who lived in the same continent or across the ocean, I think often we face the same struggles, and I thought why not start a podcast to see how we can embark on this journey together. When the first thought came after recording those episodes, I actually sent it off to my sister to have a listen and ask her what she thought of it. So based on that brief conversation with her, I connected with an old friend of mine who helped me brainstorm all of this As I was getting ready to launch the podcast, I wanna say a huge shout out to Usha for Spending a lot of time helping me figure out what to do in the podcast, how to figure out a niche, Like, what would be the difference in sort of looking at this completely differently? When you are often sitting in a corporate career, probably like myself, my Exposure to public speaking and anything that sort of, you know, looked like media outside was very limited.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:02:55]:

Yes. I had done a couple of talks, a couple of and I was at work and outside briefly, but that did not give me the wherewithal to sit in front of a microphone. When deciding what to focus on, the focus obviously from my own interest in a lot of conversations was on this journey with women and figuring out what would be different based on our own unique perspectives. The first time we recorded ourselves, I remember we were trying different things, and the 1st time I essentially recorded myself, you know, when you hear your voice on a microphone, Oh my gosh, it sounds so weird, so awkward, and then you realize how many pauses are there, how many umms, how many ahs, How many times you repeat the same words absolutely right, and making a transition in a conversation is very hard because you're incredibly conscious of how this goes on. It took many iterations of recording and listening and editing and trying to figure out how to smooth this conversation, and get used to your own voice in your ears. Everything about this whole podcasting journey was new, except some of the content ideas based on my own experiences and reading a lot of books. But even that was a lot of learning. So the idea of figuring out how to record, what software to use, how to edit, oh my gosh, that was the hardest.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:04:26]:

I remember one of the 1st episodes we I had basically, I had about 30 minutes of recording, And because me and the guests were also new to this idea, we basically worked on it to reduce it to 20 minutes. And literally the 20 minute editing took 8 hours to do. So you can imagine, 55 episodes later, 20 hours of content, give or take, took 200 plus hours of editing. That's how much time it takes to edit. Obviously, over time, this got a lot better because I figured out systems, processes on how to do this, and even The interviewing and the kind of questions I asked got better and smoother, so it didn't require as much editing. Every time I reached out to a guest, Even the App. So that whole editing bundle was a transformational journey itself. Then deciding on the branding, the content, and how a podcast needs to look, And the colors to choose, all of these are different aspects you learn on the job.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:05:41]:

When decided Did you a couple of episodes to record? I sent it off to a couple of friends to do beta test launch. You know, I was going to flip from topic to topic, But then based on the feedback I heard from them, they really wanted a deep dive. So if you ever listen to the 1st episode, It is ongoing through a layoff that Usha and I discussed. At that point, layoffs These were never discussed in public. Now you see them on LinkedIn, there's a way to have a conversation about it. But early on when we started the podcast, it was a very taboo subject, but we decided to unwrap because we had both taken career breaks, being stay at home moms, going through these career transitions, then we decided to share these ideas. Once we did that, we heard a lot of engagement from our listeners and spent a whole season talking about how to relaunch from a career break, which also was not yet normalized, but I'm so glad to see that on LinkedIn, you can put a career break now and everybody understands what that means. Not only did the podcast give an avenue for others to learn, but for me also to learn from my guests from all the reading I did.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:06:55]:

When I first reached out to the 1st guest, you know, it was so exciting for someone to say yes when you hadn't even launched a podcast. So thank you immensely to the guests who are willing to share their time and experience on something they didn't know was going to even be published or how it was going to show up. We truly appreciate the time they took to do this. Once having done a lot of episodes, I wanted to walk you a little bit through the process of behind the scenes of how this is done. I would always write up a little article, A 3 pages, 4 pages powerpoint deck that I would send every guest on what the theme of the Podcast was and what questions and overview that we were going to address. Because this was not about prepping for the interview as much as telling which area of focus we wanted to because a lot of the guests have immense voice backgrounds, and there was one specific area that we were interested in conversing on. I hope you learned a lot from these discussions that we had ourselves. So first of all, sitting in front of the mic, you know, the first time was very scary.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:08:10]:

Even I would wake up In the night to edit a lot of this, I would even wake up at 3 am to do Instagram posts. The reason I bring this up is It had been 7 years since I had sat on Facebook before I started my podcast. I had absolutely no social media presence. As someone who is incredibly private, to go in front of a microphone and start posting on social was even more harder than just sitting in front of the mic and learning all the new tools on how to engage on social media. I still find it quite challenging to engage on social media, and I tend to take it in small bites that I can manage, because I feel like you can spend enormous amounts of time doing that, but Figuring out what works for you is always the hard part. Once we Once I started to post on social, you know, it was great to hear from people who were able to ask questions and engage. And I still remember the 1st time we launched the podcast. It launched in August.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:09:31]:

So the idea came in December. It took 3 months, January, February, March to think of the topic, to practice, focus on what topics, what episodes we were going to do, what kind of you know, the idea for it came late December, And in January, the idea of, okay, doing a podcast was sort of set up there. But figuring out how to do all the nuances, what is the frequency you wanna post. What do you want to talk about? How are you going to decide what to talk about? How long is your episode? Basically, the Execution of that, sort of the test pilot program, took about 3 months to do. In March is when we sent it out to all of our trusted friends, and 10 of them took the time to respond based on which we evaluated the podcast. The podcast finally launched in August of 2021. Since then, it has always dropped an episode every 2 weeks. The only time it took a break was recently the summer as I was trying to figure out which direction the podcast took, and it's gonna have been an evolution in progress.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:10:39]:

The 1st year all the episodes were 20 minutes that we spoke to GAS. But next year, I decided to take a big deeper dive. The 1st year, all the episodes were 20 minutes as I talked to guests. And based on the feedback that I was receiving and just the amount and amazing fun I was having, you know, I got a lot more confident talking to guests, And I just wanted to learn more from them, and I figured, you know, people would learn from their different experiences and keep the conversation engaged. These turned into 40, 50 minute episodes. I understand that in these times when even all our attention spans are not so long, I hope you're still able to consume as much as you can of the podcast. And the guests were very generous with sharing their time and expertise. The 1st time the podcast launched, I remember clicking on the button to make sure it launched, Could anyone hear it? You know, I'm checking how many downloads happened every few minutes.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:11:42]:

After practicing and releasing that episode, I think the confidence started to grow on how to engage with an audience and how to engage with the guests. As the momentum sort of grew, it also enabled us to reach a wider spectrum of people As in guests but also listeners, as this podcast wraps up, we have people listening from over 40 countries And over 6 continents, we have people listening from over 30 countries from all 6 continents. I don't count Antarctica. Maybe they do get podcasts, but I'm not sure. But it's amazing. The podcast is called women, career and life and I'm so grateful that 70% of the listeners are women, but also that 30% of the men listening to this podcast want to be Using it for not only enabling their journey, but supporting the women in their ecosystems. We can all work together and lift each other up, and that's the only way to move forward. When I started the podcast, the idea of doing it was about really volunteering.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:13:01]:

I started with it for two reasons. I felt like I had opportunity and privilege and access to education, and that gave me enormous runway to play on. I started the podcast for a couple of reasons. I felt like I had access to opportunity in education and sort of a place of privilege, and I wanted to be able to share Not only my perspective but use that platform to share others' perspectives so we can all play on a bigger playing field. I always feel that We oftentimes start at the back of the line when there's a race going on and I wanted us as women to have an opportunity to start at the front of the line so we didn't have to make up the Seeing difference every single time. As I was looking for ways to volunteer, the idea of podcasting was one of the ones that landed, And that's what I decided to use the microphone as a way to not only communicate but share and potentially maybe even mentor a few people on a different platform. But one of the things, You know, the I still have notes from when I first started the podcast. The one thing that I was hoping it would do was Change at least 1 single person's trajectory or thought process or something that they wanted to pursue and make a difference in 1 person's life or one action they took.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:14:35]:

There have been many people who have listened to it and many downloads. It was the podcast eventually ended up being a top 30% Spotify podcast which was enormously humbling. It's also given me a Lot of opportunities that I didn't foresee when I started this. It's given me the ability to stand in different stages to talk to people, Be it at executive, incorporate companies like Toyota or AEM, given me opportunities to speak in front of Large crowds of university students either at CMU or Johns Hopkins. It's given me one of the things that I really wanted to do was We on a TEDx platform, and I was able to do that not too long ago, and hopefully you'll get to listen to it soon by talking about the topics I still care about, career advancement and financial well-being, no matter what age you are. I even got to stand for my very first election for the board of governors of the podcasting academy and I'm ever so grateful to the podcasting community. For those of us who are content creators or thinking of creating content, One thing we all have to know and we all probably understand is, content creation is a very lonely process. You're often sitting in front of your mic and some digital screen recording yourself.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:16:11]:

Maybe you have a guest on the other side, but that's pretty much the only interaction you'll have. You don't have a community around you, so when I got to go to my 1st podcasting conference in Dallas, I was able to Start to meet people who engaged in the same space, and I cannot tell you how heartening that was to meet other people like that. They've become friends, they've become mentors, and I've also gotten the opportunity to mentor them. And that's what led me to the podcast academy. There are a lot of other communities that support content creators and podcasters. So if you are ever in that space, don't forget to hit me up and dm me For other podcasters, check out the podcast academy as well. You never know when you start a journey, When you know very little and you're petrified of getting on it, where those roads might lead, and that's exactly been what happened with my podcasting. When I started the idea when when I first got the idea of podcasting and even started on this journey, I had no idea where the road would lead.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:17:19]:

And it's with immense sadness, a bit of trepidation that I let this podcast end today. I hope you have got Something that you are able to take away from these episodes, and I wanted to tell you what I took away beyond my personal transformation, what I learned from all the conversations that I had. So let me sum it up the way I hear it. We all have doubts and we make mistakes, But by persevering and learning, we can move forward. Don't forget to lean into your tribe because they are the ones who are going to support you and keep you going. Surround yourself with mentors, sponsors, advocates and allies and if you're wondering what that is, Check out the podcast episode or maybe even subscribe to my newsletter. Because in the end, in our own lives, we have to build what we think of as a board of directors. We are the CEO of our lives, be it our career, be it our personal lives, or be it our financial lives.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:18:43]:

They all thread to go the to build a tapestry. So be the CEO and decide who you want to appoint to this board. So here are my takeaways. We are all going to tread on some parts. We are definitely going to make mistakes, we are going to fail, we are going to learn. But every time we decide to pick ourselves up And try again is what is going to get us to move forward. And you don't have to be alone on this journey. Find your tribe, Find your support system because they are the ones who are gonna help you move.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:19:30]:

We all need sponsors, mentors, advocates, and allies because this network of people is going to help us really achieve where we set our bar. This group of people is going to help us achieve and surpass our goals. If you're wondering what these terms mean, check out some of the earlier episodes or even subscribe to my substack newsletter because this is where I spike some of this information out. Don't forget to take every opportunity that knocks unless there's a good reason to reject it. Always be prepared because you never know when that opportunity will knock at your door. Ask people questions, be curious, be inquisitive because people are always willing to share and support. Expand your network either through the organizations that you engage with, through LinkedIn, or other forums, and find like minded people. I today sit at a crossroads, and I do not know quite where the future is going to lead, but I'm really excited about where this journey forward will take me and I want to thank you again for listening to this podcast and a big immense thank you to all the listeners and a big immense thank you to all the guests.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:22:14]:

And a big immense thank you to all the guests again and again for sharing their time, their expertise, their friendship, their mentorship, and so much more. Some of them have become friends, and I expect to stay connected with a lot of people that I have met through this podcasting journey. This is not a door that's closing completely, but a window left slightly open for the breeze to float in and for us to keep cool and stay connected. One way to stay connected with me, One way for us to continue this conversation is through my newsletter. If you're interested, You can check out in the show notes and subscribe to the substack, and we can still have a brief discussion about things we care about. And if it's something that interests you, you can still check out in the show notes and subscribe to my substat newsletter. But I just want to wish you goodbye, and thank you for listening. These episodes will not fade away.

Sirisha Kuchimanchi [00:23:29]:

They will continue to stay on all the podcast platforms that you listen to. So if you ever wanna check them out again, Go find them through your favorite app and listen in. Wishing you all the best in your own journey For all the risks you're going to take and the opportunities you're going to grab, I wish you every success in your career and financial ecosystems. I wish you every success for the future. Thank you.