This episode features Srini Rao – Host /creator of widely popular ‘The Unmistakable Creative’ Podcast which features close to 700 interviews with some of the world’s insanely interesting people! Tim Ferris, Simon Sinek, Seth Godin to name a few!
Wall Street Journal Best Selling Author of ‘The Art of Being Unmistakable’, Srini Rao is a well-known creativity keynote speaker who helps companies to find their unmistakable unique voice and stand out from the crowd!
In this episode, Srini gets candid with Ash as he discusses his non linear career which began soon after he graduated with an MBA when he found his slate wiped clean when economy had just tanked !
Srini found himself using this unexpected gift of time and decided to use this to do two things-
1. Writing
2. Surfing
Both of these activities eventually led him to live life by his own design and not default to the expected norms of society and got him closer to what he truly was – an unmistakable creative!
Srini talks about how he started writing and then after hearing the consistent feedback from his network which in this case also includes Simon Sinek who observes that Srini is good at 2 things –
This led him to eventually start the, widely popular podcast ‘The Unmistakable Creative’ which now close to 700+ interviews so far and going strong!
When Ash asks about how to keep up with creativity during crisis – Srini explains it through four key phases which involves Panic, Projection, Awareness, Acceptance and Action.
Key Insights from the episode:
· Try to live your life by design and not default
· Do not plainly copy your role models – rather just model them and then discard the parts that isn’t for you. Remember context matters and everyone’s background is different. Outlier advantages that they had may not apply to you – so do it your way
· When life does not go as per your plan – instead of blaming circumstance, use it as gift to get creative and find a solution!
· About Acceptance – Srini says – “If you hold on to something very strongly , it starts to have power over you but if you start to accept thing as they are, that power /control dissolves, Once you accept there is new sense of awareness and you start to think what you could do . This awareness leads to action and this action is now based on your courage and not your fear!”
Keystone habit that Srini Rao believes in and which has helped him build out his creative career
Writing 1000 words per day!!
Just writing it out /flushing out ideas /brainstorming – led to numerous led to numerous blog posts, podcast ideas, book ideas.
Other fun facts covered in episode:
· His cameo in Netflix series #indianmatchmaking and how this experience has led to many conversations about south Asian culture which was long overdue!
You can know more about Srini and his work HERE!
Access more episodes and get connected HERE!