Ravi Nair, an LLP coach and author of Amazon's bestselling book Weekend Miracle, is the first Guinness World Record holder on Brain Box.

Very interesting discussions ensue - like:

"Can leadership be taught or if it is something that is simply innate", or for that matter "Emotional intelligence?"

Lastly, everyone operates from two zones: looking good and avoiding looking bad; how this can create issues in communication and relationships.

Timestamps:

00:03: Conversation on Leadership Development and Overcoming Self-Limiting Beliefs

00:04: Exploring Traits and Belief Systems

00:06: Exploring Self-Limiting Beliefs in Leadership

00:09: The Benefits of Being a Good Leader: Setting Realistic Expectations

00:11: Conversation on Achieving Team Synergy and Motivation

00:12: Exploring the Different Types of Personality Traits in the Workplace

00:16: Exploring the Benefits of Teaching Sales Strategies

00:17: Exploring the Benefits of Introversion in Sales and Leadership

00:21: Exploring the Power of Knowledge Transfer & Guinness World Record for Participating in the Toughest Ultra Hill Marathon in India.

00:25: Exploring the Mind's Relationship to Pain and Pleasure

00:26: The Importance of Physical Health for Leadership Success

00:28: Advice for the 20-Year-Old Self

A serial entrepreneur, Saurabh founded his first startup in the Ed-tech space in 2009, while still in IIT Bombay!

The second one in 2015 in the Agri-Tech space (after his corporate stint).

He then instrumented Swiggy's growth from six cities to 500 in a span of just 6 months!

And then in 2020 worked very closely with Sachin Bansal (Flipkart fame) as CEO of Navi Mutual Fund.

He's now the Co-Founder of Stable Money.

We discuss about hiring, building & getting the best out of teams, scaling from 0-1; 1-5 & 5-10.

Don't miss this episode.. the pearls of wisdom are right there!

In a very interesting chat with the CEO of Vosmos (aka Virtual Cosmos), we discuss a plethora of topics:

- Understanding the Metaverse (or meta-commerce, as he likes to call it) better

- Balancing innovation with risk-taking capability;

- Criticality of trust in culture;

- Importance of marketing & branding;

- Customer experience & how it could be the biggest differentiator.

I had my first guest, Ashish Wattal, in Episode 6 on October 11, 2021. He was then MD at Cisco.

Fast forward exactly 18 months: April 10, 2023.

He returns after exactly 50 episodes as Country Director at Google Cloud to kick-off Season 12!

We discuss in detail around the traits that make him a great leader of multiple high-performing teams:

- Empathy & Compassion

- Criticality of Trust in getting results from the team

- Why communication is the key in achieving aspirational goals & how to go about achieving them

- Team-first mentality

- Individualism within the team

- Importance of Diversity in the team (Not just gender, but also in age)

- How failures set you up for success

- WFH or hybrid

- Importance of discipline & how sports inculcates leadership

- Importance of 'Orzuv' (Wellness in the Kashmiri language)

- How IT & tech has transformed in the past 35 years

- Where he expects India to be going in the next 10-15

- What advice he would give the 20-year old him

I couldn't have expected a more from-the-heart leadership mantras in under 26 minutes!

Transcript: https://share.descript.com/view/zD6NIO1vTxU?t=0.05

On the Season 11 finale, I'm delighted to host Darshan Shetty - currently the General Manager at Continental, who has worked with conglomerates like Bosch in the past. He is also my batchmate from RVCE over 2 decades ago.  

Having been in a whole variety of roles - right from R&D to Project Management to Sales - he shares his leadership mantras on how to develop high-performing teams.

Being an avid sportsperson as well, we also have a brief discussion about the importance of physical health in leadership.

Abhishek Gupta has some of the best credentials there are: He's the CEO of Turbotic, ex-Partner of KPMG & a Board Member. 

My conversation with him is around some of the hottest topics today:

- Leveraging AI in Self-Driving cars

- Utilising AI & Blockchain in HR

- Fail fast-fail safe in startups

- His 5th & 6th Ps in Marketing! 

- How to build an innovative startup (He invests regularly in them)

- Importance of Feedback in Leadership

- His love for ‘polo’

If you have read any of the viral posts about “How all the sharks except Aman Gupta are suffering major losses” .. I have the source. 

He's Ankit Uttam - an author, LinkedIn influencer & a solopreneur. 

There’s a reason, though, that Brain Box is an award winning show by Spotify - we will be digging into the other facets of his life, which aren’t too commonly known - yet are very remarkable! 

We delve into "power of series", how he directed rage to something productive .. to how "Minimum Viable Product" can be applied to any product / service, what it takes to be an influencer .. all the way to his reasons for having 11k+ subscribers on his newsletter!

Customer Experience (CX) is defined as the customers' holistic perception of their experience with your business or brand. It's one of the biggest differentiators to stand-out in a crowded market. So in today's episode, our guest is an expert in CX in both B2B and B2C - Kavitha Ashtakala. 

She also talks about her solopreneurship journey, Individual Social Responsibility (ISR) and how career breaks helped shape her - both professionally and personally. 

After 51 episodes, it gets more and more difficult to have FIRSTS. Anyone who knows me though.. knows I somehow make it happen. On today’s podcast, I have the first Lawyer on my show! He’s one of the leading lawyers in Gurgaon - Advocate Pradeep Kumar Khatana!

If you are like me.. and want to know more than just what-you-see on TV about the legal system, you've got to listen to this!

On this landmark of  launching the 50th episode of Brain Box, on this very special episode - I host someone who is a 2-time entrepreneur, a Certified Yoga Instructor, a Certified Nutritionist & an accomplished Interior Designer, who's delivered projects in Dubai & India. 

She's also been in the Corporate jungle in Dubai & India for over a decade, before starting her own startup as a first generation entrepreneur. 

Oh.. she's also my wife .. and these chats don't get more unscripted and from-the-heart than this!