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E165 | Change Makers Series - Ft. Vishal Talreja

Start with a quiet truth: change that lasts rarely shouts. It begins with seeing what we’ve trained ourselves to ignore—poverty on the commute, a child shut down in class, a system running fast but leaving people behind. In this conversation, we sit with Vishal from Dream a Dream to unpack how life skills, empathy, and systems thinking can shift the odds for young people growing up with adversity.

We go deep on why social-emotional learning matters as much as literacy and numeracy, especially when trauma has delayed key developmental milestones. Vishal shares the surprising lever that scaled their impact: not more programs, but more caring adults. That insight led to training tens of thousands of teachers and partnering with state governments to embed a daily happiness and wellbeing curriculum across public schools. The work stretches from classrooms to policy, from personal agency to public systems, and it’s grounded in a simple promise—every child deserves dignity, safety, and the chance to thrive.

The stories bring it to life. Pallavi, once a shy teen mocked for playing football, returns as a life skills coach and then organizes her neighborhood to convert a garbage mound into a public play space. Prasanna, raised around violence, learns to channel anger into sport, mentorship, and photography, later finding hard-won empathy for his father’s past. We also examine the limits of resilience when structural barriers—caste, class, gender, and access to devices and data—block progress, a lesson sharpened by the pandemic. That’s why this journey includes inner work: confronting identity and power, building trust with bureaucrats, and co-creating context-first solutions rather than pushing one-size-fits-all fixes.

If you’re drawn to education reform, leadership, or social change, you’ll find practical takeaways: how to scale without losing soul, how to avoid burnout by designing for rest and celebration, and how small actions—like asking teachers about kindness or meeting a stranger’s eyes—can shift culture. Listen, reflect, and share with someone who needs a dose of grounded hope. If it resonates, subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what small shift will you try this week?

Reference Website/s

https://dreamadream.org/

Book - When We Thrive, Our World Thrives - https://amzn.in/d/4e5u9AB

www.inspiresomeonetoday.in

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Change rarely waits for permission, and Soumita Basu didn’t either. After losing most of her mobility, she refused to hand over her identity to illness and instead asked one practical question each day: What can I still do? That mindset led her to keep dancing while seated, confront the hidden labor of caregiving, and build an adaptive clothing company that designs for real bodies, real pain points, and real life in India’s climate and culture.

We trace her path from a gradual loss of movement to a surprising recovery the medical system didn’t expect, and we challenge the idea that “strength” means silence. Somita shares how a near-death night reframed her priorities, why asking for help is a design skill, and how inclusion starts with rethinking defaults: street lighting that keeps women safe, bus systems usable without literacy, and restrooms that respect different needs. When clothing becomes easier to put on—especially when the range of motion is limited—dignity increases, pain decreases, and caregivers regain time and energy. That’s design as care, not charity.

Entrepreneurship with a disability forced new processes. Standard advice assumed step-free access, endless stamina, and quick sourcing runs—none of which applied. Somita responded by reinventing workflows, co-creating with users to refine closures and cuts, and starting small when funding was tight after medical expenses. Along the way, she tested yoga, meditation, Ayurveda, pranic healing, and conventional medicine, not as dogma but as experiments measured by function and relief. The takeaway is clear: uncertainty isn’t an ending; it’s an invitation to iterate responsibly.

You’ll walk away with grounded prompts you can use today: end the day asking if you’d accept it as your last, do what you can with what you have where you are, and measure your 100 percent against today’s reality. If you’re a manufacturer or distributor who believes clothing should serve everybody, reach out—we’re building this together. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs adaptive design, and leave a review with one mindset you’re ready to redesign.

Reference Website/s

https://zyenika.com

https://inspiresomeonetoday.in/

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/13286-psoriatic-arthritis

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Community voices reflect on a year of purpose, passion, and the future of work, sharing the habits and moments that changed how they live and lead. We co-create bold themes for 2026, from thriving in the AI era to authentic health and financial literacy, and celebrate meetups that turn inspiration into action.

• key takeaways from memorable guests across sport, sales, leadership, and sustainability
• micro experiments such as 1% improvements, affirmations, and the flickering bulb check
• meetups as catalysts for networks, mentorship, and real-world collaboration
• themes for 2026 including AI-ready skills, holistic priorities, and authentic expertise
• calls for cross-pollination and non-obvious wisdom from deputies and career pivoters
• psychology and neuroscience tools for stress, decisions, relationships, and habits
• stories of service-forward leadership inspired by Simon Taufel and Lorna Davis
• ideas for community-led reflections that track learning to action

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What if the most powerful leadership tool isn’t a metric or a model, but the decision to be simply human? That’s the throughline of our conversation with Rajneesh “RS” Singh—factory-floor HR leader turned media CHRO turned co-founder of SimplyHR—who built a 15-year firm on clarity, courage, and care.

We start with RS’s three-layer career arc: a foundation forged in rigorous HR, a testing ground of plant shutdowns and M&A, and an application phase inside the daily chaos of newsrooms. From there, he shares the story of SimplyHR’s bar-napkin beginnings, why the brand’s black elephant stands for big ears and small mouth, and how a simplicity-first philosophy cuts through jargon to solve real business problems. The lesson for leaders: fall in love with chaos, then organize it into trust.

RS also maps the shift from relationship-led leadership to data-heavy dashboards and argues for a “touch and tech” balance. You’ll hear exactly what Millennials and Gen Z expect—transparency, dialogue, no surprises—and how managers can marry empathy with accountability without becoming “nice” and ineffective. For HR pros, he frames the function as a marathon: protect mental fitness, read the market, and use AI to elevate judgment, not erase humanity.

The most moving segment arrives when RS opens up about surviving stage four colon cancer. Humor, prayer, and purpose carried him through, and now he counsels others, proving that hope is a management tool. We close by looking ahead: India’s innovation mindset beyond jugaad, work-from-anywhere as a durable model, and the ethical spine that turns companies into institutions. If you lead people—or want to—this is a masterclass in building cultures that are clear, kind, and uncompromising on results.

If this conversation sparked something, follow the show, share it with a friend who leads teams, and leave a rating with one takeaway you’ll put into practice next week.

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The moment you forget your own name on stage can define you—or free you. We sit down with Gauri Seshadri, a global leader at Toastmasters International, to explore how a shaky first step turned into a career built on clarity, connection, and service. From introvert in a new culture to first vice president shaping strategy across 149 countries, Gauri shares the habits and frameworks that help nervous speakers become confident communicators and leaders who influence without titles.

We dig into the story behind her icebreaker, the mentors who nudged her forward, and the decision to say yes before she felt ready. Gauri unpacks a practical 3A approach—audience, authenticity, alignment—that reliably turns information into impact. She explains why great speeches are felt, not just heard; how to flip tense rooms with one better question; and what it takes to build trust across cultures and time zones. You’ll hear tangible examples from corporate workshops, volunteer leadership, and sales presentations, including the mindset shift that transformed nerves into excitement.

We also tackle the AI question head-on. Tools can draft and polish, but intent, empathy, and intuition remain human. Gauri offers a simple microhabit to grow clarity week after week: expand your library of knowledge beyond your bubble. Rounding it out, she shares crisp, adoptable habits—listen to understand, pause before speaking, keep it simple and sincere—and a closing mantra worth posting on your desk: clarity builds confidence, and confidence builds connection.

If you’re ready to communicate with purpose, lead through influence, and make your words move people, this conversation is your playbook. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a nudge, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway—we’d love to hear what you’ll try first.

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What if you treated your life like a design project, not a rigid plan? We sit down with Navyug, a transformation coach and life design educator, to unpack a practical way to build your future through small, innovative experiments. Instead of chasing a perfect blueprint, we talk about wayfinding—how to navigate from a shifting point A to a shifting point B—and why clarity often follows action, not the other way around.

We trace the roots of Designing Your Life from Stanford’s design school to workshops that help people move from default choices to deliberate ones. You’ll hear how three core mindsets—sensemaking, reframing, and iteration—turn uncertainty into opportunity. Expect concrete tools: writing your work view and life view, tracking energy and flow to find fit, and building Odyssey Plans that map three different five-year futures. The real unlock is blending elements from those futures into your life now, so meaning doesn’t wait for someday.

We also face the storm of AI and automation head-on. Navyug predicts more profound disruption than most expect, which makes human skills like empathy, creativity, learnability, and possibility thinking non-negotiable. For leaders, we explore culture-design questions that matter: how failure is handled, how physical space fosters collisions, and how organizations advance each person’s journey. And for anyone wrestling with the “follow your passion” advice, we offer a better path: follow interest, put in the reps, get good, and let passion emerge from competence and momentum.

If you’re ready to move from overthinking to action, this conversation gives you the tools and mindset to get started. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review telling us the one experiment you’ll try this week.

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Career growth doesn’t have to look like a ladder to the top. We unpack what it means to build a lattice—moving sideways, going deeper, and sometimes stepping down to step forward—with practical tools you can use today. With coach and speaker Shyam Sadasivan, we challenge the labels that box us in, celebrate the “deep generalist” who has breadth with chosen depth, and replace prestige metrics with a new currency: Impact, Network, Renewal. If you’ve ever wondered whether it’s too late to pivot or feared losing what you’ve built, this conversation will give you a grounded path forward.

We start with identity and momentum: “I’m starting from zero, I’m not zero.” From there, Shyam shows how to separate an itch from a true direction by giving ideas time to prove their stickiness. Test-drive change through two-way doors—reversible experiments like pro bono projects and informational interviews—while managing risk like snakes and ladders: avoid big mistakes, keep your downsides small. When promotions stall, we explore how to create real progress through better conversations, adjacent roles, and richer mastery.

Decision-making gets sharper with the head-heart-gut model. You’ll learn simple ways to hear each voice, use premortems to anticipate failure before it happens, and wield the power of “yet” to turn fear into a learning plan. We also dig into the traps that keep people stuck—golden handcuffs, sunk cost bias, and envy—and offer a life-first prioritization: who you’re with, where you live, and what you do. Expect practical micro experiments, candid stories, and book picks that balance specialist excellence with generalist range. If you’re ready to redefine success on your terms, press play and tell us the one experiment you’ll start this week. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review to help others find the show.

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We explore the habits that make success repeatable: focus on the moment, remove ceilings, and bring your best every day. Stories from sport and business show how to turn uncertainty into an edge, lead diverse teams, and build cultures that outlast a single win.

• elite mindset as presence, no ceilings, daily best
• intrinsic motivation after the peak
• translating sports principles to team leadership
• embracing change as opportunity, practicing resilience
• Virat’s fast-bowling bet and Mandela’s jersey moment
• developing mindset through simple, repeatable habits
• pivot from banking to Two Roads, outside-in lens
• leading diverse global teams with standards and trust
• integrity and attitude before skill
• balancing passion and profession with time choices
• failure ownership, cultural bias, and AI honesty
• future skills: digital mindset and data-led judgment
• sport as a classroom for leadership humility

Be the best version of yourself that you can be. And when you do that, you automatically lead by example. And then everyone follows.

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Rejection can bruise the ego—or it can build the roadmap. We sit down with Venkat to unpack why the best salespeople talk less, listen more, and treat every “no” as free R&D. That simple shift—separating the rejection of an idea from the worth of a person—unlocks a healthier mindset and a sharper product. Venkat shares the unforgettable Ahmedabad school story: sky‑high expectations, an empty admissions desk, a late‑night reckoning, and then gritty, door‑to‑door work that turned seven enrollments into thirty‑one—and, within a year, demand far beyond capacity.

From there, we pivot to giving. Venkat is candid about leading with the head before the heart, and how sustained, significant philanthropy pulled his emotions into alignment. We examine why five seconds of joy can be real impact, how India’s poorest quietly donate a larger share of their revenue, and why storytelling alone can fade while numbers persist. The throughline is sacrifice: moving from feeling good to doing good, giving up a little personal comfort so others can access essentials like surgery or schooling. We also explore practical tools for builders—scrappy prototypes, frugal learning, and then bold-scale spending once product-market fit is clear.

Looking forward, we map three frontiers for change-makers: climate change as the defining systems challenge, AI’s underexplored existential risks beyond jobs, and a wider moral circle that extends compassion to nonhuman life. Venkat outlines initiatives like ICVA to make corporate volunteering meaningful and measurable, and Living My Promise, where wealth-holders commit half their net worth to society. The episode closes on gratitude and responsibility: if you can listen to this show, you have privilege—now turn it into impact through listening, proximity, and giving that stretches you. If this conversation pushed your thinking, follow, rate, and share the show with someone who needs a nudge from feeling good to doing good.

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What if success and significance weren’t opposites but the same metric—impact? That question runs through our conversation with Venkat Krishnan, the quiet builder behind platforms like GiveIndia and DaanUtsav, which have helped millions find clear paths to care. Venkat’s compass formed early: reading Gandhi in grade school, wrestling with dharma in the Mahabharata, and growing up amid stark contrasts in 1980s Bombay. Those lived lessons shaped a simple, disarming credo he wrote at IIM: “I see myself as a tool for the welfare of society.” From there, every decision got measured by one variable—what creates the most good.

We trace the move from programs to platforms: why a philanthropy marketplace made sense in a country where people wanted to help but didn’t know how, and how trust and transparency were engineered before e-commerce was mainstream—the moment a national crisis (the 2001 Gujarat earthquake) validated online giving at scale. Venkat breaks down DaanUtsav’s “taste to believe” design—let people experience the joy of giving once, and many will return on their own. Along the way, we explore introversion as an asset to be leveraged, not a flaw to be hidden: hire complementary strengths, utilize reflective channels, and treat communication as a craft, not a performance.

The throughline is a countercultural hierarchy: cause first, organization second, self last. Venkat explains why he declines awards, how that stance strengthens collaboration, and how de-centering ego increases total impact. This is a masterclass in building movements that outlast moments—rooted in moral clarity, obsessive simplicity, and systems that make it easier to do the right thing. If you’ve ever wondered how to turn conviction into infrastructure, or how to navigate rejection while staying true to mission, you’ll find pragmatic, field-tested insights here.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who cares about social impact, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway—we read every one.

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