Real Conversations with Vijay Amritraj, CEO, Voila F9 Gourmet the premier F&B company that runs India's largest commercial kitchen. He is an Angel Investor and has several Silicon Valley tech companies as part of his portfolio. 

We talk about:
- Importance of Emotional Quotient as an investor
- How to become an Angel Investor in the US
- Why empathy is so important in healthy investor-founder relations
- The stress B2B F&B industry is going through and how Voila F9 is pivoting
- Financial Vs strategic investor and how to choose one
- Conserving capital Vs aggressively capturing the market in these times

Do you know one out of four people are under depression and may not even be aware?
Do you know the relationship between anger, anxiety and depression?
Should you reach out a psychologist or psychiatrist?
Role of counselling in curing depression?
Real life case studies who overcame depression through therapy.

The bollywood is again divided. Normally, the debates related to Indian film industry are restricted to gossip or even political statements. However, this time the industry is divided on a serious issue. It originated after actor Sushant Singh Rajput committed suicide.

The number of people questioning the big names of bollywood and hinting at nepotism have ballooned from few hundred to few thousands in a matter of one day. Statements like — bollywood is full of bullies and they cannot accept an outsider, they cannot lend hand to someone fighting for his survival or that those actors who come from known families are shedding fake tears and never accepted actor Sushant since he came from a humble family and was outside fraternity. Questions are being raised on actors like Arjun Kapoor who shared the screenshot of an 18 month old chat with Sushant Singh that shows clearly that Sushant was going through mental stress. Why did Arjun did not reach out to Sushant despite claiming he bumped into him several times is the question media should ask him.

If you are wondering why are we discussing this topic on a Real Conversations podcast, then let me clarify that we are neither talking about the film industry nor the debates therein. My aim today is to draw parallel with it to our own lives and explore how a pessimistic life can be converted to an optimistic one. 

What I am going to talk about is slightly complicated, hence I would like to draw your attention to few examples that we see or hear on daily basis.

• A smoker after failing to quit several times starts believing he will never be able to quit
• A person not able to reduce weight despite trying lifestyle changes gives up trying to reduce weight
• A woman facing domestic abuse for several years is unable to leave house despite support from an NGO. She believes she can never escape the abuser
• A child striving for attention from the caregiver when gets neglected again and again, develops low self-esteem.... for entire life

These are some real people we come across every day. These are examples of learned helplessness. When we experience failures and set-backs again and again in our lives, we start believing that we cannot change the situation. And with time we stop trying.....even when there are opportunities to change our situation, we do not try. This in short is learned helplessness which means - we have learned to be helpless. Is there a way out of these mental blocks that we face?

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Namaste everyone and welcome to the real conversations podcast. What I am going to tell you is backed by decades of cutting-edge research and is the basis of Positive Psychology. Applying some basic principles can help you move from a life of pessimism to a life of optimism. While writing my book Real Conversations in Digital Age, I read more than 40 books on positive psychology, heard hundreds of Ted Talks and watched hours and hours of motivational videos. Through today’s podcast, I will share important takeaways from the content I consumed. The content that is validated by credible research done by well-known psychologists.

But, first I will start with a story of a former colleague.

So, he never used to spend a penny. He was a smoker. I had quit smoking but used to accompany him and sometimes also shared the 'fag.' He never bought cigarette or even the candy leave aside occasional tea or coffee. He was a senior executive and drew more than double of my salary. Over time, he shared some personal details. His mother was detected Stage 2 cancer a year after his marriage. She had no insurance cover, and his son-in-law, the same colleague of mine that is, took responsibility of all the treatments and shifted her to his home. He and his wife decided to delay having a baby by couple of years until the mother recovered. 

Two years turned into 8 years. Mother did recover

Why do we need personal branding at all? Should our qualifications, social media posts and people in our network knowing about our specialisation not be enough? Is it not meant for people who are heading companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars or those who win Masterchef challenge,  filmstars, cricketers, or maybe politicians?

So here is the second in the series. Today let us talk about a basic question — Why do we need personal branding at all! Let me share my experience based on the hundreds of conversations I had with my clients over the years.

So most people feel apologetic about promoting or talking about themselves. It sounds strange, but the truth remains that while we do have an inner desire to build a personal brand, there is something inside, that stops us to do that. 

Now, We are all differently wired because of our circumstances in life — economically, education wise, the exposure we have had, the city we are living in, the upbringing we had etc. And that influences our ability to take the decision of building our personal brand. But with social media, the times have changed and we do see people leveraging YouTube, Linkedin and Instagram to show their skills and build a community around them.

For better understanding, I will segregate them into two categories:

First are those that are running an established business or heading a well known company— They have thousands of employees, get covered by media and have crossed the threshold of worrying about survival in the market. The problem with such people is that they find it difficult to think beyond their business when it comes to personal branding. Though these are the very people we follow diligently on LinkedIn and Twitter and admire them…. mostly their social media accounts are run by agencies or the corporate communication teams and hence the messaging is mostly transactional in nature. Sometimes, also due to lack of time, they are unable to focus on personal branding.

The second category of people are those that are not known by the masses…. they might be in jobs, or could be startup founders, or upcoming chefs, freelancers, a trainer and consultant, a writer, a painter, or an expert in SEO and digital marketing. These are the people who are still not known beyond their close community. 

And there are millions of such people who, while having expertise and specialisation in something never take that first step towards personal branding. The reasons maybe different for everyone but the two most common issues that I have found are-

number one — the lack of confidence in one self. “will people laugh on me, what if someone leaves a stinking comment on my video or blog, am I good enough to do this etc etc”. 

And number two - is the biggest issue that I have seen in my two decades of experience —the belief that personal branding is only for the privileged few. Out of these millions a small fraction takes step towards personal branding… but leaves it midway after some efforts.

You will find them doing few YouTube videos, writing four or five blogs, spending some money on social media marketing and after a while they drop everything as they start finding it overwhelming. And to say that creating a personal brand is not overwhelming or it is a piece of cake is incorrect. It does take lot of effort. BUT it is not impossible. And the rewards will completely change your life. 

You just need two things - consistency and patience.So, out of the millions who aspire to build personal brand, a small fraction takes step and a much smaller percentage out of them actually are able to create a personal brand.

I will cover the nuances of how to create a personal brand one by one in  the coming episodes. Do subscriber and follow the podcast for the future updates.

Namaste everyone. I am your host, Ritu Kant Ojha. I have been receiving queries from some of my listeners to help them create their personal brand. I will address the topic of creating personal brand from next episode. 

I want to share a question that a listener sent today… and I found it so interesting that I decided to do a podcast on it… that serves as a foundation for creating personal brand podcasts.

So he says he is not enjoying the business he is in and while he thought he would be super happy when he crosses the benchmark he had set in his business, he is actually quite unhappy. He asked me how I decided to move away from what I was not enjoying…. to doing things that I loved. So here’s my story in short with the lessons that I learnt. 

I turned entrepreneur in 2013 and by 2016 I realised that I was not running the business…. but the business was running me. I had a formidable team, a nice office, the earnings were decent and I had turned profitable within first year of starting-up.

But, I figured out….that this is not me. I was making money but wasn’t enjoying myself at all. I was working like crazy. My daughter was born in 2015 and that kind of changed something inside me. 

For the next one year I spent much less time with my daughter than I could have spent. I was a journalist earlier and loved writing, but despite getting opportunities to write for top media houses, I had no time. 

By early 2017 I started losing interest in chasing business, doing business development in the traditional sense and started to dig deeper on what I wanted. 

For a long time, I was itching to produce short films.

I scripted, directed and produced two short films and a web series in 2018. Since I was so passionate about conversations, I started my research on how smartphones are impacting face to face communication and that lead to my book Real Conversations In Digital Age that was released worldwide in December 2019. 

So, I was able to achieve two of my dreams - of creating short films and writing a non-fiction. I was also able to get back to what I love most — meeting people and exchanging ideas. I started travelling more and finding opportunities to understand from them how they were upgrading themselves, are they following their dreams, role of conversations in their lives and so on.

During these meetings, people started asking me if I can train their team on conversations, few of the leading educational institutions like IIMs and IITs invited me to give a talk around conversations. I started working with individuals and different teams on helping them manage disagreements in workplace, creating a personal brand and training their sales force apart from grabbing the professional speaking opportunities that came my way. I started getting invitations to moderate events ranging from budget to entrepreneurship. 

So, was I making a lot of money? No. 

Was I happier than before? Certainly yes. This is who I was….. doing what I truly loved….. and that was conversations! 

And yeah, how can I forget….doing podcast was one of my dreams that I had given up and the lock-down allowed me to achieve that dream too.

Now, not everyone has this kind of a story or similar dreams. It could be going a top business school, or getting that dream job, or starting your own business, or maybe quitting the urban life and become a farmer - I mean yeah a lot of people do that as well. It all starts with real conversations with your self. You can also call them inner conversations.

The lockdown has given us that opportunity to dive inside, dig deeper and ask ourselves whether what we are doing is in sync with what we really want to do in life. If it is not, dig even deeper and write down what you REALLY would love to do. 

You know, A top business news anchor moved to Himalayas, a client of mine sold off his IT company

As the business leaders grapple with the ethical dilemma of choosing between not cutting the jobs & letting the business sink, it is time to reassess the way business was being done so far. The conflict between morality & saving business is not easy. Despite the gloom, those that are able to change business models with speed will survive while those that procrastinate will go out of the market. Deepak talks about the ways how businesses can manage their finances along with the ethical dilemma and emerge winning in these difficult times.

Over half of the top 500 companies listed on the National Stock Exchange could find themselves strapped for cash to even make routine payments in the aftermath of the COVID-19 induced lockdown. Except for some strong companies, a majority of the firms could find themselves in liquidity trouble, unless if promoters step in with equity or banks lend to them.

As per data out of 467 of the top 500 NSE-listed companies, excluding banks, 257, or 55% of them, have less than 100% cushion for bearing fixed and debt-servicing costs. Should the CEO think about the sailors or the ship? Can both be saved? How to manage job cuts? 

To talk more about it, we have with us Deepak Narayanan – a Qualified Chartered Accountant and the Founder Director of MyCFO and Practus Advisors, a leading Office of CFO and Performance Improvement services. His team comprises over 1200 professionals across India, USA, and the Middle East with projects in over a dozen countries. 

bit.ly/ritukant

While almost all discussions in newspapers and TV channels are about the man on the street and the employees in various companies -- and rightly so -- the focus today is on a CEO. How lonely is a CEOs position, the turnaround stories, managing pessimism in the team, managing liquidity crisis...

To discuss this, we have Shailesh Haribhakti with us. He is a Board Chairman, Audit Committee Chair and Independent Director at some of the country's most preeminent organizations. He is a well-known thought leader on the Indian Economy and Public Policy.

He has consulted, worked with and mentored hundreds of CEOs and promoters during last 4 decades of his experience.

realconversations.buzzsprout.com 

Hosted by Ritu Kant Ojha, Author of Real Conversations In Digital Age & CEO, WIYLD. Today's guest is Shailesh Haribhakti who is a global thought leader and Chairman of the Board of Directors for several large corporations including:
- Baker Tilly DHC Private Limited
- Blue Star Limited
- Confederation of Indian Industry - CII (Western Region)
- Future Lifestyle Fashions Ltd.
- Institute of Directors - IoD (Western Region)
- L&T Finance Holdings Ltd.
- L&T Mutual Fund Trustee Ltd.
- Mentorcap Management Pvt Ltd.
- New Haribhakti Business Services LLP
- NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Limited
- Planet, People & Profit Consulting Ltd.

Who would have thought in January 2020 that just in a few weeks, almost all employees would be working from home, all events would move to webinars and the courts would start conducting an online hearing. But it is a reality we are living with and do not even know till when it will continue. 

And who knows, some of it will become a reality that we will have to live with for our entire life. While it is obvious that the digital and online world has taken over our lives as we are locked-down in our homes, it is time to assess how an individual, a small business or large corporate can convert this pain into an opportunity. 

To talk more about the impact on healthcare, retail, e-commerce, and entertainment sector along with the opportunities, we have with us Mr Shailesh Haribhakti. He is a Board Chairman, Audit Committee Chair and Independent Director at some of the country's most preeminent organizations. He is a well-known thought leader on the Indian Economy and Public Policy.

realconversations.buzzsprout.com 

This is part of the Real Conversations Podcast, hosted by Ritu Kant Ojha, Author of Real Conversations in Digital Age & CEO of WIYLD. The investors have never seen this kind of volatility in the Indian stock market. It has become almost impossible to predict the market as each day comes with a new surprise. However, there are several stocks that present an amazing opportunity to invest and make money in the long term. We discuss, how to filter out wrong advice, why large caps are considered relatively safer, is it advisable to sit on cash or invest etc.

In the last episode, we discussed some basics of stock markets in India. Taking it further from there, we are joined again by Mr Ambareesh Baliga. If you have missed the previous episode I will insist, you hear that as well to better connect the dots. Ambareesh Baliga is one of India's leading stock market experts and has been tracking equity markets for over 35 years.

This is part of the Real Conversations Podcast, hosted by Ritu Kant Ojha, Author of Real Conversations in Digital Age & CEO of WIYLD. 
While Indians typically invest in Gold and Real Estate, the number of people buying stocks has been increasing steadily over the last 20 years. Today we will be discussing some basic questions over the uncertainty around stock investing and a few common phrases which we often hear from the experts.

We are joined by one of India's leading stock market experts - Ambareesh Baliga. He is probably the most sought-after voices by all top news channels and newspapers when it comes to the Indian share market. Since the topic is so complicated we will cover it in two episodes. If you are listening to the first episode, make sure to tune-in for the second one as well where we will delve a little deeper into stock market investing. Understand the basics of stock markets, why FII inflows are important, how this could be India's decade, avoiding stock market mistakes and tips for young traders.

realconversations.buzzsprout.com