The Pathways & Padlocks Conversation
00:11:04 · Sid Dissanayake
[00:11:04] S1: Yeah, I mean, of, you know, putting yourself outside of your comfort zone and trying different things, you know, as I mentioned at the top of the interview, another important part of your story is, you know, the podcast that you co founded with Adam called The Sachin and Adam Show. It originally had a different name, The Humans of Sydney, but essentially, based on my understanding, it was founded on both your mutual interest in connecting with people, and leveraging the experiences of other entrepreneurs, young people, philosophers, or whatever the case may be. So for those that aren't familiar with that podcast, can you firstly tell us a bit about the podcast? What was the purpose behind it? And essentially, what was the why behind starting that project?
00:11:55 · Sachin
[00:11:55] S0: Yeah, so we actually have a bit of a convoluted story. So the reason we started it initially was that Adam and I were getting coffees with lots of people. I think we both went through a period in 2018 where we're getting coffees with two different people each week. And that was leaders older than us or maybe students older than us, and we just generally want to learn from them. It wasn't career based, it was just like, we want to learn about their lives, what made them tick, their lessons for younger people. Because we both fundamentally believe in the philosophy that we're going to make a lot of mistakes in our lives. That's how we learn, right? But we don't want to make the same mistakes that people are older than us made. We want to make different ones and continue that kind of exponential learning curve. And so through these coffees, we're learning so much, a lot more than in my university degree. I'm also a person that learns from conversations as well. And we're getting so many unique insights and we thought that so many students would benefit from hearing these insights. We set out to record these insights and document them just for other people to listen to. We didn't have actually really didn't even really have an ambition of starting a podcast. The way it actually went down is we're sitting in an economic history lecture. And we were both really bored. It was like hour two or three. The lecture was boring. And Adam searched up the podcast room. We just we didn't even know if there was anything. We just joked about talking about exchange and he searched it up. And it was just one of those moments, he just looked at each other, he booked it. We left the class. We both got a Red Bull and we just started talking. And we released that first episode with no real intention, and it did quite well. A lot of people said they enjoyed our conversation. So like, hey, why don't we bring in some guests and let's see how this thing goes?
00:13:38 · Sid Dissanayake
[00:13:38] S1: I mean, it's cool to hear how it pretty much organically was created in that boring lecture you both had. I mean, you mentioned there as well about, you like you mentioned mistakes, making mistakes, and you alluded to like the risk of failure. And, you know, for me personally, that's something that has been on my mind a little bit. And I think, you know, a lot of other students out there, whether it be high school or university, you know, come across a similar sort of idea of, you know, oh shit, what if this goes wrong? Or, you know, what are the consequences of failing if I do a certain project to start a podcast or whatever the case may be? Did you and Adam, you know, come across a risk of failure or risk of making a mistake at all? Or do you have a total different experience?
00:14:21 · Sachin, Sid Dissanayake
[00:14:21] S0: It was a different experience in the sense that this podcast was a fundamental extension to who we are as people, right? We're both... If you meet us in real life, we're both really curious. We ask people lots of questions. It almost feels like some of our conversations with friends are already podcasts. And so I don't think we had that sense of failure, but obviously when you're putting yourself out there on the internet, you're leaving yourself open for judgment. And I think that when you're coming from a place where you're fundamentally confident in who you are, it's a lot easier. And I think this podcast was an expression of who we are. And if we're confident with that, I don't think either of us had a major problem. Obviously, there's gonna be people out there who think what both of us are doing is weird, like why are they talking on a podcast. Do they think they are and stuff like that, but I think as I've gotten a bit older I've really stopped caring about those people my circles gone tighter everyone that I hang out with has a very similar mindset. And I think in our heads, we always kind of overemphasize how much other people care about what you're doing, right? [00:15:25] S1: Yeah, 100%. Yeah. About [00:15:27] S0: what we're doing all the time, people don't really care that much, right? And I think that as we get older as well, doing your own thing is cool. Like it's actually cool. And I think that other people respect it more than they would put it down.
00:15:27 · Sachin, Sid Dissanayake
[00:15:27] S0: what we're doing all the time, people don't really care that much, right? And I think that as we get older as well, doing your own thing is cool. Like it's actually cool. And I think that other people respect it more than they would put it down. [00:15:42] S1: Yeah, I think yeah, you mentioned, I mean, recently I was thinking about the same thing about how we overstate our own importance in other people's lives as well. So I definitely resonate with that there. I mean, a part of sharing those stories is facilitating access to the experiences of whoever you're interviewing. I think like in the bio of your YouTube page, you talk about democratizing those conversations for everyone. I'm not gonna lie, I didn't know what democratize meant before that, but my understanding is that essentially means to make it something accessible. So, was that sort of grounded in a personal experience about, you know, getting access to the stories of these inspirational and knowledgeable people and leveraging those experiences?
00:16:29 · Sachin
[00:16:29] S0: Yeah, 100%. So, as I mentioned before, most of my best learnings or most profound insights have come from people older than me and those kinds of conversations. And I've always been very passionate about equality of opportunity. And I felt that giving people an insight into these people's minds is one of the best ways I can facilitate equality of opportunity. Because I think that we should all have access to the same amount of information, then it comes then the onus is on the individual about what they do with that information. But I also think that as a podcast is developed, I don't think that insight is as profound as I may lead on because there's so many podcasts out there, there's so many amazing guests, there's almost an abundance of information out there. So I think that's led to Adam and I doing some soul searching of what's our unique value add, especially because we're operating that space, that kind of Tim Ferriss, Joe Rogan space where we're interviewing people that have fairly big names now. And it's taking some soul searching of what's our unique value add compared to these other guests. And I think that as our podcast has moved towards that, that's something we've been considering more. But it almost operates as a juxtaposition of something like your podcast because I see it operating in a white space in the sense that there's no one really doing what you're doing right now. And I think you've identified a real kind of niche and then solving an important problem. But now because we're operating this more generalist space, it does take some self searching about what you're uniquely adding to the equation.