The Pathways & Padlocks Conversation
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.
00:18:00 · Sid Dissanayake
[00:18:00] S1: Yeah, I suppose over time that definitely changes. We were talking off air about how, you know, over the last couple of years since you've been doing the podcast, you know, the substance, the format, who you're interviewing has changed naturally over time. So, I mean, I want to, I bring that up to bring up a more general point, which I wanted to get your thoughts on. Do you think there's, do you think, particularly with young people, there's this obsession with, you know, perfection and, you know, going into a certain endeavour or project with this idea that, oh, it has to be perfect, it has to cross all the X's and O's, dot the T's and the I's. For you, do you think that's an idea that's out there at all? Or I know you may not subscribe to that, but just want to get your thoughts on that.
00:18:46 · Sachin
[00:18:46] S0: Yeah, no, I think that that's the biggest kind of roadblock for people getting started with projects. And as I said before, it's all in your own mind. People don't notice those minor details a lot of the time. People don't seek perfection, right? And it's something that's never really bothered me. One, because I have really low attention to detail, but two, what's framed my thinking so much is the lean startup and that whole kind of fail fast, iterate fast mindset. So for me, like getting a quick MVP out, getting feedback, improving it, going through that constant iteration rather than spending a lot of time getting some of this 90% there. It may not even be hitting the nail on the head of what people want or what's important to people and then having to start again. I very much subscribed by that lean startup mentality, which is getting like an MVP out, is a minimal viable product or something that you can get feedback on quickly. So then you can continuously improve it, right? Yeah. I think a lot of people get stuck in their own preconceptions of what the things should look like rather than actually asking the people they're trying to serve.