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0012 Ravi Ravindran

Introduction:
Jewels:
 Welcome to the Telling of Story podcast. I’m your host storyteller Jewels, and it’s along with my guests. It’s my endeavor to explore the art and science of storytelling, to attract, engage, and retain a business audience, and to unpack why it works for some, not for the many that try.

In this episode, I have the pleasure of speaking with Ravi. Listen in as he talks about how obsession will help you push through and smile through the pain.

Snippet
Ravi:
 Obsession cuts through everything. You’ll see a lot of people talk about the potential of the company lavish on the funds that they’re raising or etc. But the ones who are obsessed, smile through the problems. The ones who are obsessed, regardless of whether they get funding or not. Regardless of whether the main sales event has been pulled from them and they’re not converting over, regardless of a key [00:01:00] influencer or employee leaving, they’re gonna keep going through it.

Jewels: In this episode, I have the pleasure of speaking with Ravi Ravindran. Ravi is a four-time startup founder, and a former entrepreneur in residence at the University of Toronto. And the social capitalist. Currently, he’s the CEO and co-founder of BLUMEx, an experimental media startup. BLUMEx automates the workflows of podcasters, streamers, and creators. Their mission is to capture the stories of innovators advancing their ideas through startups, research, or entrepreneurship. Ravi, welcome to the show. Thanks,

Ravi: Thanks, Jewels! Appreciate you having me here.

Jewels: Ravi, tell us a little bit about your story.

Ravi: Yeah, so I’m best known within the Toronto Canada innovation scene for failing at three startups during my undergrad, from the age of 17 to 24, started three companies, did a little bit of extended undergrad in neuroscience, and the whole time I wanted to [00:02:00] skip the matrix, figure my own stuff out and achieve independence. And each of those times I failed and different sporadic ways.

Ravi: And the cost of my failure was landing a gig at the University of Toronto where I was an entrepreneur in residence helping other companies form out of the university itself. So incubating and commercializing, U I P generated from the institutional level. Helped build about 152 startups from age 24 to 27. 
Just by advising and helping in different ways realized that media was something that many founders were lacking in. So went on to startup number four, which was meant to be a media company. BLUME at that time was my, and is currently my consulting company. We’ve been running that for seven and a half years.

 Done a lot of government contracts, and helped a lot of founders with building sales and sales pipelines and strategies. About BLUME, & BLUMEx was, an iteration on top of that, how can we use media to tell stories and share them in a viral fashion? So we built a portable podcast center [00:03:00]podcast studio if you will, that can travel from business incubator to co-working studio and record great companies, great stories at high-definition audio and video.

The set was designed by a director who makes Netflix movies. We had an onset audio engineer who works in movie studios. We had three sources of audio recording. We had three, four, 4K cameras pointing in different directions. We have studio lighting and all can be set up and operated within an hour. And we went around the innovation hubs of Canada and started filming all these shows.

Ravi: We got up to episode 65, high quality 4K quality audio and video experiences, and then Covid hit. And once Covid hit, we were forced to abandon our entire studio, ban our entire process, and started from scratch doing this virtual. And we realized one of the main things that podcasters and you can probably attest to this, have a huge problem in is scaling their podcast post-production.

Editing takes a lot of time, energy, and effort, and is expensive [00:04:00] if you outsource it. We wanna tackle that problem so we can help develop more storytelling capabilities. So we developed a series of AI bots. That can automate podcast edits at different degrees, and we’ve built, uh, used it to build our own podcast network. Some of Canada’s biggest innovation hubs start their own podcast through us. They introduce us to their incubees, their program members, and their co-working space members, and we have a great content funnel and a referral funnel too, for people to work with us. So the next iteration of that is becoming more like a tech podcast accelerator, but we were focusing on a very key few types of storytellers.

Attach them to a community of story-driven CEOs and founders who want to tell stories and tell what they’re what, what they’re working on, and create a dynamic system where we can share the most, I believe the most interesting story of all, which is story of human innovation. How we create, how we build, how we scale, and how [00:05:00] we get people to adopt all of that.

Ravi: So that’s where I am right now.

Jewels: You call BLUMEx an experimental company. Why is that

Ravi: experiential company, 

Jewels: I’m sorry! I read that it totally incorrectly. Experiential company.

Ravi: Uh, a little bit of an ode to the hub, the experiential center that we were born out of. But the idea being experiential, learning, experiential services, experiential everything.

Ravi: I think everything is becoming more experience based. Even the tools and communities you join virtually are about the experiences you gain from them. So the idea here is to create experiences, not just tools and technology.

Jewels: So tell me a little bit about storytelling and why you see the tech space in particular, as and in place to focus on that storytelling journey.

Ravi: Yeah, I think it’s easy being on the inside and even being a tech founder, having a team of engineers or portfolio of investors and advisors, [00:06:00] and still be completely lost by what’s going on. The pace of change in technology is so rapid. Our political and cultural discourse is evolving. The way we work and fund and buy and live is fundamentally changing.

Ravi: So days feel like decades, especially when you’re building things. So I believe stories have a huge. The capability of driving action, right? You can condense a lot of information into a few short sentences, especially if you know how to do that. And through that, you can use that to galvanize, um, people to join your team, fund what you’re working on, buy your services.

Ravi: So stories are uniquely good at cutting through the noise, and I think we have a lot of noise in our current environment and enabling, providing the technology tools and resources to enable storytellers to tell their stories. At this particular time, I think of a very important mission

Jewels: in my experience.

Jewels: I’ve dealt with a lot of startups in my time, and I’ve dealt in [00:07:00] the tech space as well. And occasionally you get somebody who is a real visionary and they’re natural storytellers and are able to draw people in just by their presence. You know, they come into a room, they, they do a speech, you just want to listen to them.

Jewels: But on the flip side of that, especially in the tech space, they tend to be very good technical people. You know, they’re brilliant at what they do. They’ve got a technical background they can sit down in, in a dark room and code something up beautifully and they can, you know, energize. Of the technical folk around what it is they’re trying to do, but they’re not necessarily natural storytellers.

Jewels: They’re often introverts. They don’t feel comfortable always. How do you transition somebody from that kind of person? Because it’s easy to work with them, the innovators and the um, you know, the natural storytellers, but not as easy to talk to those that are maybe a little bit less comfortable in that space.

Ravi: I love that you bring this up [00:08:00] because I believe it’s the charismatic people in the room that are the ones you watch out for because they’re really good at getting you excited for things that might be a lot of flash, but no sizzle, right? So there’s no little substance out of that. What you really wanna look out for is those introverts who’re so booked in their nose working that they can’t even communicate what they’re working on.

Ravi: And I think that’s where podcasting comes into effect. Cause you get someone with high charisma. Not a lot of depth on a podcast. Okay, 10, 20, 30 minutes, they can give you the spiel of what they’re working on. Then they run outta material. They can’t really dive deep into things that they’re really into right?

Ravi: Other than enough surface-level junk to get people inbound. But you get someone who’s in working in their basement for two, or three years on this product or tool, getting their core friends and developing a community around them that’s helping them and ideate and getting feedback from. That person is like a leader in their knowledge base and you put ’em on a long [00:09:00] form podcast, the first 10, 20 minutes might be awkward cuz you’re getting them warmed up and getting them used to the idea.

Ravi: But once you have them unravel, they just let loose. And that’s I think, the most fun I’ve had out of tech podcasting. I. Right. Uh, the ones who start off enamored and are like, oh my God, where do I start? And start? Just start spiraling and by the end of it, you’ve captured this great depth of knowledge.

Ravi: Whereas the natural salespeople, charisma types, they run out of great content by the end of it. So I think it’s a, podcasting is an amazing filter. Find those who are really full of it versus the ones who are actually full of substance.

Jewels: How interesting. I mean, you mentioned 124 or so startups that you’ve helped through the innovation space.

Jewels: Tell me, what have you learned when it comes to these tech startups and other startups in this space where, you know, maybe they’ve got a brilliant idea, but they’ve really struggled, to articulate it. They’ve struggled to get that funding. What are the things that you’ve learned through that [00:10:00]time? 

Ravi: Yeah, so Canada is very unique on the global stage in this, the Canadian government federally funds where 286 business incubators and accelerator programs of those.

Ravi: The top 86 that we’re partnered with, graduate 3000 of 4,000 founders through their various programs, from incubation to accelerator programs. Most of them are tech, many are focused on different, different verticals. But an aggregate that’s about 4,000 new companies that enter the space that is coming through a university-backed or government-funded program into the space.

Ravi: And what we found is that, And there are not enough people telling their story, and that’s what we want to wanna focus on. And even my attempt, you know, I’ve had access to 152 companies through the Experiential learning center at the University of Toronto where I was an entrepreneur residence, but that is, even then, I failed such a shallow resource pool.

Ravi: Right? When you talk to start, start looking at the wide scope of things, [00:11:00] there are patterns that come emer and emerge. And the main pattern that I would say that stands out that you wanna look for, Is those who are uniquely obsessed obsession cuts through everything. You’ll see a lot of people, you know, talk about the potential of the company, then, you know, lavish on about the funds that they’re raising or et cetera, but the ones that are obsessed smile to the problems.

Ravi: The ones who are obsessed, regardless of whether they get funding or not, regardless of whether main sales events have been pulled from them and they’re not converting over. Regardless of a key influencer or employee leaving, they’re going to could keep going through it. 90% of traditional businesses failed within 30, uh, within the first three years.

Ravi: That is 10 times more volatile for startups such as Tech Confused or product-infused companies. So you’ll see a lot of people who just fizzle out. Right. So those who make it part past a year, three to five are the ones that come out. Jeff Bezos and, [00:12:00] uh, Sam Altman from OpenAI talked about this. It’s like what you want to do is build seven-year plans because seven-year plans outcompete those who are making three-year plans, which most people are set for.

Ravi: Because three years you work on something and it’s not working out, you’re gonna abandon it. And you’re like, you gotta fault the family pressure. You’re gonna fold your own pressures of, you know, your own mental situations and be like, I need to go anything else. I need to go earn some money. I need to get a job.

Ravi: So on. And they’re uniquely obsessed. Follow these seven-year itches. And regardless of whether they’re making money or not, regardless of who’s hounding them, they’re like, I gotta follow this itch. I gotta chase this. I gotta see where it leads. And I’ve seen a handful of companies where that itch has really stood out.

Ravi: You can only tell that person is really picking at something that really bugs them, and they’re not gonna listen to sound advice. They’re not gonna listen to the naysay, they’re not gonna listen to people who pull funding or try to tempt them with additional funding to go do X, Y, Z. That’s more profitable.

Ravi: They’re gonna keep falling through. Right. So I think we talk too much about over-inflating about [00:13:00] vision. Cause vision is now becoming like the buzzword, right? What is your vision? That vision is so large and so, uh, amazing. But I think we started needed to start looking and filtering for people who are obsessed.

Jewels: So what’s the difference between somebody who’s uniquely obsessed and somebody who is just blind to the actual situation? They’re completely on the wrong path, but they’re just not listening. They’re inside their own heads.

Ravi: Yeah. I think the emotional state, so uniquely obsessed is in control of their emotional state, right?

Ravi: If you tell them, no, they’re not gonna get angry, they’re not gonna scream at you. They’re not gonna get sad and cry. They’re gonna be like, oh, cool. You know, challenge, right? They either take that challenge and answer you or they’re like, you know what? You’re probably right. Cut you off. And then keep working on what they’re working on.

Ravi: Those who are a little bit unhinged working on it for different motives. They put too much, they sunk too much of their time, uh, resources in. They’re too emotionally charged and mentally invested. They’re emotionally sporadic. They’re going up and down, right, and you can feel that come out. These are akin to like if you watch Shark Tank or [00:14:00] Dragons Den if you’re in Canada, UK.

Ravi: I believe Australia has a Dragons Den as well. You’ll see these once in a while. See, you know, founders, especially family-owned companies that will come. They’re like, you know, I’ve sunk. Uh, half my life savings. I’ve said my full life savings. I have a mortgage on my house. You know, working on this for five years.

Ravi: No, I don’t have any sales yet, but I have a dream and I wanna follow that dream. And those are the ones who are putting way too much on the line. There’s something emotionally going on there, but the uniquely obsessed are the ones who are like, okay, there’s this problem. I wanna solve that problem. How do I solve it?

Ravi: And part of the solving of that is also how do I also solve my life to a point where I’m situated enough to work on this problem? And oftentimes those people have a supportive spouse who takes care of things. Never doubt the founder who ha, who’s married cuz ha they’re only dealing with one half of them and the other half is taking care of everything else while they’re being uniquely obsessed.

Ravi: But even the more unique than that are the ones who are just. You know what? I’m gonna pause everything in my life and pour everything into this. Cause I know it’ll, it’ll, it’ll come out. [00:15:00]But it is a precarious balance between that emotional state and those who are stoic enough to be like, I’m gonna see my vision out and I need to hit these boxes and be calculated in the way I’m doing it.

Jewels: So in those examples that you’ve given, and you’ve seen many startups in your time, is there a tipping point in that perhaps seven-year period where they go from being in their basement and nobody knows who they are to actually starting to see that success? Is there a point that you’ve gotta get to, that everyone seems to get to, you know, is that a two-year mark, three-year mark, five-year mark? Or is there, an event or something perhaps that might be that tipping point?

Ravi: Yeah, I, and I’ll bring up a unique case. I think in 10 years from now, what’s gonna be, this founder’s gonna be a household name, his name’s Matthew Human. He is potentially gonna save the state of our democracy, and it’s because he’s uniquely obsessed.

Ravi: When he was in the eighth grade, 20, 30 years ago, [00:16:00] 25 years ago, I think he noticed that all the popular girls, the party, and everyone who was a party was really tuned to America’s Got Talent and was voting by text. American’s got talent and they, and he’s like, Why can’t our voting system be that easy? And now 25 years later, he’s been working out of, you know, he was working, he was working, what, three years out of his kitchen or basement.

It’s a small town outside of Toronto where a lot of tech talent comes from. And he worked for three years in a, in a state where no one knew him, but you know, all of the top people in election technology. And he worked on this solution for how we can modernize our elect elections process while it ties into the government side process.

So it’s a front-end system to help the user, the citizen vote better. While tapping into the governance systems without replacing them, and now with the fall of Dominion, the voting systems after the whole Donald Trump fiasco, he is now suddenly the number one player. Like overnight. And because he spent three, four years stacking up buildings, [00:17:00] accolades, getting his systems tested by the top naysayers in the industry saying, we can’t digitize democracy.

We can’t digitize voting and get them to be on board. And his D due diligence got his right partners, everything he was. Perfectly positioned at that tipping point where the market needed him beyond then him pushing it needed him exploding. So his company now has a new vote doing, I think it’s powering the elections of entire countries, Brazil, Estonia, a few African nations.

So, you know, phenomenal growth in a very little time. But those who know him, know that behind the scenes, you’ve been obsessively working on this for seven years.

Jewels: So was it a case in this particular case? Is that a case of just perfect timing or being there throughout the entire process and waiting for that time to emerge, do you think?

Ravi: I think it’s about putting yourself in a place to be lucky. It’s like imagine someone who just loves to run, runs, runs, runs the training, and suddenly their country is like, we’re going to the [00:18:00]Olympics and we need the best runners. Right? And you just happily be the most trained person because you love doing it.

Ravi: So I think it’s that kind of situation, right? So, uh, the people who try to time markets, They’re the ones who kind of failed because they’re like, they think, oh, this is my time. And their emotions get ramped up, and they get ramped up, and then it doesn’t pan out. We’re uniquely obsessed. They’re like, all right, I’m pissing perfectly.

Ravi: Oh, this opportunity’s come up perfectly. Let’s align with that. Oh, that didn’t work out. Boom. I’m back at it working on my strategy. So every opportunity is just like a bump or a hurdle or a, a shortening of the gap, but they’re chugging along regardless.

Jewels: I like it. Tell me a little bit about storytelling in that sort of context.

Jewels: So, I’m a startup and I’ve got this idea and I’m obsessively working on it. What’s your recommendation from a, how long do you spend quietly in the basement and don’t tell anybody, versus at what point should you start telling your story?

Ravi: Ooh. I think you should tell your story immediately because it’s the easiest way to figure out who’s listening and based off of who’s [00:19:00] listening.

Ravi: You have feedback points, right? The people who say you can’t be done are actually a great listener base to listen to, cuz they might have great points, especially they, this can’t be done and then this is why, right? Again, you don’t wanna listen to everybody and there’s only so much of the naysayers you can handle, but it should be a group that you purposely go against.

Ravi: Go find people who don’t agree with what you get to say. Best way to learn. The second is to find supporters. People who are like, oh, that is actually great. How can I help? Whether it be run ideas by me or, Hey, I’ll jump in and do this, right? You always want your supporters. And the third categories are the devotees, the ones who are devoted to this.

Ravi: I always like the idea of like a startup versus a business. A startup is just a, um, a ragtag assemble, assemblage working on an idea. A business is a repeatable business model, a business revenue model that, you know, executes and returns on in a predictable manner. So a startup is testing business models to the point where it’s.

Ravi: Producing repeatable results. And the way you do [00:20:00] that is you gotta assemble a team just like you put together any kind of team. If you play, if you’re a solo player and you can be done, they’re solopreneurs, singles, founder or multi-founder, founder, micro startups that exist, that don’t wanna scale.

Ravi: There’s focus on a problem set and can bring in hundreds of thousand of dollars of revenue, millions of dollars of revenue for their founders. And that’s it. That’s becoming more and more popular. But the main thing is what part of your story can you tell? Who can you tell it to and how can you use that to learn?

Ravi: So

Jewels: those three audiences, I love the way you’ve separated those, the naysayers, the supporters, and the devotees. Are they three separate stories that you are telling or are they similar stories and you’re just listening for those types to come out?

Ravi: Yeah, I think in the beginning it’s gonna be the same story because you don’t have enough data points.

Ravi: But as you start, again, obsessing about your idea, start working on it, you start figuring out different ways of explaining it. You know, you’re talking about a product to a product person. You’re gonna, you’re gonna talk very [00:21:00] technical and like, this is what we’re building, so how it’s gonna function. Uh, this is a protocol layers, it’s, we’re working on, this is the, the stack that’s working on top of et cetera.

Ravi: But if you’re talking to a sales or a. Professional or executive that can bring value in different levels. You’re talking about it from an opportunity perspective, right? This is the market, this is the numbers, this is who I’ve talked to, all those types and things. So yeah, definitely you have to retarget the, um, based off the audience, say any good story, build on, built on the audience that’s, that’s, uh, listening to it.

Ravi: So I think you need to develop over time, multiple stories. The general story that you tell everybody for a pitch competition are really good. Two minute pitch competitions, four minute, five minute, seven minute, 12 minute. All these different formats help you test out different stories of explaining your business model to a business audience that I’ve, I’ve heard it all and can break it down.

Ravi: That really helps you boil it down your story really well and get feedback. That’s a general, uh, business pitch. Then there’s a story pitch. Then there can be the employee pitch. This is how we wanna [00:22:00] function at the company. This is kinda culture we want to have internally. This is how we wanna work and scale and build together.

Ravi: Those become important as well. So, you know, I think more and more CEOs are becoming chief story officers. Because the stories will outlive the, the job function, especially with AI coming in and replacing ai, augmented humans outperforming non-ai, uh, augmented humans. People can do more with less at quite a degree now.

Ravi: So when you’re convincing people to join your company or provide support to you, what leverage do you have? And I think the ultimate story, the ultimate leverage is a story because it infects the mind and brings them to you.

Jewels: So there are likely many types of people that are listening to this story at various stages of their business.

Jewels: Some might be in sort of startup mode, they might be solopreneurs. Some have existing businesses, but typically a lot of people that I speak to at least, they recognize the fact that they need to do [00:23:00] better at their brand development. They’re telling their story, getting their messaging out. In whatever format that kind of takes, but they’re a little bit afraid.

Jewels: There’s a bit of reluctance there, um, of getting their story out or being perhaps judged on the story. So there’s a little bit of a fear factor involved, but there’s also the, the technical side and the time and effort that goes into both building these stories and actually getting the story out on a regular enough basis that it kind of makes sense and is actually having a positive effect.

Jewels: What things can you advise for people at any of those stages, particularly if they’re just starting out, is where would you focus your time and energy from a storytelling perspective to get the best bang for a buck?

Ravi: Like I would love them because like a template, you know, I can give people, or even I can use myself.

Ravi: Have a story for X, have a story for Y, have a story for C, and this is the format of that. I don’t think it’s universal as that. I think everyone needs to have their set of stories and some people [00:24:00] are naturally good at this, some people struggle with this, uh, but it’s can become more and more essential in the noise.

Ravi: What can cut through? And a great story is the best thing. Cause you know, if anyone’s seen that meme, right? You have a bunch of like unsorted Lego bricks and it’s like this is data and then it’s all structured and it’s like this is sorted data. And then it’s like further structured and like sorted by piece colors and pieces stuff.

Ravi: And now it’s like, hey, this is warehoused and ready use. And then finally it’s all assembled together into a Maco house and it’s like this is a story. Basically a story tells a lot of data in an easy way of follow, an easy way to follow, remember, and learn from. So stories are essential. So even a technical person, you know, we oftentimes say that technical people are introverted, that I can’t really communicate well.

Ravi: They’re telling stories, but they’re just telling stories in a different way. Someone is building an application, a product in person who’s focused on product. Their story could be. This is what I’m building. I’m, I’m building off a flutter here. My code base is, uh, stored here. Here’s my stack overflow tracking all my code [00:25:00] runs, right?

Ravi: Like all that stuff is there. They’re talking in a more technical way that other people generally have a follow or the format that they aren’t familiar with. So again, I, your story’s built for your audiences and sometimes your audiences is not everyone else’s audiences. It could be a very niche audience.

Ravi: Maybe the people you sell to, you know, or who could actually use what you use all fit in a room somewhere. It’s only like 25 companies or 2,500 companies or 25,000 companies that would actually benefit from this or utilize this, et cetera, and they all know of this problem or experience this problem, et cetera.

Ravi: Well, you need to talk to them and that story will not necessarily translate to everyone else. So, yeah, I think just like, you know, company has a brand book or like the color schemes and their logos and their marketing material and all that kind of stuff. I think down the line, uh, we gotta figure out a way to create like a storybook.

Ravi: What are the stories we share? How do we share to, what do we share too? There should be a way of logging that.

Jewels: I wanna circle back to Blumex for a second, and you mentioned that you had to pivot your business due to [00:26:00] Covid, as many had to, from a, a physical offering to more of a virtual offering. Tell me a little bit about that and the stuff that, things that you’ve learned through that process.

Ravi: So, It’s interesting cuz like this time around, what I purposely wanted to build was a type of company that can run seven, 10 year itches. I’ll build something over a long period of time and test it repeatable intervals and see if we’re ha handling a right path while having a revenue, uh, side of business that can fund everything.

Ravi: So that was the challenge. So we started off with like one podcast built on top of an advisory firm from a consultation firm that paid all the bills and then slowly as a product evolved and we developed, that shifted into a recurring revenue model where we are shipping the product and that that’s covering our bills.

Ravi: And that’s been interesting. The problem has been how do we stay aligned with long-term goals when things are moving so rapidly immediately? We were working on AI when everyone is still kind of, [00:27:00] if you’re on ai, open, AI barely opened up the the vault and showcase the world how large language models can, you know, change everything.

Ravi: And now that’s out the cats outta the bag. Everyone’s an AI company now, or an anti AI company who’s like, we’re not gonna use this. Or, you know, or we need help with this. So it’s become a buzzword. So, you know, we’re, we’re one of those kind of lightning moments where we’re like, we’re suddenly very in vogue and everything we’ve been working on before was like, everyone has a quiz.

Ravi: Look now everyone’s like, can you tell me more about that? You know, how can we work together on that? You know, what, is it really ai? Are you, are you using really ai or are you saying that, you know, all these kind of questions kind of come up, which is interesting. So yeah, we’re actually, we’re experiencing one of those lightning moments.

Ravi: We’re four years in exception. We’re three years away from hitting that benchmark of that 7 year itch of what we really want to build. So now I’m dealing with staying aligned and making sure the story of our progress matches with the story of what we’re dealing

Jewels: with. Right. So I notice on [00:28:00] your profile that you do a little bit of public speaking as well.

Jewels: What formats do you personally use to tell your story? How do you get your message out? Both personally, but also at a business level? Yeah,

Ravi: so the public speaking interesting enough was an answer to a old problem. So a little background. Um, an immigrant to Canada came around six and English was my third language.

Ravi: So English was not just a third language, but I also was initially taught English from like the South Asian, British way. So literally had to unlearn my third language and relearn it in a new, with a new accent. And that hit me hard. I went from a, apparently a very rapid talker and comfortable speaker to very awkward, very quickly, and it took me a long time, like I was always the quietest one in the room, always the ones that I was in the background, uh, trying to like lean in and had a lot of things to express but didn’t know how, how to get it out in time, fumbled my words, all those kind of things until I started my career in sales.

Ravi: And sales kind of change things and now it’s purposeful [00:29:00] conversation. Now you’re dealing with people, you know, you’re dealing with intentful conversation. That really helped me get over speaking impairments like lists and fumbling over words and not having the right things. And then speaking engagements became another thing where like now you’re speaking to a crowd of people and it’s again, intentional conversation.

Ravi: So it’s actually somehow easier. For a lot of people who are comfortable speaking normal environments, they see speaking engagements or sales and they’re like uncomfortable cause it’s purposely, you had to break it down and, and, and, and purposely talk about it. For someone who struggles with speaking, it’s actually amazing cuz you can prepare for an advance, you’re gonna break it down into sub uh, subsequences and everyone’s like, they’re listening to you.

Ravi: The event’s already set up. So you can mentally prepare like, I’m doing this. I can visualize it. You can break down what I’m gonna talk about. You can build it out. It’s actually much easier to communicate in purposeful instances than it is in random instances. Right. So for me, public speaking and speaking of gigs became my tool for learning and expressing [00:30:00] myself and bettering myself in that skillset.

Ravi: And then it just happened to be something that, uh, people had to pay me for, which was a lucky accident. So podcasting aided in that, of course. Podcasting for me was again, an expression of purple conversations that became storytelling narratives and helping with our current lines and fit into helping my mission to help founders and, and, and, and build storytelling is telling within the innovation community.

Ravi: But ultimately it’s a personal driven journey, which is awesome because regardless of what’s happening, I’m winning. Each interaction I’m doing, each conversation I have each one of these episodes I do. It’s a personal win for me, and I think that’s important, especially when you chase those seven year edges, right?

Ravi: And you have personal wins where every interaction has a win. And even if the overall idea that doesn’t take off or doesn’t achieve that thing, as long as you’re winning along those categories, you’re growing, you’re evolving, coming better, and those are benchmark. We should also measure. It’s

Jewels: interesting you say that because I’ve taken a similar approach in some regard to the way I communicate and tell my story.

Jewels: [00:31:00] So I have two formats that I are my favorite go-tos. Uh, one is a, a blog that I do several times a week. And the podcast is the other method that I, is one of the other strong methods that I try and do on a regular basis as well. And the switch for me came when I made the decision to do it for myself. Um, so rather than doing it just purely because I want to grow a business or just purely cuz I’m trying to, you know, convince people to do certain things, when I flip the narrative in my own head, and as you say, like I use it as an opportunity to learn something.

Jewels: So I love these podcasts cause I’m constantly learning from the people that I’m interviewing. So it’s, it’s. Uh, you know, I’m doing it selfishly. Like I, I love listening and I love learning, and I’m open to new ideas and new thoughts, and the blog itself is very, I find it very therapeutic. So I, when I switched in [00:32:00] my own mind that I’m not doing it, For everybody else, I’m actually doing it for myself.

Jewels: And the side benefit is that hopefully anybody that follows along might also learn something, might also benefit from the process. So once I’ve switched that narrative in my head, I found the process became easy. Like it wasn’t a task. It was no longer a difficult thing to do. It was no longer something I had to go out of my way to do.

Jewels: It was something that I enjoyed doing. I learned from it. I loved it. I, I enjoy the process. There are parts of it that aren’t as great, like, as you mentioned, you know, the podcasting part, the, the speaking part and the interviewing part is awesome, but then you’ve gotta go and edit it and, you know, Put it all together and publish it and all those other good things.

Jewels: So trying to, I guess, put the emphasis on the part that you love for your personal gain, um, which in turn becomes again, for the audience. So [00:33:00] switching that narrative was hugely useful for me personally and allowed me to tell my story. Without making it a chore.

Ravi: Yeah, definitely. And I appreciate you sharing that.

Ravi: And I think that’s, that’s the main thing about podcasting, right? It’s a ka chico. Each interaction you get interactive, so you’re not just listening to someone and learning from them, but you could ask them and guide the conversation and what interests you and, and gain from it. There’s also the secondary actor, right?

Ravi: That’s. You know, there’s always two main things people look for. Like, people usually do it because, hey, I wanna do it for my audience and grow an audience and I’ll potentially market to them. Those are the ones that didn’t really flare out and they, they don’t scale their show cuz they can’t get the growth that they want.

Ravi: And then there’s individual, the focus ones like yourself who, uh, and, and myself who like, Hey, I, I wanna do this. My own personal growth. It, it’s achievement for, for me, and I’m winning regardless. But I think there’s a, another strategy I think that became more popular is that treating podcasts like a coffee chat, you know, it’s like instead of Let me buy you a coffee, it’s like, Hey, how come my show, let me do this for you.

Ravi: Let me record this. Do the process of editing [00:34:00] it, creating a content around it, publicizing it, and creating this nice little media piece. And you can then share to your audiences. And I really like that fact because it’s like you’re giving a gift to somebody. Mm-hmm. And it’s a replicatable, easy digital gift.

Ravi: They can connect to anyone in the world, reach out, and instead of saying like, Hey, can I get a call with you? Or Can you spend 30 minutes together? Or Can you find my email? You know, it’s how we got connected. Like, Hey, can you come on my show? Right. Can I do this for you? I’ll take care of all this in the backhand and give you this nice piece I can share to everyone else.

Ravi: And you can forget to say you were on the show and those who are really interested and listen in and learn more about you being, uh, interviewed by somebody else. And I’ll give you the benefit of activating my own audiences for you, right? Come up and do this. I think it’s a, one of the best ways to build relationships.

Ravi: You know, I think, um, especially in talking about the noise of, of current day living, I think one of the best ways to kind of survive these kind of inflationary periods is to find your tribe, right? Find people you can really trust and do business with, and communicate with and get [00:35:00]information from and store that.

Ravi: And podcasting is an amazing way to do that. You spend a half an hour, an hour with somebody, you know, doing this task together, which is telling a story with a narrative. That’s when you’ve broken down and replica and, and published somewhere. Uh, that’s a very intensive task. I’ve seen people who finish, I finished a show with them and they’re like, they’re breathing out.

Ravi: Like if they just came off a rollercoaster, you know, they’re sweating, they were thinking, they were like, you know, running on the back end. It’s like, you know, uh, some people just think it’s like, oh, you’re just talking. Right. Uh, until you’re behind the mic and you’re active and trying to think and trying to bring everything together.

Ravi: On the spot while trying to be in frame and in context. It’s a, it’s training activity. Hmm. And that’s a b great binding exercise. I, I also find, so you can activate a great community just by having people on your show.

Jewels: Fabulous. Ravi, I’ve learned a lot from this discussion. 

Jewels: Ravi, thank you so much for your time. Where can people find out a little bit more about you?

Ravi: LinkedIn is the best place. You can find me Ravi Ravindran. You can search up on LinkedIn. [00:37:00] You can also find my podcast anywhere podcasts are available. It’s Disrupt Podcast with Ravi Ravindran. We put in Disrupt with Ravi Ravindran, or you check my name. It’ll come up on Spotify. Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, all the major ones it’s there.

Jewels: Ravi, thank you so much! I appreciate it.

Ravi: I appreciate it Jewels. Thanks for this!

Jewels: I enjoyed my chat with Ravi and I have a few key takeaways. Of the many that we spoke about. Contrary to popular belief, introverts tend to be the ones who have a deeper story. We just need to learn how to draw it out of them.

Jewels: Storytelling also helps cut through the noise. In a world where full of tech and information and same, same, your story is always uniquely yours and you need to get out and tell your story as soon as possible. If for nothing else, you’ll find out who is listening. But the feedback will also allow you to modify for the market, and after all, the market will tell you what the market [00:38:00] wants.

Jewels: Much love. Chat soon!

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