3 Things That Inspire Me Besides Business

00:00:01 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Freedom Business Podcast, your host, Siddharth Rajsekar here. Great to have you here. This is where we are going to be talking about how we can redefine our education system by building vibrant learning communities. Take your knowledge out of the world and be awesome. Let's get in. 00:00:29 Speaker 1: So today is day number 13 in my 90 day podcasting challenge. And I thought just share with you, make it more casual, not like a high intensity knowledge podcast is talking about different, different topics. I thought I'll make this more fun and tell you about what helps me unwind, what helps me, what all I do I do to just relax besides work and not just be always work, work, work focused and what are the things that gives me the kicks besides uh you know, building communities and building products and stuff? 00:00:57 Speaker 1: Uh OK. So as some of some of you may know that I'm a musician, that's my background. If I have to like, go back in time, the first time that I really played a keyboard was when I was seven or eight years old. I remember a family member had a keyboard, they had come home, I was really enamored or it was like, uh I was 00:01:16 Speaker 1: in shock to see a device like that and then, as you know, touching the keys, feeling this the tones and then it was like a love at first sight. And then ever since I started to play keyboard much in my younger days, uh but when I was 9, 10 years, I started to pick up different books. Uh went to the formal system of learning the scales and rotations and, but over time, over a period of time, I didn't really like the reading notes and playing, I want to play by ear. 00:01:46 Speaker 1: So I had a book. I still remember long back, it's a pop songs book and I love playing cards for all the top, you know, English songs, pop songs. 00:01:54 Speaker 1: My mom and dad used to sing at home. Uh My brother is a guitarist, my mom and dad also play guitar, so we should take all the old hits, you know, uh Beatles. Uh you name it like Michael Jackson and all the old songs, Lionel Richie 00:02:09 Speaker 1: the Melo, the really good pop pop songs that were there. At that time. I used to work out all those chords and I would have the pop songs. But mom, mom and dad would sing, brother would sing, I would also sing and then would play. And the next phase was when we got more into spirituality. I started to learn the Indian percussion called coal, which you might have seen in many of the Hari Krishna Temples in ISKCON Center. So my brother and I, we both play that as well. And I started playing at the age of 10 and later on, you know, just built that skill. 00:02:37 Speaker 1: I should travel to this temple town called Mayapur and learn from, 00:02:42 Speaker 1: you know, from some, some of the, you know, best experts over there. Uh I also used to travel to Vrindavan during this, this month called the Kartik month. And uh one of my favorite musicians of all time in the space of spiritual music is a person named a Aindra Das. H e is an American but who used to live in Radavan 00:03:05 Speaker 1: for more than I think, 40 years and not married uh in the temple all, all day long. He would only be, you know, vibrating the holy names of God, you know, the Hari Krishna mantra and stuff. So when we used to go to and I 00:03:20 Speaker 1: to look forward to that experience of sitting around his, you know, he will be performing K and so on one side, I had like this western music in uh you know, influence. And I also had uh I used to play in the school band and stuff. But then later on when I got these experiences, it was really different, it was extremely uh 00:03:40 Speaker 1: soul fulfilling, I should say, and soul touching 00:03:43 Speaker 1: uh this uh you know, there's a, there's a particular temple, there is gone temple in Vrindavan where they would have 24 hours kirtan. And so they would never stop chanting the names of God. And in the musical form, chanting the mantra and my brother and myself, we would go like at 11 pm in the night when everything closes and there's a small group of four or five people sitting there and just doing 00:04:06 Speaker 1: and we would go on till morning, you know, like 4 a.m. it would come back and of course, the art and all would start at four. But we would see the opening the brahma muhurta time, the art, then you would go, go back to the room and then crash and sleep and get up in the late in the morning and you do all the other activities. So I just want to tell you that my musical experiences have been pretty deep uh 00:04:28 Speaker 1: later on after that, you know, so I got into the sound engineering 00:04:32 Speaker 1: as many of, you know, like when I was 18 years old, I left home, I did my sound engineering 00:04:38 Speaker 1: and because of the experiences of music that I had before that. So right from when I was 10, all the way to 18, I was in all kinds of music, like western music, spiritual music, play in different bands. I was part of the school band. We were the ICS E school band even in school. And I was a keyboardist and a backing vocalist. 00:04:57 Speaker 1: We, I got the first place, our band got the first place award out of some 50 or 60 se schools all over India. And I was a Kian, I started in Bishop Cottons. So I had had many of these musical milestones and I also won an award called the Peter Coelho Award for music in the year when I was in eighth standard. I do not know the exact year. I think it was 1998 or 1997 if I'm not mistaken. 00:05:23 Speaker 1: So in Bishop Cotton Boys School, which is, which had over I think 2000 students at that point of time. Uh I got the number one award for music. Um It is an inter house music competition. 00:05:34 Speaker 1: So when I did my sound engineering, there was a lot of other stuff. Uh I learned the, the engineering side of sound. I learned how to manipulate sound. I learned how to design my own sound. I started to work with, you know, uh what do you call a synthesizers? I'm not talking about digital synthesize. I'm talking about analog synthesizers. Like how do you take a tone? And there are four times four types of tones like a sine wave, there's a saw wave, there's a square wave and a triangle wave and how you can take a wave form and, 00:06:04 Speaker 1: and manipulate that with filters and combine different wave forms to create different sounds. So I got very deep into sound design 00:06:13 Speaker 1: and did that for quite a few years. And some of you may know this, but I, I used to teach uh at the age of 19 on how to use digital audio workstations. And I used to teach people how to make music. I'm talking about more from a production perspective. Like there are different styles of music that were there. So it's like how to arrange music. How do you uh mix music? How do you 00:06:36 Speaker 1: like uh record music in terms of m and even physical instruments. So I learned the ropes over there and I should teach people that. And then how do you edit 00:06:46 Speaker 1: the music when I'm talking about editing is more like a sound design. So if you have to process uh multiple tracks, how do you process that in the right way? Which plugins do you use? And I was an expert in Midi during my uh you know, sound engineering days. So I should teach people how to use midi controllers, midi instruments, how do you integrate different? And that was a very new topic. At that point. I'm talking back in 2001, 2002. 00:07:09 Speaker 1: It was just the transition that was happening uh you know, from the analog to the digital world. So what people used to take uh they used to record on analog devices, they were moving to the digital devices and digital audio workstations. And I'm very glad that I was part of that, you know, that transitionary phase in the sound industry because now if you see everybody, like, they make music on their, on their ipads, they make music on their laptops and it's so easy as compared to how to speak before. 00:07:35 Speaker 1: But I'm glad that I got to see both of both of the worlds because I've done quite a few sessions recording music, even in the, 00:07:41 Speaker 1: you know, on the side of the analog world on and different kinds of machines and many of my close friends, they are now working with Rahman. You know, my very close friend was part of the Slumdog Millionaire Grammy Award-winning team. And I mean, that was my world. And I also go to the DJ world as some of, you know, I play elevation tracks, music, and multiple things in my, in my events as well as uh I launched that on my SoundCloud channel. But the whole thing is these varied experiences of music 00:08:09 Speaker 1: have really helped me, um 00:08:13 Speaker 1: you know, fall in love with sound. And in the 2006, when I got initiated into my spiritual process, when I surrendered to my spiritual master, 00:08:22 Speaker 1: he gave me the name of uh like normally when you surrender yourself to a particular spiritual process, they change your name or they give you, your name is like a rebirth that happens. So 00:08:33 Speaker 1: in 2006, I was in my poor, I surrendered to my spiritual masters. Ho Jak Swami, I've been, had been following the principles for many years, you know, of whatever was a part of the process. And he gave me the name Shabda Hari Das. OK. Like uh and if you search for Shabda Shabdahar, I Shabda Harri Das, you'll find my other music, all my other spiritual music, which is uh the name, 00:08:58 Speaker 1: the meaning of the name is to be the servant of the sound incarnation of God. And that kind of became my path of my life. So 2009, we launched an album, my wife and I called Illuminize. Around 12-13 tracks, we took some ancient vedic text, put that into modern sound. I think a couple of tracks have crossed over a million downloads and stuff and, you know, within the, 00:09:23 Speaker 1: the particular community that we were a part of and we are still a part of many of them listen to those tracks even till today. And um so I have that side. So what I've been doing, what I like a lot to do besides my work and business is a lot of music 00:09:40 Speaker 1: now, I don't get that much of time to make music like how I used to. But uh I spend a lot of time, you know, spending time with my kids. Uh Both the boys, both my sons are also having those inclinations. Uh, my elder one is playing, he plays electric guitar, acoustic guitar as well as keyboard. And I keep, you know, I taught him the way that I learned chords and everything else. So he's picking up tunes and playing on his own. 00:10:02 Speaker 1: And the younger one is getting inclined more towards percussion and drums. You know, those kind of, uh, he does a lot of beat boxing in his mouth and because my wife is also a singer, so she is in the other side of the spectrum. She's like uh carnatic music, classical music. And that is a world that uh I've never gone into, but I really appreciate that world. It's a very, 00:10:22 Speaker 1: very technical and uh it's a different space altogether. So I think the combination of us coming together as with the musical intonations also have kept our, you know, 00:10:35 Speaker 1: even our relationship has blossomed beautifully because of respecting each other's musical talents, musical tastes and also exchanged a lot of ideas and we discussed a lot of music stuff. So besides music, the other area, other two areas I want to share with all of you is the area of gaming. So while I was growing up, just like music, gaming has been a part of my life from Sega, from Atari Nintendo, you just name it like, I've just done a lot of gaming right through my childhood. And I felt, I truly feel that 00:11:03 Speaker 1: if you look at gaming at the right, with the right perspective, it can help your kids improve their reflexes, it can help them improve their skills, it can help them improve their so problem solving thinking, 00:11:15 Speaker 1: critical thinking. And as I was bringing up both my boys, we've done a lot of gaming together. Even now, we do a lot of gaming together. We just pick up a game. There was one game called Zelda Breath of the Wild. It's a Nintendo game on Nintendo switch. It took us six months to beat that game. It is a quest like a conquest kind of a game, 00:11:33 Speaker 1: took a lot of time. And then of course, it is a combination of me playing and then giving it to my son, getting him to finish some levels and come back. So even the bonding has been really good because of the gaming thing that we do even till now. And the other area which 00:11:49 Speaker 1: is uh is something that I love doing besides music and gaming is uh is visiting temples and 00:11:57 Speaker 1: partaking in any kind of services or activities around temples. So my wife and I we every month we we do like Abhisheka, we give away, we give clothes and you know, Vastra for the deities which were temples that we have a connection with. And every month uh we, we have like our rituals and routines that we do. 00:12:21 Speaker 1: Uh when it comes to temple visits, temple activities just to soak ourselves in the game. So you would see a totally different avatar of me if you come and meet me in a temple because I would not be wearing dry fits and t-shirts. I'd be in like proper traditional dhoti with tilak and, and all the other stuff. So, and, and I feel that is my true self. That's the real me. Uh This is just the business side of me. I need to just be who I am over here to do what I'm supposed to do. But 00:12:47 Speaker 1: my core is connecting with the creator doing those activities and uh getting into warrior mode like Arjuna. When he has to get on the battlefield, he wears all his battlefield clothing, his armor and gets to work. But otherwise he's just who he is. So similarly, I'm really inspired by Arjun who when it comes to 00:13:08 Speaker 1: having an intention to serve in my heart. 00:13:14 Speaker 1: And uh I switch my roles whenever I have to the role of the businessman, the role of a parent, the role of a husband, the role, the role of a spouse, the role of a son and the role of a, 00:13:26 Speaker 1: of just being me and a servant of God. And you know, I move into that zone very smoothly because that's who I am. So this is all they are all the things that I wanted to share. I think many of you might have not heard about this or you might not have known about this side of me. But now you got to know a deeper side of me which I might have not shared before 00:13:48 Speaker 1: and all these dots connect. You know, if I had not gone through sound engineering, I would not be able to understand editing and stuff like what I'm doing right now. If I had not understood music, I would not be having both the sides of my brain firing because music is something that helps you fire both your creative 00:14:05 Speaker 1: and your logical side of the brain. Both left and right brains fire equally when you are into any kind of instrument of music. And I would highly recommend that some of you are more logical, get into music. Some of you are more creative still do music because music has structure as well as creativity in it. And if I had not really gone to gaming from my childhood, then I would not be able to gamify my community. If I had not gone to spirituality, I would not have a spiritual foundation to building a business. 00:14:34 Speaker 1: So everything, everything matters and all the dots connect. I hope you found this podcast useful and I'll catch you in the next episode. Bye bye.