Small Talk: Work | Play | Build

What makes a great mentor, and how can you find one? Join Subha Chandrasekaran and Hasita Krishna as they delve into the power of mentorship in career growth. Discover the secrets of finding the right mentors, building trust, and creating a supportive ecosystem for your professional development. From navigating confusion to becoming a mentor yourself, this show explores the transformative potentia...

Have you ever wondered what happens when the pressure to innovate or succeed collides with organizational silos? Join us as we unravel the intriguing dynamics of invention, high performance and collaboration in this episode of Small Talk with RainKraft. I'm Subha Chandrasekaran, a career growth coach. Can breaking down silos lead to breakthroughs? Discover the keys to fostering collaboration,...

Are you feeling like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole in your career? Join us as we delve into the Art of Career Transitions in this episode of Small Talk with RainKraft. I'm Subha Chandrasekaran, a career growth coach. Let's decode the challenges, opportunities, and strategies behind making those leaps in your professional journey. Tune in to gain insights, find courage, and e...

In this exciting season finale of Small Talk with Rainkraft, we've compiled the best moments from Season 4, featuring Subha and Hasita, as they share their expert tips for career growth. From handling layoffs to managing difficult bosses, this episode covers it all. Plus, discover innovative strategies for goal setting and cultivating executive presence. With actionable advice and engaging dis...

You may not judge a book by its cover. But you will judge it by the book blurb - the short description at the back of the book. Similarly, your pitch is your own blurb. It is the world’s first impression of you. Make it your best version till the next version comes along! In This Episode | Discussion Points (00:00) What to pitch  (02:14) Your 10-second story (03:57) Disappointment of a wrong pitch...

In the beginning, startups have nothing but an idea - and a team of true believers who hope to bring it to reality. Everything is riding on the success of that team. And yet ‘HR’ is the last thing that any startup thinks about, perhaps it implies bureaucracy. So here are some reasons to think otherwise and a few steps that startups should undertake early on, to improve individual performance and l...

You know how some people can walk into a room and behave as though they own it? Well, in this episode we discuss how you, too, could become one among them, by developing the elusive Executive Presence. In This Episode | Discussion Points (03:55) What is Executive Presence and why do you need it? (06:43) Deconstructing executive presence. (13:08) How to make changes to develop executive presence. (...

Spending long hours with difficult people and forcing yourself to put up with them isn't healthy or sustainable. How can you better understand what is happening in such interactions? How do you know when a ‘bad’ boss isn't really just someone with a different working style - and how do you align your styles for better outcomes? And what do you do when the relationship is truly toxic? In Th...

“I gave her a raise, yet she left.” Dual careers and an increased appreciation for work-life integration sparked during the pandemic have made employees think about work more broadly than just a pay packet. This makes it tougher to retain the good folks and the need of the hour is more honest conversations about what really excites the person in your team.  In This Episode | Discussion Points (03:...

So you’ve expanded your team, and yet you find yourself having to defer important things to handle day-to-day questions? The answer might lie less in behaviour and more in process. Whether you're a new manager of managers or an experienced one looking to improve your skills, this episode will provide valuable tips and strategies to help you lead your team to success. And feel comfortable while...

"Where do you see yourself in five years?" is THE dreaded interview question. And you know what, it's okay not to have answers! Your career path is exactly that—a path. One that deserves exploring. In this episode, Subha and Hasita discuss the evolution of career paths and how they’re not all that linear these days. In This Episode | Discussion Points [00:30] Adapting your career to...

It’s the holiday season! And that means it’s time for something special! This week, we’re excited to bring you the first-ever crossover episode with our sister podcast The Damn Good Marketing Podcast . In this episode, Subha and Hasita discuss a topic dear to both their hearts: the power of storytelling and its ability to make life, career, and media all the more enriching. We talk about How celeb...

Every year around this time, we take stock of our achievements versus the goals we had set. But are we going about it the right way? Are we disappointing ourselves by being too narrowly focused on specific aspects of life, ignoring other achievements? Are we reaching for the unattainable? Should we do things differently this time around? We talk about The downsides of being too narrowly focused an...

Winter is coming (sorry, we know this is so passé), and this season it seems to come with a wave of mass layoffs. It’s quite terrifying because of how untimely and arbitrary they are. Layoffs are just business, not personal. We all know this. But when you get laid off unexpectedly, and it throws a curveball in your career, how can you help but not take it personally? In this episode, Subha and Has...

Do you find yourself doing a lot yet feeling like the work never ends? Are you still doing things that you mastered a few years ago or in your previous role? On most days, we’re rushing to tasks that need immediate attention rather than thinking about the bigger picture. And this often affects the way founders, senior professionals and leaders delegate to teammates.  Every performance coach a...

Your career and your passion can be two very different things! Welcome back to Season 4! We're starting with one piece of career advice that can derail the best of us! We've often heard that if you make a career out of your passion, you'd never have to work a day in your life.  But then again, we've also heard it said- find your passion, and let it slowly kill you! If those two in tandem soun...

Some events just have us making a mad dash to the podcast studio! Not just because we want to talk about them but because we have already been talking about them! Our first bonus episode this season was on the infamous Adam Neumann and his story, seen through WeCrashed on Apple TV. Well, he's back, asking for more money and getting it too! We also ended the season talking about quitting and why it...

For far too long, in the corporate world, we’ve glorified what now seems like the wrong ideals. “Keep at it”, “do or die”, “there is no trying”,… and the list goes on. But what about the virtues of stepping away, taking a break, or just knowing when we’ve outgrown something. One of the worst things we can do to our careers is to keep at things which don’t agree with us anymore. Using the post-pand...

As the CEO of Hector Beverages, Neeraj Kakkar has created one of the most iconic beverage brands to come out of India in recent times- Paper Boat . If you’ve substituted the making of aamras and panakam this past summer with Paper Boat’s beverages, this episode tells us the story behind building and scaling a business.  What does the true journey of an entrepreneur look like? It isn't always...

For many of us, there’s a fundamental challenge in identifying the difference between a job and a career. Should we commit to one field and become the best in it? Should we go wide and learn as much as possible? When is a good time to switch careers? And most importantly, when we’re ready to switch, just what do we do? In this episode, we address all of these questions about planning how to live o...

When you don't define yourself just by your professional qualifications or limit yourself to one job/one hobby, the possibilities are endless. Author, much-loved food blogger, columnist, and a medical doctor by training - these are just some of the many hats Nandita Iyer wears in the digital realm. Known by many as Saffrontrail , Nandita follows every passion with just the right amount of love and...

Have you had a chance to watch WeCrashed on Apple TV+ yet? If not, we’d strongly recommend that you do, definitely for Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway (and Apple’s insane production quality). Also because the story of the rise and fall and eventual consolidation of WeWork has a lot of lessons for us in culture, vision, founder personas, and when a dream begins to turn into a nightmare.  This bon...

The ability to turn down things we’ve outgrown, things we don’t want to be doing, and things we never wanted to do but got cajoled into, is one of the most underrated skills of our century. We are, after all, saddled with information at every turn, and saying ‘no’ feels like a lost opportunity with many ramifications. In this episode, we discuss healthy ways to say no without sabotaging our career...

To turn around one business is a big deal in itself, but what do you do when you find yourself in situations where you need to turn several businesses around throughout your career? Srideep Kesavan , CEO of Heritage Foods with career-defining stints at Coca-Cola and Olam International, is no stranger to growing a business in the face of adversity, and his secret superpower is learning- from every...

You know the saying, one person's Google Meet is another person's poison. Some of us have started working with new companies during the pandemic and are only now beginning to see our colleagues in a real-world environment. Maybe we enjoy the luncheons and drinks; maybe we don't. Perhaps, it is hard to keep the luncheons going as a new Zoom meeting beckons. So much for the hybrid life.  What s...