The Power of AND: Building a Multifaceted Life Without Picking One Lane

Welcome to Beyond Heart Skills, a podcast by Fadekili speaking. I'm your host, Rick Sirkar. This is where we explore what it really takes to grow in your career. Beyond just degrees, technical expertise and hard work. From communication to mindset to real world skills, we cover it all. Let's get started. Hello and welcome back to Beyond Heart Skills, a podcast by Fadekili speaking. I'm your host, Rick Sirkar and I'm really glad you're joining us for another meaningful conversation. Now, one thing we often explore on this show is the idea that success doesn't always follow a straight line anymore. For a long time, we were taught to specialize in one thing, pick one identity and stay in one lane. But today, more and more people are discovering that fulfillment can come from combining passions rather than choosing between them. And that brings an important question. What happens when your interests are too big to fit into a single title? Can someone be deeply technical and deeply creative? Can you build a meaningful career while also building an authentic life? And how do you communicate that identity in a world that constantly tries to simplify you into one label? Today's guest is someone who has been living those questions and answering them through her work, creativity and leadership. Joining me today is Apoorva Deshpande. Apoorva is a tech lead at Google with over a decade of experience in privacy enhancing technologies and she holds a PhD in Comedy Science from Burrowam from Brown University. But her story goes far beyond technology. She's also a versatile vocalist and a senior musician at Indian Raga, where she has been featured in productions, garning over a million views and has performed internationally through curated concerts. On top of that, she's a mother of two boys and the founder of Polypads. A platform built around the belief that we don't have to choose just one version of ourselves to live a fulfilling life. At the heart of a philosophy is something she calls the power of "and". The idea that we can embrace multiple identities and passions and parts without reducing ourselves to just one. Apoorva, welcome to the show. Thank you, thank you so much Rick for having me. I'm excited for our conversation today. Oh thank you. Now, before we dive into the questions Rada, as we are here today, I just want to say your journey is incredibly inspiring because it challenges the belief so many people quite least struggle with. The belief that they must choose between ambition and creativity, between stability and exploration, or between who they are professionally and who they are personally. So I would love to start right from there. You often talk about the idea of being a polypads. And I think the term will resonate with a lot of people listening today, especially those who feel pulled towards multiple passions or identities. But for listeners who may be hearing this term for the first time, how would you define what being a polypads truly means? Yeah, and you alluded to that a little bit, Rick, because when we grew up in India, kind of in academics was always a top of mind for all of us. And when we were in school or when as kids, now I see my young ones, we are naturally drawn to multiple things, whether it's art or sports. And we were those kids, all of us, in school. And somewhere as we got closer to 10th word exams and 12th, we had this overpowering, almost overpowering notion that we need to pick something we have to prepare for these entrance exams and then pick one and take that forward. So I think that's where the track became more singular for most of us. For me, the story was a little bit different. I grew up in a musical family. My mother is a renowned in the Sani classical vocalist. And so I was very fortunate to grow up that way. So music was always important to me. I grew up obviously learning music, listening to music, performing, creating music. So it was just a part of my identity. And surprisingly, I also got interested in math a lot. I say surprisingly because no one in my family really comes from an engineering background or math. So that gave me the surprise to my family a bit. But I absolutely got fascinated by math. That took me on a path to math, Olympia, and then Jee, Bits at all the standard entrance exams engineering. Then I went to Bitspilani for my undergrad in maths and computer science. And there I fell in love with cryptography. I took it as an elective course. And that is a fascinating field, which is actually at the intersection of math and computer science. We might have all heard. Now it gets a little bit of siloed into crypto. But cryptography in general is a field of communicating. In fact, communicating privately and securely. So that kind of really got my juices flowing. I really loved the kind of problem statements there. And then I came to the US for my PhD in cryptography. I'm post that I've been in this field of privacy engineering, which is again very much around cryptography. Using cryptography as a building block to secure and have private communication, private processing of data, which all the tech companies have. Huge amounts of data. So how do we actually use that in a privacy preserving way? So that's the technical journey or the traditional career that you would see. But as I mentioned, music was always integral to my identity. I continued that through my undergrad, obviously, whether it was music clubs, organizing, spick-macky concerts, and even later in PhD, I got the Indian Raga Fellowship, which put me on a global mapping terms of the music that I was able to create and perform. But then, Rick, at the end of my PhD, I somehow, for me, this, you know, a forced specialization came a bit late and that was the end of PhD, where maybe a lot of us felt that pressure in 10th or high schools. So for me, until, you know, end of my PhD, I was living the life, right, doing music the way I wanted to along with the quote unquote, you know, successful academic career. But at the end of my PhD, things get hard for everyone as you're trying to finish, grab up your thesis and put a body of work that you're proud of. That's the most important part of it. And then I saw all these people around me at Brown MIT, spending hours and hours on their research. And I felt I need to do the same. I kind of felt that the party is over in a way, you know, I have been doing music and maths for all these years. Obviously, that's, that's, that has to stop somehow. So I did what I thought I was supposed to. I put aside music, I decided to completely go all in on my research. But that just made me miserable. I, yeah, I lost the spark and and most importantly, my research didn't get better. In fact, it got, it got worse because I lost the spark, the creativity that I got through, through my music. So that's when I realized that both of these are important to me. And there's no worse. vocabulary to describe that. There's no vocabulary to describe a deeply meaningful pursuit to you. The traditional labels, career profession, hobby, side-hours, self-pash and project just didn't make the cut for me and that's where this term came to me that everything meaningful is a path that you're walking on which is you are walking at your own pace, you're enjoying the journey and you are walking, you can be walking multiple meaningful paths in your life which is what makes you a polypath. Perfect and I think the way you mentioned about your entire journey, I think that is something which is amazingly relatable for many of the people out there because I still remember that I'm in 10 and 12 you have the pressure of the birds to choosing one career leading it out there and I think that's such an important distinction because many people assume being multifaceted simply means having lots of hobbies or side-interest but I think what you are describing rather goes much deeper than that so what actually makes something a path and how is that different from simply having multiple interests? Yeah yeah and I'm glad you asked that because that's at the core of it right it is not about just, oh I'm interested in multiple things or okay, right now I'm taking up this and then you know you leave it and then try something else. So path is also an acronym in a way and path has four components P-A-T-H and we'll go over all of them. So the first P-Empath stands for Passion and Play so what that means is it is a pursuit or activity that you are passionate about in the standard sense of the meaning and also that comes naturally to you in form of that's why the term play because it feels like play to you whether you're singing or whether you are reading about cryptography or you know white boarding so these things are or solving puzzles at these things kind of came naturally to me as a kid and I got drawn to it so that's where it starts and that could be in the category of an interest right you are passionate about something it feels like play to you that's where when you start so that's the P. The second A in path is for aliveness. A couple of times kind of doing that activity and you are often in the zoo so which is what I when I am doing my rears in music or when I am deeply engrossed in a cryptography people kind of trying to brainstorm something so that's that's the so yeah that's a great question Rick and that's where you know I get asked this often because yeah multiple people have multiple interests and maybe they are into something then you know they might do pick up a different thing after a few months so is is is that okay or are all these questions so the path term in itself is beautiful in in the way that it captures the journey but it is also an acronym it stands for four things P A T H and let's go get go where each of them so the P is for a passion and play so that means it is a pursuit that you are passionate about that also seems like play to you so as a kid things that you're naturally drawn to for me I was naturally drawn to kind of singing and just listening beautiful music I was always excited about that and similarly for me I was always interested in solving puzzles or you know even reading a cryptography paper new concept that kind of was something I was passionate about and that's the starting point so that's where the interest you could also call it an interest that's the starting point the A next the second one A stands for a liveliness which is the feeling of just the feeling of being in the zone losing track of time feeling alive basically that's where the term comes from and I feel that when I'm doing my rears or when I'm performing on stage or when I am brainstorming and whiteboarding on a problem that's you know that I'm thinking about so that's the A the T is probably the distinguishing factor the important one T is for trajectory which is that you are seeking growth you are actively growing in that pursuit so that's where the distinction comes right I have a couple of friends who probably play guitar or you know they think of it as maybe a stress booster or you know they would call it a hobby probably but for me or for someone where music is a path that means you are actively growing in that you are actively trying to get better at the edge of your abilities there are things that you're working on and kind of pushing the edge in terms of just your abilities there and the other notion in trajectory that I would mention is the pursuit of excellence that matters so doesn't mean you have to be the top musician or the top dancer or you know one of the best painters you might as well be or even the best you know founder or data scientist architect but what it means is that you are aware of what it takes you know what excellence looks like in that period and you know or you are interested in pursuing that path you don't see it as just a relaxing endeavor and the final piece edge is is hard which means that eventually it becomes a part of your heart and identity and it's something you can connect with other hearts as well as something you can contribute to other entities so that's those are the four components of what makes the path so yeah that's that's probably how I would describe it amazing I really love that perspective because I think one major aspect that comes into this play is the idea of what could be a good challenge or what could be the next step and on that note just do a little bit more because you mentioned about this and once someone begins pursuing multiple meaningful paths as you rightly mentioned I think the next challenge that becomes prominent is defining success and traditional success models are usually very linear like one ladder one destination one identity but when your life is intentionally multi-dimensional how do I personally define success and like what should success look like for someone pursuing multiple paths yeah that's a great question and something I think about all the time and when we start start of a wreck and we we talked about it a little bit as we grew up in school and kind of when we have to pick pick a career and so on so we start with these extrinsic notions of success right whether it's async those entrance exams whether it's getting good grades then getting good admits later on getting a good job getting promoted at a certain cadence in a certain way so we've been conditioned to think about success in those external metrics and for me this was a realization probably a few years back when when you know I was getting promoted at work and I thought that yeah I thought that wasn't that wasn't the end of it all I mean it was it seemed to me like earlier it seemed to me like a milestone to achieve but somewhere down the line it fell But yeah, it's fine. It's part of my life. It's a good thing to aim for maybe. But it's again, one dimensional. So if I am getting promoted, let's say, I'd had a much faster rate, but at the cost of not having enough time for my music, not having enough time for my family or not just feeling good about it, then I felt it's just not worth it. Like ultimately, it's the life. It does come down to the day to day a little bit. So for me, now, the new definition of success in a way is, am I excited for the week coming up? Am I happy about the way I'm going to spend my time in the upcoming week? Am I excited to get up and go to work, do my music, spend time with my family, do all the things that are in my calendar for the week? And if that is, then I am living my best life. I am in that zone. And everything else is downstream from that. So that's what I have, I have, yeah, conversion as my metric of success. So as we are talking about the metric of success, and I thank you again, over for clarifying this entire structure. I think that also naturally brings us to identify or other two identity and perception. And when you're operating across disciplines, like tech and music, as we take you as an example, people often try to put you into a single category. Like maybe she's an engineer, or an artist, or a researcher, or maybe a founder. But your journey clearly refuses to fit neatly into one label, as we say. So how have you used communication to challenge those levels, labels rather, and help people see the full spectrum of who you are? Yeah, communication is key. I used to always get bothered by this question, what do you do? And when I say, I mean, the natural response is a professional one, right? So I used to start with I'm a privacy engineer, tech lead. And I kind of felt that's just incomplete. And I felt the need to say that, hey, I'm also a musician. I'm also a mom. And I didn't act upon it for a while, because I also felt that, oh, it's not that I want to brag or say that, oh, I do so many things. It's more about if you want to really get to know me, then you should know this about me, because yes, being a tech lead at Google is an important part of my identity. But that's just not enough. So if you really want to get to know me, I think it's fair for you to know that I'm also a musician. I am a mom. I am now a founder of Polypads, which is really on a mission to give this extended introduction in a way. And also, if you give these labels or have these singular identities come up in introductions, for example, then you're also, I feel, sharp changing the other person, because the other person is then forced to talk about their work. They may like it. They may not. But there might be other very interesting aspects to their identity, to their experience, which would probably be something they are more interested in talking about and probably make for a much better and deeper conversation. So that's how I see it. I have started implementing the and introduction that I am a tech lead at Google. I am a musician. I am a mom. And if that wasn't enough, I do feel the need to take this mission forward in form of polypads. So that's how I do introduce myself. And I feel that gives courage to people as well to introduce themselves as their full cell. I remember this when I was at a birthday party a few months ago. And that's when I had just started trying this introduction. Because again, it takes courage on your part to kind of bring the norm and go ahead and give that introduction. But I gave that to another mom and she said, oh, I have also been dancing all my life. It's been an important part. But I never thought of explicitly calling it out. And now I feel I should because that's important. And that's something that I want you to know about me, similarly. So that can get a movement really. So next time when you are at a party, you are meeting new people, try this out. Introduce multiple aspects of your identity. And you can say many people now in my courts, or the people I teach, they've started saying, even if they're not comfortable calling themselves musician or actor, they would say aspiring actor or a mature baker. But it is important to them and they are on that path, which is important to me. So try it out in your next party and tell me how it goes. I think that's incredibly powerful because the medication, as it rightly mentioned, is not just about expressing ideas. And sometimes it's about expressing identity. I want to add something more on communication. Because we talked or I'm focused on this introduction aspect, but communication is so much deeper. I feel everything is communication. You can view that as the lens, right? Ultimately art is communication because you are communicating your thoughts in-- it's a different medium, of course. It's not a language. It can be your voice or through painting. The medium is different for an artist. But ultimately, you're communicating a feeling or an idea in technical world. You are again communicating that solution, that technical idea, and then also communicating how that fits into the broader picture. Why we should do some-- why we should choose a solution over something. And ultimately, that helps you communicate about yourself. So on all the paths that we mentioned, are all the paths that you are in your life. There is a communication aspect within that path, because you are communicating something through that. And then the meta part of it is, as you are walking those multiple paths, what that does to you, how you are better, or how you are evolving as a person, and then how do you communicate that to the world? And also to yourself. So it's, I think, a unifying lens in a way. Perfect. And like, as you mentioned about the aunt and talking about the journey that belongs to you, I think when you are building a life that doesn't follow conventional templates, the way you communicate your story becomes incredibly important. And that's what you rightly mentioned. So on that note, how do you communicate your own journey? And what has communication taught you about becoming your true self? Yeah. So as I mentioned, it also starts with communicating. Or I would say understanding that's the first step. So in the polypath philosophy, I think one of the most important things is being connected with yourself really understanding. For example, I mean, I mentioned the story where at the end of my PhD, I felt miserable. So oftentimes we just kind of neglected or we think of it as, oh, it's just life. And sometimes that might be the case. But I see so many friends who got up in their job or the promotion cycles or get worn out by it. And they used to dance or they used to have a creative calling probably as a kid under grad. And I think that's what I think. Yeah, there was a girl I was talking to a few months back. And she mentioned this that, "Yeah, I'm going to get back to music because I do miss it." So there are many, many people who have that somewhere inside them and they don't realize that because they've been suppressing it for so long, they themselves are going away or feeling that disconnect with their soul in a way. So, I mean the reason I'm talking about this is the first step is really to connect with yourself and understand what it is that you probably are missing. And what is what it is that will probably give you more joy. So that is the first step. And then once once you have clarity, I feel then communication becomes easier. And that's true everywhere. Right? I know that right from my PhD days or even earlier, when you have clarity on a topic or on how you want to solve something on a concept, then you can communicate it much better because then it is in your mind, in some frameworks or in some organized manner that you can then communicate. So the first step is to really understand yourself. And it's obviously an ongoing journey. But when you know things about yourself, for example, I know that if I suppress music or kind of ignore it for long durations, that will make me miserable. Similarly, when I became a mom, I realized more things about myself. And now I know them. And so I'm able to communicate them. So and more importantly, I'm able to be an apologetic about it when it matters that this is who I am. These are all the things that are important to me. And I am going to build a life around all of them. So having that clarity, having that space to connect with yourself. And then that clarity will really help you communicate better. So that's something that has worked for me. I think that's beautifully said is what I can say. And I think that puts us in a perfect place to zoom out and speak directly to people who may be listening quietly and relating deeply to your story. And there are so many people today who feel pulled in multiple directions. Me myself as well. People who love different things have different ambitions constantly feel pressured to pick a lane. So what would your message be to someone who feels that tension? And it's afraid that embracing multiple parts might make them seem unfocused or uncertain. Yeah. And that's a valid, you know, that's how we've grown up. And so that's, you know, I hear you. That's what I will start with. And that's where it's we discussed that earlier, that's where it's also important to approach it the right way in terms of looking at it as a part. And not just staying at the passion interest level. That's where it should start. But also kind of thinking about how you are actively growing in that dimension. And that growth can be in multiple dimensions. So at polypards, that's one of the key things is to feature examples of people who have really excelled at multiple fields. So for example, Nathan, my old, he's known as the Renaissance Man of today. He was the first CTO of Microsoft. And he's been an avid chef from his childhood. In fact, when he was CTO, he took a special sabbatical from Bill Gates to go and do culinary degree in Paris. It was so important to him. And now he has authored many cookbooks. He's also a photographer, a paleontologist. And really pushing boundaries on all these fields. There's a me, Jameson, who is an astronaut. She was the first African-American woman to go to space. She's also a dancer, a linguist. And Sharda Shrinivasan from India, who is again a very inspiring figure to me. Personally, she did her undergrad at IIT Bombay in Meta-Leard, G. She's a scientist, but mastery. And she is a Bharatna Tim dancer for many years. And she is in fact consciously combined. Those her PhD research was about alloys, obviously, but also about Netaraja, which is one of the DT's in Bharatna Tim and how that came about historically and from a metals perspective. So that's the other thing, Rigg, is there are number one I'll say you can excel. You can really do great in multiple fields with the right approach and with with the right. So so that it is not about being unfocused. So if you feel that pull, then you need to look up these examples and see that it's possible. So that's number one. Second, I would say is this a notion of combination or intersection. If you are pursuing multiple paths, then that combination is really unique to you and what you are doing. And that is what the world needs now increasingly as we are in this AI age, just specialization or just doing things one way. You know, I'm in Silicon Valley agents are being built for that all the time. So what is it that makes us uniquely human? It is the unique paths that we follow out of our own curiosity and that is what will be our uniqueness, our unique intersection where we can actually build and create something that only we can as humans as our unique human identity. So that's number two. And finally, number three, I would say things can get lonely on this journey because that's not the norm. So that's where a community like polypaths is what is going to support you in this journey. So to all the listeners, definitely subscribe to polypaths where you can hear all these stories and these topics being covered. And in fact, let's put the link in the show notes. But I want to give you this ebook which is the power of and where you will see a lot of such examples and also some exercises that will get you started on this polypaths life. So I do want to give this to the audience of this podcast, of frantically speaking because I know this audience is that is multifaceted already and would definitely benefit from this power of and digital book. So I want to offer that. And so yeah, just to summarize, you can be a master of many trades. That's number one. Number two, your callings don't compete. They complete you. Your callings don't compete. They complete you. And finally, your uniqueness is going to be the unique gift you can offer the world. Thank you again, Apurva. I think I'll be personally also looking forward to reading this ebook myself considering now that you have given it to all of us. I think that would be really exciting for us. On that note, I think Apurva this has been truly a thoughtful and refreshing conversation for me personally as well. And I think what really stands out today is that sometimes the most meaningful lives are built not by choosing between passions but by learning how to integrate them. And I think your story is your story and other stories that you mentioned. I think is such a powerful reminder that ambition, creativity, logic and artistry, career and personal fulfillment don't always have to compete with each other. Thank you so much for joining us Apurva and sharing our insights. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Perfect. And to everyone tuning in, if this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who's struggling with pressure to pick one thing in life. And don't forget to follow beyond hard skills for more conversations around communication, growth, ideas, entity and leadership in the modern world. This is Rick Sulkar, signing off and I'll see you in the next episode Until then keep exploring keep expressing and go beyond hard skills. Thank you again for joining us Thank you so much for staying with us till the end if you found this episode valuable Feel free to share it with someone who could benefit from it for more insights on communication and soft skills Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube and if you're ready to take your communication skills to the next level An accelerate your career growth head over to our website and broke a free communication consultation call with us Thanks again for listening to Beyond Hard Skills. I'll see you in the next episode