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Episode Overview:
In this Unlocked podcast episode, hosted by Skot Waldron. Kapil Kulshreshtha, CEO Scintillate pty ltd, shares his personal story and concept of "playing it full", which means living life to the fullest, being fully engaged, and not just going through the motions. He recounts how he spent most of his career playing it safe and getting by, but eventually realized that he was not truly alive. He discusses how people often get caught up in trying to be someone else and carrying around others' expectations, which holds them back from being their true selves. Kapil shares that the only way to break free from this cycle is to go inward and work on oneself, acknowledging that this can be a difficult and ego-driven process. He also touches on the concept of Kronos (chronological time) vs. Kairos (the time of being fully engaged), and how slowing down and being present can bring more joy and fulfillment into one's life.
Additional Resources:
Skot Waldron (00:00.174)
playing it full real quick.
Kapil (00:00.568)
Yeah, so I will keep always keep it with me. It came out in 2019. And the whole more than anything else, I have a very interesting story to tell about the book. So what happened was that we were working on the book for about
Skot Waldron (00:09.198)
Okay.
Skot Waldron (00:16.974)
Well, save it, save it, save it for the show. Then we don't have to repeat it. You know what saying? So I won't, I, cause I want the story. I want the story. Like I, so the, something that I think I miss sometimes with my, my guests is stories and people love stories. Right. So, so I want, I'm going to want a story about how you came up with the book, but I also want, cause your book is full of stories. and so I want to, I.
Kapil (00:20.08)
Okay, okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Kapil (00:31.432)
I love -
Skot Waldron (00:44.622)
I mean, I'll ask you probably to pull out some examples from that too. if you're, if you're game for that.
Kapil (00:51.568)
Yeah, absolutely. Though I would say that if I write the book again, there'll be so many other stories because now we have collected over 800 stories from people across last six years. So it'll be so different. So second book is going to be very different. Yeah.
Skot Waldron (01:01.196)
Yeah.
You're going to write a second one? I just finished my first one in December and I'm like, I'm done with that. You know, like.
Kapil (01:10.064)
We actually thought it was overwhelming but now it's like there's another message which is just very deeply resonating and we've been writing. You know how when you write the book sometimes you can think about it like that, I'm going to use this as a marketing tool and then you say, no, I want it to have a bestseller status and then you're like and all of those are really ego thing.
And the more I can see my death of my ego, I think about it that I just want the book to be a way to actually pass a message more. And when that happens, then whatever happens is fine. So it's like a thing which is building up. And that's it. When you work with your own partner, with your own wife, those discussions and arguments just keep going. So yeah.
Skot Waldron (01:55.758)
Yes. Yes, they do. Yes, they do. all right. Cool. Well, so Riverside, have you done a Riverside interview before?
Kapil (02:03.792)
I have done it once.
Skot Waldron (02:05.646)
Okay. All right. So when I hit stop, don't go away. Let it finish uploading. if it's like, if it ever glitches out on you, like it's, I look frozen. It's still recording high res on your side and recording live. And then, so just kind of go with it. If you absolutely have no idea what I said, then we can re I can repeat it and edit it out, but you know, just know that it's still recording on your side. It's still recording on my side. It's flying around. so,
So just kind of roll with it. We'll go and then we'd probably go around 30 minutes or so. Just kind of bust it out.
Kapil (02:40.528)
Yeah, it's okay. Yeah, I've just closed some of the things which could give a pop sound. Yeah.
Skot Waldron (02:45.998)
Okay, all right, cool, cool. All right, in fact, I'm gonna do the same thing. All right, let's see.
Skot Waldron (03:03.054)
Okay, any other questions for me? You good.
Kapil (03:05.488)
I'm good. I'm good. Thank you.
Skot Waldron (03:07.438)
All right, let's roll.
Kapum, I am so glad that you're here with me. Thanks, man. Thanks for hanging out.
Kapil (03:15.824)
Thank you so much Scott. When I saw your profile, I was like, this is good. I want to be there.
Skot Waldron (03:20.686)
Yeah, I want to be where you are. Can we please go where you are? over there on the other side of the world. That would be really nice to hear Australia doesn't suck. So I would like to visit.
Okay, you gotta spare room for me, right? You gotta spare room for me.
Kapil (03:33.36)
down under.
This is my spare room. This is the room which was converted into an Airbnb long back. So yes, why not?
Skot Waldron (03:40.846)
Nice. Okay. Nice. Nice. Nice. Well, thanks for jumping on. you, have this, this mantra of playing it full. That's something that I haven't really heard before. Right. So explain to us what playing it full means and how you came up with it and where like this whole concept came from.
Kapil (04:06.32)
Funnily enough, it didn't come from a great marketing term. It came from my own pain. I never really played sports when I was growing up and I'm very active for my age. I never played any sports and I always had this feeling inside me that there's something which is always missing. Across my entire career, if I could look at one pattern in my life, in my career, it was that I really never played.
fitful across all any aspects of life. And when I did start playing it for, when I started actually going all in on every single thing, it just vibrated me so much that when we thought about that the book name, the book name, that's how the name came up and book name, it just seemed to be like, this is it, this is it, it can't be anything else. And that name just stuck with us throughout, you know, in fact, everything that we do, sure, the name of the company is scintillated, but that's just a vehicle.
everything that we do is about playing it full. And it's a personal standard for me that I take a look at it. It's on my wall, it's on my various props that I buy, or I get them done that this is it. Like, are you really doing it? It's something which I check myself with every time when I see myself slacking off, which happens a lot more than I would like to mention. So I'm always looking at the standard of playing it full across all aspects of life. And what is it?
What does it really mean is that it's about having it all. It's about having high energy. It's about being in your best, the way you think your best is at all point of time in relationship, in your achievement, in the money you make and the impact you make and the kind of love you can have for people and the kind of person you are and you're in your health everywhere. Just go all in. Sure, you'll break some bones, but it's okay.
Skot Waldron (05:57.07)
Okay. Yeah. You know, we got more. They heal. They heal. tell me, tell me a time in your life when you weren't playing it full and what the consequence of that was.
Kapil (06:13.392)
It's going to sound very incredulous but that's exactly happened. Me and my wife once sat down I think 3 -4 years back and looked at across my 22 years of experience and I worked for decent names like Microsoft and Cognizant are all decent names. How many years was it when I really played full, when I really was on top of my game? We actually calculated and it was 2 .5 years across 22 years. It was a very
shameful realization.
Skot Waldron (06:45.55)
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
Kapil (06:55.696)
Yes, very unfortunately. And it was like, damn, damn. So what it means is that remaining years, I was just getting by. I was just counting on my previous success and just somehow getting by and relationships and all this stuff. But I was really not in my element. And unfortunately, most people that I speak to, I realize that that's what happens.
to them. There's so much of a status quo that we maintain as corporate people. There's so much of operational stuff that we do. We don't really like alive. We're not really in our elements. And that just kind of became my mission that if I can help people be in their element and be alive, be connected, like when you're in office, it's show up time. It's not like, let me grab my coffee and let me just, no, it's just show up. It's like, be there.
So I wouldn't count busy time in that time, I would count productive time in that. I've learned recently this entire concept of Kronos and Kairos, which is in ancient Greeks used it. And Kronos is the amount of actual physical time that passes. And Kairos is the time that passes when you are really engaged into something amazing. The time just slows down. And incidentally, at the same time, like, you know how the universe brings things together?
I was listening to a book, I forgot the name, how could I? But I was listening to a book by the ex -world champion of chess and ex -world champion of Tai Chi together at the same time, one person. And he mentioned how sometimes when he was in a chess, the time will slow down. And when he was having a competition and suddenly the person is standing in front of him and instantly almost a split second, the person is down on the floor and that person wouldn't know what hit him.
And he said, because you can really slow down time, get really big juices out of that. So when I say two and a half years, I still think it's a lot. It could have been a lot more, but I think that was a time when I was in my Tai Chi movement. Not that I know Tai Chi. I was in those moments where I was like, everything just slows down. And as I started peeling this layer, you know, and I was like, most of the people who really do amazing stuff, they really have this ability to...
Kapil (09:14.544)
slow down the time, not literally, but get more juices out of time. And a lot of us live our life, especially in our personal life. And when we're talking to our family members and really having like great time, like my best moment of my life are when all four of us, my girls and my wife, we're just sitting together and I could die in those moments. It's just like surreal. We're just not doing something or just sitting and talking and the time just slows down.
It's just, everything is just very surreal. And that's what it's about really. That's why it's a very long answer, but yeah. I hope it makes sense.
Skot Waldron (09:53.934)
So, so what's keeping us from having those moments? So when you're talking, when you're coaching your, your clients, coming from the corporate world, being where you were, you, you know, we're missing out on that at some point in your life and you have, come out of that, but you now coach people on this concept. What keeps people from having those slowdown moments, those moments where they're just like, surreal chair and cherish the moments that you're in.
Kapil (10:22.864)
Yeah, it's a bit of a tough question. I would think multiple things, but above all, and as I talk, I could get it right. Above all, I feel that we're also caught up with this facade of trying to be somebody else. And the answer comes from my thing, because majority of my career, I was trying to be like somebody else and look at their meaning of success and following it and even duplicating and trying to copy people.
And I know most people don't do it consciously. So I think we're all wearing this facade where we have a need to be somebody who's like in an XYZ way. And that's what we do. A lot of us do. So that's, I think, one thing. Second is that I think most of us are not really aware of who we really are. We like to say who we really are. We all like it, including myself. I still think that, I think I know who I am.
But as I peel the layer, I find there's so many infinite layers just as you keep going down. There's no limit to the depth at which I could go. So when we operate from like in corporate life, we're carrying this persona of our past life where as we are growing up, we were told to do certain things or told not to do certain things by our parents and society. School told us to fit into a specific type of phase. College told us to do the same thing and everything. And we just
became this baggage of this how I need to be in order to be X, Y, Z. And so we wear it and as we get into corporate, it happens and it gets validated or invalidated. We get these feedbacks from managers who don't really care to put actual views about how can they make you amazing and they're more focused on getting the work done. You kind of start losing that identity. And as you lose that identity more and more and more,
you become this bag of other people's expectation. And I think that's why most of us are not doing it. Yeah.
Skot Waldron (12:27.982)
Hmm. We become this bag of other people's expectations. when we w that we'd send to carry around. Yeah. I mean, it's almost like we, we try to be all these other things. we put those expectations on us, whether rightly or wrongly. So, and we end up carrying that around, therefore not being free to be who we were meant to be or.
free to explore our happiness, our surrealism, our joy, our passion, and therefore trying to live in somebody else's and therefore maybe holding us back. Am I reading that right?
Kapil (13:07.728)
Yeah, exactly.
Skot Waldron (13:09.934)
Okay. Is there a, I don't know. Like, what do you do about that? Like, what, I mean, it's like, like, what's the anecdote here?
Kapil (13:19.408)
Yeah, look, the only way you can composite for it is to go towards a journey inward. But unfortunately, a lot of us again do this. And every time I say a lot of us, I just want to remind that this is how I live my entire life, like first 45 years of my life. So a lot of us do that. When we look at going inward, we think it's about meditation.
Skot Waldron (13:58.798)
You're yeah, you're still okay. It's, it's still recording high res on your side. So, hold on. wait, hold on a second. Kapil's browser preventing recording. Ask Kapil to refresh the page. Okay. All right. So refresh your page and it will probably bring you right back.
Skot Waldron (14:38.862)
All right, Kapil's mic and cam already in use, ask them to close all apps and tabs.
Kapil (15:32.309)
I'm back. I'm back
Skot Waldron (15:33.912)
Yes, there you go. Okay. All right. All right. Cool. all right, let's go from, the anecdote. Okay. So I asked you what the anecdote to this thing. and then you started to say something. So you're ready to go on that one.
Kapil (15:43.537)
Yes.
Kapil (15:52.177)
Yes. Okay. and I forgot what I was saying. Yeah. So.
Skot Waldron (16:00.302)
So it was more like the anecdote to us carrying around every, our, everybody's expectations of ourselves. And then how do we get out of that mindset? How do we, you know, pursue, what we, what we were going to do. And you, you said, well, I've lived, you know, the first 45 years of my life this way, and it's not easy.
Kapil (16:05.425)
Yes.
Kapil (16:17.271)
Yeah. Yeah. So what I believe is that the only way is to work on yourself and actually is to go inside. But unfortunately, a lot of us, maybe it's our ego, not maybe definitely it's our ego that I must be right. Otherwise, what's the point of my life? It's such a small thing, but such a big thing. I must be right. Otherwise, what's the point of my life drives so much of our life. So what happens is that when we start working on ourselves,
We work with ourselves on the same premises that have brought us here. And that's like a circular logic. It's like if you're in a forest, the only thing that you see are trees. That's it. If there's a path 20 meters in the right side, you wouldn't see it because it's behind this thick shrubbery. And let's say all our job is to have these machati and we just go chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop,
hard yard to try to get to some place, but we'll never get there because we just don't know what we don't know. And whereas what a coach does, and obviously I'm extremely biased towards coaching because I'm a coach and I have people who have helped me and people who continue to help me. What a coach can do is that they can take a look at your forest and can say, hey, in your right side, there's like a path and you're like,
Are you sure about that? I was like, no, let's do it. Are you sure? Like I see the thick shrubberies. I'm sure. Okay, cool. Because I can't have the belief in myself at that time because my belief has led me to this place. I got to buy somebody else's belief. In fact, so much so. So that's one thing that we must have somebody. One of the big challenge people have is that when they have a particular challenge, a lot of us are looking at this kind of alignment.
where we go to our friends and family who will agree with us, who will align with us, who will tell us that this is it is. But the problem is more often than not, because they are in our forest, they also see the same trees, they are not in a position. So we stay in this cyclic zone. And unfortunately also, they put in their own limitations and their own perspectives on us. It's like I saw a
Kapil (18:35.729)
Ted Talk long back that when you are ready to do something great, it will not be your enemies who will stop you. It will be your loved ones who will stop you because they'll put their own limitations onto you. They'll put their own perspective onto you and not because they hate you or they hate your success. It's because that's who they think you are. So having a person who actually can really make you, you know, give you a kick in the backside.
make you think differently, make you challenge yourself, get in the unknown zone and co -create something that does not exist with you. That's the real deal. A lot of people mistake this coaching with training because training is me teaching somebody what I know. But coaching is discovery of something you already are. And so why I'm talking about coaching is why is it related is because honestly, I tried everything, Scott.
everything you could think of to actually get off this bandwagon including watching a lot of movies, including reading books, including saying okay my life is this is how it is and let's live for the weekend and try to have meaningless conversations with friends. I tried everything, none of it worked. None of it worked and I've not seen anything that can work as this. Except maybe the whole religious gurus of this world present and past.
Nobody forgot it on their own. And to have that ego that I can figure out on my own, that I'm a Buddha, is way too much. Or maybe if I have 31 years of my life to be spent on it, sure, maybe I can. And if I don't, it's my life which is online. I won't have it.
Skot Waldron (20:17.678)
That's brilliant. What do you think about this idea of, of, I've been, I've been saying this a lot lately and, and this idea of oftentimes we hear try harder, just try harder, just try harder. Although it's really sometimes that we just need to resist less. Instead of trying harder, why don't we just try to resist less? What do you think about that? How's that fit into this whole?
Kapil (20:46.417)
100%. I talked to my clients about these two ways of being. One is a very narrow level of thinking where your alpha waves are getting released, which is like a masculine and just go all in and just push it all in. And I like it. It's not that I'm a very high energy guy. I love that approach. There's nothing wrong with that. That you go all in, you get all the sources together, you put all those papers together and you put a white boarding and you solve a problem, which is how mostly corporate world people solve the problems, right? Get everybody together. Let's talk about it. Let's hash it out.
On the other hand, there's this approach which is go wider. Just don't do this. Don't do anything. Go do some stupid things and let creativity take over. I actually have a good story to tell. Long back, what happened was that when I was in India, I was managing an account and one of my managers in my team who came over and said, Kapil, there's a problem. I said, what happened? He said, I sent the profitability sheet to a client.
The sheet which actually calculates their profitability, I sent it to the client and it was a client in the UK. I panic, I pull my hair and we both go to my manager. My manager was this very calm, amazing, surreal guy. I still love that guy. His name is in my book. That much I love him. He is still my best mate, my mentor. He says, okay, let's sit together. He gets the whiteboard and he starts writing down the options.
And by that time, what I'm doing is he has this artificial plant on which there were these water droplets stuck. This artificial plant. And I'm actually taking out those, peeling those water droplets because I can't focus on one thing. I have a bit of an ADD so I can't do anything. So I'm just peeling them off, not focused on the discussion, somewhere hearing. And he just as usual, like he will get annoyed with me and then say, you know, give up on this guy. He would still do it.
They are talking about all the systems and process and everything in place. I suddenly said, why don't we do this one thing? He said, what do you want? Let's send 15 -16 emails with attachments to this guy and later on send him a text saying, sorry, we just send you a lot of mails because we had a lot of versions out, apologies about it. Apologies. That's exactly what we do. This guy never finds it out.
Kapil (23:10.577)
because this client of mine who was a vendor manager at this company actually came to Australia and stayed with us for about a week. And it was the same time when there were Tasmanian wildfires, so he ended up staying with a month. I told him the story. I said, I still remember the point, the time when I got these 19 or 20 crazy emails from you guys. And then ultimately I knew that I don't have to look at them. So you guys sent us a profiled sheet. I said, yes. So I think that's the solution.
which a lot of people in the corporate world are missing. If you just allow yourself to be, right? It's like the Joker says, why so serious? Life is not going to end tomorrow, man. Like the problem you're trying to solve, it's solvable. Just chill out, relax. You know, it's okay. I think if we just can adopt it. So I'm exactly in alignment with you that that's how we should do this. Like that's how Kehkule did it, right? The benzene structure, the guy slept.
He dreamt about the snake which was eating its own tail and that's when he thought about benzene structure and changed the organic chemistry as we know it. I am 100 % aligned with you.
Skot Waldron (24:23.79)
Hmm. Your energy, man. You've got the energy for sure. Even early in the morning over in Australia, you've got it. So how do we keep that? So did, were you always like this or is this something you've kind of grown into through some new practices and, and that you coach other people on? Like, tell me about that.
Kapil (24:45.041)
Yeah, I always had energy. I had always had a of an ADD. In fact, I remember that one of my uncles, my father's brother, once we went to this place in Hyderabad and he was there and he's like 70 year old now and he asked me this question that when I used to see your videos, I would see all this energies because he would follow me on Facebook, which is like amazing. Your uncle follows you on Facebook. Wow. So cool. So good for my ego. And he said, but...
I used to think that maybe for the videos you get this energy, but then I see it's all the time. I told him, I got it from you. He said, what? I said, you were the guy at our home. I remember incidences as a child when you would come and wreck the whole house and I got it from you. Maybe I got it from my dad as well.
Skot Waldron (25:51.662)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's fine. wait. no. we did it again. man. I'm so sorry. Okay.
Skot Waldron (26:05.838)
Hit, it's asking you to refresh the page again, but it might do the same thing that it did last time.
Just hit refresh on your page, see what happens.
Skot Waldron (26:53.87)
All right, it says, yeah, close your tabs again.
Kapil (27:31.371)
All right, back.
Skot Waldron (27:33.358)
Okay, okay.
Kapil (27:34.307)
Maybe it was one of those blockers. I've just turned them off. Maybe. I don't know.
Skot Waldron (27:39.246)
Maybe yeah, I've never seen that I've never seen that alert before Okay, all right. yeah, yeah
Kapil (27:42.659)
Yeah, it was a good job. All right, so we were talking about energy. Do you want me to restart or do want me to just tell the story from my uncle's, this thing?
Skot Waldron (27:51.054)
Yeah, go for it. Yep.
Kapil (27:52.515)
So, in fact, someone saw that my father's younger brother who is like 14 years younger to him. I once went to Hyderabad and he actually follows me on Facebook which is so cool. So, anyways, he tells me that, Kapil, when I used to see your videos, I used to think that maybe you have energy, you get energy for this. You just try to show on the videos but you have it. And I was like, I got it from you because I remember when...
When I was small, you were the first person who I saw having explosive energy. He will actually come to the house and do stuff which was crazy. I was like, my gosh, I want to be like him. Maybe that's where I got it from. But that was it. But when I got into coaching, it actually increased. Because early on, one of my coaches told me one thing, that when the world asks you to slow down, speed up. Because people will always ask you to slow down to their level. And I would not do that. So,
And then it increased further. And actually, to be honest, I always had this fear inside me that when I, because I was always a hyper, always been hyper, hyper, hyper. So I wanted to be calm. I wanted to get into being mode because I was so much in the doing mode and I wanted to be in the being mode and it was so hard for me. So I got myself a coach and I worked on myself. And then last year I went to South America to do Ayahuasca.
And one of my main purpose of going for Ayahuasca was that to figure out if I can bring in my calmness and my energy in alignment. Because I was always worried with that imposter thing that if I lose my, if I get become calm, I will lose my energy. And I go, I can't do that. This is who I am. Energy is my biggest value. And I did that. And somehow the whole thing came together so well that I do feel very calm and have this constant.
this thing going on and the need of validation, which is how I live my entire life has disappeared. I still like it. I still want it to some degree. I still love approval. I love it, but it's not a need. It's a want. So I think my energy comes from there. And also when you, when you read like crazy and more books, when you have people around you who are significantly amazing, when you work with these people, you're especially your clients that.
Kapil (30:18.019)
They give you love and they give you, it's not that, you're my client, let's have a very formal relationship. They give you love and then you continue to have a relationship with them years after they have stopped being your client. You get a lot of energy, a lot of positivity out and that just becoming bigger and better and better and better and better. And I love it. I just, I love it. So one of the principles that I learned from Brandon Bichon is the energy is not something which you have, you created.
If you're going to be surrounded by some negativity, then energy will be negative. Like a lot of people spend time when watching news. People look at getting things which are like from external sources, which make them feel upset or angry or they become victim. They say, I'm a victim of corporate politics and my manager is just out there to get me and all that stuff. All that creates negativity inside me. If I create negativity, my energy will be down. So I create energy.
by actually focusing on things which are positive. And sure, that means I have a massive positivity biases and I can really piss people off that way because I just want to be so positive and I know and I have to control that. But more often than not, not watching news for last seven years has really been very effective for me because I love the world. I can completely, maybe I don't think I'm there yet, but I would love to be in a place where like Dalai Lama or some of these people,
Where like people like, you know, all the great people in the world, you can actually love a stranger. And I think I have a lot of, a long way to go, but that would be an amazing place to be at. And I think that's where I draw my energy from that. Like, yeah, it's just, it's just, I love it.
Skot Waldron (32:05.832)
Talk about the book. What is the book having it that plays into this idea of playing it full and incorporate into our lives? What are we going to get out of that?
Kapil (32:21.219)
Yeah, so the book was written five years back, more than five years back now. Five years back, five years back. And the whole idea of the book was in the beginning, it was all like, let's create something which is, it was not like, I wish I could say that, I had a message to give, but no, I just, let's create something which is going to be a good marketing tool. That's how we thought about this, you know, and it was very fake obviously to start with. But then as we got into it, we started writing about the stories and by that time we had few clients who looked at their stories, went into the depth of it.
our experiences, something started emerging out. And by that time, we already had some idea about when we're working with people, what is causing a shift? So let's say, let's just write it down. And it all changed. I have a very funny story. I love it. I love the story of again, Kairos versus Kronos, which I spoke about earlier. It took us about five months to write the first 30 ,000 words of this book.
It took us a lot and we were just really doing it and we really spent a lot of time, you know, whiteboarding the ideas and putting the structure in place and everything and all that stuff and marrying the story and all. But what happened was that there was an event in 2019 where Grant Cardone came to Australia and we both attended it. So, and we were there in that room and somebody in the crowd asked this question to Grant that, Grant,
I'm writing a book and XYZ and all that stuff about it and Grant says, guys don't write a book, finish your book. And if you finish the book by Sunday, and this was Tuesday, by Sunday, then I'm going to recommend this. Like I will talk about this book. And I'm like, cool. Now I'm the high energy guy. I'm the go -getter at home, but my wife comes home and she says, Kapil, let's finish the book.
I was like, impossible. No, no, let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. And she was behind me. So I think she started working on it and I, because we had a lot of structure, but we definitely have lot of ideas, but we just had to expand them. We had single sentences, two sentences, or small paras, which we had to expand. So she says this, let's do it. And I'm like, no. So for about half a day, I slagged off. So that means it was four days. And then we started working on it because I saw her and I got inspired by her. So.
Kapil (34:47.299)
My wife is an introvert. She's not like, she had not been a go -getter, but there she took the leadership. She took the charge and I gave in. We worked 16, 17 hours every single day. We wrote the second 30 ,000 words in those five days. We finished the book, the first draft. Took us another two months to obviously do this. Unfortunately, Grant Cardo never promoted it. The person who was in an exchange on the email with us,
I basically left the company and never did it. I think I got the big lesson in my life that when you really put your mind onto something like Kairos, you really can accomplish a lot. And honestly, there couldn't have been a better thing that the book about played full actually got finished with played full. That was a game we could have played. And we were playing such a small game by this. And the book had lots of grammatical errors.
lots of challenges, but that's what it is. But we at least finished, we at least put the message out. And by the time that, so like we really owned up the book, the name of the book in those five days. And, and I thought,
Kapil (36:00.803)
what more I could do. So it's like, wow. So yeah.
Skot Waldron (36:02.738)
Hmm.
Skot Waldron (36:06.862)
That's cool. That is cool. you lived the concept in order to finish it. But because I would almost argue now I'm going to say, you know, 3000 words that, you know, the beginning, you know, whatever it kind of takes time. Maybe it's just a lot of research brainstorming or whatnot. but you live the concept of playing it full that in that second part there, to really put yourself all in, time slows down.
You're in your element, you're in that zone space and it's just like hunker down, get it done. that's, that's pretty cool is, and, and anybody can get that now. Yeah. It's available.
Kapil (36:44.867)
100%. I believe everybody can get them and I don't think people have to really wait a lot to get them. Yeah, it's like, we all have it inside of us. I completely believe in this principle that we can have it all. Like whoever said you can't have it all is like just, they didn't have it all so they're putting it on us. We can have it all.
Skot Waldron (37:01.774)
Hmm. Okay. It's a mindset thing. We get good at the things we practice. So, if we end up not, if we, if we practice, you know, being 10 % all in, as opposed to 100 % all in, then, you know, that's what we're going to get good at. So, it sounded like in your corporate career, you practiced and, practice not being all in for a long time. And I wonder if a lot of people practice that.
Kapil (37:20.419)
out of a
Kapil (37:27.587)
Yeah, I always had this fear that I don't belong. In fact, it's a funny story but true story. In India, you get married in arranged marriage. When I chose my partner, I deliberately chose a chartered accountant because I knew that I wouldn't make it. I was young. I got married when I was 27. I knew I don't have it inside me. I have a twin brother.
and no, he doesn't look like me. He's from this actually the top, one of the top most instituted in India called IIT. This guy was a 10 pointer, you know, he's, he basically has like four patents on his name. He works in the VLSI industry and like, you know, chip designing simulation and all those crazy stuff. So like a genius guy and you know, and because of him also I went to decent enough college. But when you like, maybe that was the reason, but I always knew that.
I just do not have it inside me. I would not be able to make money. I need somebody who can actually help me make money. And all my brothers got married to women who were like, you know, good. They didn't worry about the professional qualification. I just knew that charter account and she'd probably make about at least double of mine will make it. That was my perspective. And, you know, so I said, hey, I married for money, obviously, for the future money, because my wife was also like me from a lower middle class background. Didn't have a lot of money growing up.
But I did marry for money because I just knew that it was not, I didn't have it inside me. And I honestly thought once I get to this amazing honky -dory place of working for a large company, working in a great name, once I have made more money, once I go overseas, once I become a director, once I've won this deal, once I did that, I'll be enough. But none of that really did it. And it's not that, I'm a despite pinnacle in my life where I'm actually, no, it's like, I'm just, there is no pinnacle. There is no pinnacle.
It's just a journey. You keep going. You keep going. You have fun in the process. For all that matters, tomorrow, there's no plan in the universe that it just has to keep me alive. I could just drop dead tomorrow. But can I play it full across all aspects of my life today? And I think I'm 40, 50 % there, and which is pretty cool, because I was like 5 % there. So it's pretty cool. There's no 100%. Just keep going. Just keep discovering. Keep, you know. So.
Skot Waldron (39:48.046)
I love that. I love that concept. It's a concept that I was introduced to by Simon Sinek in his book, The Infinite Game. It's this concept of like, we don't win at life. You don't all of a sudden, like at the end of life go, I won. Like I did it. It's like, it just keeps going. It's the infinite game. Our finite mindset is what holds us back, I think sometimes. And he talks about that concept a lot in his book. It's super smart. So.
I love that idea that you just brought to the table. If, Kapil, thanks for being here, man. If, people want to connect with you, they want to hang out with you, they want to talk to you and, hire you, they want to get you to speak, whatever they want to do. How do they do that?
Kapil (40:32.451)
Look, two things. One is that LinkedIn is my platform. LinkedIn is where my best expression is. This is where I really love that platform for connection. I love the platform for really sharing my thoughts. And sometimes, I would say 50 % of the time, I share my unfiltered thoughts. And sometimes I have to share the thoughts, which I think people will like. And that's my story of my own journey of getting in terms with you more and more and more. So that's my best platform. And second is that,
People can actually get the audio copy of my book. If they're okay with my voice so far, because my voice can just give them headache at times. So if they're okay with my voice, my me and my wife's voice, they can download the book at playitful .com, which is P -I -F audio book. P -I -F stands for Play It Full, P -I -F audio book. No gaps in between. They can get the book or if you can share the link, it'll be great. Like they can get the book and that's it. Like, you know.
The more the message goes, the better it is, yeah.
Skot Waldron (41:33.582)
Brilliant, man. Yes. I think, your LinkedIn presence is very robust. I will say, you know, that you've got a massive following. you put some really good content out there. I was watching some of your, your quick snippet, videos there. They're, they're, they're really good. So, people should check those out for sure. Kapil, thanks man for being here. I really enjoyed the conversation and, keep spreading the word, keep doing your thing.
Kapil (42:00.323)
Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. I think the universe brought us together for a reason and you know, both of us are just floating bubbles and suddenly this line just connected us and I love it. Thank you. Appreciate you. Appreciate you, brother.