The Fintech Marketers and Leaders Podcast
00:35:57 · Shameer Sachdev, Pranav Sood
[00:35:57] S1: The only thing left is to get into our quick fire round and learn a little bit more about you. What podcasts are you listening to at the moment? [00:36:05] S2: My favorite podcast, I'm I'm gonna go with the theme of being a history buff, is a podcast called The Rest is History with a guy called Tom Holland and another guy called Dominic Sandbrook on it. They are basically two mates. Both of them are very acclaimed historians in their own right, but they're basically two mates. They don't take themselves too seriously and every week, usually a couple of times a week, they'll just talk about something that's really interesting and I always learn something from it and usually laugh along the way as well. [00:36:36] S1: Amazing. What you reading at the moment or what book would you recommend? [00:36:42] S2: I've actually just come back from Japan. So I was on holiday in Japan the last couple of weeks. My little brother lives in Tokyo. And so I'm on a real Japan vibe at the moment. So if anyone out there is into Japanese murder mysteries, then I'd be happy to recommend But ordinarily, I tend to read a lot of non fiction and particularly biography. So, what have I read this year that I really liked? I read a brilliant set of biographies of Lyndon Johnson by a guy called Robert Caro. It's a really heavy lift. So if you're not into US presidential history or American history as a whole, then probably not for you. But if you are, then it repays the effort and the reading a thousand times over. It's one of the best things I think I've ever read.
00:36:42 · Pranav Sood, Shameer Sachdev
[00:36:42] S2: I've actually just come back from Japan. So I was on holiday in Japan the last couple of weeks. My little brother lives in Tokyo. And so I'm on a real Japan vibe at the moment. So if anyone out there is into Japanese murder mysteries, then I'd be happy to recommend But ordinarily, I tend to read a lot of non fiction and particularly biography. So, what have I read this year that I really liked? I read a brilliant set of biographies of Lyndon Johnson by a guy called Robert Caro. It's a really heavy lift. So if you're not into US presidential history or American history as a whole, then probably not for you. But if you are, then it repays the effort and the reading a thousand times over. It's one of the best things I think I've ever read. [00:37:30] S1: What's your favorite FinTech app? [00:37:33] S2: I mean, obviously, Airwallet. Other than Airwallet. As a consumer, as an individual, I use Revolut. I'm very happy with it and I often overseas and so that has been a lifeline in lots of places. [00:37:49] S1: What's the best bit of life advice you've ever received? I
00:37:49 · Shameer Sachdev, Pranav Sood
[00:37:49] S1: What's the best bit of life advice you've ever received? I [00:37:52] S2: did my undergrad in The UK and then I studied afterwards in The US and I was very, very fortunate to be exposed to and taught a little bit by Amartya Sen, who's a Nobel laureate, who teaches economics and philosophy and so on. I was actually mostly taught by his wife, but saw him a little bit as well. And I remember talking to him over, we had dinner with him one night, and it was sort of interesting just to talk to him about how, what he found to be impactful in his own career. And his advice was, you've got to find the intersections between things that you can really own and you can really make your own. And in his case, you know, he talked about how he had found the intersection between economics and philosophy, and that niche was a niche that he really believed in and was able to cultivate. And his view is that the people who are the most breakout successful people in whatever field tend to be ones who found those niches that are productive. And so I don't know if I found mine yet, but I found that a really helpful bit of guidance. [00:38:58] S1: Naval Ravi Khan says something similar. You probably sold it from him. But yeah, he said, know, rather than me trying to aim to be the top 1%, try to be the top 5% in two or three things. To be fair, it's something that I always have in the back of my mind. And my last question really is what's one thing that I haven't asked that you felt that I should have?
00:38:58 · Shameer Sachdev, Pranav Sood
[00:38:58] S1: Naval Ravi Khan says something similar. You probably sold it from him. But yeah, he said, know, rather than me trying to aim to be the top 1%, try to be the top 5% in two or three things. To be fair, it's something that I always have in the back of my mind. And my last question really is what's one thing that I haven't asked that you felt that I should have? [00:39:16] S2: I can talk about Indian cricket until the cows come home. So maybe you should have asked me about the recent twenty twenty World Cup. But I think you've asked me everything. I think maybe the only thing that we haven't talked about is just actually the people management side of leadership and maybe a little bit about what's worked, what hasn't in relation to leading teams, leading people as an individual. Plenty of mistakes to recount on that front. [00:39:44] S1: Like you, if you've got any notes, I'm always a learner of that and it's something that I'm always trying to improve myself. Give me your key sort of bits of advice around people management.
00:39:57 · Pranav Sood
[00:39:57] S2: I think the key thing is, in my opinion, there's got to be a contract between you and whoever's in your team. And that contract is beyond the employment contract that you have. It's about the commitments that you have to one another and the kind of mutual accountability to those things. I think one thing that I definitely did poorly earlier in my career, maybe don't always do perfectly even now, was not being open enough about what that contract looks like. And so now one of the things I really try and do is to say to my teams, look, you need to tell me what you expect from this opportunity, you know, where you need to get to, what you need to do. And I need to tell you what I expect from you in delivering against it. And at some point, the trade doesn't make sense anymore. At some point, you know, what you give is not equivalent to what you get. And at that point, as an adult, you have an open conversation and say, look, this isn't making sense. So what do we do differently? And I think one of the mistakes that people often make as managers is not to be explicit about that and then to be you know, pissed off or hurt when someone says, well, I don't want to work here anymore. I don't want to do this. But in reality, they probably shouldn't be surprised by it because if they thought about it in a more maybe cynical way, maybe realistic way, depending on how you see it, they'd been able to predict that the trade no longer worked and and that maybe it was time for for something new.
00:41:22 · Shameer Sachdev, Pranav Sood, S0
[00:41:22] S1: Pranav, thank you very much for joining us today on the podcast. It's been great having you. [00:41:28] S2: Thank you very much for having me. [00:41:30] S0: The FML podcast is brought to you by GrowthGorilla. To find out how our marketing growth experts can boost your fintech's growth, head to growthgorilla.co.uk. And make sure to search for the FML podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Don't forget to click follow to ensure you don't miss any future episodes. On behalf of the team here at Growth Gorilla, thanks for listening.