Hey, You're On Mute!

The final episode in our mini-series called the Joys of Reading. Quite a journey it has been for us so far covering the various reading stages & levels - whether you are personally just getting started, or trying to make time out of your busy lives to keep that passion going... or if you're an absolute swotter, gorging on paper. Well today, we look at it from a writers standpoint. What's the process? How do you make a career out of it? and frankly, does reading more actually make you...well... a better writer? We are joined by Chandrima Das, a dear friend of ours, who has recently embarked on this journey to 'writing'dom and published her book with Harper Collins, titled Young Blood - a reimagination of terrifying urban legends that will send chills down your spine! Young Blood is available on Amazon and all leading bookstores. Hey HYOMPodcast Listeners, this episode is brought to you by Skillshare, the online learning community for curious and creative people alike. You can choose from thousands of classes - Learn, collaborate, and even teach a class of your own. It all starts on Skillshare! Get 40% off your annual membership today Or, if you are not sure, you could Start with a 30 day free trial!

We are now into the third episode of the Joys of Reading series - and in this episode, we take it up a notch - Let's enter the world of the avid reader AKA the bookworm! Unless you are trying to describe piranhas in the Amazon, growing up we have learnt to associate a word for such people - voracious! But seriously, what do they read? How do they find the right books? And what are their habits? To tell us more, we have with us a dear friend Krishnamoorthy V, or Krish who is someone we like to call 'seasoned' when it comes to reading, so much so that he reads enough books every year to beat every Goodreads Challenge. No, but seriously, how does one manage to read 60 books a year?! Krish also writes here: http://vkmagus.blogspot.com/ Hey HYOM-ers, this episode is brought to you by Skillshare, the online learning community for curious and creative people alike. You can choose from thousands of classes - Learn, collaborate, and even teach a class of your own. It all starts on Skillshare! Get 40% off your annual membership today Or, if you are not sure, you could Start with a 30 day free trial!

In a day, filled with online meetings, presentations and never-ending instagram reels, choosing yet another screen to catch up on your reading might not seem like a smart idea. But what if it actually was? What if your experience of getting through your favourite books were so much better because you chose to hear them out and not actually read them? And why spend days trying to read long and heavy books when there are apps that summarise them to just 30 minutes? Are you one of those who might be hesitant about mixing technology and reading habits? In this episode, we speak to to Arpita & Shoumik who join us from Bangalore and have been using tech to make time for their daily reading amidst their very busy schedules. Arpita is a Chief Marketing Officer for a large enterprise software firm who has been talking to me about her love for audio books for a while now. Her husband Shoumik is the CEO & Co-founder of a startup called Lightmetrics and happens to be a big fan of the Kindle. We talk about their transition to the new way of reading and how that's helped them read more books and in fact also appreciate physical books a lot more. An interesting read recommended by Soumik: When Listening to a Book Is Better Than Reading It Hey HYOM-ers, this episode is brought to you by Skillshare, the online learning community for curious and creative people alike. You can choose from thousands of classes - Learn, collaborate, and even teach a class of your own. It all starts on Skillshare! Get 40% off your annual membership today Or, if you are not sure, you could Start with a 30 day free trial!

Reading is one of the oldest habits that most people wish they get better at. If you are somebody who doesn't read at all, you just want to get started but don't know where to begin. If you read a couple of books a year, you wish you read a lot more. And if you already read a lot, you might not have enough time and probably are very choosy when it comes to picking up your next book. This is the first episode in the series. We speak to Avdhoot who loves to read. So much so, that he talks about the joy of reading on his incredibly popular Youtube channel; Read, Travel, Become. Interestingly, Avdhoot was not an avid reader since childhood and in-fact took to reading as a habit only a little more than three years ago. He talks to us about how he got into the habit, a little bit about something called, Booktubing? and also shares tips that might help you on your reading journey. Timestamps 02:40 - How did Avdhoot get into the habit of reading? 04:10 - Why there's no specific age to pick up the habit of reading. 05:40 - Avdhoot's favourite genres 06:30 - How to find your genre if you are new to reading 08:21 - Why Sangeet prefers the LOTR movie franchise over the books. Arun disagrees with Avdhoot 09:59 - Avdhoot talk about slow burn, active reading and how readers struggle with distractions. 11:09 - Are young adults not keen on reading a novel as it requires complete attention compared to consuming other types of content? 12:12 - Avdhoot's little hack that helps him to focus on reading 3:20 - Sangeet's attempts with The Alchemist and why it's okay to leave books mid-way 16:02- Switching from fiction to non-fiction 17:30 - Why biographies are awesome and how one book changed his journey 18:36 - Top recommends and a Batman themed book library 20:27 - Do reading challenges help develop the habit of reading? 22:59 - Avdhoot's YouTube journey 24:17 - What is Booktubing? 25:03 - Stereotyping Booktubers and mean comments 27:52 - Handing out books to random strangers 29:43 - Read a book or watch the movie adaptation? 30:40 - Questions Booktubers get asked often Hey HYOMPodcast Listeners, this episode is brought to you by Skillshare, the online learning community for curious and creative people alike. You can choose from thousands of classes - Learn, collaborate, and even teach a class of your own. It all starts on Skillshare! Get 40% off your annual membership today Or, if you are not sure, you could Start with a 30 day free trial!

The start of a new year is considered a perfect time to turn a new page, and why so many people set goals & make New Year's resolutions. But now that we are two months into the year, odds are that you are probably one of those struggling to keep up with them. Why do old habits die hard, What do you do to make new ones stick? And how do you avoid another case of Goals Gone Wild? Materials referenced in this episode Atomic Habits by James Clear Indistractable by Nir Eyal The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg Gabija Toleikyte | Habits, Behaviors & Change | Talks at Google

LinkedIn is becoming yet another Facebook with its cheesy posts and a barrage of memes probably dominating everyone's feeds these days. But are we the ones actually failing LinkedIn? Is there something we are not doing right? We explore more on this episode.

As the year draws to a close, we take a look back at how 2020 has unfolded - we asked a few of our listeners what they were up to this year, and what they may want to continue doing in the next. We explore these and a lot more.

The 2020 pandemic has seen the rise of virtual schooling where teachers are using AR and other means to engage with students. And while tech has been making education accessible, has it also added to the long list of basic needs on an already uneven social platform?