Chetana Deorah
From Silicon Valley to Soulful Design
In this brand new episode of Brave UX, Chetana Deorah explores what it means to step off the career treadmill 🚶♀️, rediscover creativity beyond metrics 🎨, and build a life rooted in connection, community, and courage 🌱—sharing why the most meaningful design often begins within ✨.
Highlights include:
- Leaving India to Escape Cultural Expectations
- Leading Global Growth Design at Netflix
- Deciding to Leave Silicon Valley
- Redefining Work and Purpose in Auroville
- Learning the Power of Doing Nothing
Who is Chetana Deorah?
Chetana Deorah is a seasoned design leader, educator, and community builder whose career bridges tech, creativity, and social impact 🌏.
She has led high-performing product design teams at companies like Netflix, Scribd, Yahoo, Pivotal Labs, and Pentagram, shaping global digital experiences for millions of users. At Netflix, she served as a Design Director focused on global acquisition and growth, refining the pre-customer experience for a fast-growing platform with hundreds of millions of subscribers worldwide 🎥.
In recent years, Chetana has consciously chosen to apply her learnings from the tech industry toward new creative, community-driven explorations. Now based in Auroville, India, she is leading multidimensional design and creativity initiatives centered on education, sustainability, and human unity 🌱.
Her projects include Sakhi, a Life Education Centre brand that focuses on social enterprise for women artisans, with an emphasis on integral well-being; Auro Artworld, a platform for artists; and BloomO!, a soulful flower card game designed to foster connection and reflection. She’s also the co-founder of Pizzawale Pop-Ups, a food, creativity, and community experiment where she and her team craft gluten-free, vegan pizzas in a uniquely collaborative environment 🍕.
Guided by a vision of designing experiences that nourish both people and the planet, Chetana is redefining what it means to live and create with intention ✨.
Transcript
- Chetana Deorah:
- I grew up in a Pam sheltered business family, so a lot of what would be a struggle and strife was way too easy for me, which put me in a situation of utmost curiosity, utmost questioning, and even resistance to the way I saw things happen. So I really wanted to move away from the cultural bindings and the social norm of what family meant.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Hello and welcome to another episode of Brave UX. I'm Brendan Jarvis, managing founder of The Space in Between, the behavior-based UX research partner for enterprise leaders who want an independent perspective to align hearts and minds. You can find out more about me and what we do at thespaceinbetween.co.nz
- Here on Brave UX though, it's my job to help you to keep on top of the latest thinking and important issues affecting our field of design. I do that by unpacking the stories, learnings, and expert advice of a diverse range of world-class leaders.
- My guest today is Chetana Deorah. Chetana is a seasoned design leader, educator and community builder with a career spanning tech, creativity, and social impact.
- She has led high performing product design teams at companies like Netflix, Scribd, Yahoo, pivotal Labs, and pentagram shaping global digital experiences. At Netflix, she was a design director focused on global acquisition and growth, helping to refine the pre customer user experience for a fast growing platform with hundreds of millions of subscribers worldwide.
- But in recent years, Chetana has consciously chosen to apply her learnings from the tech industry toward new creative, community-driven explorations Now based in Auroville, India, she is leading multidimensional design and creativity initiatives centred around education, sustainability, and human unity. Her projects include Sakhi, a Life Education Centre brand that focuses on social enterprise for women artisans, with an emphasis on integral well-being; Auro Art world, a platform for artists; and Blu mo, a soulful flower card game designed to foster connection and reflection.
- Beyond this, Chetana is the co-founder of Pizza Wale Popups, a food, creativity and community experiment in Auroville where she and her team craft gluten-free vegan pizzas in a uniquely collaborative environment. And now she's here with me for this conversation on Brave UX. Chetana, a very warm welcome to the show.
- Chetana Deorah:
- Thank you Brendan, and thank you for the Ute detail dedication and joy with which it's been a journey even getting to this live conversation with you. I so appreciate that.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I am very grateful that you're here with me, Chetana. Learning about you and your career and the very brave and bold decisions that you've made in recent years has been a real delight in preparing for today. And I know that you've prepared something particularly special to kick us off. I believe that you've got some lines from a very epic poem that you'd like to read.
- Chetana Deorah:
- Yes, thank you for that invitation. I would like to read a few lines as an offering to Brave UX from a favourite poem and spiritual guru of mine by the name of Sri Orbin. The name of the poem is, and here it goes, the master of existence lurks in us and plays at hide and seek with his own force in nature's instrument, loiters secret verb from the beginnings, can't afford the secret knowledge, our gratitude, Tobin and rave UX. Thanks Brendan.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Thank you ta. Now that's a beautiful poem and a wonderful way for us to start and it would be remissive of me not to start. I feel having heard that with the significant shift that you've made in recent years, I understand that you lived in California and people would've got a sense from your introduction just how wonderful and successful your career was there in tech. Some really big names and some really big roles that you took on. But that was 20 years or so of your life in California. But three or four years ago, you made the decision to return to India. What were you in search of upon your return to your homeland?
- Chetana Deorah:
- The seed and the dream to be back in Orville was sown a long time ago. I had no idea how and when and what it bring me back here. I will say this thing that the silver lining with COVID may have been a big part of this courage to be able to make this decision and act on it without overthinking what is it that I'm leaving? You are absolutely right. It required a lot of letting go, which I was ready for within me. I just wasn't ready for it. Externally or from a society point of view, let alone then friends and family, which is such a big part of this decision making. So the first part to respond to your question is what was happening that allowed me to eject? And the second part would be why Auroville and why now having grown up in India, while there are some amazing hustling bustling cities in India to the core of New York in the us, I knew for sure if I had to leave, I want to be in a situation that is very different from what I've lived all along because if not now, then when and if not bringing everything I have been through in the US to a certain application that will make a difference in other people's lives, including myself, then there's no point in me moving.
- I might as well continue living the Silicon Valley life that I had gotten finally comfortable with. And that's where braveness came in a big way. So Orville challenges me in many ways, but it also offers an opportunity in ways that I have yearned for. But my corporate life didn't teach me how to go there, let alone deeper, wouldn't even give me the permission to be that person. Some of these yearning and the openness and willingness with my husband who was born and brought up in the US that I'm very grateful for that brought us both together to be here.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- And for those people that are watching or listening to us today, Auroville doesn't sound like it's a Hindi word, right? It doesn't sound like your typical Indian city or place. And I had a little sneak peek into what it was about, but I have to admit, you would do a much better job of giving that colour and context to what seems like such a unique community in India. Could you give me just a deeper and richer sense of what Orville's purposes, what it's like, what you see when you look out your front door? Just paint me a picture of what it's like where you are.
- Chetana Deorah:
- Sure. Very, very important pullout. So yes, the word Auroville is a combination from the word V from French. And Oro could also be coming from Sri bin's name itself. So, or rooted in the glow or the divinity that stands not only in the place we are in, but within each of us. And this last part I'm sharing you is the way I have experienced it because I've been coming to Auroville since a teenager. The mother whose common name outside is Ra Alfa, was born in France. She orbin though who's known both as a freedom fighter and a spiritual seer, are the two who in their lifetime came together spiritually aware that that was their union and they experimented in the human form in so many different ways with the goal of bringing integral yoga to humanity. Our belief that we are the last species and we are it.
- And we do tend to behave that way, is what they have experimented with and shown that we are the beginning of the next species and we are ready for it, but we do need to work towards this future that we cannot see or feel today, but we are meant for it. And then of course there's a whole process for what integral yoga looks like. So while there is a ashram set up, a more usual terminology, ashram in the town of pdu cherry originally called pdu cherry, a French colonial town initially outside of pdu cherry is Orville where it is set up with a lot more freedom and therefore responsibility to take this dream of integral yoga and bring it into our day-to-day life. And that's the part that draws me. It is not spirituality or meditation where one chooses to be a monk or moves into aestheticism. It is talking about living the yoga in your day-to-day life. And the simplest description I can give you for the word yoga is the union of the diversity that brings richness to the individual and the collective. So all of them is a place that is designed to take care of your food, shelter, clothing, but that also is a collective community effort so that if the survival is taken care of, can we elevate ourselves to our highest potential?
- Brendan Jarvis:
- That is a fascinating description in particular, not just of the setting but also of what yoga means in that context because I suspect that many who are listening to this, if you're coming from a western nation or you're a western person, you would think of yoga or you might think of yoga in terms of an activity you do in a class several times a week. It's part of the things that you put on your to-do list and probably quite a busy one at that. But this sounds like it's a fundamentally mentally different and quite central practise of life is one way that I interpreted what you were saying.
- Chetana Deorah:
- Absolutely. And I'm so glad you're calling this out. It's so true that yoga asana, so that is the vocabulary in India for the reference you made. Asana is the physical transformation of ourselves. It's the body and many the teachers who I have worked with even in the US where I did my own six month yoga teacher training, not to become a teacher, but because I wanted to deepen my own practise, focuses on the physicality in terms of strength, flexibility and a certain level of competition. And there are very few who bring in the meditativeness the concentration, but we don't fully embrace it again because of the life we lead in our will. That freedom is there to go your way or no way individually or as a collective. Do we all use it that way is a whole different question.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I have so many questions about your new life, if that's the best way of framing it. And before we go further into where we've been going so far, I want to go back to something that I heard you say previously about your decision possibly around about 23, 24 or so years ago to leave India. And I've got a quote here from an interview that you gave. You said, I chose to leave India to fight with issues where no one wanted me to go that far. And so that sounded to me like there's something there. Maybe I've got this entirely wrong, but it sounded to me like there was something there that you wanted to leave behind. Yet you've returned and I'm really curious to know whether or not that was the case. Was there something that you did want to leave behind in India when you originally left and moved to the United States?
- Chetana Deorah:
- Absolutely did, and my mom would be happy to jump into this part of the interview. It's amazing how she, I'll start with her in terms of the role she played. When I had that admission at the Pratt Institute in New York along with the university, I finally chosen San Francisco and I was heading to the airport and I called my mom's father, whom in Hindi we called Nji, my grandfather. I knew I would need the courage, the bravery from someone to hold the fort while I bought this aircraft to leave because my mom was not going to make it easy for good reason. I grew up in a Pam sheltered business family. So a lot of what would be a struggle and strife was way too easy for me, which put me in a situation of utmost curiosity, utmost questioning and even resistance to the way I saw things happen.
- Luckily I also have a father who is quite different from my mom, therefore complimentary, very open to courageous curiosity, spiritual endeavours, a wild businessman if I may. So I was able to balance these aspects of me that didn't even know who I am and why I am here. So I figured since I didn't want to get married and I'm the older child and sibling of two, how can I eject myself so that I don't get caught in the marriage, which was another defined category of existence and success, which is when I started the pursuit to take my then passion, which was after being a science student and wanting to become a plastic surgeon, I found a way to research and found some connections and got admission and then it goes the journey of right now at least focus on the first step, which is out of here and then the rest of it we'll take care of it.
- The first thing I probably would've ever done in challenging my upbringing in a very cultural norm and doing something that an older daughter or older woman in the lifestyle I grew up with was not cool or not expected. So I really wanted to move away from the cultural bindings and the social norm of what family meant, not so much the values with which I grew up was to be honest with you Brendan, those are what really allowed me to be me in my life in the us, which brought a whole new level of what do I want to leave behind? I didn't want to leave behind anything by then. I was ready for it, but I wasn't able to change many of the things I saw growing up in the way I grew up, including domestic health for example in India. Now I'm able to work for it as opposed to run away from it.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- And I do want to ask you about what was it that you'd mentioned COVID in your earlier response, what was the catalyst and perhaps the motivation to return. But before we move in that direction, I am very curious to get a better sense of just where you felt your life might go. You mentioned down the marriage route, but I just don't know whether I, and perhaps other people listening, perhaps people in the states have a clue or a deep enough clue as to what that life might've looked like for you if you had stayed in India.
- Chetana Deorah:
- For those who knew me closely, especially my dad, it would be a given that you can't get Trina married in the arranged Indian way. When I say arranged, a spouse would be found for me, the matching would be done, the horoscopes would be checked, it would be the right quote, right? Financial stability. So it would be packing off your daughter to a similar setup for the next step in any parent's life. That itself was scary to me because I didn't want what I was in already, so I didn't want that to be repeated. Of course there's no giving that my spouse, if it was arranged couldn't be someone who would be open to being daring and open to being unusual for lack of a better word in terms of the social structure with which I grew up. All of that could have been possible. I did bring this up to my mom after a few years of being in the us I probably should have taken your offer mom, but on my toe.
- So there's a lot of predictability and set norms in making sure the daughter of the family gets transitioned into the same setup for one, not having to deal with that responsibility. That's the word that's coming to my mind because with the son, the son is supposed to deal with the responsibility of parenthood. My father and myself don't believe in that and don't agree with it in the sense that women and women's power and this we are talking about 2000, the Y 2K also happened then. So I think I'm also hearing myself share with you a lot of the norms and expectations that were tied into the success even for parents, are you a successful parent and it would be tied to did you move your daughter into a successful situation?
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Now that's an interesting thought. I never really considered how your choices in particular might reflect on your parents in that way. And you've mentioned your mom obviously quite clearly wanted you to stay, didn't want to let go, but you've talked about your dad and the entrepreneurial life that you grew up in and in particular it sounded like he played quite a rebellious and enabling role in helping you to make the decision that was best for you.
- Chetana Deorah:
- Absolutely. He is and still continues to be that inner core strength that sometimes not even sometimes Brendan, most of the time we wouldn't talk much as I would with let's say a mom or my mom, but when I did need to connect with him to something that was beyond my mental capacity, I knew he would be able to connect with it and share his wisdom or his experience or his spiritual way of being in ways that I would listen even if I wouldn't be able to act and this I'm referring to you with my life in the United States, but then staying in touch with him. This was also true for me when I was growing up here and with the choices I made with being in a science domain as a woman and then choosing to move into art and design now that I look back also had a style of communication that was very silent and quiet, but yet when he spoke and when he communicated message, it mattered because people were not used to listening to him all the time.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Where do you think he drew his strength to go against convention from what was it that had happened in his life or to him that shaped the way that he saw the world?
- Chetana Deorah:
- That is such a beautiful question. Well, I was my father's daughter or I am my father's daughter as being born to him. He's the kind of human who can actually be the father figure or even a friend or even simply a gorgeous human to many people at my age and my moment in life. So let's say my cousins or friends could in many interesting ways connect with him in a way that could be fatherly. And I grew up with that sentiment of oneness in the diversity and the sense of oneness, the way he looked at the construct of family. I admire him and deeply appreciate him for that. And this must have come to him from his own journey with practising the integral yoga. He was my introducer to mother and bindu, and to be honest with you, Brendan mother and Shobin is the name because they existed in that modality in human life.
- But to me it could be Islam, it could be Jesus, I went to a common school, it could even be no name. As long as I'm living and breathing the aspect of this union within me, I am at that point. So I don't want any of the religious constructs of what I'm speaking to be the undertone. And this is also something as I'm sharing with you, I saw my father live in his business, which oh my God was so challenging now that I look back and some of the choices I made when I was an employee at some other corporate setups and I chose not to be in business having seen the life my father lived, but he knew how to balance the cultural stigma and expectations from him while running the show the way he wanted to run. So a lot of these come together in what was his source of strength and
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Yeah, and he sounds like a very special person and got a real sense for just how he was able to weave together the wider family. When you were describing him and the type of person, I'm not sure if he's still with us, he is or was in the way that he would engage in conversation with others in terms of not speaking often, but when he spoke he was listened to, and I understand you used to speak to him on the phone when you were in the states and obviously his entrepreneurial side came into some of those conversations and he once advised you that if you were your own boss you could hire your managers instead of dealing with the bad ones that you didn't want to deal with. So he sounded like he had a bit of a sense of humour there as well. And I was curious to understand in terms of your return to India, obviously you were away for quite some time, perhaps you visited while you were away as well, but what was the sense that you got at least initially, maybe in that first month or so after you'd returned, you put your feet on the ground back in the country of your birth in terms of how the country had changed over that timeframe that you'd been away?
- Chetana Deorah:
- So the country level, I was very connected because I was coming home every year. The domains I landed up working in, especially as it started moving into growth and conversion, and as you might be aware, corporate structure has a way to give you a branding whether you really chose it or not. So I did get just out of choices I may have made with conversations I had or what my LinkedIn profile said. Being a design leader with user experience for growth sort of became my tagline. The choice I had was to own it or not, but that allowed me to continue to be in touch with Southeast Asia, the research projects that had led as a leader for my design team, which also is an area I so love about your work in the questions to be asked in who to ask how to ask, integrated with my curiosity for countries where I wasn't living physically but allowed my work to connect.
- India was part of it when I was on a research project with Netflix. So I will say this that in many ways the legacy and core of India stays however it is the generations that are not able to keep up with it. So language for example, or cultural norms when we celebrate the gazillion festivals that we have have now taken a twist or turn that's become more a trend or an Instagram reel or is it cool or not? Luckily for me, my childhood and youth went in the celebration with the core why and the reason on death row behind it to the version now where I struggle with this doesn't really have to be done for the Instagram re because I myself have been in that pool so I fully get it. I worked that life. So India now is at the cusp of how can it retain its core values and strategy and legacy because it is what makes her who she is along with embracing the modernity, if that's the word, or the technological enhancements such that it is augmenting who she is and not taking away because it's not trendy enough or American enough.
- I'm going to say that word, because so much of India is driven by the agenda of America, including the professions, the education, the lifestyle. And luckily for me with my choice to be in all of them, I'm not having to live that entirely at all. When I do go to visit my parents in Bombay, it's very tough because of the Bombay city life and this struggle between the east and the west. We live it in India.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I haven't been there, but I have have friends who live there and I understand it is a absolute hive of activity, busier if not as busy as any major western city that I have been to. And where you've chosen to live is obviously remarkably different from the description you gave earlier. I want to go into now just rewind back in time to the place you were at when you decided to return to India and move to Auroville and I belief you asked yourself a question and I'll quote you now, the question you asked yourself was, is there really another ladder I need to climb? Is there another glass ceiling I need to hit? Now obviously the answer to that question is obvious to everyone that is listening, but how did you know that it was time for you to walk away from your life and Silicon Valley technology? I
- Chetana Deorah:
- Had to look in the mirror right before booking that flight to move here or to not even move here at that time and still it is to be here and have the courage and clarity to say to that image in the mirror, you managed long enough, it is something you didn't know you could do. It is something you felt challenged, you have stopped making and this life of not making is depleting the being of who you are. Are you ready to let go?
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I heard you talk previously about how in certain company cultures you're judged based on how busy your schedule is and in the conversation you were having, you kind of laughed off that you hadn't yet found a way to extract yourself out of as many meetings as you perhaps would've liked. And it's interesting hearing you describe so beautifully now the decision that you've made and giving me some more context as to what life is like for you now. You almost sound like a completely different person and I suspect many people, obviously there's many things about you that's the same, you are the same person, but you have changed and I suspect that there are many people listening that will connect with what I'll frame as that nagging sense of I'm stuck on this thing, this treadmill, I'm really good at this thing that I'm doing and it feels really important, but I know deep down I'm perhaps giving more or too much of myself to this than is perhaps healthy for me to give. And it sounds like you had a similar situation there. How long past the point when that voice first started speaking to you, did you wait before you acted and do you regret not acting sooner?
- Chetana Deorah:
- No regrets. I will say this, my choice and clarity to be in the United States fully served its purpose. Would I be there that long has its phases on why I stayed that long, the connections I made, the friendships, the work places I landed in. Now I'm at a point when I look back, I can really connect those dots and I see this even with people's careers, which always comes up in my mentoring conversations. But to continue on the question you brought up, it took four years in terms of a roadmap or trajectory from the point in which my husband and I said this to each other and in terms of the action towards it, and COVID allowed for that busy schedule while it was still busy, it just moved completely to nine or 10 hours in front of the Zoom call. And it was that reality that really started giving me the space because it was at home in terms of, whoa, why am I here?
- What am I doing? And all of those series of questions. But it took four years on the roadmap and towards the end of COVID it was that decision making of let's just give this an experimental try. That's really how it started again, and in that sense, I do love the professional design. It allows for the space to make mistakes to fail but fail with the learning of you can be better now you've got the tools and the methodologies for what causes failure. Can I iterate? Can I have the capacity and the methodology to take what I failed in and try again? So we came with that and of course family is your and home is your which to be honest with you was another very practical point for me. It takes two days to come home, two days with the jet lag and then the full vacation time negotiation that I was never good at.
- I would get myself into trouble. That also was reason enough for me be closer so that I can be there for when I'm most valuable. So that was the roadmap in terms of the transition and I was able to stay in touch with India and there is a group called the Orville International all over the world and I was a board member with the A-V-I-U-S-A at that point in my career. So to your point about the busy schedule chip led, I found ways to be busy even without my corporate busyness, which was a done deal because these connections or loss of it was a fear for me. I'm not in honour, but I need to stay in touch with it or offer value to it. What does it need now when the tsunami hit in India? So it was a joy to sit in the US and learn ways in which to stay connected, add value, or even be part of it in some way while being remote.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Now that you're there and you've been there for some time, has that self expectation of maximising the utility of your time stayed with you or is your relationship with time and activity, has it changed in any meaningful way?
- Chetana Deorah:
- Another great question. The Silicon Valley, me and me seems to move wherever goes and in the three years, the first nine or 10 months, I pretty much lived that life with pause ending at 2:00 AM realising that life in Orville is an early morning life because it's a very green, very nature, almost like being in a forest jungle environment space, but nothing about it is removed from living the day-to-day life. So it's again, a choice I had to make and I again had to go through that ringer of showing up to myself in a way that was comfortable to me, that was familiar to me that again, I was good at not because I was being challenging or motivating because I knew how to do it for so long, even though it may not be what I really need, I was still doing it. I was going to end with what was that moment that made the change for me to have time now, which is very new in a beautiful temple space called Mat, which has an exquisite architecture as well.
- I volunteered there and when I was up in the inner chamber, there's a gorgeous crystal which hits the sun ray, and I've sat in the crystal space. If you both don't teach me how to do nothing, I'm leaving all of them. I'm done. I'm not here for what I thought I came for and I'm in my own way. A few months after that I met with one of my first accidents, which everything is okay with in those three months of recovery is when I learned for the first time how to do nothing, and now I'm trying to ride that wave even though my habits and my psychology and my traits keep coming back, but I'm in such awe and gratitude with the joy of when I'm able to do nothing, what it allows me to be.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- It's even relaxing to listen to you speak about it quite frankly. And I've been wondering, I mean this is something that's been on my mind and maybe it's been on someone else's mind that's been listening to our conversation today as well. Just whether or not it's possible to hold the professional life in the circles or that you used to move in and that yearning that we have for the ability to, we use even technical terms, right? Like disconnect. We are just so inculcated in this culture of technology, and don't get me wrong, I love it. It's the thing that's enabled me to do many things in my life that I otherwise wouldn't have been able to. I'm very, very much boots and all currently committed to it, but it's just whether or not it's possible in our current western economic model to hold both of those things at the same time. There's that overused term work-life balance. People have got very many opinions on that, but I'm keen to know what your opinion is because you seem to have seen the reality of both sides. Do you think that you would've been able to achieve something similar to what you've achieved personally in your relationship with the world around you if you had stayed in the United States in the type of roles that you were working in? Or is that just a silly question with a self-evident answer?
- Chetana Deorah:
- No, I think what you're calling out is so relevant and it's so true. This notion of the work life balance, the fact that they even exist is two separate words. I have pushed back on a lot of these things in terms of the power of language, having grown up with the queen's English and then having had to learn the American English and all of that. So one thing I want to call out is I have come to terms with the fact that it's not even about achievement and performance finally for me anymore. I believed in this even when I was in the us, but I had to drink that Kool-Aid for good reason. A lot of what I'm going to share with you is also rooted in some of the things I'm reading or some of the ways in which I'm trying to build concentration for myself.
- I won't even say the word meditation because I was feeling a bit daunting and oh my God, I don't meditate. It's not about achievement and performance because I'm trying to move to a place where I'm not competing or comparing myself with anyone else or any other place or any other society. Much easier said than done, but I'm just sharing with you with where I am right now in this moment, which means what I'm able to do in Auroville does have a big implication with the life by dead in the US because financially or even judiciously, socially, I'm able to make this choice because I did work my butt off with whatever I had to go through to be here today. And it's not that I'm living a life of nothingness where work is not happening. In fact, work is happening now with such a prioritisation and consciousness towards me that it's almost weird and unknown.
- I don't know how to be with me with such priority, how to say no, when I need to say no to something that's not going to be what I need to do, but it's going to add tremendous value to this project because I'm good at it or because they really want me or because they waited for me so long. I'm so used to that Brendan and I was trained to do this. I didn't go this way to the US at the very initial stages of what is the power of nothingness and how to not confuse nothingness, not doing anything. The balance between the doing and the being is a very complimentary and beautiful synergy and the days or hours when I can be in that space or moments I should say, I see the inexhaustible power in me versus things that just exhaust me even without doing anything, my mind overworking the hell out of it.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- So rather than work feeling like it's something that you give to, it sounds like now the work that you're doing is something that is giving to you.
- Chetana Deorah:
- Yes.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Tell me more about how your work as a creative person. I'm not sure if you are specifically or wholly practising design, perhaps you're doing other things. I know you're teaching and doing curriculum design and a few other things as well, but tell me how that ability to embrace the nothingness, which didn't sound like idleness, I might add, I think that's quite a different word, as different connotations. Tell me how that has changed your life as a designer.
- Chetana Deorah:
- So one tiny part about moving to Auroville in the long term that I've been, there is a one year newcomer process, which as most organisations or setups goes through evolution. I don't know which form it'll stay in. So I did have my old newcomer, I say that because I've been coming here for so long and in that time the beauty of the work is I've been able to volunteer at various different areas of domains or areas that matter to me. Oral art world is part of that where we have a platform for the artists in Orville, which by the way is such joy and glory because it's an international community. Some of the artists here have been in Orville for 40 years, or even when Orville itself was incepted in 1968 and multidisciplinary is their way of being. Then there is creation of this game called Blue Mo, which I have never considered myself capable enough to design a game.
- Again, this is the jargon of Oh, but you've been a UX designer and a UI designer, who are you to talk about a game design? So I had to question myself and challenge myself for norms I had created, not because I believe in it, but because I'm set up for it now. So Blu was such an engaging and amazing project where I threw myself into areas that was engaging, joyful and with a partnership with a friend of mine, an artist friend of mine who did an amazing job creating the visual content for these flowers. So mother has written about 800 flowers in terms of every flower has a spiritual message to share and exist for a certain reason. I was not only curious about studying that, but I also thought why not make this accessible as a designer and me to a larger audience? So blue more happened right now after almost a year of patiently watching and finding the space for the school to embrace me.
- I am volunteering at a place called Last School. The mother gave it a few names, one of which was super school and then somehow last school remained. The core genesis of last school is to embrace free progress. Education and art is an integral part of disseminating the education. Even in subjects like you and I are probably more familiar with stem science, physics, chemistry, math, technology, but with the discipline, if I may or the charter of being an artist, and I can see this as someone who's lived the nights and weekend artist life because that's all I could afford with the weekday, going through the technology and drinking the Kool-Aid agenda. So while am I at law school, people assumed Chi will be teaching there. I made very sure that I be a student there and they are very open to, you need to yourself get a feel for what free progress education means because I didn't go to such a school and it has its waves of parents freaking out.
- My children may not come out with the qualifications needed for a job. So it's not that they're not going through any of that here, but I'm a student, but I'm observing and much like you doing interviews to learn from teachers, what does it work for you here? So that for example is another area of curiosity that brought me to this space that I'm just so grateful is still alive and existing. There are also other schools and performance set up modalities in Auroville because of this pressure of children graduating from here and they won't get a job, they won't make money. It's also interesting how many students do what they want to do outside and come back to Orville because they find their way of being here.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- It sounds like it's a place that has a definite centre of gravity. I mean your own story of returning there many times from a child onwards and then of course now your resident there. You also mentioned there the perhaps apprehension that some parents have about their children being able to get a job after attending school in Auroville. Is that a justified apprehension or is that just a dominant cultural narrative that people need to relax a little
- Chetana Deorah:
- Both. And the third being or is set up? The two things to share with you a about Orville is one you already called out beautifully. It is the place to manifest human unity but not uniformity. And I find this so beautifully compelling. I had to read this sentence a few times. There are many other essays and writings and quotes from Mother about why Auroville. So it is a place where we are multicultural. So absolutely spot on with what you called out the Indian culture of what my child is supposed to do when they grow up. And then the Italian culture or the Americans who are here. All of this has been designed with how Auroville was set up and the relationship between the government of India or even unesco because UNESCO does have an understanding of Auroville. So there is that aspect, the cultural nuances, but then there's also living in Auroville at its core requires for money to not be the sovereign power.
- We are so far away from it right now because in order, I'll share with you my own exploration in this area. I won't say struggle or even experiment, but I am aware of it in a way. Money is what allowed me to be here, but now that I'm here, how do I live here or be here without it being the sovereign entity of who I am? Many cultures could see me that way. So I tell myself, how can the earning of money be rooted in being who I am as opposed to the competition of who I need to become? How can the earning, and I mean to put this question not just for life in Orville, I mean to put this question in the corporate world out there, and it's almost like I'm sharing with you the deep down mojo or aspiration I have right now as a very grateful and integrated employee of corporate life. No regrets to it, but this yearning to bring back this sense of being and unity without uniformity so that the corporate world, if it continues to call itself, the corporate world can embrace this and can bring the true role of money in its place so it doesn't take away the true role of humanity.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I'm going to sound dangerously political here without really meaning to, but just listening to you describe your own personal relationship with money and how that's evolved from corporate life through to where you are now in Auroville. It's no secret that we as nations pursue growth, economic growth, and it's also not a secret that in accounting there's always two sides to the ledger and it seems like there's a price to pay if we focus too heavily for too long on that economic growth as individuals. And I wonder just how perhaps you can talk to this specifically or just your observations of your friends and the circles that you were in when you were in tech, just how many people that you knew of that had a really clear sense of just how much and I, how much money was enough. Do people have a clear sense of just how much is enough and when it's time to put your energy into something different?
- Chetana Deorah:
- So the answer to this question I'll put on the two sides of the we for this moment, the answering Brendan from sitting in Silicon Valley or in the corporate world is, yeah, it's based on the retirement age and it's based on my taxes will be different. And it's based on the fact that either I'm a single woman or I'm not, or what kind of illnesses I have and what kind of medical coverage I need. So there's a map around this that is not something I'm looking into within me, but it is set by the parameters and the societal construct in which I'm currently living not even where I want to live, because where I want to live may not be the Silicon Valley paradigm and may not be this kind of rent that I'm currently having to keep up with. So no, in my experience, most people have numbers that are targets that are oriented towards a certain definition of success that really doesn't have a full mechanism either because the control for that success is barely rooted in your own self unless you're someone who has checked off the branding and the LinkedIn completion and the job list to the degree that is acceptable.
- All of those, the checklist then there is the definition of what is the role of money for me even now and how does it allow me to be who I am? Because it does have a role to play, especially in being human beings. So I am looking at it as areas of growth within myself and taking that word growth and conversion, something I lived with so long externally and just twisting it and applying it on myself. So what is my growth metric? Did I show up to this conversation which I happen to be working on right now, development of homes in villages around the Orville bio region where women are doing such amazing work, especially when their lifestyle is such that the man in their lives is not able to fulfil their responsibility. How can money play a role in building homes so that the survival, food, shelter, clothing is taken care of?
- And I see the potential in these women who are working in other homes. So not only has this thought come into my head, I'm now figuring out with whatever experience I have from growth, can I bring that here in a digital way, in a monetization way? But am I going into this conversation from a place of ego and high might because I'm now this, they have a word for me. I don't have an English word for it. It's very cute, but very unusual for me. I could be looked upon as someone, oh, she's going to be bestowing the requirements to build a home here. I'm very careful in the way I show up and in the language I use to not get caught in that because that's the growth strategy that I live in. I just don't want that and I don't want that to be a defining criteria for anyone here. So I do get into trouble in conversation sometimes if I see someone else operate that way unintentionally. So money does have a power for sure. It's what it does to the individual that I'm becoming very aware of.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- And what would you say it did to you
- Chetana Deorah:
- Then or now
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Then? Because I imagine, I mean knowing what the Silicon Valley salaries are like the types of roles and the companies that you were working in, it wouldn't have been a small income, right? So
- Chetana Deorah:
- In certain choices I made, yes.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Right. So let's not be shy about it. I mean the people who be listening will be in those types of roles. Everybody knows that the money is good compared to most other industries or at least had been for a long time. What do you feel that that did to you earning that potential, that power that you had?
- Chetana Deorah:
- So it is this question that drew me to Brave UX. I had this flashback moment as I was reading some of your own raison de and some of the conversations you've had, and I realised I was that brown girl in terms of an identification in a setup that could easily call me out even if I didn't exist that way. I didn't realise I was the brown girl for a long time. I also went through a lot of decisions with interviews and getting a job or not getting a job. And even after getting a job, working through the politics of these places in a very difficult and challenging way, I do want this conversation and anyone listening to know it was a calling to bravery right from the performance review that I would get to the performance assessment I would not get, and the balance between speaking up for what I believed in or what I knew was truthful, even if not right or wrong, or choosing to be quiet because I also required a certain detachment and courage.
- I didn't have the concentration and the guidance or the courage to be quiet at that time. So I made mistakes in that part of my career. Many of the places where the salary was, the amount it was were the most challenging in showing up for who I wanted to be. What that meant is while they were challenges, I had been in my career long enough, but I chose to consciously make it an opportunity to now start merging the learning and the earning. These words started becoming so together, I refused to separate them, at least within me. And I think my family started noticing it it as well. In one of the conversations, this was a tagline I noticed from binge reading at script to enabling binge watching at Netflix. I was grateful that with Coursera I could finally empower binge learning even though each of these places had product protocols or paradigms that I was not in agreement with as a person.
- If I had a manager or a boss that could at least connect with me in a one-on-one, it was a blessing. If I didn't have even that, I would have to find a way in which to coexist with the action I had to make my team take versus my disagreement around it. So the earning and learning continued as this paradigm, but it started moving in towards my growth. And of course a certain earning possibility gave me the courage, you can move, make that shot, not even move. You can take this experiment and make that leap.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Is it still an experiment, Ana or is it a done deal now so to speak? It's a completed project.
- Chetana Deorah:
- It is even more an experiment and with such joy and excitement and willingness to bring anyone and whoever out there has yearned for this has wondered about it or doesn't even know about it. I'm there and right now choosing to say more nos than yes, because I know I can naturally get into being present in a service mode. And I do go above and beyond in the corporate world in terms of my performance and giving, but I'm really choosing to make time for my own reading and study and preparation, including making things versus managing things. But I'm very ready to embrace the world and those individuals out there who want to find this experimental learning and earning and who don't have to make a choice about it day to day till they retire. For example, I was never somebody in agreement or in marriage with the concept of retirement, but oh Lord, you can't stay away from that in the United States. But that notion of retirement and Auroville is in itself is considered a township of experiment and exploration. The biggest differences, that experiment starts with inner discovery. And then is
- Brendan Jarvis:
- That part of the motivation and the reason why? You mentioned that there was a one year kind of sorry to use growth terms like a free trial almost possibly it wasn't free, but this kind of process of making sure that someone is ready to participate in life in Auroville. At least that's what I took from that. Is that accurate?
- Chetana Deorah:
- Absolutely. That is how it's designed. And this is the beauty about a place like Auroville, and there are a few other communities in the world. For example, Findhorn I hear in England, there's one in Portugal as well. None of them are the same, which again is the beauty of us being humans and how diverse we are. But with Orville, yes, that is the idea. And I say this now to some of the friends or even just people I see have landed here as a reminder to myself if I feel I'm on a retreat here or some yoga or can leave, if I feel I'm here because I can afford to be here and chill, leave or if I'm here because this is so unformed and unbiased in many ways within, so I don't have to do anything including work on myself, leave. I'm not using the language mother, her views, which is just so beautifully articulated. But I've taken that away as my own way of being and reminding myself that if for some reason, and I'm very aware of this, if I need to move out from here tomorrow morning and go back to a job, the job, job, I do have a lot of projects here, even in the digital world. Some of it volunteers, some of it exploring. I am mentally prepared to be able to leave tomorrow morning and go where I need to go to do work. I need to.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- I want to come back to the internal tension that you were describing earlier about some of the decisions that you had to enact as part of your roles when you were working in tech. And I'll come to a quote that you've said previously about growth, which was, and I'll quote you now, it's not a growth business if you make it easy for members to cancel. And you did go on to say that, that doesn't mean you should make it difficult either, but to me that encapsulated quite brilliantly the ethical fine line that we have spoken about on the show, perhaps not enough, but certainly more so in some of the earlier episodes that leaders have to walk when it comes to making money for the companies that they serve, which is nothing to be ashamed of. But I think perhaps occasionally people make decisions that they perhaps aren't that comfortable with. What was that conversation like in your head for you, and how did you come to terms or make peace or however you would describe it with those kinds of decisions that perhaps weren't in the best interests of the users that we say that we serve
- Chetana Deorah:
- As a design leader on this domain? That was one of the projects that would come up recurringly and it would be an agreement or a disagreement with the product manager in terms of the numbers she or he had to hit versus what the designers were asked to do in terms of the design principle and the protocol. This to me is the great example of experiment and explore, knowing with all awareness what you're willing to lose and what you're willing to gain because we will not gain until we are willing to lose something. And with high performing, monetarily driven performance oriented organisations or products, the ability and the willingness to lose is almost ill-defined or non-existent because it lives within fear, fear, fear, fear. So maybe one example to share with you is the moment when I felt after being at a company for I think the longest tenure that I was, and I won't get into names, I grew up enough to realise that I learned a lot of things design school did not teach me at this organisation, including some of my longest and closest network peer friends up until today from this organisation.
- And I remember a conversation with my manager at that time, this is my third time asking you why am I not getting promoted? And this is my third time you reminding me the reason and I'm also showing you the actions I have taken around it. And you and I have also discussed that these were not easy for me, but it's not exactly who I am, but I can do it. I've done what I needed to do and I'm not promoted. So this conversation started this way. And even till date, I remember finally my manager saying to me after three years, live the promoted life shape. Now it doesn't matter then whether you're promoted or not. And yes, of course you will need your manager's support and your team's presence for you to operate in that level of promotion. I hear you. This is corporate America in terms of, well, I'm not with the manager title, so how can I call the short on X, but I want to see you living in that space. Then the work of the promotion is the stamping. That moment has been a guiding principle for me in so many other aspects of my life, whether it's relationship, parenting choices in India, I can be who I want to be. Granted that title or whatever gives me the latitude. And I had gotten so used to embracing that latitude that I forgot about being it.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Speaking of a guiding principle, that being one of that you've shared, there's a quote from a guru called Satguru that I've heard you quote before, and he once said, the single purpose of doing any business in the world is human wellbeing. And I feel like your story illustrates particularly what you're doing in Auroville, and I get the sense that perhaps it's an old principle, perhaps it's a new one. I get the sense that you are now living that in your day-to-day in Auroville,
- Chetana Deorah:
- In the sense that I'm now able to prioritise without as much fear or without as much judgement for various reasons. I'm at an older phase in my own career and life less of the external matters to me, where the way I do things can be rooted in the wellbeing. Even if lot of the modalities and the construct may look the same business may look business, it may have a lot of profitability and monetary value and may have its awesome branding and all the things that I learned even as a designer. Sweet, let's go for it. But I'm not willing to compromise or give up. And I've gotten even better at that level of negotiation around why are we doing this business or this service or this product? Let's chat about that. I'll do a workshop with you. I will spend additional time with you. You don't have to pay me for that.
- I've been able to get to that space of even allowing for those individuals who are going to work on this business to give themselves the moment to pause, which train are you trying to catch? And if you are, why? And that's what I've seen even in South Guru's own way of bringing the yoga in day-to-day life. That's what I appreciate and enjoy about his work. And I find it similar to Integral Yoga, if I may. It's the application in your day-to-day living and not separating the two and then saying that when I go to the temple is when I pray for the rest of the time. I'm not somebody who anybody wants to be around.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Jason. Now, that's a beautiful place for us to finish our conversation today. It's certainly been an expansive conversation and it went in the most wonderfully surprising different direction than I had originally thought. It might. I knew you'd been up to some wonderful things, but I didn't expect that we would go so deep into them. So I really appreciate just how generous you've been with sharing your thoughts and your stories with me today.
- Chetana Deorah:
- Thank you, Brandon.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- You're most welcome. It's definitely my pleasure. And Chetana, if people were really interested in learning more about Auroville, what would be the best way for them to do that?
- Chetana Deorah:
- Sure. auroville.org, which is the website for everything. Orville is a pretty robust and comprehensive description of the projects that happen in Auroville and also visiting Oral World. So I've highly encouraged to spend quality time in that website.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Wonderful. I'll be sure to put that on the show notes. And lastly, Chetana, if people wanted to connect with you, they've been inspired by what you've shared today, what would be the best way for them to do that?
- Chetana Deorah:
- Sure. That would be, LinkedIn would be the best place to send me a message and we take it from there.
- Brendan Jarvis:
- Wonderful. Thank you Chetana, and to everyone who's tuned in, it's been great having you here with us as well. As usual, everything that we have covered today will be in the show notes, including where you can find Chetana and Auroville and all of the different topics that we've covered will be Chaptered, so please pay attention for those if you want to jump to a specific part of the conversation. Again, if you've enjoyed the show and you want to hear more great conversations like this with world-class leaders in UX research, product management and design, don't forget to leave a review. They're really helpful for people understanding what it's like to be a listener, subscribe and also tell maybe just one other person about these conversations if you feel that they would get value from them. If you want to reach out to me, you can find me on LinkedIn, just search for Brendan Jarvis. There's also a link to my profile at the bottom of the show notes, so you can find me there or you might want to head over to my website, which is the space InBetween co nz. That's the space in between co nz. And until next time, keep being brave.