Syllabus of Life | 🎙 From IRS to YouTube : What 400k Subscribers Taught Me About Fear, and Reinvention

When I walked away from the Indian Revenue Service, I didn’t have a 5-year plan.

What I did have was:

Fast forward to today:

4 lakh subscribers. Hundreds of hours of video. Thousands of conversations. And one brutal truth—reinvention is messy and painful.

But it’s worth it.

Take this life-changing conversation with Capt Raghu Raman, for instance- something I would never have had without the risk I took-

Lessons the Algorithm Didn’t Teach Me — Life Did:

1. Teamwork isn’t optional.

If you want to scale, you cannot do it alone. Every solo genius has a hidden army behind them.

2. Your voice is your leverage.

I was terrified of the camera. Now, I use it to reach millions.

Communication = career capital. Learn to wield it.

3. Your personal brand is your new resume.

In 2025, recruiters don’t just Google you—they binge-watch you.

4. AI isn’t futuristic — it’s your unpaid intern.

I use AI to prep for podcast episodes. It’s like having 10 caffeine-fueled researchers on standby. Use it or fall behind.

5. Authenticity is the only long game.

You can fake a reel. You can’t fake 90 minutes of truth on camera.

People don’t follow perfection. They follow real.

6. Podcasting is the new university.

Traditional education teaches you theory.

Conversations? They teach you life.

Fact: India has 100M+ monthly podcast listeners. That’s a 34% YoY growth. You feel that wave? It’s not coming. It’s here.

7. People trust long-form more than news.

Real journalism is being rebuilt.

One mic. One guest. One raw conversation at a time.

The best thing about quitting?

I gave myself permission.

To explore. To fail. To build. To break.

And most importantly — to dream again.

I’ve sat with soldiers. Entrepreneurs. Poets. Scientists. Students.

People I would never have met if I’d stayed inside the four walls of bureaucracy.

And through every crash, every late-night edit, every hacked account…

It wasn’t the algorithm that built this. People did.

You did.

To everyone who watched, listened, commented, disagreed, or just quietly tuned in:

Thank you.

Ravi Kapoor

Ex-IRS | Founder, Syllabus of Life