How To Write A Viral Research Paper - w/ Aditi

Welcome to the Ready Said Do podcast, where we discuss journeys of not experts who are just two steps ahead of us. I am Naman Pandey and in this episode my guest is Dr. Atipa. Dr. Aditi is an ex-tenured professor, published author and the founder of Dr. Paul & Company, where she has an in-emigrant state charge of their immigration journey by means of securing the EB-1 visa tree hole and other talent visa. Pickover at these journeys, starting with her student visa days, what made her move to the US, switching from a path of STEM to out of STEM, which is straight, and then finally securing the EB-1 visa. It was very amusing to uncover how her research people on dating and its dynamics, the pitch delete, after she was basically asked to leave. Proper department during her PhD led her to be featured on every major

news channel website in the country, taking towards psychology and communication routes. Pickover the psychology of immigrants and how Indian immigrants can best get assimilated to the culture in the states. Frankly, a lot of what turned out to be myths that I had about the EB-1 and other talent visas were tiered up to my conversation with Aditi and in keeping with a theme of learning from somebody that just two steps ahead of us instead of an expert. I'd like to emphasize that this conversation centers on Aditi's unique immigration journey, and how anyone can build their profile for EB-1 and other talent visas from day 1. This is the ready set to podcast and to support it, please subscribe to my YouTube channel and now my dear friends, without any further ado, my conversation with Dr. Aditi

Paul. I know when we connected offline, you asked me to not do this, but I'm going to do it one last time here. Welcome, Dr. Aditi. My gosh, yes. Thank you so much, sir. No I'm on punty. At least one of our titles, one of us worked really hard for, so we have that going for ourselves here. If you talk to my PhD advisor, he will have a different opinion, but let's not go there. I have it. That's what I would say. If I worked hard for it or not, that's absolutely great. I'm really excited to host you and to get the ball rolling, do you kind of mind walking us through your journey and how you came to establish Dr. Paul and company and all the amazing work that you do with and for immigrants currently? Yeah. Well, thank you so much. And I have said this in podcasts before as well.

I'll say it to you right now as well. If you're looking for some inspirational monolithic, this was my passion. This is what I went for it. I'm not going to find it. You're seriously not going to find it. The consistent theme across the board is I didn't want to do it, but I did it anyway. That is honest to God, the thing that I always go back to. You and I, we're both from Calcutta. So I'll start there. And if you're born and raised in India, in the 90s, in the 2000s, maybe even now, there are only three options that are presented to you, science, arts and commerce. Arts is for people who definitely want to be broken life. At least that's what parents convince us to, that we will be on the street. Commerce is for sons of business owners. You know, these are the make a very, very, very Calcutta

joke over here. But these are the 6 a.m. batch, since Xavier's college crowd go at 6 a.m. Do some random classes. And then at 9 a.m. they're out the door, have their child. And then they go and prepare for the CPA exam or go and sit in dad's company. So that was not timeless. I feel like that hasn't changed at all. It hasn't changed. Yeah. And the only option that was left was science. And what didn't help was my dad was a chemical engineer, turned business owner. So my dad is a trust fund baby. He's an Apple baby. I even give him grief till now. And so I grew up in a family which was yeah, you have to do business, but you cannot be one of those like, would you put high maker now, which is a business corner here like that, like you have to have good grades. And then if you decide to work for yourself, you work for yourself. So that was

always the narrative that I grew with. Again, please remember the fact that I said, I did everything that I did not want to do. So I did not want to do science in class 12, did science, did not want to study computer science after class 12, just wanted to study in San Xavier's college, did not even matter what what I was choosing. Did bachelor's in computer science, did not want to do masters in computer science, did masters in computer science. And at this time, my sister got pregnant in the US, and I came to visit my nephew.

And I have been trying to not study nomen since class 12, right? I mean, there was a concerted effort for me to not study. And somehow things kept presenting in my life education has been like this big thing. So when I came to the US for a vacation to cuddle my nephew, my sister is like, yo, you keep complaining about computer science, like, have you you want to do something about communications, like communication, mass communication, like, what's your plan? I got no plan. I just know I don't want to do a nine to five after I graduate from this, like dumb masters in computer science that I'm doing because I had no other option. So she's like, let's go and talk to some professors over here, see what they say. So when I talk to some professors, and I said that, look, I don't have any background in communication

studies. I have my entire career in the sciences. Am I able to study computers, a communication study, like, yeah, we'll take you. So that's how I started my journey in the US, again, if not want to do PhD, I was like, what is the easiest way out? So my sister is like, listen, if you get your masters in mass communication, first of all, that is not going to pay for shit. And secondly, this is as sacrilegious as marrying outside of your religion, like this is a love marriage from Bollywood, like leaving computer science to study communication studies. Are you crazy? One does not simply do that. Nobody in their life minds do that.

Oh my God, that doesn't give me. So she's like, dad is not going to pay. So you have to fund yourself. So why don't you just get into a PhD program, get your coursework, get leave with the masters, right? I'm like, cool, this sounds good. And I get to study something that I like, I get to live by myself. And I get to do this for free. So why not? Lo and behold, the program that I went to, you cannot get a master's, you have to get a PhD. So that's how I got my PhD now. And does that inspire you to take action towards your PhD?

I mean, it inspires me to, you know, follow my calling and have really cool elder siblings that, you know, come up with such great ideas. Like, I'm just blown away that she was just like, let's go talk to some professor. Yeah. That's such a boss move in my mind to enter your younger sibling to do that. Although she's very Walter Whitey. Let me just say that. Okay. I just see Pinkman in this relationship. I'm kidding. I just watched. Have you watched Breaking Bad? It's my favorite show of all that. I have watched it twice. Okay. Now here's the thing. I did not know about like, I knew about breaking, but I'm like, what is this violence? I don't want to watch it. Yeah. So I was getting bored this summer. And I'm like, I need, I need something to watch. So I watched Breaking Bad. And I watched it at like 1.25

speed, just like, blasting through this. I don't want to watch it on my phone. And then like season three comes around. I'm like, shit, this is amazing. I need to pay attention. So I have fast the entire show and then I did revision on that show again. So it's very much ingrained in my mind. I watched the final episode for the second time yesterday. Fairly enough. Pinkman Walter White thing is very much in my mind. I'm like, is my sister the Walter White in this relationship? Because she's like, you won this. You want to come to the US and I'm like, do why? Thank you so much for walking us through that really amazing journey that you just shared. That's quite incredible to especially get the context around where you were, what you were doing and how that, how you came to be doing what

you're doing currently. So even with immigration, after I got my PhD, then I went into being a professor. And I again did not want to be a professor. Seriously, I've been trying to quit education since class 12, if you've forgotten about that. But when I was there, I was like, let's have fun with it. You know, so I was a professor in communication studies. I taught my students complex interpersonal communication things with means. We did role playing activities. I cultivated this entire line of research on online dating, hookups, all of this, right? And that became my thing. And I did that till 2022, put it into high gear because my green card was attached to my professional growth. And that's the thrust of a doctoral and company to bring it back to and tie in little bow around the first question

that you had. What I do in a doctoral and company, it's educate immigrants on talent visas, particularly employment based priority one. And I've been through this journey. So I started sharing my story in 2022. But just like breaking bad, like I just got nerdy with it, like truly, truly nerdy. Like just before this call, how diabolically nerdy I am. I keep getting this question, I am X, can I qualify for this? And I'm like, listen, the weirdest professions qualify for this, somebody who's a circus performer applied for a talent visa, somebody who's a beatboxer applied for a talent visa. And you're telling me that your master's in data science cannot get you a talent visa, come on. And I'm like, it's, it's cool. Everybody can do it. But yeah, I just, I just got really nerdy with things that I enjoy. It's a problem.

Well, I would, you know, argue that maybe it's the opposite of that. Maybe I'm just projecting because I'm kind of the same way. When I finished Better Call Saul, which is a prequel to breaking bad. Don't tell me. Well, I was, I was just gonna say you, if you like breaking bad, you should 100% give that a shot. Everything that did really well on breaking bad, they kind of perfected that art. And really just went full throttle on all those things that, you know, work really well on breaking bad. So I leave that that my question to you, going back to your experience as a professor, and I'm really curious to know a couple of things.

On what level were you teaching personally? And can you talk a little bit more about like your work with communication, especially around the dating app stuff you mentioned because that just, you know, picked my curiosity a little bit. Yeah, again, remember how I told you everything good that has happened in my life, there was a concerted effort to not do it. That was the genesis of my research in my PhD days as well. And this was the first post that I made on LinkedIn, which went viral. So in 2014, there was my three years into a very high state PhD program. And I had not done a lot of research. It took my time really to grow because, I mean, I used to be very hard on myself. But upon reflection, I realized that the environment that I was put in probably was not ready to support where I was coming

from. So I was a bachelor's and master's in computer science. Everybody who was in the program can already knew the chops of communication and how to write a paper, et cetera. I didn't right, it took my time. But anyways, 2014, the director of the uni, the program calls me into his office and says, well, Aditi, the entire department has decided to fire you from the program. You have three months left, because your student assistantship is still on. But after the clock runs out, you have to pack your bats. And I was a cost. I was so shocked. Yeah, they said that you have not produced enough research, like you haven't shown the maturity and word for word I can tell you, they said that you don't have what it takes to bear the name of this university's PhD on you. I'm like, okay, all right. Have

you, have you ever been in a position where you sweat, but it's cold sweat, right? Like everything is a numb. And that's how I felt at that time. And this professor was like, well, you can fight this decision if you want, if you think that we have done it unfairly, et cetera. But that was the genesis of it all. Right. So I heard this news in May 14th, 2020, 2014, I still have that day asht in my memory. So between then to August end, I had to demonstrate that I had everything that it takes to be in this program to earn the right to be in the program. And at that time, I was taking a statistics course outside of my department. It's a sociology 800 level course on data. I don't know if you have word of this to this difficult program. It's kind of like our SPSS all of those. So I'm taking

a course on data. And the professor said you have to do a homework on a data set. And I'm like, I find which which data said do I find out? So I found out this data set called how couples meet and stay together. And it was a multi year, multi wave study. And I crossed the numbers on that data just for a college assignment. But the data was pretty cool. And I'm like, again, need to do something with this, right? Somehow when you're set an intention through desperation or whatever it is, your brain becomes a magnet. I'm convinced of that. Because what happened after that is a story, it's surreal to this date. So I remember going to a professor's office hours, and there was a poster on her wall saying 2000 word short research report for this journal called cyber psychology behavior and social

networking. I was like, listen, 2000 words, fine, let me just like apply it. And delulu is the solulu because this journal was like the top journal in cyber psychology. Me in my utter delusion to be like, you know what, screw it, I'm just gonna apply. And I wrote about 2000 word paper and I submitted it. Two months later, a month and a half later, I get a message from the journal saying your paper is accepted as is. I have a publication now, what are you saying? Like, I, and this is in a big journal. And I'm like, the best has happened. I'm so happy. I mean, I'm seeing hope, right, like I'm seeing some hope. And I thought that's as good as it gets. A couple of days later, after the paper comes out, I get an email from a guy called john who says that he's a reporter from Playboy. I'm

like, this has to be a scam. What is this? So john comes and says, Hi, Dr. Paul, I'm not a doctor yet. I'm still a PhD student. Hi, Dr. Paul, we saw this paper has come out on like how couples meet and stay together. Your data has showed that people who meet online are twice as likely to get divorced. We would like to interview you with there are like, you know, there are some couple of questions. I'm like, okay, completely convinced that this is some guy from some somewhere on the earth and like totally scamming me, but I'm rolling with it. Before you know it, the Washington Post is reaching out. Huffington Post is reaching out. NBC news is reaching out. I'm on iHeartRadio's interviews. Philadelphia Inquirer is quoting me. Shit is wild, right? And I'm like, what is happening? The paper

went viral. It was one of the top papers in the journal. And I was like, man, sir, something which was just an assignment to go this viral, let alone just being published what I was happy. But that gave me, that gave me the flavor of how cool research is going to be. Yes, it saved my ass for sure. That same professor came back. How petty? He's like, ask them to remove the PhD from your name because you're not a PhD yet. And I'm like, okay. And then they put me on their website as featured student featured, featured work. And I'm like, cool man. I see how it is. But yeah, that was the genesis of my interest in online dating as a viable area to do research, which could capture the sentiment of popular media so hard. I mean, I feel like you nailed the hammer on the head there, deludu is the soludu. There's

not something I've heard before. I have to say, I'm very tempted to just call our episode of that. Like I'll just try to tell you. But what was that like? I can't imagine what it would be like to suddenly be front and center across all of these, you know, big, big media slash publishing houses. What was that experience like? It was nothing, nothing sparked up my imposter syndrome quite like that success. Really? Yeah, because in me, I was listening to a professor say that nobody in the department thinks they're good enough.

And now you have this blockbuster of a hit. What what does your brain tell you? I don't deserve this. This is this is I'm a one trick pony. And this is and I was convinced of that for the longest time and it took me from 2014 to 2019, four years to work and gain that confidence. It was it was quite a journey because even if you have such a success, you can't undo the scars that are left from such a traumatic event. And I had to do a lot of inner work and a lot of outer work to undo that. And quite honestly, 2021 is when I realized I am a good researcher. This is after I got tenure at my professor job after I wrote a book, etc.

That's when I was convinced that, yeah, I think I can do this. And then I quit academia. Isn't that nice? Yeah, I bet that felt like, you know, I made it type moment. I think I do realize and something I want to call out is I think it is a really important point there about imposter syndrome and dealing with that lack of confidence. And I think that dove feels very nicely into a question that I wanted to ask you, which was like more largely around the immigrant experience as a whole. I feel like I for sure can relate to feeling like that. Like, I didn't even do half as anything as cool as you did. Like, but I found myself sat in a master's class at Purdue University in my first month here. And just, you know, as you said earlier, sweating those cold sweat droplets, thinking, am I good enough to be

here? Like, there are people surrounding me that are like, they just all seem so smart. And you know, almost intimidating, including the professors, I was just like, have I made a mistake? Am I even going to pass this? And I threw my interactions with other peers and, you know, other people that I interact with, I've learned that that's something that's unfortunately extremely common. So I guess my question to you is in all the work that you do with immigrants and your background specifically around psychology. What is something that you've learned about, you know, the psychology of immigration, like things that you've seen or noticed that most of us deal with, but that there isn't a lot of awareness around. And it would really help us to, you know, kind of know that and prepare for that

knowing that I have this deficit makes it really helpful in dealing with that, you know, because like, how can you deal with a problem that you don't even know it. So I know that, yeah, I don't know if that question makes sense, but are you willing to share anything on that at all? Boilermaker. That's me, right? Yeah. Boilermaker. Boiler up, hammer down. Boiler, you know, these Midwest schools need to chill the fuck out. I'm sorry, like they, they are so gung who on these like things like Sparta. That's all they have. And that's honestly what they have. Oh my God. I, my, you can't really can't. Because just this, I never realized what what tailgating is until I went to Michigan State. And that tailgating can be a cultural experience. I don't know if it, it's, it's on. But yeah, I mean, truly. But yeah, Boiler,

I like your colors like bold and black, right? Good. You said something. And there was a word that's not into what you just said. And I want to double down on that word. And that word is you, you, but in a good way, you said that I was a master student, I was sitting in my class and everybody seemed to be smarter than me. And we want to hunker down on that word seemed. There are two things that play over here, right? I mean, my background is in communication studies. And within that, like, communication is a pirate field, we say, which because it touches upon sociology, psychology, culture, etc. It's a very, it's a very unique combination to be Indian in the US, because the cultures are so different. There is this, man, I'm gonna, I'm going to be so nerdy. There's this professor slash researcher, his name is Garrett

Hofstad, G E R T H O F S D gear Hofstad. So he measured the culture of each country based on five factors. One of those factors, individualism versus collectivism, that's one. And the other factor is power distance, right? Culture is flat or if a culture has a higher power hierarchy, right? We come from a very collectivist high power distance culture, right? What that means is, first of all, we are taught to be very humble that our win is everybody's win. It's not my win, nothing me, it's there is no me in this, it's we. So that's the culture that we grew up in. And power distances, you have to be somebody, right? I see. For example, you were from a Birla school. I too was from a Birla school. But then there are Lamartini of folks, right? They are fancy or we are from CBSE board, like it's, it's a good day

when we, when we can speak one word of English, but then we have not been brought up on the Shakespeare's and everything. So there is a whole thing about status, there's a whole thing about humility. And now you've come to the US, which is very individualistic. My nephew who's born and raised over here, he is, he says things like, I'm really good at math. I'm like, you dwarf, like, what do you mean? You're really, which prod did you do you think you are? Because my, my knee jerk reaction is let me give him a very complex mathematical problem. He's going to stumble and I'm going to show him you're not the best, right? That's how we grew up because we're constantly challenged. We are constantly being asked to show our or cause, right? So that becomes very ingrained in us, no one. And now

you have uprooted yourself from that and you've come to the US, which is highly individualistic and it's extremely flat. And what I mean by flat is just because you're a professor, just because you're a researcher doesn't mean I cannot challenge you. So that that sense of authority is very, very low. So those, those factors kind of are so ingrained in us that we don't even understand that that's playing a role in it. That's why we ascribe a lot of authority to other people, right? Even if they're like, you know, but there's this real that goes around right now, my work, my brain works in reals, if you haven't realized, right? There's this real call, just because do you know that can't say.

So there is this real, which is like, which has tochar English up here, but it's smart to me, right? Like that. Somebody speaks very boisterous. Like, Oh my God, this person knows what they're talking about. Yeah, must be right, right? But American culture is very boisterous that way. It's a talk culture. There's a third aspect that I want to talk about culture is low context and high context. I'm being such a professor right now. Oh my gosh, I feel like honestly, this is great. So please please continue. Thank you. But yeah, Americans are low context, which means everything they do is with words. But Indians, we are high context, which because we are, we are, we are very non-verbally. That's where the head not even comes in, right? Like, Oh, yeah, like there's no, don't, don't take too much

load, right? Like we are a very like non-verbally. If we have to say thank you to somebody, we don't say thank you, we do it with like an extra power on their power energy. You know, we are supposed, we show our love like that. But you've come to a culture which is very individualistic, doesn't give a crap about authority and uses words. You're a, you're a person who is taught to be humble, who cannot for a life challenge authority because we are not taught to do that. And not do we have the, the, the cultural construct to do it.

And third, we are not used to saying and speaking so much. We're not a talk based culture. It's just how we work. So when you put those two things together, now that's a recipe for a lot of mind fuckery. Pardon my friends, but it is. And it's not as easy as just popping a pill and undoing all of that. It takes gradually, it takes time just like your accent changes over time, right? Or just like you understand miles over kilometers or Fahrenheit over Celsius.

It's an internal rewiring that you have to go to and it has to be very, very conscious. So to your point, what are some of those things that's holding us back? Or what is it that we need to do? You don't have to do anything. First of all, you just have to accept it as it is. And then you have to adapt, not, not losing your inner core, but understanding that this is, this is the environment that you're in. That's what I would say.

People call out on that really amazing analysis you put out there. I can relate to what you said about the authority piece because at least for my first six months dealing with academia or professors, I had to bite my tongue because I was so close to calling people sir every time. I was like, there is no sir here. Like, you know, there is nobody that I need to refer. It's weird straight up to refer to like, I did that a couple times and the professor looked at me like, what are you doing bro? You know, don't do that. So, but you're right. Like, that is how deeply it is ingrained in us to almost seek authority even in places where it's just unnecessary. So, yeah, really like that call out. The other thing that I guess jumped out to me was what he said around the only thing that we can

do realistically is accept. So I guess the tool slash hacker aficionado in me is like people that have higher levels of self awareness. Would you say that they would they might do slightly better in terms of, you know, like avoiding some of these pitfalls when it comes to accepting that they are in fact, wherever they are due to their merit, they deserve to be there. There is no impossible stuff going on. Or do you think that's it doesn't play that big of a part, you know, as it does in my head. So you asked a question about self awareness, which tells me that you are very self aware to even ask this question. So I would ask this question back to you that have you seen instances in your life? Can you do a compare and contrast between you? You know what? Like, I think I think you consider yourself

as a self aware person. So how would you contrast your behavior with somebody who clearly in your in your eyes is not self aware? How does that behavior differentiate way to put me on this part here? But I guess the first thing that comes to mind is I feel like there's almost like there needs to be a voluntary effort to reflect. And I think a lot of people don't see the value in doing that, which is fine. But I do so I'm the type of person that just I don't know just by nature. I'd like to at the end of the day, just think, just sit and think like what happened? What did how did I deal with a certain scenario? What could I have done better? And in doing so, at least in my first few, I would say years in the US, I've only been here four years. So nothing crazy. But yeah, after the first one and one

and a half years, I felt I felt like I had it figured out that like my biggest learnings were everything here works on, you know, PR marketing is at the core of every single interaction, relationship person, literally you name it, it's built on marketing, like it's the bedrock of, you know, American society. And yeah, once I realized that obviously things became easier, I, you know, you can, you know, you become the shape of the vessel you're in really is just a goal after a point. And when you don't have to do that, like when I'm just hanging out with my Indian friends, I can be Indian. So it's almost that weird tool identity situation that comes up that I'm okay with knowing why I do that and being cognizant of the fact that I do that. But having said that, I do realize that if somebody

is not taking the time to think and has more clearly, you know, like other nicer things to think about, they might suddenly find themselves at that crossroads and struggle and be like, why am I doing this? Why am I behaving separately with my boss and my roommate? Where is that coming from? Why does that all make sense. Your question was, does being self aware help? Now whatever you have described so far seems like being self aware is a lot of work. Does an average person want to do work? Probably not. Not a lot of people want to do work. Self awareness is a pain and a bone in and of itself. So what I would say is self aware is good if you can put up with the work. But there is a reason why people say ignorance is bliss.

If you turn a blind eye, you don't have to do the work. It doesn't exist. If you if you shut your eyes, everything disappears. But you have to have that courage. You have to have that willingness. You have to have that drive to say, listen, this is different. I see there is a disconnect and I want to bridge it. And that requires work. And unfortunately, we don't want to do that work. So yeah, self awareness helps, but it comes with a price. There's a lot of yarn that I just know. I'm just trying to really just take a couple of seconds to, you know, have what you've just said, sink in because again, and this is only like my 15th episode. But I have to say, none of them have really been, you know, even as I'm just saying, I've never felt more engaged while recording.

I really feel this 14 go and get stuck it. This is how you do it. Come on. One out of 14, 100 100 percent. I did it. But I do I do want to acknowledge how wonderfully you've put that and I am so tempted to ask you, I know we're like 38 minutes into the conversation, but if you can tell me how did you realize America is a PR machine? Fun fact, I didn't know about this one of my friends told me that propaganda is a concept started in the US. I and the the the the Sainer's sister of propaganda is PR and media and marketing.

I'm very well aware of that. But I'm curious, like in four years, how did you catch on to that? What what was what was some of the what led you to get this insight? I'm very interested in that. That is such a great question. I feel like there were we can think of these things as pillars, I would say. So as any mid 20s young adult person, I was at the time seeking interpersonal relationships and a big driver to, you know, this realization was my interaction with not just American people, especially like mostly American people, but also other immigrants in America. So is this an online dating question? No one be be honest.

What is the seeking interpersonal relationships coming from be honest? It wasn't just off the dating nature. It was also more of, you know, seeking friendship, companionship. You know, you name it, but yeah, it falls under that umbrella. I mean, yeah, right. So really what it felt like was I was in this big playground. There were a lot of kids there. Nobody knew what they were doing, except there were a few kids that looked like they had it figured out. And I made friends with them. And I just really picked their brains like straight up harassed them for a long time until they divulged things that then I added together and came to this conclusion that, you know, you know, like the whole PR thing. And then I used to go grocery shopping. I used to see how everybody wakes up sits in their little car, rides themselves

to their work, heads down, works all day, comes back in their car, having spent days, weeks, months without talking to a single other person. You know, like the means we live in a society, but is it a society really? You just kind of by yourself, you know, like this people around you, but it doesn't concern you in any way. And what drives that, like, how does that person know how to behave like that? It is, as you said, individualism, but a lot of times that is informed. And the, you know, fuel, I feel like that keeps it throbbing is, you know, that marketing or PR, like put on your airports, you don't need to talk to anybody. If somebody says hi in the bus, what it looks like, they're trying to make eye contact, just look down on your phone, focus on your TikTok. There's way more important

things going on there. So I don't know if that answers your question. It's very hard question to answer if I'm being honest, but yeah, those are at least a couple of really big pillars that kind of made me see the light. Yeah, interesting, interesting. Yeah, it's really boils down to perception, right? How does the other person see me? How do they do? How do I want them to see me? And yeah, really good observation on the hope airport thing.

I used to think it was a very American thing, but then I went to Singapore in 2016. And oh my gosh, like you go to a subway, nobody is making any eye contact. Everybody is glued to their phone. And I'm like, what is happening? It's it's a it's a global phenomenon. So just as an act of rebellion, when I'm traveling in the subway, I will just stare at people. There is it is not a surprise that I don't have too many friends, because stuff like that.

I know in India recently, did you have a similar experience in India as well? Would you say that? Is it like a Western thing? I don't know if we can classify Singapore as the West. Maybe we can arguably. But did you see any difference in India or has India fallen? I didn't travel on public transportation. That's the first thing I didn't like really get a chance to see. But I mean, just being on the phone is such a universal thing right now. So yeah, I cannot comment on that. But yeah, India is always great. I mean, I go to India, every every opportunity I get, I'm going to do rapprochered this time also.

Me too, actually, funnily. I'll be there in October. Me too. All right, we'll talk about this offline. But yeah, getting back to the podcast. Yeah, so I guess I kind of wanted to tie in with a little bit about your expertise on the E.B.1. So to just quickly kind of go over that whole can of worms, so to speak. So from my very limited understanding, what I understand about it is that there's three categories. The first would be if you're if you've been a manager outside the US and then you come here and you're eligible. The second I believe is if you have research slash teaching experience for at least three years, I believe.

And then the third, which is the most interesting to me is that if you have an extraordinary talent. So yeah, a couple of questions there. I know you are the holder of an of an E.B.1. So which category of these three was it that got you yours? And are you willing to speak a little bit on the third category that I referenced, which is the extraordinary ability. What exactly does that mean? And I know you referenced that briefly earlier when you said that if somebody has the data, data science background, that's pretty extraordinary, they might be eligible. And if so, why is there such less awareness about it? Because I only really heard of this from interactions with you, actually, on your LinkedIn. So I know lots of questions bundle into one as I am prone to doing in case you haven't noticed.

But yeah, if you don't mind humoring me. Yeah, yeah. First of all, you think that you are late into the game. But if it makes you feel any better, I got to know about E.B.1. Maybe five years into the US. Yeah, so like around that time as well. So you're right on time or early, if anything. The first thing that I do want to again go back to is I did not want to do this again, running a running script in my life. But before I tell you about the specifics of E.B.1, your audience should know why should they care about this, right? Like what is this thing? Yeah, I'm assuming, right, it might be wrong. But I'm assuming that a majority of your audience was listening to this is born in India, are in the US or want to come to the US or their family members, which is completely fine as well. My family

members listen to me a lot. They don't need a podcast. But I will ask them to support your podcast. There go five of my views. But my mom is also the biggest troll, by the way, like she went to Facebook and she again complete sidetrack of E.B.1. Total ADHD happening right now. But my I go to Facebook and one of my friends, she's like, have you seen what auntie has posted? And I'm like, what has she posted? Oh my gosh. So there are these by the way, Facebook live for our general for my dad and mom's generation is our insta reels. They are on Facebook live and like all those videos. It is I am telling you. But my mom goes to this mukbang video where this kid keeps like shoving food into her mouth. She's a fairly young woman. And my mom puts a comment saying in Bengali, she says that don't your parents

told you like what kind of parents do they have? And I'm like, why are you trolling this kid? And she said the most interesting thing, she's like, I'm telling it for her own good. So it was like Salah Dayna for her, right? It's not even trolling. She's like, I'm telling her the right thing. And then in some other persons, she's cooking the video and she's she low-fying the garlic or ginger a certain way. And she my mom comments, I was like, you know, if you do it this way. And I'm like, please, can you stop all my friends?

That's wholesome though. I mean, you know, it's so nice. It gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling just hearing. Yeah. So she might come to your podcast. I'll be like, naman, you know what, that one painting at the back should be on the top left hand corner side. So don't be amazed if you get that broken. If that happens because God knows I spent, and I won't mention how many hours, but a lot of time in that particular setup. So, but if you don't want your heart ripped, you don't want my parents to listen to this podcast, any who's in. I again did not did not want to do an EB1, but I should say that people who are born in India, who are in the US, who are planning to come to the US, you need to understand what's at stake. Because the US immigration system is like the ultimate

hurdle race. It will put so many hurdles in front of you that it makes you short-sighted. Because think about it, when we come to the US, even when we get an admit from a university, like Japak, F1, Hathmani, Hathmani, Japakmavu, Katare, Lanki, Tikitna, Kartlu, Yohapina, Ajo, it's not real, right? So once you get your F1, you're like, okay, fine, I'm here. And then comes OPT. And then comes H1B. So every single time you have so many hurdles, and there are so many ways in which this can go wrong, that you don't even think about the future. Because the common sentiment in your generation, naman, who have been here for four years, for five years, is like, yeah, I'm living Yolo, Tikit, like, you know, what permanent resident in the US, which a Patani, I want to live here for the long haul or not,

I want to pack my bags and leave. I want to be in Bali for three months and like harvest coconuts if I want to. I'm not dying to be a permanent resident in the US. I get that. I totally get that. But you have to separate your desire for being in the US. And you have to focus on your safety in being in the US. And you have to focus on your ambition of being in the US. If visas like a STEM, OPT, et cetera, would allow me to live my life unobstructed in the US with as much liberty as I need, I would have given a shit about EV one, quite honestly speaking, my mother, you know, people, permanent resident, but I do not want to come to the US, right? I'm being very real, very honest, very upfront with you. Because I've heard this so many times from people who are like, man, I mean,

I don't even want to be in the US with a long haul. Why? Why think about a permanent residence? You're not, you're not thinking about this, right? It's almost like, why would I even go to the gym? I don't want to have muscles. Well, do you want to avoid the off chance of you getting a disease that could be the detriment to your health? Well, no, then you might want to work out one or two times at the gym. It's the same thing. So EV one is your route to being a permanent resident in the US, because you will see that at some point in your immigration journey, you're going to feel the pain and I hope you do. I hope you feel the pain. The pain is either going to come from you getting laid off. You want him to switch the company because you have outgrown this company or

you don't like your toxic workplace. You're going to get in line for a green card and then you're going to see that, Oh my gosh, it's 140 years. All my friends that come with me are already citizens and have opened our companies and I am still proper to be allowing for H1B. It's going to hurt. And I hope it does hurt because that's going to give you the impetus to do something about it. That's where EV one came into my life because I was a professor living a good enough life in in New York City. For that matter, again, I'm in Jersey City. I'm not in New York City, but I used to work in New York City. It's a very important distinction to me because people are going to come on my throat. But I was at my job and things started turning very sour in 2019. I could not just pack up my bags

and leave because I was on an H1B and I was not just on an H1. We're not going to get into too much too much into it. It was a non transferable H1B. The only way that I could move was to another university and New York City is as good as it gets. I'm not going to teach in the boonies of central Missouri. I'm sorry. Like I don't I don't love teaching that much. I'd rather be in a city in in India. But 2019, there came a time and the incidents happened where I'm like, I can't be in this professorship job, but I can't believe because my H1B is attached to them. My my green card has been applied, but it's going to take a hundred years for me to get it, which means I'm going to see Yamaraj before I see the face of a green card. So what do I do? That's when I took EB1 very seriously because EB1

is a priority pass to get your green card. If you think about it, you have given the one stands for first preference. So if there is a bucket full of green cards available, you are the first people to get dips on it. If something is left, then it goes to the second category. Something is left and it goes to the third category. And shit hit the fan in 2020, right? You know, how in breaking bad like season three, there's a time where Walter White, it's that inflection point where he is an absolute drop in like he has reached the fringes of morality. And now he's going to the dark side. That's an inflection point.

That was the inflection point in 2020 in my life. When COVID hit and one of my friends father passed away and he had to see the cremation of his father on WhatsApp because he could not travel to India and his green card was still pending. I did not want that for me. I was adamant in me not wanting to settle for the fact that I either choose my profession that I've worked very hard for, or I have to choose my family that is not fair. If Samantha and Jordan is not being asked to make this choice, neither should Aditi. And the only way that I could get out of this was qualify for EV1 despite all the hurdles. So even before I tell you a checklist of EV1, I need you to know the motivation behind it. Because a lot of people, when you're talking about awareness about EV1, I want them to be aware

of the hurdles. That actually explains so much. Especially what you said around, it almost sounds like it's akin to an insurance like you hope you don't need it almost. Maybe that's not the best analogy. But you don't need it. I say that all the time. Over here, you have insurance, you have health insurance, you have home insurance. What about that insurance based on which everything else in your life is existing? Because everything exists on your immigration status. Have you ever given it a thought? Right? And people will say things like, maximum Kiahi Hoga. Right? You know, Chali Jayangi India, I'm sorry, what? Even if I go to India, which I will and I have, it has to do with my terms. So you have to have that certain level of self respect to want to do this. It's not because, see, as

Indians, we have a very figured out mentality, the Jugar mentality, right? Push comes to show we have been fighting to become the top of anything since we were two years old, right? Our little heads have been shoved into tuition classes. Right? Since we were like, we started saying a so we have been built and programmed to be and beat the crowd and be ahead of the curve anyway. We're going to figure this out. That's not a problem. Right? Hard work has never been the problem for us Indians. And I don't even have to know you personally to know that you're a hard worker. The problem is priority and the problem is awareness. Like, why should you do it? And how should you do it? That's it. Once you figure that out, you're going to figure out the what? Yeah. And also you point around, you know, doing

coconut farming in Bali, you can do that. Like it's not like getting an EB1 prevents you from doing that. But as you said, you do that on your own terms and there's a huge difference between those two scenarios. So is it really hard to get it? Like, you know, very don't even try. It's a lost cause. And I mean, you will never get it. If that's see, if you're a psychology, please, I hope you really try. No, yeah, every people can do EB one yard. And I'm so you are the right person to talk to about this, because you have figured out the true fabric of the American society. That is PR, PR and marketing. Right?

Right. Like, for example, this podcast, if today you decide to claim that you're a person of extraordinary ability in podcasting, I could do that. First of all, what you can, but I wouldn't suggest you do. It is doable. Yeah. What's your, what's your, what's your profession? What do you do? I'm a senior business analyst. So stem, stem, stem guy. Okay. So if you have to dumb it down, not dumb it down, I would say just if I have to, if you have to consider us charge GPT and I just give you the prompt to simplify this for me. What would you answer me? Yep. So I work in commercial real estate. I work in the center of excellence that sits on top of all the other verticals being, you know, brokership, taxation, whatever. And where I come in is I help people automate their job. So if you're doing something like a civil

chair email, operations that take you four hours to do every week, I'll come in teach you how to make a bot that does that in two seconds. Thereby, returning four hours every week to your life for the foreseeable future. Is that does that help? Wow. That was a little too coherent than I care to admit. Okay. But you're like, it's good. It's good. So your job is to save people time and money by automating jobs for them. Exactly. Yeah. Right. Now it sounds like you know, dal job will times like, you know, yeah. I'm just I'm just saying no, just a tech bro. Just any other tech bro. Any other, any other tech bro, right? Like that's what you do, because you're one of many, right? It does not sound very extraordinary if you just say that. But now you have to paint the picture as is. So you have to peel

it back, right? You have to say, okay, like you automate. Why care about automation? Do it before and after, right? Before automation, what happened? How much money were people spending? How many hours did they have? How many manpower did they have? What kind of jobs were being compromised? Right? What is the productivity? What is the impact on US economy? You have to draw that picture. Then you say, see, now I automate. Let me show you how I automate. And by the way, the job that I do, the automation job that I just told you about, I have gotten recognition from these other people. And because I have so much expertise in that people in my field have also asked me to judge the quality of their work.

You have an eB1 narrative now. And this podcast may or may not count because it's not aligned to automation. Whereas if you're doing a podcast on automation and you get folks to talk about automation and that podcast, Garner's readership, listenership of $160,000 from 11 countries, and somebody listened to something in that podcast, got that insight and did something about it, thus creating impact with something that you generated, that's impact. Now you can use a podcast. It's as simple as that. I love like, it actually took me a while to understand that you were actually this whole time answering my questions. Because at first, I was like, well, why this is not about me? Why is she drilling down on what I do? But yeah, I feel like I know exactly what happens or what one needs to do for an eB1 now.

So you're saying that I can mix and match those three categories that I reference. It doesn't have to just come from one of them. There's this ability that I have to kind of combine forces. Is that am I right in assuming that? Absolutely. You have to be creative. It's as much about hard work as it is about creative work. You have to see opportunities. You have to be able to spot opportunities. You have to be able to create opportunities. And you're already doing that number. Nobody asked you to start a podcast, you did it on your own accord.

And if I have to pinpoint what are those top three traits of somebody who who's going to be a successful eB1 candidate, like I said, self starter, you have to be a self starter. And you're doing that, you're already showing signs of that. So I would highly encourage you to pursue it. And what do you have to lose? Absolutely. Yeah. Hold on. I have to show you something. Give me one second. Can you see? Yeah. I got his book and I read his book. That's how big of a nerd I am because I was like, I need to know this man. I need to how was it? Gosh, this guy, I am telling you, can you see the number of like things that I have bookmarked? It's so, it's so amazing, right? It's so amazing. He said something, he's just so much in love with the work that he does, right? Like he talks about how he's always

been. Now, this is a breaking bad podcast. Okay, this is not an eB1 podcast. This is not an other default podcast. This is not an important podcast. This is a breaking bad podcast. But yeah, I was so enamored by Brian Cranston because he is his acting is so impeccable. And when I saw the interviews, like the one sentiment that I got from his all of what he was saying is that he just loves what he does. Breaking Bad was not his first break. He has been an acting actor since he was 25 years old and he was doing all of this other stuff. Breaking Bad was him being a celebrity.

That's very different. But yeah, I just I just love him so much. It's the name of the book is a life and parts. And he talks about the different roles he has played in his life. And it's been very therapeutic for me because probably this is the last thing that I'll say on your podcast is when you when I look at other friends, how they have lived very monolithic lives, right? Like they got a degree, they got a job in that they they have to climb the ladder to become a director in that very, very aligned, like very straightforward. And then I look at my life and I'm like bachelors and masters in computer science used to MC shows in India became an entertainment host was a professor and now a business owner beach me there was a UX research and we're like, what am I doing? Yeah, we can do cover the entertainment but I can't believe you're

bringing it up now. Why would you do that? It was it was it was very cool. I really like I like performing arts, but this this book kind of gave me solace knowing that life can be lived in parts. Wow. I feel like really we could just keep, you know, going I, you know, I'm still like my brain is swimming in questions that I would love to get your take on. But in terms of the time today, I know we had a fixed agenda and I, with respect to your time, I think stick to that. So it's been such an absolute delight talking to you, listening to your experiences and learning from you.

Not to say the probably biggest, you know, takeaway for me was I did not realize coming into this podcast that I would be tempted seriously tempted to consider the EB one route, you know, just having known that it exists. The fact that you were so effectively able to convey to me that it's not just like a, you know, pie dream, it's truly and well available for anybody that's willing to put in the work, I think has been my biggest takeaway from this. So thank you so so much for taking the time and for doing all the amazing work that you do for not just immigrants, but really all the lights to touch with, you know, spreading awareness about EB one and, you know, yeah, just being you just being your authentic and, you know, naysayer to experiences and then

doing those same exact things person in the, you know, the person that you are. So thank you so, so much. Thank you so much, Naman. You've, you're going to be more serotonin and dopamine than I can handle. So thank you for that. I appreciate it. But in great job, great job on the podcast. Thank you for having me and I'm wishing you all the love. That brings us to the end of episode 19 of the ready set do podcast. I'd like to thank each and every one of you for sharing these conversations with those that continue to benefit from them. As always catch you all in the next one new episodes every Wednesday.