My Most Vulnerable Podcast Episode

I realized that this might be the most vulnerable episode I've ever done. Dad of 1 to suddenly double promotion, dad of 3, right? It's become like a series of eventful milestones or twists and plot twists. I call Liam my perspective kid. He's given me a lot of perspective about life and about what really— what is the definition of hard, right? He gives me a lot of that. Nothing I'll do in my life will be as hard as anything he's done in the first 6 months of his life.

Hello, hello. Welcome back to another very, very special podcast episode of the Build in Public podcast, where I'm your host today, Andrew. And I have another wonderful privilege of interviewing the original creator and host of the show, KP, as a way to to reflect on a very pivotal and meaningful year that KP had. Thank you for being on this show to share about your experiences, KP.

Andrew, look, I have to thank you, man. You know, you're being extremely kind and modest to me, and it is truly my privilege to You know, have a host like you come back and you know a friend like you more than a host. I wanted to. The design I had in my mind was it's been a year, right? Since my since my last episode, it's been like you said a very pivotal year. Some of you already know with with so many things that have been going on in my life, and I thought if I had to, you know, but there's this desire, the burning desire in my heart still like about. Coming back on the podcast. And this is a lifelong passion. I feel like I'll— we talked about this last time too. I want to do this for 10 years, 20 years. So I thought, how do I come back? And it— because of the heaviness of the year that I had, it felt like the climb back to the track, the normal track, was so hard. And I was just having a lot of self-doubt and just, you know, just feeling out of touch, out of sync with everything, you know. And I thought, who, how can I come back? And I thought of you, like, this is the friend who can help me, give me a hand and pick me up and bring me back on track because you do it with love, you do it with grace. And I thought, okay, you know, if I can do a solo episode or if I can do an interview with somebody else where I'm like interviewing about, you know, founder things, maybe it's a great, you know, it's a great idea to bring Andrew as the host and bring me back. So I can reflect on my year and then kind of dust off some of the blues and some of the heaviness and then just get going from here. So I'm grateful. And I just, as I said, like, that was the intent of inviting you.

Thank you for sharing that back too. It's an honor. And I mean, for listeners who maybe are not as Attuned to or know what's been happening for you last year and things going on. I was thinking maybe we could start from October 8th of last year. I know that's when you, um, and your wife Devin gave birth to Theo and Liam. Um, would you like to share with the world, starting from that point, what has been What has happened in your life? What has been the sequence of events?

It's crazy. It's actually August 8th, and August 8th, 2024 was the birthday of 2 of our twins, the boys. And so some of you, you've probably just tuned in after a year of hearing from me. This might be news, which I went from being a dad of one, you know, Neil, he's our oldest, right? He's about to be 4 now. So dad of one to suddenly double promotion, dad of 3, right? So this is shocking to us when we found out in ultrasound that it's not just one, we're gonna have twins. We found out 2, 3 months ago, 3, 4 months before delivery, obviously. And we, I think within a month we found out the gender too. So I was stunned. Like I went from a dad of one boy to dad of three boys, which is insane. And so yeah, August eighth, that was was the day they were born last year. There's so much that happened. You know, I feel like my life has become like a series of eventful milestones or twists and plot twists and things like that. It's just unbelievable. I feel like I've said this a couple times. In the past, and I thought that was the dramatic aspect. And now I'm like, no, no, like this. There's so much drama. So they were supposed to be born September. So they were born six weeks early, which is insane. So they were premature six weeks early. I remember packing the go bag that night, you know, the the night of August seventh. I actually had a stand-up meeting at Paddle, and then somebody, one of my team members at Paddle, asked me. KP, how pregnant is your wife? Like, how many weeks is left? And I'm like, so confidently telling them, no, no, we got so much time. We're already in August. We got time until September 2nd week. You know, due date's not now yet. We got this. I was telling them we were doing a product launch at one of the initiatives at Pato. And I said, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna own that launch. We're gonna crush this. It's gonna happen next, you know, next week or something. And the funny thing was somebody mentioned I think it was Jess or one of my teammates. She mentioned you can never like really put a number on, like you can really never predict when the babies can be born, right? Which I was like, you know, the man in me is like, what are you talking about? Right? Of course, I've never been pregnant. How do I know? But sure enough, that night I packed the bag and we were, you know, just thinking like, yeah, just for a month later, we'll be ready if need be. We'll put the bag in the car. You never know. And I went to bed and my wife woke me up. And this is like 1:15 or 2 o'clock, I think, in the night, uh, early morning of August 8th. And she said, my water broke, we have to go to the hospital. Like, there's no— it's just no other chance, they're just coming out. And I was like, what? You know, I told my team where I'm gonna be there for next week's Product Hunt launch. You know, just kidding. And I texted them saying like, guys, you know, I have to start my paternal leave. And so that's when I started to leave. So anyway, I went there and I drove her to Emory Hospital. Actually, that's where I got this mug from. And yeah, and they were, I think within 4 or 5 hours, they were born. It was a C-section and it was wild. Again, a C-section is a pretty big deal surgery, but she recovered really well. The boys, you know, came out and I was just in a state of awe. You know, I was getting to hold them and getting to see them and, you know, Liam and Theo. Unbelievable. So Leo, actually Theo was born first and 4 minutes later Liam was born, as in, you know, taken out of. And so technically Theo is our second kid. And Liam is our youngest, and Theo is like the brother. We joke about this all the time because, you know, he's like literally a twin, but, you know, he has the attitude of like, I'm the big brother, when you look at like Liam. Um, but yeah, Liam is our littlest one, and we love him, and he's just, you know, he's just a phenomenal gift. All of them are, but yeah.

Hmm. Thank you for sharing. And would you want to share about, you know, what was going to be a really joyful day for the family? You know, I can imagine when you and Devin imagined having these twins, just imagine them, you know, be able to give birth, maybe bring them home. And start a life together. You know what? What was what eventually transpired

that day? I think the there was a prelude to this because you know while they were doing sort of some tests and ultrasounds a couple months before birth, they you know identified that. One of our twins, which we didn't know at the time who it's going to be, has a congenital heart disease, a severe and advanced congenital heart disease, which basically means like a birth, you know, they basically have this at birth. And the specific one that they told us is HLHS, right? HLHS is hypoplastic left heart syndrome. And first of all, I never even heard about this, you know. So as you can imagine, I was like shocked. We were riding the highs of finding out that we're going to have twins and we have all these decorations planned and we had all these like, you know, baby showers planned and we were busy with that. And then one of those medical visits we had, we, you know, I was there with Devin when the doctor came out and he sort of looked concerned and I was like, what's going on? And he said, like, you know, unfortunately you have to go to a bigger facility because they have to do extensive testing because what we feel, the preliminary testing we did, I think we think that it's HLHS. So you have to go to the bigger CHOA, which is the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta facility, which is a huge, huge hospital system that they recommended we go to. We went there and then of course they confirmed that yes, you know, one of the babies does have VHLHS. So what it really means is, you know, so for healthy normal human beings, we have the heart and heart's got— the heart's got 2 ventricles, right? Left ventricle, right ventricle. So each ventricle basically is doing the job of pumping blood to parts of the body. Right? And it's basically like it works like a pump, right? It just squeezes and releases, squeezes. So when you squeeze, the blood like goes everywhere, releases, the blood comes back. Now, and heart and lungs work in conjunction, right? Because lungs send the oxygenated blood, right? Because lungs add the oxygen from like our breath, takes, you know, adds the oxygen To our blood and becomes the rich oxygenated blood, which is really, really what our cells and organs need, right? Let's say our kidney. Our kidney just doesn't need blood, it needs the rich oxygenated blood. So it has to basically be blood that's rich, very rich in oxygen. And so that's what lung does. And then heart just basically squeezes it and transfers that through arteries through and gets to the specific organs. So in the case of HLHS, what happens is the left ventricle is severely underdeveloped. So, you know, it's almost like 5% present as opposed to the full structure. So it's a structural abnormality, you know, and there's really no reason why this happens. You know, she had a very normal, straightforward pregnancy, Devin, and we had the same— we went through everything we did with Neo the same way. It's nothing. It's nothing about lifestyle, nothing about sort of anything. If you Google this too, like we were Googling a lot too. Like it's just you know it's one of those heart defects that just happens, right? And so we were shocked. And so let me finish the technicality of here. So the the effects of this. So if you have HLHS, what happens to the left heart left heart ventricle, like I said, is Much smaller, so it doesn't really function as effectively. And the real use case or the real function of left heart ventricle, left ventricle of the heart, is to squeeze and pump blood for the rest of the body, right? All the organs like your kidneys and your brain and all of the rest of the body organs, they wait for the blood coming from the left ventricle. And the right one pumps it to the Lungs. So they divide the jobs that way, right? And in the case of hypoplastic, which is much smaller left ventricle, it just doesn't really, you know, it can't function. So the left ventricle has to do the job of both the ventricles, which is crazy, you know. So when it squeezes, most of the blood goes to lungs as it normally would. And then whatever's left, you know, goes to the rest of the body. So the rest of his body is always at risk of not getting enough oxygenated blood because it's depending on just one ventricle. And so the way it manifests in symptoms or the way you see it is his toes and fingers and like organs and like, you know, brain, like kidneys, whatever, all of these like belly digestion, all of these functions Especially, it shows up in oxygenation, you know, levels, right? So, they call it saturation levels. Oxygen saturation is the technical word, which is basically a pulse ox. If you put a pulse ox and you'll see, you and I would have 100, right, Andrew, or 99 typically. That means that the percentage of oxygenated blood that's here at this tip is 100% or 99%. Right. In his case, it'll be like 65%, you know, and that's problematic because the organ will shut off after a certain threshold. So, you know, that's the symptoms. And so basically, like, you know, his organs can shut off and, you know, it can be a severe thing. We were shocked, we were devastated, and we were like, we know what to do. We know we never heard anyone having this. I've— the closest thing I can think of is like I had someone as like one of my extended family members had a what they called hole in the heart, which I don't know the technical term for that, but it was resolved. It was fixed when it was a surgery right after birth. And so, you know, we were devastated, shocked. We didn't know what would happen. So our biggest question was like, What what can be done? You know, in terms of yes, we got the diagnosis, but like in terms of cure or care, and they basically pointed us to this research about these three surgeries that have to happen to correct and adjust the blood flow. And I'm again so stunned, and at the time I couldn't believe that this is real. I couldn't believe that this is this can even be done, or this is like even possible. Because I almost thought like for almost two months I went into shock and denial, and you know almost like a very heavy like why is this why is this happening to me to our family what have I done wrong or it was just a very rough patch. I put on a brave face not not even a brave I put on like a normal just a I'm okay kind of neutral face. At work and everywhere. And I just kind of was hoping like somehow, I don't know, this was like, I felt like a nightmare. You know, it was like, oh, I was hoping somehow this would just disappear. I was thinking maybe some of the later ultrasounds would like show us that this would be an anomaly and like, no, sorry, that was a misdiagnosis. No, it's actually normal. And, you know, It didn't happen, and the other twin, you know, didn't have anything. So we just even baffling. His heart was completely healthy, normal. All the functions we talked about were completely normal, and it was only one twin. And anyway, so long story short, that twin, you know, happened. We we eventually named the twin Liam, right? That boy, Liam Pavan. And oh my God! I think he's such a warrior now. He's where. 7 months in the journey. The HLHS treatment essentially involves 3 major surgeries, open heart surgeries. And the first one is within like 10, 15 days. So the first surgery happened within 14 days. And the next surgery happened a month ago from when we were talking now. So actually end of End of February. Yeah, February 24th, the second surgery. And he was— both of them were successful. And, you know, he showed so much resilience and so much, you know, grit and sort of gave me a lot of faith that, you know, we can navigate this difficult chapter. And right now, as we speak, frankly, I don't feel those many strong emotions around like fear and like, you know, the heaviness. Because I think as we get through this now, I'm like living in the reality, no longer like worrying about the future reality. I'm just like sort of living in it, so it doesn't feel that sort of crazy and scary. But the last 7 months have been quite the ride, you know. So, so that's what happened, you know. So Theo is, you know, the— like I said, the second kid, completely normal. This is how Theo looks now. I'm going to show you a picture. That's Theo, and this is how Liam looks now. Look at this champion. He greets me every day.

Wow!

You know, with that smile. He's still in the hospital. He's still in the ICU as we speak. We're speaking today's March seventh. Yeah, he's still in the ICU recovering from the last surgery. He's having a slow recovery, but I want to talk about the surgeries and the kind of like impact they had about. Things in a second with you, uh, but I wanted to show you one more thing which I think is really, really important. Um, this was the day— this was the day he went into the first surgery, 14 days after birth. And look at how small he was. Remember I told you that there's— both the twins were 6 weeks, um, early. So 14 days means they were like 4 weeks early than due date, and they were like so tiny. I forgot the weight, but it was not probably more than 4 or 5 pounds. And look at how many machines he had around him. This is the ICU, and he had a ventilator, breathing tube in his— down his throat. And it was so scary. And, you know, he just— he's so resilient. And the kid, you know, dude, I'm— again, God is great. I feel like, you know, it's renewed my faith in God and the universe. And this was him. This is him for the second surgery, right? So it's called Glenn. The surgery is called Glenn. And this first one is called Norwood. And my favorite part is him. This is literally a few minutes away before him as they were wheeling him into surgery. That is the expression he had, you know? And I'm like, that's peak. You know, courage in my books. And so I call Liam my perspective kid. He's given me a lot of perspective about life and about what really— what is the definition of hard, right? Um, he's— that's— he gives me a lot of that every day.

So, hmm, can you share more about that? I know you talked about— I mean, podcast listeners who have heard you before would know that You're somebody who has a great zest and optimism, optimism for life, has a deep foundational belief around grit, perseverance, resilience that was already part of your being. But what is something going through this especially Being there with Liam, witnessing him on this, on this 7-month journey, what are new layers of those lessons that you were able to, to learn, those new perspectives? I'm curious.

I think, um, first thing that comes to my mind is he raised the ceiling. He raised the ceiling of what, um, you know, uh, like perseverance means to me. Right? Like, I think before him, before that episode, or before that chapter in my life, I thought I was like, you know, on a scale of 0 to 10, I was like maybe 7 in my mind. Like, I'm like perseverant, perseverance-wise. I'm like, yeah, I'm like 7. Most people are like maybe 3. I'm just kidding. But like, I thought like I'm way higher because even my childhood was sort of difficult in the perspective of You know, like being born in a very humble, poor family, and then, you know, lower income, and then maybe like middle class in India towards the time I was 22, and then I moved to America. But so I had more financial struggles as a kid. And so I tolerated a lot. I had so much perseverance. And, you know, I kind of built my own life, you know, so self-made and everything. So That was sort of the lens with which I viewed. So the pain tolerance, the pain and suffering tolerance, I thought I had like 7, right, on a scale of 10. After Liam's episode and like this chapter, he raised my bar to like say, you know, that it's not, you know, like you can go to 9.5, right? You can go to 9.9 because he's born with 9.9. Like he's probably born with a perfect 10 in terms of Like, think about, like, you know, I go to my annual physical appointments with doctors, right, once a year. And then, you know, I dread that day because they poke you all around and they're like, you know, it's just an uncomfortable feeling because they draw blood from you. He's gotten— and this makes me a little like tear up because he's gotten like, I can't— I lost track of how many times he's been poked and how many times. I have to say it's crossed probably 2,000 times easily. Wow. And, you know, my other kid, when I see— when I take Theo to the vaccination, you know, when they poke him like for vaccines, you know, this is a big deal, right? Any parent can relate to this. When you take your baby to a doctor for vaccination, they're like, you know, give them 3 or 4 shots and you're like, oh, it's a big deal. They're like crying and it's like a That happens every hour for him, every hour. And they do like every 3 hours they draw blood from him because he's in the ICU, right? And every almost like every 5, 6 days they have to insert a new line, you know, through the vein. Like one thing doesn't work and they have to go to the other one. And it's just, you know, it's unbelievable. It's like I feel like I'm witnessing if you're on the floor of ICU, you know, cardiac ICU especially, whether it's for babies or small kids in the children's hospital, I feel like you're witnessing, you know, the Olympics of pain and suffering, right? Like, it's unlike anything we've seen, right? And until, like, let's say last year, my biggest, like, hesitations or my biggest frustrations were, ah man, you know, traffic jam. Like, oh, you know, it's like, it's just, you know, our level of things we complain about and we feel like upset about— somebody said something on Twitter about me, or, uh, you know, that podcast only got 25 views— um, you get a lot of perspective because those are like Little League problems. This is the Olympics-level problems, right? And so you get to like be airlifted from the microscopic bullshit that doesn't matter, trivial things that don't matter, and then you go to the things that really matter, like health and like life. And what does it mean to care for someone? And like, what does it mean to be on the fence of like potentially losing them that day or that surgery? Or what does it mean to say goodbye? What does it mean every day? What does it mean to like worship every day like it's a gift from God? Because it is. And so things like that really raise the ceiling. It raised the ceiling for me about Pain and suffering. You know, I think Jensen, you know, founder of NVIDIA, talks about this. Like, you know, he was— I think he jokingly said, like, there's nothing I can wish upon you more than, like, heavy, ample doses of pain and suffering. He was talking to Stanford grad school graduates who were asking, how do you become outstanding in life or whatever? And then he was saying, like, I mean, I just literally went through pain and suffering, and that's how I got, you know, to where I am. I mean, I got better. I feel like he's taught me so much of that, how to maintain hope through the tunnel of darkness, right? How to believe that there's light and there's literally no proof. Like, you know, I remember first time when they wheeled him into Norwood surgery, the first surgery, they told us it's going to be 6 or 7 hours of open heart surgery, which means they have to like Break his rib cage, right? Pierce through, and then the baby was this long, right? Like a small baby, and the scar was like 80%. It's literally this long, the scar, because he was so tiny at the time. And they have to break through the rib cage, get into the heart, and the heart was the size of a strawberry. Think about operating on the heart the size of a strawberry, right? And so, like, I trust them and I'm so grateful for the doctors. That's another feeling. So the levels, like I said, there's layers to this. One layer is the perspective of like, huh, I'm so— I should be grateful. I should be thankful about my own health. Like we— every day that you don't spend in ICU, you hit the fucking lottery. Like you should be celebrating every day, right? For whatever reason, if you're not in the ICU, that's a brilliant blessing. So one, that's perspective like, oh, The the level of pain that so many people go through is we don't even think about that. We don't even you know, and we think that the pains that we have, the headaches, the migraines, we're like, oh, it's such a it's not right. So that you got to raise your ceiling. And second thing is the gratitude that I felt for so many thankless heroes who just are angels among us in this society, right? And like one of our surgeons, his name's Dr. Chai. He literally saved his life 2 times because he did the main surgery. I'm talking about the 2 surgeries. And I mean, I cannot control what happens in that room because we're outside the room, right? The OR is in the room. And for 6 hours, they have to put him to sleep, which is using anesthesia, which is another anesthesia specialist, which is another angel, because it's not an easy thing to put a baby to sleep and wake him up using anesthesia, right? And then the 15 to 20 technicians around him, like respiratory technician, you know, the, the, this, like all these people who are doing blood transfusion, there's all kinds of nurses and all that. And then there's a chief surgery surgeon who has to make sure that little strawberry, he has to get the right slice and the right adjustment and the right— like what? Right. What a miracle that is, you know? And then he did it. It took six hours, but he did it. And then, you know, we were waiting outside in the room, and you know, I think that was the longest six hours of my life. At the same time, and then it happened again, right? With Glenn, the second surgery. Again, longest six seven hours of my life. All I did was be outside the room and hold my wife's hand, and you know, just. Constantly pray, constantly send him good vibes, and tell him how proud we are of him and how much in awe I am of him. And it's just, you know, the human resilience is unbelievable, man. You know, we are so much more resilient than we give ourselves credit for and we push ourselves for, you know. So I think my takeaway from that experience was like, I think I've gotten a lot more resilient, and it sounds like a braggy thing, but I feel like it's just it's just you know I'm like not so much afraid of pain anymore. How that's the way I would put it. I mean physical pain, yes. Like if you slap me, I probably would like reflect reaction. But you know like the the the real pain and suffering of life, I think is I'm not so much afraid of it. You know I. I will just, you know, I think I've learned to be neutral with it. Don't put labels to it. You know, the other thing I learned is whatever initiative you pick up, it could be the surgery, it could be for that day was a surgery, or it could be another day, it could be another challenge. For us, it could be another initiative. It could be, you know, something in projects, something in sales, something in whatever. Whatever initiative you pick up, You know, don't label this as, oh, it's going to be hard or it's going to be easy. You know, I think I've learned that if I assumed, oh, the surgery is going to be hard, I think it didn't really serve. It wouldn't serve. The takeaway I had was like, there's no such thing as easy or hard. You know, you make it what you make it. So many people now ask me like, how is life like now with, you know, Liam and this whole thing? And I'm like, I don't think it's hard. I think it's different. And like I said, if you see the rewards that I've been getting, the beautiful blessings and the lessons I'm taking away, in fact, it's almost like a positive thing, which is crazy, right? So there's no such thing as hard or easy. I think if you approach something as neutral and say, all right, this is an experience. I'm going to go into this experience with no judgments of what this is, you know, Good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant. I'm going to navigate through this, and I'm going to get out, come out of it. You know, you are far more likely to survive and actually thrive if you do it that way, as opposed to if you have labels thinking, oh, this is hard. Like finding a new job—it's not hard; it's not easy. It's just a journey. Finding the love of your life—it's not easy. Not hard. It's just a journey. The people who have done it successfully, if you ask them, was it easy? Was it hard? They'll say, I mean, we did it. Like, it was hard in the beginning and it was easy in the end, you know. But it doesn't matter, right? So your sort of labeling of the upcoming experiences is actually doing you a disservice, you know. And what I think one— the other thing I learned is like there's so much that are being— so many things, so many outcomes, so many events that are beyond your control. You can't do— like, so much of life is actually beyond our control, right? And we are so paranoid about trying to control everything, right? Like, I could not control birth of them 6 weeks early. I could not control Liam having HLHS. I could not control the positive side of, like, finding a great doctor like Dr. Chai. And I could not control, like, him doing unbelievable miracles through the 2 surgeries. I can't control any of that, right? So you realize there's no need to be paranoid about this has to be this way, that has to be this way. I think the best things I've done is I've at every turn tried to manifest the outcome that I would love to have and held faith, like strong faith, pushed myself to believe, push myself to believe in him and in God. Because those are the two real sort of, you know, players, him and in God. And let things unpack themselves, you know. And being brave enough to be ready for the outcome, I think, is the hard part. And because there's no choice, like, what, you know, what else can I do? Like, I can't go into the operation room and like, you know what, let me just help you, right? So yeah, I mean, those are some things I learned. I think the hard thing, the thing that I take away is The like I said, like the definition of hardship and courage, right? Like I feel like he erased the meaning of that for me. Nothing I'll do in my life will be as hard as anything he's done in the first six months of his life. Think about that. Nothing I will do in my life, which I'm already 36, and if I live to like 85, nothing I'll do my whole life will ever be. as hard as he's already demonstrated in the first 6 months of his life. I'll give you another perspective. I was— I shared this yesterday on Twitter. Um, you know, out of his 7 months of life, nearly 7 months now, Liam has spent 95% of that life in the hospital, in the cardiac wing. 95%. Think about how much time you spend in society, you and I. Wow. At Starbucks, in your beautiful house or in your bedroom on the freaking bed, right? How much time we spent? We spent 100% of our time in society, right? Unless someone who's listening to this from a hospital. 95% of his existence on this planet Earth he spent in the cardiac wing of the hospital. In that 95%, um, 80% of that he spent in the ICU, which is the scariest place to be. I was dreading when they were— first time, you know, after his birth, on the day of his birth, they moved him from one hospital to the other one because the other one, the first one didn't have an advanced cardiac ICU. And when I went to that, the words ICU were so scary because, you know, think about who wants— like, if the door says ICU, do you want to go in? Right? It's like it's the last place you want to be in, right?

Yeah.

And, you know, it's 80% of what I said. Like I said, 95% was in the hospital, and then 80% of that 95%, he was in the ICU. And every single day I had to walk past that door to see him. Every single day I walk past the door. Every single day I walk past my fear and my dread of what could happen on the other side. And I've done it now seven months, and so has my wife. And you know, I think that's what I'm saying. That is perspective, right? Like that is perspective. Like when you know that you like it's the place that scares you the most. It's like. It's the place that you've never— I've never, by the way, I've never been to the— the only one time I've been to the ICU was one time in my 35, 36 years with my grandma in India when she had a heart surgery. She had a stent put in, a stent put in, and that was just one day that I went and visited. And then within like 2, 3 days, they brought her out to the regular unit. And then, you know, that's it. Now she lives with my mom and, you know, she's Do great, but that was the only one time, and it was a very scary one. You know, whatever week for for us, the whole family, right? So what I'm saying is that that that is the perspective that he's given us. That you know, don't attach any label. There's no such thing as scary. There's no such thing as hard. There's no such. It is an ICO. It's an experience. You go in there, you look around, and I've. The first 3, 5, the first 5, 6 days, I was scary and I was like, I was scared and I was like, oh my God, oh my God. I was depressed and all that. But over time you realize, look, every one of these kids here, because it's a kids ICU, every one of these kids is a hero, right? It's like I should look at them like I would look at LeBron, like Michael Jordan or whoever, like a veteran from Afghanistan or something. Because It's the same thing that what's happening to their body, the amount of like pain and suffering the body is taking, these kids, it's the same of someone on the war field, literally the same thing. It's literally people chopping them up, you know, like all these things that they're doing, like their blood transfusion. So some of these kids actually have like a weekly blood transfusion. So the whole blood is being emptied and refilled through another kind person's blood. So, dude, like, it's just, you know, when you go through this, it just changes you. You know, I think— I don't think I have like a— like, you know, some people go through this and they're like, oh my God, PTSD style, like trauma, traumatized. I actually don't— I don't— as I walked out of it, you know, now that I'm 7 months in, I don't feel like I was traumatized. I was like inspired. And I'm continuing. That's why I wanted to come back and do the podcast, because I want to bring that to normal society, like where you and I live. And we're upset that the guy in front of us in Starbucks is taking too long for this coffee, right? That's their bullshit upset thing of the day. And I think I called you one of those days when I left the hospital and I told you about my— one of the lines that my mind gave me was like, you better be grateful for your life, for everything you have in your life, your career, great. But even if you're like up and down, it's okay. You know, you're blessed. Be grateful because every one of those kids on that floor—there's actually three or four floors there. There's maybe like seventy, eighty units. Every one of those babies and kids will happily trade their life with yours. You know, given a chance, we have it. We have it. Like we we are so blessed. You know, we're so grateful and. We should be grateful. So we have it in an easier way, in my view. And I'm not dissing any of anyone's sort of, you know, hardships. I'm just saying the perspective. Like, the best way to know if you have 2 pencils— like, best way to know if you got a shorter pencil is to put the longer pencil next to it. And then you're like, oh, actually, you know what, this is actually really tiny. You know, like, it can be. Um, so that, that's what I feel, you know. Um, And then the ICU outside that room, I mean, outside the unit, there is a little coffee shop, a little coffee bar or something, not a bar, but like, you know, it's like a little coffee area. And I sat there and I took a couple work meetings and I ran a couple cohort sessions for Paddle. And I felt so proud that, you know, I was able to do that. Like, if you asked me 10 years ago that KP, you would have the human will To be brave enough, strong enough to run a cohort session and inspire, I don't know, X number of people outside the ICU where your son, who's your baby, is in getting care, whatever, because life must go on and I can't be on leave forever. I would be so proud of myself if I did that. And I did that. And the people who knew that I did that were so proud of me too. And so I think it's just like I said, it only made me stronger, man, in a weird way. And it made me humbler. It made me way humbler. When I'm with Liam, I feel like I'm with a saint. I feel like he's a saint in the body of a tiny baby. And I'm just so I feel so small compared to him. I feel so small, and I have nothing but love and grace and gratitude for him, for everything he's gone through. It's like when you meet someone, like I said, when you meet someone who is a veteran and you know they've gone through so much, their body has gone through so much, you just have an immediate respect for them out of nowhere. You just feel instantaneously humbled. By their presence, I feel like that with him every day. So, so anyway, and yet he greets me with a smile. Like you know, he's gone through so much; doesn't care. He just greets me with a smile and then reminds me like, you know, be happy.

Yeah, that was beautiful, KP. Thank you for sharing all that. I think what was most beautiful to witness in. The resilient qualities that you're talking about, which is even through virtually, even through this blurriness of the pixel right now, just based on the way you shared, I can feel the qualities that you were trying to put words to, trying to have the listener witness you on. But I, what I could really feel Was a lot of powerful acceptance when you were talking about,

yeah,

so like not putting labels to people, just go through this entire thing that someone can label as traumatic, that you found a lot of deep love and acceptance.

Yes, surrender. I've used that word. I've used that mentally. I've said that many, many times to myself that I surrender to this experience. Because the first 1-2 months I fought it and it was so heavy to fight and it was so devastating to fight, keep fighting and then tiring. And I felt just like lifeless because I was like— and the tricky thing is the role that I'm in right now, Andrew, is that I cannot collapse because so many people around me depend on me. My wife depends on me for me to be stable and talk to the doctors and maintain a level of sanity. And, you know, I need the house. We we need to keep going. The family has to keep going, right? So I have three kids. We have to feed them, right? And we have bills we have to pay. And so my family in India, right? They so I feel like my role almost I think that I'm a leader. I'm the leader of my my family, you know, and my role cannot collapse. It's like the it's like the CEO, you know, of of a small corporation. I've joked about this, like, even without all of this, I always say, like, you're the CEO of your life, right? You are the hero of your life. You are the protagonist, right? You write your story. You're not the— you're both the director and the actor of your life, right? And sometimes, you know, you are in a scene that you don't like and you're like, oh man, why am I here in this scene? You know, then go back and rewrite the scene, you know, re-narrate it in a different way. Have a better ending for this, right? So in the the first two three months, I was like devastated and sad and you know depressed and like lifeless essentially low energy. And it really had an impact on people around me. You know, it really had an impact. And I was like, I can't do this to them. I owe it to them that I have to be stronger. And then more importantly, like the real pain, the actual physical pain is being born is being. is being burdened and carried by Liam. And what he needs is a strong dad next to him. He needs strong support. My mom was here. So I asked my mom to please come and spend some time with me as we were going through this. And I think, you know, she's my belief capitalist, right? And I love to give belief to others and she gives me belief and she's amazing. with perspective and spiritual practices. And so she once told me a beautiful line that really sort of helped me pick up myself because I was feeling a little down and sad about self-pity and all that. And then she told me this line I wanted to share, which is, she said, you know, if you think that, why me? You got to stop thinking that. If you think why me? Why did this happen to me? You know, like, and she said, like, it's not that you think that it happened by accident, as in like Liam, you know, he just suddenly had like this was like an accidental thing that we had, you know, HLHS or whatever. She said from the spiritual point of view, from her point of view, she said Liam chose me. before he was born. And of course, this is like a spiritual interpretation. She said, Liam's soul chose me and our family, including her. She was saying like his grandma and my wife and me, because out of the 8 billion people on the planet, he knows we have the strength to take this. And He knows we have the love in our heart to offer, the depth of love we have to offer. And He knows we can withstand, survive, and thrive in this experience rather than collapse. And He came into this world wanting you to be His dad. Are you going to deny that request? Are you going to show Him that He chose wrong? And I was like, wow. And she said, he even brought the pain upon himself, not on you. He's taking the 99% of the real pain, the real surgeries. You're not being wheeled into the hospital, he's being wheeled. He's in the hospital, you're in society, right? I mean, you get to visit him and all that, but like, he is the one who has got 17 machines around him, who's got all these wires, tubes, everything, breathing tubes and everything. He even is doing the 99.99% of this experience. The pain of this is really on him. Your job is to be the world's greatest support system and dad that he can expect you to be, or he deserves to have. That's what your purpose is in this role. It's not to erase the reality. It's not to change the reality. You're not God. You can't like tweak Timelines and all that. This is the challenge you're called upon. You gotta rise. Think about that. And I was like fired up, you know. I felt like I felt like God was talking to me through my mom, and the the needless you know the sadness and the self pity and like why me why me all of that went away. I'm like you know this is a divine purpose. This is a mission. This is This is something that I need to step up to, you know, and I need to be there for him, you know, in this capacity, which while being there for him, I have to be there for my family. And so there's no space for me to be sad and, you know, weak and, you know, and like helpless and whatever, like a victim. And she said, you're not a victim, you know, this is not a victim situation, right? He's also not a victim. She said this and she said, he's also not a victim. He's the victor. He is a victor. That's so— my wife took that and she said, uh, she wants to name him Warrior because— and so she found the name Liam, which means warrior, right? And, um, I wanted to put— I wanted to give him a middle name, and I was thinking about what could be the good one. And the, the Hindu god Hanuman really inspires me because he's known to be the god of strength and power, um, and he's also selfless, sacrificial. Very giving, you know, God. And so one of his synonyms, one of his other names is Pawan. And I also have my first, my one of my many names is Pawan. So I thought Liam and I could have the connection. Most people don't know that one of my, you know, in my long Indian name, there's a word Pawan. So I thought Liam and I could have the connection. So I wanted Pawan to be his middle name. So his name is Liam Pawan and Puvvara, which is our family name. Anyway, so I think that one perspective shift changed everything, Andrew. You know, her words changed everything. That's it. I think that's what I needed to hear. And then I kind of dusted myself off and like stopped feeling sad for myself or for our family and be like, it's all right, it's okay. I'm not saying like immediately we went into like, you know, rainbows and, you know, roses, but we started being more resilient. We started being like, you know, it's stop putting the focus on us, put the focus on him. What does he need? What can we give to him? You know, how can we be joyful around him, supportive around him, happy around him? And he started slowly opening up. In fact, for the first 3, 4 months, he didn't even smile for a single day. He never smiled. He was in so much pain. And, you know, our other twin at home used to smile and be normal. And just, I think, a month before the second surgery, about 5 months into the game, he started smiling and that just changed everything. I was like, yes, I felt so grateful. And I think he could sense that we were going through pain too, and maybe he was closed off or something. I don't know. But, and then he started smiling. And then now the nurses, you know, they say, please, please. It's the joke now, my wife and I, when we hold him, because he's got all these things, so it's not easy to just pick him up and hold. So we need the nurses to come assist to, you know, help. So the nurses are like, oh my God, we were waiting for you, you know, this morning because he was fussy. And we know like the moment you guys are here, mom or dad, he's gonna like smile so wide and He's gonna, you know, they say that he's a very different baby around us, you know, which is not shocking, right? Obviously, we're his parents. But I think, you know, I think he started like really opening up and really like, I think that he realized that, okay, mom and dad are okay. You know, they're not in so much trauma or pain now. And so anyway, so that was that. Crazy, crazy, crazy experience, man.

One of the things that— another beautiful thing that I think you shared once about what this experience has gifted you is seeing the love of your family and your support system. How people came together. Can you share about what that experience has been like for you?

Oh my God, that's another thing. I think a lot of people, they were, you know, when I shared this news on Twitter everywhere, they were like, how are you gonna, you know, we're sending you strong vibes and this and that. And I feel like there was a lot of concern about how we are gonna manage this, which is fair. If I was, if I heard about this about some other family, I'd be like, oh my God, how are they gonna navigate this? It's very hard for the mom and dad. It's very hard. But in our case, I've been— I feel like we're so blessed. I'm so blessed that my in-laws have stepped up. They live like very close to our house. And so they've been very giving, very kind in terms of taking care of some of the logistics, you know, of handling our oldest kid because we have to make these daily trips to the hospital. So somebody has to watch the oldest kid and also watch the small twin, right? The tiny Theo. So they've been phenomenal stepping up and helping and, you know, so much of support and love from them. Like we called, there have been a couple times where when Liam eventually came home, like I said, 95% in the hospital, 5% home. That 5% was also not a, like a steady, stable path. You know, it had a lot of ups and downs where one of the days he was desatting, which is basically his pulse ox was showing like 65s, 7. Yeah, his range after the surgery should be 75 to 85 of pulse ox, and it was showing like 65, 62, which is concerning for them. After like, uh, 3, 4 minutes of that steady rate, they ask you to call them, and we call them. And so they're like, uh, this is not looking good. And he was turning blue on the face, which is like a sign of lack of oxygenated blood going to his face. Um, so it's not good. And so they said, we need to bring you— you need to come to ER. And it was It was like midnight, and my my mother-in-law, she like I said they live don't live that far away, but like they disrupted their whole thing. Then they came over, and my wife at the day on that day was watching. I think she was exhausted for some reason, whatever, and and she was watching the twins. So she came in the car, my mother-in-law, and drove with me to the yard. Holding and being sitting next to Liam. It's a very precarious place to be right next to a baby who's desatting and we're driving to the hospital. Anything can happen, right? And she's just there as a steady rock. She's very, very stable and steady. And she's like, KP, you drive. We got this. It's okay. You know, we're gonna be okay. You drive. You focus on the road. Don't focus on what's in the backseat. And she gave me a lot of courage. And luckily, we admitted him in the ER and they took him to ICU again and they discovered that he had a rhinovirus, which is basically like a common cold for you and I. But for him, a common cold, because of the first surgery, can be complicated. You need— after the second surgery, it's fine. But just after the first surgery, you couldn't have infections like that. Right? So he was admitted, and then you know he had to stay there for a few days. So you know the the level of sort of support I've gotten from our in-laws unbelievable. They love they love their grandkids so much and us, and I think you know I'm so thankful. Right? Like this episode, this whole experience has shown me how loving people can be. You know how how much they step up. And my mom, she came from India. She stayed with us through and through. And you know, she left actually in November, but she was there from like July to November. So she's been the spiritual support for me. Without her narrative in my brain, I don't think I could have powered through all of this, you know, because it's very hard to use common sense and like real, like logical mind to go through this. You need like supernatural powers. You can't just like rely on like Oh yeah, I'm reading psychologytoday.com and like I'm fine, right? You can't. So she gave me that support. My sister came in December and she's so selfless. She put her career on hold for 2 and a half months and did so many things for us, including taking care of the babies at home so we can, I mean, you know, yeah, the kids at home so we can spend there. The emotional support, physical, unbelievable, man. You know, so I'm grateful everyone stepped up. And you know, it's just unbelievable. I think so many people, Devin's, her colleagues, they've like come together, you know, like given us funds, given us like some, you know, they basically came together, just given us funds, you know, money to like, it's not like thousands of dollars, but like it's basically like so that to offer like, you know, for us as we're making these trips, you know, for coffee money or Starbucks money, this and that. And I think, you know, all of those really matter. You know, I think the feeling, the worst feeling is feeling isolated and like lonely. And it's, you know, sometimes like the small thought of someone thinking about you and sending you coffee, it really can make your day. You know, I never thought it would because I'm like, I don't need anybody. You know, I'm like, I'm so strong, right? But It does, you know, it does because you're dealing with so much and like one less decision, someone helped you, like, ah, you know, it's a relief. And I want to give a shout out to Zach, who's one of my good friends, Gilbert, Zach Gilbert. And then, you know, another really kind person, Michael, they sent me some Uber Eats money, you know. So because we're, especially on surgery days, we're mostly through through and through in the hospital. So we have no time to come home and cook anything, right? So they've been phenomenal sending. And it's not just, like I said, it's the thought that counts. And yeah, and then hundreds of supportive messages, you know, on Twitter, LinkedIn, and everywhere. Even yesterday when I posted about his update, so many people have DM'd me, sent me an amazing Slew of positive messages, thoughts. You know, I think a lot of people stepped up and, you know, they're, you know, it just showed me the bright side of so many people. So I'm grateful for that. I knew I had a big network. I knew a lot of friends. I knew that I had a very strong network, but to watch so many people show the human side, not just work side, career side, right? It was so heartwarming. And then I cannot forget Pato. My team at Paddle, unbelievable. I don't think I would have been able to navigate this if I was at any other company, you know, the way I was able to here. They are unbelievably supportive. You know, they've given me 4 months of paternal leave, which is, you know, company policy. But like, I was able to split that into 2 parts. One, when the first surgery, and second was the second surgery. So I can be there, you know, post-surgery and before surgery for Liam. And the level of love and just support and like saying like, we got this, like, you know, AI Launchpad stuff that I've been working on. We got this. You focus on family. I mean, that attitude and that sort of temperament and like love and support system that I have at Paddle is unbelievable. I'm so grateful to Andrew, you know, who is our CMO and Jess. And then, you know, Tarshan, 3 of my, you know, amazing people and so many others on my team too. But just like that, otherwise, I don't think I would have been at peace with him doing all this, right? And so it gives me so much more gratitude and makes me realize, like, makes me want to do way more, you know? For paddle or for my work, you know, because I feel like that support is there and makes me like, you know, like feel grateful and like even more fired up when I'm present, when I'm with them. So it's been crazy. I mean, so many others too. I mean, like, I feel like I'm losing track of like, I mean, there have been friends like Sharath, you know, who send groceries. Sharath lives in Atlanta and his family. So they've like, you know, picked up groceries for us a bunch of times, sent them home and brought them home. And, you know, our neighbors, you know, so it's wild. I have to talk about one more experience of like buying a home, which we'll get to at some point either now or in the future. It also was a phenomenal sort of experience there. But anyway,

in the final minutes, If there's a listener, if there's someone listening who is currently experiencing or going through similar shoes as you, either they're parents who are experiencing HOA, kids with HLHS, whether they are going through all their own versions of hardships and sufferings, or they're witnessing that. What are some words of wisdom you'd like to share with them directly?

Wow. I've never thought about that question. I think the first thing comes to my mind is recognize that it is one of the most difficult things that you will ever do in your life. So be as graceful as possible with yourself, which is very hard to do, but you must. You know, it's like you go from like lifting in your gym, let's say, the dumb metaphor, to suddenly now in the Olympics and you're like looking around and like everything feels like 1,000 more pounds. You know, everything feels so hard. You just went from— life went from like, I guess, Little League to Olympics. And here, unfortunately, you can't quit. You can't be like, you know what, I'm gonna go back to my other life. Like, you can't. It's just, you know, you're in the Olympics now. Like, it's just, this is a high-pressure, intense environment. So I think it's easy to say, I know that because I've struggled with it initially to sort of give myself grace. I'm like, what do you mean grace? Like you know, like I don't want this reality. I want to go back to my reality like before the day I found out about the kids, about LHLHS, right? You can't. And so that doesn't mean you're also sort of the cursed one or like you know it's like God chose you out of people to like yeah punishing you. It's not punishment. It's not that you're cursed or unlucky. You're the chosen one. And it sounds so corny to say that, right? But it is true. You are the chosen family because whatever you will experience with your kid, with your baby, will transform you for the better. Unbelievably. Like, it's not even a comparison. Like, this version of KP compared to 10 years ago version of KP is like a million times different. In terms of maturity, in terms of evolution, in terms of pain tolerance, in terms of just you know knowing myself in and out, knowing my connection to God, appreciation for life, appreciation for people in my life. The other thing that happened on a side note is I called almost like six to seven people who I had bridges built and sort of not bridges but like you know barriers and dams built. And I called them and apologized, you know, and like basically like it erased my ego and like this mental fight that I had with these people. They're not enemies per se, but basically I put them out of my life or thinking like I just had like an egotistical view like, oh, you know, they didn't expect— they didn't like appreciate me enough or they didn't like do this enough or whatever. I called all of them and personally apologized, each one of them. Which was very scary and painful for me to do that phone call. But I did it because after Liam's experience, I realized life is truly precious. Like, your every day is precious. And we are given one shot to be a human being born with healthy life. And, you know, it's a priceless experience to be human. It's meaningless to carry grudges. To put on these weights, metaphysical weights, whatever metaphorical weights on your back because someone wronged you. Because and then I like you know you have to learn to forgive. You have to learn to like you know part of growing up is learning to forgive and letting people be themselves and knowing that they may sometimes have missteps that doesn't define them. Don't make the misstep be the identity of the person, right? Try to like zoom out from that and then focus on the love that they've given you or the care or the affection they've given you in some. Other ways. And then yes, the misstep may have hurt you. If you are bold enough, address that and say, that pained me. Maybe don't do that again. Or I didn't like that, but I forgive you. But focus more on the goodness of people around you while you're on this planet, because life is truly short. Every day I take a trip through the halls of the ICU and I think life is truly short. Sometimes one of the rooms that I go to, The bed is there. The kid is missing. So what does that mean? There's positive things, the negative things. The kid could have gone home, which is amazing outcome, or the kid must have gone somewhere else. You know, left the planet. So it just really humbled me and reminded me, you know, this persona I'm putting up together, like. KP, oh, you wronged me in 2022. Doesn't matter. So I called every one of them, thanked me for the call. Every one of them almost broke down. Every one of them said they love me and I love them. And it's changed me. It made me lighter, so much lighter, my heart. And I don't think I would have had the balls and the guts to do that if not for our LeanTech experience. So I think, like I said, back to the parents thing, you know, it will change you for the better, for sure. It will change you, transform you. But, you know, if the other last thing I'll say is, of course, you know, please talk to another parent who's going through something like this, or another parent who's going through like anything like similar, right? May not be exactly the same diagnosis, you know. And please reach out to me if I can help, because I'm always there. I'm happy to share my experience, be a sounding board, anything. I think this is a— it may not be just HLHS. This is a call to action for any parents who have kids who are going through any amount of difficulties or health issues or challenges. Please DM me. I can be a sounding board. I can help give you some perspective. Be a friend, because that's what I know would have helped me in the journey, and I got the help. So that's all.

Thank you for sharing your wisdom, Kpish. Thank you for sharing your love with us today. And what I feel most moved by is to hear you share. The gifts, the resilience that Lee and the perspective that Lee have taught you and gifted to me and to the world with this conversation. So thank you for showing up the way you have, the strength that you've exhibited.

Thank you. I appreciate you. And I, as I've, as I realized, as I sort of heard myself speak, I realized this might be the most vulnerable episode I've ever done. My whole life. And so, you know, if anyone's listening, and if you feel like, oh, I'll keep you overshared, or like, if I like overstepped my, you know, limits, please excuse me. But I wanted to have sort of a very honest and open, candid conversation. And I knew that I could do that with someone like Andrew. And I knew that, that when we capture that, and then present it to, you You know, the rest of the podcast audience and my friends and everyone, I think they will get it. They will get where I'm coming from. So that's what the intention was. And I'm so thankful to you, Andrew. The time just passed so quickly. So, so grateful. And yeah, hopefully this can help be a springboard for me to come back and do more episodes this, you know, this season when I get some time. But Either way, I'm grateful for you, your friendship, and yeah, you know, let's keep in touch.