Alumni Interview: Sunny Bahuguna
Meet Sunny Bahuguna: Co-founder of mental health podcast, Bottled Up and Consultant at EY. In interviewing Sunny, not only was it great to learn more about Bottled Up, but we especially loved the advice he offered GCG consulting teams: “Determine the non-negotiables to your life…” - one for all of us we think!
1) Tell us about your previous involvement in GCG and what about GCG interested you?
I was previously an External Relations Officer and Head of Events. I helped maintain the relations with our key sponsors, and run events for project consultants and managers. These included the assessment centres, induction training and other bespoke events such as Women in Consulting and Social Impact panels.
2) What has been keeping you busy lately?
Quality time with my closest loved ones, purposeful work and exercise are some of the parts of my life that I consider to be non-negotiable and imperative to my happiness.
I am currently a Consultant at EY within our Customer & Operations Strategy team and have found myself in the midst of quite a busy engagement. I feel very blessed to be part of a super inclusive team and my manager is a great mentor to learn from -- I think it might be attributed to his past experience in teaching which really comes out when explaining particular concepts or areas of development -- so I am incredibly grateful for this.
Away from work, I run my own podcast initiative - Bottled Up, which is centered around creating conversations around men's mental health. It has been keeping me on my toes alongside work - coordinating guests, recording and production, has forced me to get smarter with how I spend my time. Plus, it gives me a nice excuse to talk to some cool people who have stories to share!
I've recently been indulging into the work of Cal Newport, the author of Deep Work, and have been taking away some pointers around digital minimalism and creating a more conscious relationship with our attention and focus.
3) Tell us more about your most recent project, Bottled Up. What are the future plans and what about these are you excited about!
Bottled Up is all about creating conversations around men's mental health. We do this through storytelling whereby guests come onboard and share their stories with mental health. In some cases, these people have also gone on to make a career within the space, using their stories as a catalyst to create community and change. We speak to males, females and those that are agender. In fact, we had our first non-binary guest a few weeks ago! Our approach is focused on the fact that men are all around us -- as brothers, sons and fathers -- so the multitude of angles we can approach these conversations from, the more the content is relevant and relatable for listeners.
My passion for mental health has come from my own personal experiences within mental health, and so I've thrown myself into podcasting to learn more from others and create content that people can listen, relate and empathise with. Last week we had Brendan Maher come onboard (Global Director at Movember) and speak about what led him into a career within mental health, suicide prevention and the work that Movember is doing to combat this. Some other conversations we have had are with Nick Bracks and Tom Boyd who are using their public profile to create vulnerability within the community.
As for future plans, we are still figuring out what this might look like. If you asked us this 12-months ago, it would be going into schools and running programs for high school students. But there are already some incredible organisations that already exist within this space. I'm personally passionate about technology and how this could intersect with health broadly, so this may be one for me to mull on over the coming months. For now, podcasting and creating conversations gives me the opportunity to deepen my knowledge within mental health and understand the systems and structures that underlie it.
4) What advice would you give to current project consultants and managers?
Determine the non-negotiables to your life and components that contribute to your happiness. This may be quality time with closest loved ones, exercise, sleep, purposeful work - the list goes on.
When I was studying, working and juggling club commitments at University, I was under the impression that working on overdrive would mean that I am being true to myself and not selling myself short. Sure, there is a link in there, but it lacked critical reflection and direction.
You'll be surprised by the power of (a) introspecting and determining these components to your life, and (b) nurturing these parts overtime, can make you more productive in your professional life. As consultants and managers - you're juggling many things that are of great significance -- your projects, uni work, relationships and potentially even job hunting. Carving these out and knowing where you intentionally focus your time can make you feel more connected to the outcomes of your work.
I can still find myself falling into the trap of neglecting them when I’m laser-focused on achieving an important goal. This is why I push myself to reflect on the tradeoffs I’m making and re-adjust whenever I feel that I am out of balance.