The permission to build a life that's actually yours doesn't come from anyone else. Sandeep Acharya learned that the long way.

In this episode of Guys N' Chai, Ankur Varma sits down with Sandeep — founder and CEO of Octave Health, one of the most ambitious mental health companies in the country — for a conversation about the parts of him that don't fit in a LinkedIn bio.

Sandeep grew up in New Jersey, the son of two Bell Labs programmers, leaning into academics because he felt invisible everywhere else. He went to Bain, to Harvard, into investing, into startups, and eventually into founding a company that's now rebuilding how mental health care gets accessed and delivered in this country. Along the way, he taught himself music theory in college, became a music director for Penn Masala, and released an R&B-Indian fusion album on one of the earliest South Asian labels. He describes himself as risk-averse. His story tells a different one.

In this episode, Ankur and Sandeep go into:

The version of himself he kept quiet to be "smart and invisible" in a mostly white middle school, and what it cost him The permission problem: why so many South Asian professionals stay in jobs they don't want, and what actually changes when you give yourself the permission you were waiting on someone else to hand you

Building Octave and Wisematch, and why he decided fixing broken insurance directories was worth years of investor rejection.

The thyroid cancer diagnosis that came out of a routine dentist visit last year, and what he learned about equanimity that a decade of running a company couldn't quite teach him.

Intention over reaction: the daily practice he keeps with his best friend across time zones, and why he's off social media, off the news cycle, and more present than he's ever been.

Parenting three daughters in a world that treats his Indian-Americanness as cool instead of alien, and what he wants to consciously pass on that his parents passed down without effort.

Retelling, the Mahabharata musical he's writing with Grammy-winning collaborator Aakash Shah, and why he thinks our generation has to make our own culture accessible to the next one.

This is a conversation about the version of yourself you keep quiet, and what happens when you stop. Hosted by Ankur Varma, LCPC — licensed psychotherapist and co-founder of Brown Man Therapy.

Learn more about Octave at findoctave.com.

Follow Sandeep's music project @retellingmusic on Instagram.

Follow Guys N' Chai on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube.

Learn more at brownmantherapy.com.