Unleash Your Inner Creative with Lauren LoGrasso (A Creativity Podcast)

✨🐦‍🔥Creativity Has No Age Limit: How to Reclaim Your Dream at Any Age | Chandrika Tandon

·57 min·5 clips

A successful businesswoman in her 50s released her first album and got a Grammy nomination.

Lauren LoGrasso introduces the episode by celebrating her third Webby Award win and announcing a series of favorite episode re-releases, starting with Chandrika Tandon. Chandrika is a Grammy-nominated singer and businesswoman who began her music career in her 50s after decades in finance. Lauren frames the conversation around creativity having no age limit. Chandrika recounts her childhood in Madras, India, where her grandfather nurtured her creativity through nightly readings of Shakespeare and poetry, expanding her worldview despite a sheltered environment. She describes facing traditional expectations as a woman, including going on hunger strikes to attend college and business school, with a nun intervening to support her. Chandrika discusses her career at McKinsey and her own firm, where she achieved significant success but felt unfulfilled. In 1999, she experienced a spiritual crisis, crying for days and unable to sign a major deal, which prompted her to reconnect with music. She shares how music became a path to self-discovery and meditation, with teachers emphasizing the need to 'get out of the way' for the divine to guide her. Chandrika explains that her first album was a gift for her father-in-law, which unexpectedly gained a cult following and led to a Grammy nomination for her second album. She talks about her recent album 'Amu's Treasures', inspired by singing to her grandchildren, which features 35 songs and collaborations with 17 maestros. Throughout, Chandrika emphasizes creating from a pure place, sharing gifts without seeking validation, and overcoming self-criticism. The episode concludes with Lauren reflecting on the importance of singing for one's soul rather than external success.

As heard by us

Chandrika Tandon makes a creative return feel less like reinvention than devotion practiced in stolen hours.

Chandrika Tandon gives the episode its pull: after decades in finance and business, she finally followed music's steady call, then saw her first album earn a Grammy nomination in her 50s.

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Why you'd press play

You want proof that a creative life can answer after five-plus decades in finance and still lead to a Grammy-nominated first album.

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