Through my podcast, Dialogues in Design: Early Career Conversations, I spoke to 10 architects over the past few months. Not just about buildings. But about creativity, identity, burnout, curiosity, and building a meaningful life in design.

Here’s what stayed with me:

1. Design your career intentionally.
 Don’t just inherit someone else’s version of success. Everyone's journey and circumstances are different. Writing your own journey will ensure you do your best as the definition for 'best' and 'success' for everyone is different.

2. Spend time thinking about how you want to describe yourself.
 Identity shapes direction. How would you introduce yourself and what is something about you, your personality, your thinking and perspective that will stay with someone else after a short 5-minute conversation. Keep an elevator pitch ready and keep updating it. But more importantly, have this dialogue with yourself about who you are and who you want to be.

3. Put yourself out there.
 Visibility creates opportunity. It can be overwhelming, but once you overcome this fear, everything is possible. One thing that helped me is understanding the practice makes progress, not perfection. I believed that everything I share with an audience has to be perfect. But what I realised is that it has to be authentic and real. I'm here to share knowledge and stories, not perfection.

4. The traditional architecture path isn’t the only way to practice design. An architectural education builds skills and ways of thinking that extend far beyond conventional roles.

Architecture is a way of engaging with the world, and when it’s confined to predefined job descriptions, its creative potential becomes limited. The value of this training lies in its adaptability: the ability to think spatially, critically, and imaginatively across different fields.

Expanding beyond traditional practice doesn’t dilute architecture. It amplifies it, allowing design thinking to operate in broader cultural, technological, and creative contexts.

5. Your narrative is your invisible seasoning.
 People remember stories before they remember portfolios. Its easy to get caught in the pinterest aesthetic, but don't lose your design language, your expression. This is what makes you stand out.

6. Learn how to avoid burnout early.
 A sustainable career matters more than temporary hustle. As young graduates, its natural to enter the field with a burst of energy. It's important to make this energy last and protect it.

7. Stay curious.
 Curiosity opens doors you didn’t know existed. As designers, curiosity is the most important fuel to go ahead. Most architects I spoke to told me what keeps them excited in the field after years in practice is the fascination to know what more the field has to offer.

8. You can be healthy as architects.
 Overwork should not be glorified. This doesn't make you a better designer, but instead puts you, your workplace and clients at a disadvantage as the long term repercussions can be harmful and lead to burnout.

9. Design and sustain your network.
 Relationships compound quietly over time. A small coffee conversation can do wonders. It can get you your dream offer, client or more. Don't hesitate to start a conversation, and keep it flowing.

10. Keep designing without constraints.
 It helps you think better when real constraints arrive. Broadening your boundaries as a designer helps explore laterally, places you wouldn't have explored with boundaries in place.

These conversations changed how I think about architecture. They’re shaping me as an architect, design and an individual.