How To Communicate Effectively? Ft. Usra Murtaza

This one is a conversation I have been wanting to have for a while. Today I sit down with Usra Murtaza, who you might not see on camera but who is behind almost everything we create at Happy Chirp. She listens to every episode, puts them up on YouTube, writes the titles, and shapes the content you see. This is her first job, and she is only 23. But the way she thinks about communication, confidence, and professional life is something I wish I had heard when I was starting out.

We talk about the years she spent as a sidekick in a toxic friendship, the moment she realized she was being bullied, and how university broke her open and rebuilt her. We talk about what it really takes to grow in a workplace, why discipline matters more than talent, and how to speak up to your boss without losing yourself. It is honest, a little raw, and full of the kind of small realizations that change everything.

The years that broke me open

Usra tells me she was not expecting to work at all. Growing up, she imagined a coffee shop, something artsy, maybe magazine writing because her mother wanted a prestigious title. She ended up studying media and communication with a marketing major, and she loved it. But the real education happened outside the classroom.

She describes her first two years of university as deeply damaging. She was stuck in a friendship where she was always the sidekick, always the one who had to shrink. “I pretended to be someone I was not because I was afraid if I am being myself right now people will judge,” she says. She did not even know she was being bullied until 2017, when something inside her just snapped. She stopped smiling. She stopped being the girl everyone described as always blushing and happy. And then, slowly, she started to figure out who she actually was.

I know that feeling. I was a nerd, a big nerd, and a total pushover for a long time. Usra and I both had to learn that we are allowed to have likes and dislikes, to say no, to stop performing for social acceptance. She calls it a checklist moment: realizing you are an individual, not just someone’s friend or someone’s child or someone’s idea of who you should be. That shift, she says, is what made the rest of her growth possible.

The right environment is not a luxury

When Usra joined Happy Chirp, it was her first job. She had heard horror stories about work environments from friends outside. But here, she found an agile, growth friendly space where she could experiment and learn. She is clear: if it were not for this place, she would not have grown this fast. “Having the right environment and having the right people is very important,” she says. “If you have discipline you can go ahead a long way, but the environment accelerates everything.”

I believe this deeply. As a boss, I know that the casual conversation, the permission to be creative, the space to fail, it has to start from the top. Employees will not bring that energy if they are scared. Usra says she can vouch for it: discipline would have taken her places eventually, but it would have taken three or four years to reach where she is in one and a half. The environment gave her the time to think, to do things her way, to become proactive.

Discipline and the entitlement trap

We have interviewed people, and we have seen a pattern. A lot of young professionals step into their first job with a sense of entitlement. Usra and I talk about why that happens and what needs to shift. She says it starts with a mindful conversation with yourself. Student life is over. You are now answerable, responsible, part of a bigger team. You cannot be casual about deadlines or ownership.

“Just start with discipline,” she says. “Start with just starting.” She admits she was an A grade student who struggled to accept being average at something new. But she gave herself credit for the discipline to show up and deliver. That, she says, is what builds trust. And trust is what eventually gives you the confidence to negotiate, to ask for a raise, to speak up. Not the other way around. “Under commit, over deliver,” I tell her, and she agrees. Prove yourself first, and then you are in a position of strength.

When imposter syndrome hits

A few weeks ago, Usra came to me in tears. She was struggling with imposter syndrome. In a media company full of editors, producers, and camera handlers with hard skills, she felt like she did not have a tangible skill to point to. “Mera tou kuch skill hi nahi hai,” she said, I have no real skill. It broke my heart because I see her value every single day.

We talked it through, and I told her what I believe to be true: skills can be taught. But attitude, drive, passion, dedication, and the ability to build relationships, those are what make someone irreplaceable. You can have all the technical skill in the world, but if you do not take ownership, if you are not proactive, you are easily replaceable. Usra has that fire. She takes her work personally. She treats the company’s growth as her own. That is rare, and it matters more than any software she could learn.

She still struggles with the external noise, the feeling that what she does in a day is hard to quantify. But she is learning to measure her worth by the effort and heart she puts in, not by a checklist of hard skills. That is a lesson so many of us need, especially in a world that loves to rank and compare.

How to talk to your boss without losing yourself

Usra is my employee, so this part of the conversation is a little meta. But she speaks honestly about the intimidation that comes with power dynamics. In the beginning, she did not know how to find the right words or the right time to speak up. Over time, she learned to analyze: if something is really bothering her, she takes a day to process it, finds respectful language, and then says it. “Just find the right words to say the thing,” she says. “Effective communication is everything.”

I think the relationship has to be built slowly. You cannot expect the comfort and openness I have with Usra after more than a year to exist on day one. Boundaries matter. Proving your value matters. And as a boss, I have to know when to switch between leader mode and boss mode. The casual environment, the jokes, the after hours text, those have to come from the top first, because an employee will always be a little scared to initiate. But once that trust is there, you can say, “I’m sorry to bother you after hours, but can we work on this?” And it lands softly.

Live mindfully, in everything

At the end of our conversation, I ask Usra what she wants people to take away. She says it simply: “Just start living mindfully. In any aspect of your life, just live mindfully. Reflect, think about things.” She talks about how much of life she missed when she was just passing through it, not really present. Now, whether it is work or personal relationships, she tries to do things wholeheartedly. She processes her experiences, learns from them, and asks herself how she would handle a situation differently next time.

That, to me, is the thread that ties everything together. The self awareness to leave a toxic friendship. The discipline to show up at work. The courage to speak up. The humility to keep learning. It all starts with paying attention to your own life.

This conversation matters because so many young Desi women are stepping into professional spaces for the first time, carrying the weight of log kya kahenge, what will people say, and the pressure to be perfect. Usra’s story is a reminder that you do not need to have it all figured out. You just need to start, to be disciplined, to find the right environment, and to keep choosing yourself, again and again.