From Advertising to Yoga to Medicine to Bamboo Architecture: Rajiv Arapurakal on the Continuous Reinvention of Self

“Beware the man of one book.”

Today, Rajiv Arapurakal joins Full Tilt with Belinda Bradford. Rajiv is Co-Founder and Director of Strategy at IBUKU, the Bali-based design studio known for its work in sustainable bamboo architecture. Before Bali, he spent a decade practicing internal medicine in New Jersey, and before that, he walked away from a career in advertising to train as a yoga teacher. He is now an E-RYT 500-certified senior yoga teacher at ISHTA Yoga, having led over 3,000 classes in settings from hospitals to NYC's Times Square.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How his last day in advertising became his first day of yoga teacher training, and what that leap actually took

• Why he calls himself “an aggressive listener,” and what changed when he started applying that instinct to medicine

• What he learned about belonging and listening from a decade practicing internal medicine in New Jersey

• How marrying into Elora Hardy's world introduced him to IBUKU and Bali's bamboo architecture movement

• The piece of advice he still lives by today: "Beware the man of one book”

• Why walking away from a steady advertising paycheck remains one of the hardest calls he's ever made

This is a conversation about reinvention: what it costs, what it teaches you, and why he keeps choosing it again.