Today, Anne has a compelling conversation with Debjani Biswas, a chemical engineer turned executive coach and best-selling author. The episode begins with Debjani recounting her privileged upbringing in India and the profound influence her supportive family, especially her father, had on her academic and professional journey. Despite the societal expectations of the time, Debjani's father encouraged her to pursue a path in engineering, a field dominated by men, thus setting the stage for her future endeavors in breaking gender barriers.
As the conversation progresses, Debjani delves into her experiences of cultural adjustment and bias after moving to the United States. She reflects on the challenges she faced in the corporate world, particularly as an Indian woman in engineering, and how these experiences shaped her transition to becoming an advocate for workplace inclusivity. We hear her concept of being "miserably successful” (which is also the title of one of her books), where she discusses the stress and dissatisfaction that can accompany traditional measures of success. Debjani's story emphasizes the importance of finding joy and purpose in one's career.
Debjani shares anecdotes about the support she received from her family, particularly her son, which played a crucial role in her decision to write books and give keynote speeches on inclusivity. She also credits her grandfather, a renowned scientist, for nurturing her intellectual curiosity, as well as her sisters for taking diverse career paths, demonstrating the varying influences within her family.
The episode also explores Debjani's unique approach to executive coaching, which empowers leaders and redefines success beyond conventional metrics. She discusses the importance of executive presence, active listening, and the core competencies outlined by the International Coach Federation (ICF) in fostering a supportive environment for clients. Her journey into coaching, prompted by a perceptive manager, underscores the value of recognising and nurturing one's innate abilities.
Towards the end of the episode, Debjani emphasises the power of storytelling and imagery in challenging societal biases and fostering inclusivity. She shares her personal practices for mindfulness and intentional living, including yoga, meditation, and morning journaling, which help her stay grounded amidst challenges. The conversation wraps up with reflections on the importance of connection and joy in both personal and professional life, leaving listeners inspired by Debjani's journey of transformation and her unwavering commitment to making a positive impact in the world.
A profound conversation with a trailblazing change maker. Happy listening!
You can find Debjani on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debjanibiswas/
Her consultancy: http://www.coachieve.us/
Debjani’s books are:
Unleash the Power of Diversity
#Us Too, Bridging the Global Gender Gap
The IIT - https://home.iitd.ac.in/
The IIM - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institutes_of_Management
The story about Archbishop Tutu on a flight to Nigeria: https://blogs.ubc.ca/tiffanyt/2016/04/18/my-favourite-archbishop-desmond-tutu-story/
told here as well https://www.news.uct.ac.za/in-memoriam/desmond-tutu/-article/2006-10-02-tutu-stakes-new-claim-for-steve-bikos-legacy
Yoga kryias https://www.yogapedia.com/definition/5022/kriya
The Artist Way, by Julia Cameron
The Shambhavi Mahamudra https://isha.sadhguru.org/en/wisdom/article/what-is-shambhavi-mahamudra
IEEE conference https://www.ieee.org/conferences/index.html
Debjani’s choice for what song best represents her is Flowers by Miley Cyrus.
Here you can find the Out of the Clouds playlist containing the songs chosen by the guests who answered the question: ‘What Song Best Represents You?’
Debjani’s current choice for favorite book is Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown
Tenzing Norgay, the second man who climbed Mount Everest
The Hymalayan Mountain Institute
Out of the Clouds website: https://outoftheclouds.com/
Out of the Clouds on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_outoftheclouds
The Mettā View website: https://avm.consulting/metta-view
Anne on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annvi/
Anne on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@annvi
Anne on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-v-muhlethaler/
00:04
Hi, hello, bonjour and namaste. This is Out of the Clouds, a podcast at the crossroads between business and mindfulness, and I'm your host, Anne V Muhlethaler. Today, I am delighted to be joined by a very inspiring leader, one with a unique background Debjani Biswas. Debjani is a chemical engineer with two masters under her belt, a certified executive coach, an emotional intelligence practitioner. She is also a former Fortune 50 executive and is now a best-selling author, a speaker and, under the banner of her consultancy, Coachieve, she applies her unique background of engineering, diversity and strategy to tackle the question what is the business impact of inclusion at work? Debjani is also a two-time TEDx speaker, and her talks have garnered in the millions of views. So are you impressed? I certainly am.
01:10
Now, I had the immense pleasure of discovering Debjani 's work after she shared a recent podcast interview she'd done one that she passed on to an online group that we're both members of, and this is what gave me the opportunity to find out about who she was, about her thinking, her work ethics, her commitment to inclusion. And I heard about one of her books Miserably Successful, no More. And as I heard the title, miserably Successful, no More. And as I heard the title, the penny dropped for me and I thought oof, I need to read that and I probably need to speak to this woman. I have a feeling we have a lot to talk about, and here we are a few weeks later.
02:00
Now, coming back to the content of our conversation, so Debjani tells me her story, starting from a very privileged background in India to her fascination with math, the powerful influence of her grandfather and her parents on her scientific studies, the advocacy of her father that helped her pursue a path that wasn't a normal one, not for a girl, not at the time that she started and studied at the prestigious IIT. We talk about her move to the United States and the moment of reckoning that precipitated her away from her corporate career and into this brand new path, one that she formed to become an inclusion catalyst or an exclusion exterminator. But we'll talk about that. Of course, we touched on what she calls the miserably successful epidemic how to gain power over stress, the meaning of being a catalyst for others' growth and change, and how we can all move to actively reduce exclusion. Finally, we also chat about the practices which Debjani finds grounding and supportive in her daily life. So it was an absolute joy to get to know her over the couple of conversations that we've had, and I'm really thrilled to be inviting you to discover this woman's story and the work that she does in the world, one that will hopefully really make a dent in inequity as it exists today.
03:30
So here is my interview with Debjani Biswas. Happy listening!
Debjani. Thank you so much for being here. Welcome to Out of the Clouds.
03:41
Thank you so much, Anne, for inviting me. Thank you so much, Anne, for inviting me.
03:45
So, as you know, I love to start the podcast with asking my guests to tell their story, so that we can get a sense of who you were as a kid and how you became the woman that you are today. And I know it's a big ask, but would you tell us your story?
04:06
Absolutely. I was reflecting on this and I was thinking I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I was born with a platinum spoon in my mouth and so I was born in an extremely wealthy family. So growing up I was just seeing the Paris Olympics and the visual of Marie Antoinette. I was very Marie Antoinette. I had no idea Life was easy. I don't think I ever folded my own clothes, put away my shoes. It was just a very different lifestyle and I was in that from early childhood onwards, used to cooks and maids and chauffeurs, and I was just used to a very privileged, very insulated lifestyle. I grew up as the youngest of four girls and when I was born someone said to my father we're so sorry that you had yet another girl. And my father said call me in 20 years and you tell me how your son is doing and I will tell you how my daughter is doing. And I was born with that kind of advocacy. My parents adored me, my sisters adored me, I had this close knit group of family and friends. So I should have had a very happy, carefree childhood. I, on the surface, was very doing well at everything, but I don't actually remember many exciting, happy, joyful moments from my childhood, perhaps because I learned to be nervous and afraid of things from a very young age. On the one hand, everything was going really well. On the other hand, if I got 98 on 100 in a test in math, I wanted to get 100. So it was just. I was never quite happy with who I was or where I was. So it was a dichotomy, I guess, of a lot going for me and at the same time not quite feeling joyful all the time.
06:12
When I wrote Miserably Successful, no More. I interviewed a lot of people who were under stress circumstances and one of the things that the pattern that I saw I do this pattern recognition and data harvesting was that a lot of people often had one perhaps stressed out or somewhat nervous parent and they learned that was a stress response. And I read Matthew McConaughey's Green Lights recently and in that he mentions an incident where he or his sibling dropped a bowl of cereal and the milk and everything fell to the floor and one of his parents walked in and said is anyone hurt? Oh, in that case it's not a big deal, and walked out. And so he learned how to be calm and collected from just seeing those kind of responses. So my surmise is that it was a combination. And don't get me wrong, I wasn't walking through my childhood and early life unhappy. I'm just saying I don't remember moments of like, always being bubbly and joyful. I had, of course, I had a happy childhood. Looking back, I wish I had thought of smelling the roses a bit back.
07:27
I wish I had thought of smelling the roses a bit. That's okay, you still have time. So I remember hearing that you became infatuated with mathematics very early on, and this is very far from my own lived experience, Can you tell me about your love for maths?
07:45
Absolutely, my mother. She was engaged at 14. She was married at 17. And she had one of the most brilliant minds I've ever experienced. So what she would do is she would play games. And my two older sisters were in boarding school.
07:58
So because my sister Rupa and I, we would go into grocery stores and this was in the days in India. At that time most of these mom and pop stores didn't have these teller machines and things like that you would give the money and they would either calculate it or write it down, give you your change. And so my mother would say to my sister and me she's three years older than me. I would say that, hey, I'm going to go in with a hundred rupee note and we will buy all these things. Whoever can calculate what change I should get back will win. Whoever can calculate that quickest.
08:34
And so it was always a contest. It established that math was fun, and I often think about why it isn't that way for the whole population, Because if you really think about it, it's words and numbers, and we would feel foolish to say I don't like A or D or E or I don't like words and so I've decided I'm going to go away from words. We don't accept that as a society, so I just wonder why it is that we say why is it acceptable socially to think that, oh math, it's not important, I don't need to learn it or know it? I think it's just that we almost socially brainwash our youngsters to think that math is difficult, when actually it's beautiful.
09:20
You make a beautiful case for it actually just to start by making it fun. Yeah, because I think that anything that you can wrap up in fun for a child will suddenly change their learning capabilities, right? Yes, suddenly they approach everything with a sense of lightness. Yeah, would you tell us how you then continued in your journey and your passion with math?
09:40
Because I really loved math and then I was in a small school. I was always in different convent schools. This particular one, the class, was only 15 of us and when the advanced mathematics teacher went away they said that there were just three girls who wanted to do advanced mathematics and so it wasn't possible. So my father actually went to the adjacent boys school and he arranged for one of the male math teachers to come into an all girls convent school and teach three of us.
10:12
I remember, because it was just three of us, they just put a little piece of almost like a curtain or a sheet on one side and had a few desks and there was just three of us and this teacher. They made this sort of makeshift classroom and that's how I learned. As a result of that, I was able to take the joint entrance exam for IIT, which is a very good engineering school in India, and then that's how I got into IIT. I remember I was 15 when I finished high school, at 16 years and one month, there was me and those 39 boys sitting in a classroom and I was just looking around and I was just thinking where are all the girls?
10:54
Where are all the girls? But hold on. So you went from a household with three other sisters to convent school with only women, to engineering school with just boys. How was that? Can you just give me a taste of that experience?
11:14
It was overwhelming. I was very young, I was in my teens. Also, one of my classmates had taken the time to write something very derogatory about my appearance on my wooden desk, which I would have to use for the entire semester. I can guarantee that not a single of the 39 boys, regardless of how they looked, had a comment scratched on their desk. It was my first example of othering, of being needless than of someone trying to focus on something. So we were there to study and there was one person who somehow either felt threatened enough or anxious, I don't know, or just resentful in some way, that there was a female in an engineering classroom that took the time to remind me of a negative aspect of my appearance. So it was just interesting. So that was a negative piece, but the positive piece I would say is that everybody else was. These are lifelong friends, some of them that I've made. The materials were amazing.
12:19
We, India at that time, each of the IITs there were only five at the time had a collaboration with the different countries. So we had it with Germany. So we would do one week wearing khaki uniforms of what's called workshop and then we would do one week of academics. So it was just. It was very fascinating and exciting and I learned a lot. I got blisters all over my hands from doing this, working one week of just taking a block of metal and just fighting it by hand until it became shapely. It was just, it was all so much. So I learned a lot so it was one of my best experiences those five years. It was a five-year course in those days and also a lot of learning growing up quickly.
13:07
Growing up quickly. That's really young to be given this shape of a challenge. Yes, now, because we are exploring what made you who you are today. I'd also love for you to tell our listeners because I know this story already, but I relish in it Tell us about your grandfather and how he also shaped the engineer and the woman that you have become.
13:34
Thank you so much for asking that, Anne. Yes, so I had one grandparent that I actually knew. Unfortunately, my other three grandparents had all died by the time I was a little baby, and so this is. We used to call him Dadu Moni, which means gem among grandfathers, and he was just. He's a world-famous scientist and honored with multiple awards all over the world and worked with Nobel Prize winners.
14:05
But one of the things that he did, he was a colloidal chemist and he instilled this love of questions and this love of curiosity in me. It's in one of my TEDx talks, I think that's what you're referencing. So when I would sit with him, there was this daily tea ritual and he would pour out the tea and he would give me my little hot water and another cup of, and he would actually ask me some questions. In those days they used to have little sugar cubes, at least where he was, and he would take the sugar cubes with the tongs and he would put the sugar cubes into the hot tea and he would ask me what will happen to the sugar when you put it into this hot cup of tea? And I was very small, maybe two or three years old, and I would proudly reply and I would say it's going to melt.
14:56
And then instead of saying, oh, how amazing, wonderful, great I think we just give so much praise to our children for breathing but he would just matter of factly say, okay, so what if the tea wasn't hot? He would ask me these follow-up questions and then he would say what if, instead of tea, there was oil? Would it melt? And so he therefore signaled to me that my brain meant something. The concept of gravitas, of having something of gravity, of weight in your mind, in your brain, is something it's very hard to teach someone early in life, and I think by those actions, without ever saying you are smart or your brain matters, by his actions he signaled that thoughts and ideas and science and chemistry, that this was fascinating, this was important and this was something I belonged in.
15:58
Now I'm curious how did your sisters evolve out of that context? Because we haven't talked about them when we had a chat last time. But I've noticed in my own life that even though I was exposed to very similar things as my brother or my nieces, I came away with very different learnings. So, for example, when my half-brother gave me the first computer and stuff, I became very like.
16:27
I'm a very happy techie, like I just enjoy tech and gadgets and things and new things.
16:33
No one else in my family seems to care at all, and so we have a way to integrate these things.
16:38
Tell me about your sisters.
16:41
So I have often thought about that and sometimes I've discussed this with my sisters. So because we are four, it both in completely different areas. My oldest sister was into education and then my second sister was into law, and they don't practice in those areas. My oldest sister is completely into history and museums. My second sister unfortunately passed away, but before that she was also very much into history and reading and a certified lawyer. My third sister and I went into the more quantitative areas. Her background is in statistics. We both did our MBAs in the Institute of Management, IIM in India, and both two different strains.
17:43
Somebody asked me that once in a keynote and they said how do you think that your father or your mother, your parents, what was it about their upbringing that allowed you to do whatever it was that suited you? I think my father was perhaps a victim of circumstances of the era in which he was born, of some reverse stereotyping. So he absolutely adored music and history and he was strongly encouraged to go into the sciences. So he did his master's in chemistry from Cambridge in England. He was a brilliant person so he succeeded in doing it, but that was not his area of interest and so he determined, and my mother was totally in agreement that when we grew up, four of us would follow the areas of our passion and dreams. It's a great question that you ask, Anne, because the same inputs resulted in a lot of outputs for four different granddaughters.
18:49
I like to explore this because our listeners will discover your wonderful path, and we are going to talk about gender and biases. And I remember feeling and discovering bias when I was a kid In my mother's family. There was always a lot. I felt preferential treatment towards the boys in the family, my brother and my cousins.
19:17
But your story is reminding me and touching areas in my memory because my grandfather touching areas in my memory because my grandfather, knowing that I enjoyed Latin and he was someone who loved philosophy and theology and had studied Latin and Greek, I guess felt a sense of kinship with me when I was 11 or 12. He was a gentleman who was just not very connected to younger children, but as soon as you were able to have a more substantial conversation, that's when we formed some sort of a bond. And I'm just remembering, because you said that about your father, that my dad's own dreams and wishes were quashed by his mother. It's interesting because I have a very non-linear path as a result. So, yeah, I had not thought about that, although I have thought about what could make someone feel like they can do anything, what would pave the way for a young girl or a young boy to actually break the mold and go beyond what he knows.
20:26
Yes, indeed, one of the things I thought about is how language I had mentioned. I love words and I love numbers and I just read, and I don't drink or smoke or do a lot of the things I did before, but I read. I have been addicted to reading since I was very small. I read two, three books a week and I really ponder about the power of words.
20:54
For example, when we use terms like non-traditional careers. That is a term that implies that there is a certain area in which if you're a nurse, then a non-traditional career is a male student. If you are an engineer, it's a non-traditional career if you're a female. And I think that whole use of words a lot of times puts young children into boxes and then they start seeing that this is the limit of their capability, that these doors are closed to them. The other doors are open because that's what girls do or that's what boys do, and I think we need to shatter that because that is not what girls or boys do, that is what a particular girl or a particular boy chooses to do. There are very, very few professions which are uniquely gender bent or gender focused in such a way that it's difficult for the other gender, anyone across the gender spectrum, to participate successfully.
21:55
Thank you for sharing that. It's yeah, I agree. Now, at which point did you move from India to the United States?
22:06
I moved from India to the United States in my early 20s. I had completed my engineering, I had done my MBA. I had a pivotal path where I could have chosen to do my MBA in India or I could have gone to Harvard Business School for my MBA, but I didn't. I'll explain that in a moment. And then I worked for a couple of years and then I got married and came to the US. I was in my mid-20s and had my son that year. So that year was really a lot of change. I got married, I moved to a completely different country, continent, place, and then I had a child at the end of that year. So that entire year I was lucky. I was in my 20s and resilient. There was a lot of change happening at that time.
22:57
And where did you move to in the US?
23:00
I moved to Lafayette, Indiana, Purdue University, and we were there. It's a small little place and just quite different, because a lot of times we think of moving from India to the US as being a rags to riches story, usually because of the relative GDPs of the countries. At least in those days and for me it was actually from having a very good. I was working in the Tata Administrative Services. It was considered a very elite job and I had my own apartment and cook and help and this and that. And then we went to Lafayette, Indiana, $650 a month for three people to survive. I didn't know how to cook so I had to learn that in a hurry after burning rice and other things several times. It was a very big culture change. I was also the mainstream population when I was in India and suddenly, I looked and sounded differently and people gave me advice meaning advice take English as a second language, take some courses so you sound like us. So, it was just a lot to take in.
24:11
Yikes, now when was the first time that you heard the sentence? You don't look like an engineer.
24:22
So, I think I heard it on and off ever since I graduated from engineering school, but I think I heard it the most.
24:31
I worked for 17 years at Texas Instruments. So after Indiana we moved to Texas and I was in Dallas in Texas and when I was working in TI, which is essentially a very engineering-based organization, I would often be in a room, you know a group full of engineers, and that was where I would often be the only person, whether it was in the wafer fab or I used to teach statistical process control to a group of engineers, or a lot of the wafer fab protocol of engineers or a lot of the way for fab protocol within that industry, the semiconductor industry. I would hear that over and over again. There were some funny incidents where I'd be in the room. Someone would assume I was the administrative assistant and say, hey, I like my coffee with black, with a sugar, and there was just a whole lot of. I think that was my first steady, full-time work job in the United States and I think I heard it a lot at work.
25:31
How did that make you feel?
25:36
It was surprising and, in the beginning, I got a little bit defensive and then towards the end, I would just roll with it and my sense of humor asserted itself. So, if someone would tell me how they had their coffee, I would say how interesting I have mine with milk and sugar. So, like you can be defensive about stuff, or you can just say this is the world, this is why we are in this world, is because that's our mission or our vision, or this is our purpose? Is there's something happening here and we are uniquely positioned to maybe move the needle forward in some directions?
26:13
I was quite defensive and touchy and annoyed for a while and then, I don't know, calm and peace settled on me and I just decided this was a message that I needed to share, and I don't think people start off the day with biases or thinking they want to hurt someone's feelings. I think it's just we are programmed to think certain things should be, and so when something's different, we can either be curious and ask questions about why something looks different or sounds different, or we can say this is wrong and judge that thing. So that's our choice.
26:56
Now one of the questions that I wanted to ask you about that, because in the coaching and the consulting that I do, I work with a lot of clients who find it challenging to talk about themselves for various reasons and various mediums. I wonder how did this lived experience of bias around your culture and in your job right your passion for math and your engineering skills? How did it challenge you or perhaps not to help you talk about who you are and what you do?
27:34
So it was more or less a very quiet one-on-one kind of interaction set for the longest time. And then I moved from Texas Instruments to PepsiCo and then within a couple of years they had this huge reduction in force and I was let go. I was laid off as part of the reduction in force and as a result, I then moved to a much more public career where now I give keynotes, and then I started writing books and I started doing workshops. So that was really when I started.
28:09
What I had done for decades is when events would take place where I would have examples either of negative or positive bias or maybe some stereotypical comment or thought.
28:21
I had this folder where I would just the introvert in me I'm a paid extrovert, so I'm essentially an introvert by nature and so I would just type notes to myself.
28:32
I would email myself and had a folder, big folder, which ended up making the first book, unleash the Power of Diversity, super easy, because I had pages and pages of emails, I had sent to myself. So really a lot of these lived experiences. I knew my memory wasn't going to be that great, but 10 years later I would remember every single thing that people said, did or how I experienced Greece as being so amazing. So part of it was different countries, opening my eyes, traveling there, part of it was things people said to me. Part of it was being an observer and seeing interactions among other people. I just did it in a more inward, quiet way and typed it to myself for years and years. But then, when I got laid off and I decided on a different career, my son encouraged me to write my first book because I'd been talking about it for a while, and so when I started doing that's when I went into much more of a vocal career choice.
29:33
I wanted to talk about your son, actually because I interviewed another very accomplished woman based in Colombia called Ana Maria Sierra and, at some point in her career as well, her son also gave her some wonderful advice. Has he been a big part of your career path? How do you guys talk about the journey that you've taken on? Because you're quite the remarkable mother, if I may say so.
30:01
Thank you so much. I would say that a remarkable son gets a remarkable mother. Thank you so much. Yes, he has. I would not be sitting here doing a podcast with you and having anything in this last 10 years, or much less, to talk about, if not for my son, because there were so many moments along this somewhat arduous journey where, if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have continued with my first book. The writing was so easy Unleash the Power of Diversity. I know, after the book was published, I went on this Barnes Noble book tour. I know, after the book was published, I went on this Barnes Noble book tour and one of the people in the audience asked me did you ever have any kind of constrictions or ways in which you got stuck writer's block, things like that and I said no, I had writer's diarrhea.
30:54
I just couldn't stop writing. I just once I started it. So writing was easy. But then when it came to editing, it was very frustrating, not just the editing process but also the people that I was working with in the publishing. It was just a very stressful process. And I said to my son I said nobody really wants this book, this is just a twinkle in my eye, I'm not going to continue, I'm stopping. And he said because he was one of the editors. He said no, we have worked too hard to give up at this stage. And that was just one of the examples.
31:25
When I got laid off and I was just early, trying to figure out writing takes a while, I didn't have much business. While making some payment of my bills electronic, in terms of paying my water bill or utility bills, he just quietly put a lot of money into my bank account just in case I didn't get. And that's always the way he's been. It's just been quiet, quietly, just always there.
31:54
And I am so lucky now that now I say I have my son, but I also have my daughter in love now, who does equally amazing things, frankie, and so the two of them have just gone out of their way to make sure that I am bathed in support. So I think that's just a huge blessing and I say the two of them, in addition to all the things that he has done and yes, for sure, he and now my daughter-in-law, they've both done that I also think of this entire tribe I have around me If I think of my sisters, I think of my aunt and my uncle, my friends from IIT, IIM, TAS, all over, all these different groups of people that somehow have just seen that there's something in the message that I'm sharing which is worthwhile. I have not actually looked for work since I got laid off. Someone, by word of mouth, has found me work, and that is just mind boggling.
32:57
That's beautiful. Now I've heard you tell the story in the book and in other podcasts about how you were laid off, but this was obviously a huge shock. You were incredibly successful. You'd been at the company for so many years. You had also been on the other side of the chopping block, right, you had let people go. I'd like to understand what happened after. I know that your son recommended that you start writing a book, but what happens when suddenly the rug gets pulled from under you? What was your life like then, before you got started?
33:32
Yes, so I had spent a lot of time at Texas Instruments 17 years and then I had just recently moved to PepsiCo. So it was two years in PepsiCo and then I got laid off from there. So I didn't have a lot of loyalty perhaps or advocacy, and it was a big movement and when it happened I was actually in shock at the beginning. It was, I think, a big blow to my ego. It was also for a while I almost was ashamed to tell people I was laid off, even though it was more than one person, even though I had not done anything wrong. It was just all those messages in my head saying, oh, keep it quiet. And that's why, when I encourage people, don't keep it quiet. Ask for help, tell people, tell people it is probably this door is closing, it's going to open bigger doors, windows, something even better.
34:27
But it took me a really long while. I got so spoiled. I got so used to if I had to do a PowerPoint presentation, I would just have some thoughts and ideas and I would just hand it to someone and someone else would do all the visuals for me. I was so used to just having a team of people that were working and I was just used to having a lot of things. So I think it was two things that happened together. One was it was a real feeling of isolation. Unfortunately, the timing also coincided with a very big change in my personal life, as well as a big health issue. So I had this perfect trif jumped out of that crucible, my give or damn was completely broken and I was just like I've just always played by the rules, and all these things have happened. So now, universe, here I come.
35:35
I love it. Oh, that's very interesting. Your give a damn was broken. Yes, so tell me about the first book and the unleashing the power of diversity. I absolutely love the fact that for years, you had emailed yourself with ideas. That sounds absolutely genius, but what was it about that message that got your juices flowing and that just got you to put this message out in the world?
36:04
So one of the biggest things that I wanted to share from Unleash the Power of Diversity. The tagline is multicultural competence for business results. So I have a bias and stereotyping framework there, called the five judgments, typing framework there called the five judgments, and it talks about how we should be judging each other on our work, product or output, but instead of that is actually the fifth of the five judgments. There are four judgments that precede looking at a person's caliber of work or output, and it starts off with your visual cues of how do you look, auditory cues, how do you sound, and you know just all this reputational currency, what do you think you know about someone from India or Switzerland or what is the brand of that particular country, the culture of your being a female or a male. And then the fourth judgment is distinguishing markers, and so I just really wanted to talk about what is it that makes a human being unique, and I drew from areas such as marketing as well, as I had read about genetics. Like in DNA, you have specific markers, genetic markers, and so I thought human beings have distinguishing markers, which would be physical or situational or behavioral, and so just this whole framework about how bias and stereotyping happens.
37:26
I really wanted to share that message because I wanted to shine a light on the fact that sometimes we are giving other people a job because we got turned off by how a person looks or sounds or what we think we know about their country, when that has nothing to do with the job itself. If I'm sitting in an office and coding, it shouldn't really matter if you don't like the clothes that I'm wearing, because what you're doing is coding. It's the reason you have the television show, the voice that don't actually see the person. You just hear them and then you turn around if you like their voice. That is an example of going to the work product or the output first.
38:11
I really wanted and unleashed the power of diversity to talk about what are the things that we can do so that we can include every human being in this planet and not see one person as more than and one person as less than. I've been in the mainstream and I've been in the singularity population, the smaller group, and if we see the smaller group as being like an orchid, rare and beautiful, that's one way of looking at it. Or we can see the smaller group as a group, which is a challenge for us to make them just like the mainstream. So that's why I really wanted to write Unleash the Power of Diversity.
38:57
That's very interesting. That's very interesting. I remember I'm gonna read that quote from your TEDx talk on gender bias. Actually, on several times during that talk I physically felt my heart sink. When you just feel just like sad to hear the facts, yeah, even just Even just reading it, it just makes me. It's funny how I keep the memory of this. Yes, you said we say don't judge a book by its cover. But if human beings were books, I believe that more than half the we judge women by their covers and men by their contents. I know it's true. I find it very painful to hear. What can we do about that?
39:53
So I think the first step and before I go into the answer, I want to tell you that it really warms my heart when someone has a visceral reaction to something I have said or written, because that's when change happens, your genuine emotion of sadness that this is how the world is, of joy, that this is the possibility in the world, that is when we actually move forward. So I just want to start by saying that you just made my day, or my week with that. So the engineer in me, I'm always counting things. So the first thing is to say is this true? So a few ways that we can test whether this is true or not is to take proxies. And if you take a proxy for whether this is true or not, it's very easy to pull the data on the number of plastic surgeries that are done by gender. That would be an example of appearance being more important with one gender than the other. Another way to pull the data would be to see. Recently we've had a few movies in Hollywood where there are female protagonists and a couple of female directors, but essentially, if you look at storylines over the decades of movies and you look at the role of the female is more as eye candy and the role of the male is the protagonist or the hero most often. So there are multiple ways in which to test that hypothesis about. We are looking at women more in terms of as how they look and more men as what they produce. So I think what we can do about that first is recognizing that, asking ourselves go really young, go right back into social media feed or look at Facebook and say I have this beautiful little daughter or beautiful little granddaughter, and those are the only descriptors of how sweet she is and polite and kind she is. And then I have this tough little boy or I have such a smart little grandson and I'm giving him a science kit and he's going to come play sports with me. He's going to do this and she's going to play dolls.
42:16
When you look at computer science, the age at which you start coding is a huge factor in how proficient you become as time goes by. So when you look at classes, I'm talking about early education, the earlier the better, whether it's with science, technology, engineering and math, whether it's with any area, whether it's geography or history, but it's much more of a focus on understanding that, honestly, I didn't even realize. This was a huge gift my parents gave to me. Looks were not a factor at all for me growing up. One of my IIT my engineering classmates mentioned this. We had a mini reunion a few months ago and said they remembered me just walking around.
43:03
I never really used much makeup other than lipstick and some foundation or something now, and I would those days not even use that and I would walk around in these huge baggy, oversized t-shirts. It was just, it wasn't a thing. It's just, it wasn't a thing. And all four of us I think that was a gift that our parents gave us is that we were a fairly attractive set of daughters, as other people used to say, not being like a show-offy person, but it wasn't that big of a deal.
43:31
It was much more about what was in our brain than how we looked, and I think that messaging is really important. I'm perfectly okay with everyone looking, I hope, better than I used to look as a youngster when I was walking around with long t-shirts and whatever not very well-groomed, but at the same time, there is a happy medium. There is a space in the middle where you look well-groomed and you look fine, but you're not obsessed with your appearance. You're thinking much more about the content of your mind than makeup and how you look, and changing that messaging is going to change the way we perceive first ourselves and then others.
44:13
Yeah, I was thinking also, Jane, and the content of your heart, because you talked in one of the and I think in this TED Talk about, indeed, the objectives, that what we say about little girls versus little boys, and almost never would the words kind get used about a boy, but that would always be an objective that's used to describe a kind, sweet, gentle girl, and I was thinking about my younger brother or my cousin, who were kind, gentle boys and who were also made to feel less than when they were not showing particularly masculine traits.
44:51
and so this weaves, not just the gender, it's in both directions, exactly In all directions.
44:58
Yes, A couple of years ago, a coach that I studied with had a new baby girl and they're being very her and her partner are being very careful about how they're approaching gender, and she was. She's very funny Her name is Martha Beck and she has a wonderful podcast and she makes me howl with laughter. But I remember her expressing how difficult it was to say something else than good girl Because she's like no, maybe she doesn't want to be called that and why would she need to be a good girl or a good boy? And her saying trying to find alternative phrases to express joy and congratulate a two-year-old yes. And I remember she said you did. It was the one sentence that she'd come up with. Yes, To just bring that joy without bringing gender into the mix, Absolutely, that's what I've done it's an interesting conversation.
45:56
Yeah, sometimes I will go to a card gift cards and greeting cards when you say happy birthday cards or congratulations or wedding whatever and I just look at the little children's cards. And if you look at the little children's cards there's like a lot of them with this whole Cinderella and dream or snow white and waiting for a prince to kiss you. There's a whole theme around that. And then there are all these superhero cards and there aren't really little girl superhero cards. All the little boy cards are the superhero cards. This whole non-traditional career concept is something I really don't like for that reason.
46:32
I just want to tell you that last week I am proud of this, even though it makes me sound very childish I discovered at my local pharmacy I had to wait a while for a prescription. I discovered Wonder Woman plasters. Because I easily have places on my feet and I bought them. I was like ah F this. I know I'm not eight, but I'm getting them.
46:54
Good for you. When I saw Wonder Woman, that I think was the first really big blockbuster movie where there was this badass woman who is the hero and the protagonist and I just remember crying. I often go to movies just to rate them across the gender spectrum in terms of moving it forward or backwards, and whether it is movies for children or movies for adults. That's just a hobby, a side thing that I do, and I was just sitting with tears in my eyes because there were so many of us, the women, in the audience feeling wow, we have a protagonist who's this strong woman after decades of Marvel and DC superhero male protagonist movies. Again, it's just one of those things of recognizing it.
47:41
I'd like to know which point in your career did you decide to become a coach?
47:45
I accidentally became a coach while I was working. I was my second master's is in organizational strategy and international management. I studied at UT Dallas, locally here, and I was an OD consultant, organization development consultant, and my manager at the time, Barbara Weinberger. She is a very intuitive woman. So we had this internal consulting arm within TI and we would be assigned to different organizations, different functions. And one day she took me aside and she said this thing that you're doing with the senior leaders, that's called coaching, where you're talking to them, you're asking them some questions, you're helping them be more successful. There's a term for what you're doing and it's called coaching. And I think that you're good enough at it that we in TI we're going to pay for you to become a certified coach. We're going to pay for you to become a certified coach. So that was just something that she handed into my lap. I had no clue. I thought I was actually consulting with them on structure and strategy, but apparently I was also. So I went through the International Coach Federation. I became ACC and then PCC, professional certified coach. Utd has a really good executive and career coaching program. So that's how I fell into coaching.
49:04
I think this was, I want to say about 15 years ago. It was completely eye-opening for me. I wish I had known about. I just did a session last week in New York on leader as coach with some senior leaders and I was talking about some of the specific coaching skills from the ICF core coaching competencies which would help leaders be better coaches, and I focused on four of them.
49:28
I focused on presence this coaching and executive presence. On direct communication, on listening active listening and powerful questions. So those were the four that I looked at, any of them, holding people accountable. I just learned so much from the whole, not just coaching curriculum, but using a coaching approach, because I think much of my life, when you're in an area such as engineering or mathematics so basically much of STEM you're in tell mode. You're the expert of the facts and you're in tell mode. Having another tool in my toolkit where I could be in ask mode, where I could have the other person uncover what it is that they are good at or what is holding them back, is powerful beyond what I had expected.
50:19
I'm trying to not freak out, because I love the idea of bringing the ICF core competencies to business leaders. I think that for some of them, who are most of their life in Talmud, it would be like a huge role reversal right. It's interesting to hear you say that, because I had no idea I was going to ever consider coaching. I have had an amazing transformational coach who's made my life just so much better. I found him not at all by surprise.
50:54
I have the universe, just like the right person in front of you when you need it.
50:58
Right after my mother passed away. But I think the reason I came to it is because I just started to notice that my clients were paying me for advice, which was I'm going to pat myself on the back and say, excellent, I'm a seasoned business professional, I know what I'm doing. I'm a seasoned business professional, I know what I'm doing.
51:26
I could see them make mistakes that were literally going against the objectives that they themselves had set, and I started to be frustrated because I wanted to see them do well and I realized that if I used coaching tools, I could get them to find solutions that suited them better than the ones that I was bringing.
51:40
I could get them to find solutions that suited them better than the ones that I was bringing. I'm still working on that methodology, but I find it so exciting and next time I look at my core competencies it will be with a new eye which, by the way, if you're a listener and you don't know what we're talking about, I'm going to put a link in the show notes so you get to explore what these means. But essentially, by respecting these core competencies, we create a container where we have a sense of safety and respect between the coach and the coaching client and there's a sense of clarity as to what is going to happen in the session, what the objectives are, and that sense of deep presence, listening without bringing our own agenda, our own resources, our own baggage and being how does Martha Beck say it? She said be the window, not the light Nice, let people see through, and as opposed to just be the one that's just shining bright in the that's beautiful, beautiful, yes, I think, just because I did it last week.
52:50
It's coachfederationorg and there are a lot of free resources.
52:56
I'll ask you for extra links that you enjoy, and I'll put that in the show notes as well. Now, we talked about what it was like for you when things broke down and you wrote your first book. What prompted you to write a second book?
53:13
When I got laid off from PepsiCo after the shock wore off and the ego and all that other part, the damaged, bruised ego I calmed myself down a bit. I suddenly realized one day that I was actually quite peaceful. I still didn't have a job and I didn't really know where my career was going, but I had a level of calm and peace that I had not had in PepsiCo. It was not really a good match for me and my skills. To be fair to them, and I think it was a very good career decision on both ends for them to let go of me and then for me to start. But I suddenly realized that while I had been at PepsiCo I had been miserably successful. So from a manager position at TI I had moved to an executive position at PepsiCo. I had been miserably successful. So from a manager position at TI I had moved to an executive position at PepsiCo and I was getting paid obviously quite well and lots of perks and original artwork in my fancy office and all that nonsense. But at the end of the day I was not really a match and I was miserably successful and that phrase just got stuck in my mind. I was miserably successful. And then I started looking, stuck in my mind I was miserably successful. And then I started looking around and I started seeing that there was almost like this epidemic of people around me because I used that phrase and one of my MBA classmates from IM. He immediately said I need you to go and copyright that phrase because by the time you write your book miserably successful, no more somebody else is going to take that phrase. You just got me with that. It just gave me a gut response and so I started thinking my gosh and I started testing.
54:48
It Turns out so many of us are on autopilot and we're miserably successful. And if we have just one life to live, I'm not saying give up the success. I'm just saying be aware and work according to your passion and your purpose. Have fun, own things. I have one definition in that book about materialism which I really like Materialism isn't about not owning nice things, but it's about nice things not owning you, and I think that's the whole point of this book. The reason I wanted to write the book is that I was jolted out of this miserably successful career and I was forced into this path, which I absolutely love. I mean, if you were to tell me that I would be in this point in my career and this life because I got laid off. I would be in this point in my career and this life because I got laid off. I would be like, oh my gosh, why didn't this happen 20 years ago instead of 10 years ago? So that's why I wrote the book.
55:49
Yeah, the title really spoke to me, and it doesn't speak to who I am now, but it spoke to who I was then and so for our listeners, of course, when the Jenny and I had a conversation last week, we did speak about the fact that when we say miserably successful, no more there's this sense of who is someone who's successful Like. Who is this book for? And of course it was written for someone who has reached a certain level of success, and by that we mean traditional success in their career. So we mean growth, title, pay, grade.
56:30
Any of the above. Financial stability is often associated with success. Hierarchical positions in organization. The tagline for the book is also power over stress. So that's why the idea is that a lot of times there's a direct correlation between the extent of your success and the extent of your misery and or stress.
56:54
So therefore I wanted to separate the two and say I don't want every one of us to go into an ashram or go to the Himalayas and only meditate, though that's a great career path if that suits you Also. And so I took neuro-linguistic programming classes when I first started writing and I said and instead of but because the choice of words is, I want to be impeccable with my words, as in Ruiz's four agreements. I want us to understand that one can be successful by first defining success in a way that guides you towards one, a match for you. And two, something that makes the world better. That may sound very naive, but we cannot live our lives on the basis of how big our houses or which fancy car we drive. There has to be more to life than that. So that was the other purpose of it is to make us stop and think, and this is from a purely selfish point of view.
57:57
They have done study after study that says people that give back in some form or fashion are happier human beings study of study. So be good and do good just because you will be happier. Don't even believe me at the beginning. Just practice. Volunteer somewhere, help someone, give some money and just see if you feel better. Don't take my word for it.
58:23
Yeah. So one of the reasons I wanted to frame this is because, as I think, miserably successful, no more. The piece I find really frightening is the fact that oftentimes and this is reflected in my experience and in the experience of several people who are very close to me we don't even notice we're miserable, right, and I think that's the crazy piece of the puzzle. Why is it that us human beings just are so complacent, even when we're like dying inside? Yep?
59:11
So one of the things that I noticed had to do with calendaring, which is understanding how we spend our time is very important of being too busy, being so full of activities and yet so empty. Inside that contrast, that paradox of being so full of things and so empty of true joy and feelings, that is a big wake-up call. I was actually very lucky I was given the gift of the layoff because I would have kept marching along, busy, miserably successful, and not stopped. I was forced into one because I didn't have a job. Now I had lots of time to reflect life. That inflection point was such that I could actually think through.
01:00:11
I did all these, took post-it flip charts and I did all this brainstorming. I used to do strategic planning for organizations. I did it for myself. I had a five-year plan and in part of that I established learning, helping, teaching with graceful, flawed authenticity. That was going to be how I lived my life. I was going to try and make the world more inclusive, and then I was going to be how I lived my life. I was going to try and make the world more inclusive and then I was going to try and focus on people being miserably successful, no more, and having power over stress. So I had this bundle of thoughts and it sounds like a lot. It's actually all pretty cohesive.
01:00:56
It doesn't sound like a lot, but the echo behind this that is coming through to me is that what it took for you to make that change was to have a cataclysmic change in your life. Yes, and you said you also had a health scare and, to be clear, one of the reasons why I made changes in my life is because there was a lot of death and grief and an autoimmune disease. So one of the reasons why I'm excited to have this conversation and talk about Miserably Successful no More is to perhaps wave the flag and say, hey guys, don't wait. Don't wait until some really big life event throws you down under and you have to re-examine your life. What reflection could you invite someone to do who perhaps had a visceral reaction to the words?
01:01:48
I would say that the first thing I start with and there are some worksheets at the end of Miserably Successful no More and I think you can even do a free Amazon lookup. You don't even have to buy the book, you can just do a free Amazon lookup and you can probably reach some of those. It's essentially to start off with what is my vision, what is my purpose, what is my mission. I think that would be the first thing, because a lot of times you know you cannot say making more money or you cannot say having a bigger car or house or whatever, but what's your actual? Why are you on this earth? So, understanding what is your purpose, it would be the first step. And then, understanding is there an incongruence between your purpose and the way you're functioning right now? And then the third step would be is that, if you could wave a magic wand, what would you like tomorrow to look like? Just one day, not the rest of your life, but one day?
01:02:43
Oh, that's a sweet question. Oh, I love that one. You're reminding me that when I was probably one of the last sort of conferences that I organized in my old company, there were already hints of like mindfulness and things like that that I started to want to plaster, and it could have felt really out of touch, out of place, and yet it was just me starting to grasp at my purpose and just saying but we need to be including more of this right. Yes, more of the connection, more of the authenticity. So it's not just about selling shoes. Yeah, it's more about what do we do with this connection that we have with each other, with our clients? Yes, yes, I'm glad we touched on shoes, because I think you have a loving relationship to those beautiful designs as well. Am I right, Imelda?
01:03:38
Yes, that is what my family calls me. I have recently done some purging of my shoe collection, so I think I'm down to not as many as I used to have. I'm pretty hypocritical, talking out of both sides of my mouth, I know. In that TEDx talk I talked a lot about the angle of shoes and how one should have flat shoes. However, I have not yet been able to throw away. I have a pair of Manolo Blahniks which have heels and I have not been able to throw them away. I don't wear them, but I look at them. I love shoes. I really do. They just speak to me and they're usually flats and get little kidney heels these days, but I just adore shoes. There's just something elegant and it just pleases me, and so I know. It's a paradox, I would say, and that's why I've called him elder in my household, but it's just something I've loved for a very long time.
01:04:39
But shoes are pieces of design, right, some of them are yes yes, even though they are functional, there is something to the nature of an object that can appeal to a human eye or heart. I had a conversation one day. I was in Thailand on a work assignment and we were courting the Thai men's press, so it was just lots of guys from Vogue Men and L Men and et cetera, and we talked about design and how, once you find something, that's like your thing like my brother has been collecting a very specific type of Nike SBs since his late teens.
01:05:20
He's a skateboarder. What can I tell you how cool.
01:05:24
How cool is that.
01:05:25
But it's funny because we fall in love with the design and there's a story behind the design and the story behind the brand and the words, as much as the line and the work, the engineering work behind it that matters. Oh, yes, a great shoe, especially a heel, is no mean feat for the man who designs it or woman who designs it.
01:05:44
Absolutely, and the way you said that, the man or the woman who designs it. And I noticed that because I usually try and prepare when I'm doing any kind of a podcast or an interview or a session. And I heard some of your amazing guests before and one of the things that I noticed in common with the last two that I heard, is that they both used pronouns in a very gender neutral way. They said he when it was for certain actions, but for some actions, such as a surgeon or a manager or a leader, they said she, and it just struck my ears so positively. These are unconscious things that we do, and so just what you did just now is you said if he designed it or she designed it, those are micro affirmations that make people feel like they belong. This is the work of Dr Mary T Rowe of MIT, and this is a huge area. I've worked with the National Alliance for Partnerships and Equity in the US. Micro messaging what you just gave a wonderful example is very important in this work that we do.
01:06:51
Debjani, there's something that I wanted to ask you that I remember us discussing in our prior conversation last week. We talked about how it was important for you to lean on language, to have clarity and also to drive impact, and at first I remember hearing you talking about yourself as an inclusion catalyst. But I also heard you and I think this was particularly noticeable in your TEDx talk that you called yourself an exclusion exterminator, and I was wondering if you would do me the favor of telling me in depth about what you mean with both of these terms.
01:07:31
Absolutely so. I have a framework which is called the Bridge and it is B-R-I-D-G-E. So the B-R-N-D-I is called is building and reinforcing inclusion, and the D-G-E is destroying the guardrails of exclusion. Epiphany that it's not just about increasing inclusion. We have to decrease exclusion as well. And so when I call myself an inclusion catalyst, I am using the word catalyst first in the chemistry or chemical engineering sense, where a catalyst is a particular could be a metal like iron, which, within a chemical reaction, actually speeds the process of the reaction happening, the formation of ammonia or whatever the reaction is, but it itself does not get changed. And so I'm using it literally in the sense of catalyst as in an agent of change that can help move inclusion forward quicker.
01:08:40
But that's only for the people that are in the room. You include people that are in the room, but there are systems of inequity, structures whereby a lot of people are excluded, or bias and stereotyping, where we are exclusionary. In trying to be exclusive, we are exclusionary. And so I decided that I needed a strong term, so exclusion exterminator. It's not enough to say I don't like intolerance or bigotry or hatred, I will stamp it out, I will get rid of it. I want to use a strong term, and I invite people to be exclusion exterminators with me, because good people saying nothing when bad things happen is not enough anymore. We have to actively reduce exclusion and bias and all the isms and sexism and racism and misogyny and labels and hatred. We just have to reduce it actively. So that's why I chose that term.
01:09:39
I have to tell you it really speaks to me. I find that it grabbed my attention and I could have just leaned on the first label, right, because it sounds great. But when I think about an exterminator, I think about someone who's going to come and get rid of rodents and bugs, so getting rid of nasty, bad, negative things, and so I enjoy the terminology.
01:10:05
I also like that you call yourself a catalyst, but so my brain feels tickled because I have this image of you acting as the catalyst, as the metal right, as you would describe it, iron that doesn't change, but speeds up the process for others.
01:10:25
Yes.
01:10:26
Yes, how did you first come to find that term and to identify in this way?
01:10:34
Thank you so much, and I think that's one of the things that I find is that I have all these ideas that I read about or hear about. So, catalytic converters catalysis itself was one of my subjects in chemistry and chemical engineering and I just tucked it away in my mind and then, when I was trying to apply some of these science and physical concepts to behaviors, the term just popped into my mind. That's what I want to be. I want to be a catalyst, I want to speed inclusion and the immediate definition applied so well for behavior. So it just popped into my head.
01:11:10
Yeah, it really does, and I identify as a catalyst for change. That's also one of the things I foster and I help in clients, whether it's corporate clients or individual clients, and so I immediately felt very comfortable with that.
01:11:25
But I love understanding the framework and the depth of it in your mind as well. Thank you. So, talking about the importance about creating that change faster, I've mentioned it before, but images and stories that you shared, either in the books or in the talks, that really sort of weighed on me, and there was one in particular about a little boy and an airplane. Would you tell us that story to frame why we need to all consider becoming exterminators?
01:12:04
Yes, yes, indeed, I was doing a session with the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity. We were doing a session on some of these concepts, such as micro messaging. We addressed teachers, administrators, principals on how to make sure that every student has the equal right, and almost walks into a classroom and feels that they should succeed, they must succeed, and one of the instructors who was in the audience the people that we were teaching she gave this story of how she had been in a plane with her little two-year-old boy and when she was it's midway through, the flight attendant said that the pilot wanted to speak to her little boy, and so she was very excited and they both went up and then the pilot came out from the cockpit and they have these little pins or brooches, depending on which country you're coming from, with little flyers, and so the captain wanted to put that little pin on the two-year-old child, and the pilot happened to be a woman, and so this mother. She noticed that her son's eyes widened and he didn't say anything, and of course, they had the conversation. The little brooch was pinned onto the little boy, and then that ended and they were driving back, and as they were driving back, the mother noticed that the little two-year-old son of hers was just crying and crying and so she said what happened, because this was such a joyous, positive event. So she said what happened and the little two-year-old said that wasn't a pilot, that wasn't a real pilot. And she said what do you mean? And then this little two-year-old child said because a pilot is a man. This little two-year-old child said because a pilot is a man.
01:14:01
And just the thought of what we are doing as a society, where a little two-year-old child emphatically believes, quote, unquote, knows that a pilot is a man my sister and brother-in-law, they are pilots this whole concept and when we talk about language, it just it made me so sad. There is so much to be done for us to change language, for us to change these strongly held concepts and beliefs of who should be in what career, of who should inhabit what role in life. I'm a huge Harry Potter fan and we talk about sorting hats. And are you a Hufflepuff or a Ravenclaw or a Slytherin or whatever? You should be able to do your own sorting hat. You shouldn't be told oh, you're a boy, you go into that sorting hat and you're a girl, you go there. That's not the way life should be.
01:14:55
Yeah, that story, as I'm hearing you telling me it again with more details as well. It echoes another pilot story I heard, and I think the first. I must have heard it from Tara Brack and or Jack Kornfield, the mindfulness teachers, yes, and or Jack Kornfield, the mindfulness teachers, yes, and they were recalling a story about Archbishop Tutu, who was talking about how he ended up on a flight I'm not going to get the details right, but I will find the details online and upon discovering that the pilot was black, he himself had a moment of should this man be flying the plane? Oh, my goodness, because we can be biased against our own right.
01:15:49
Oh, my gosh oh, am I safe in the hands of a woman pilot? So that this just came back in my mind as you were fascinating.
01:16:00
You say that because I have found that in group bias, which is an example of what you just said, is sometimes as strong or stronger than other group, or out of group bias, where we actually have such preconceived notions about our own group, whether that be gender or race or however we affiliate with that group. So you're absolutely correct. That is a powerful realization and self-awareness. We all have biases. Just because I talk about bias doesn't mean I don't have them. I'm just a little more aware of them. We all, every human being, has biases. I'm just a little more aware of them.
01:16:36
We all every human being has biases. So I think that, speaking about awareness, this is a good time to make a switch to a question that I like to ask all of my guests. As you understand, I like to describe this show as being at the crossroads between business and mindfulness, and I'm not strictly talking about people who are mindfulness practitioners, but also talking about life beyond business, about living with intention, about cultivating a sense of grounding or self-awareness. So I'd like to ask you, Debjani, what practices or tools help you cultivate a sense of presence, what keeps you grounded, what helps you write perhaps as well or deliver keynotes, anything that you want to share.
01:17:31
I find two things really help me. One of them is the practice of yoga. Two things really helped me. One of them is the practice of yoga, and this is not so much physical yoga as inner engineering meditation, the kriyas, and I try to do this regularly because when I do that it just settles the day in for me. I try to start the day with that, have a shower, start with my yoga meditation, and it just really grounds me. So that is one. And then the second one and I learned this from the book the Artist's Way, which is amazing is the morning pages.
01:18:07
So every morning I write because writing is a habit, and for me reading and writing is a habit. I used a negative word, addiction earlier, but more than anything it's a habit. And so I try to do three pages freestyle writing every day and somehow when I start that it sets sort of the cogs and wheels and pulleys of my brain whirring around and I find it easier to write my keynotes or to write. I'm working on my fourth book right now and it just makes it much easier because I'm in the cadence of reading and writing. So these are the two things that really ground me. And then music. Music is the final thing. Music has such a healing power for me Classical music that my father and I listened to when I was young with my family, or raucous, loud rock and roll music when I'm in the mood, to up my energy Music. I'm very attuned to how music impacts my mood, to how music impacts my mood.
01:19:17
Thanks so much for sharing that. You're one of the few people I've interviewed so far who actually has a daily morning journaling practice. I have to say I find that I'm even more dedicated to morning pages than I am to meditation and I'm a very dedicated meditation practitioner and teacher but I find that, like you said, it helps me process my thinking. Everything feels better after the morning pages, even though sometimes they feel a bit like a slog. There are days when I'm like what else? We don't have anything to say. But but yes, it's a wonderful process. And I did want to ask could you describe the kriya yes one?
01:20:03
particular. Yes, it's the shambhavi mahamudra, and the shambhavi mahamudra is part of the Isha institute. It's inner engineering. There is 30 hours of pre-work before you can do that. Kriya With Sadhguru. You take the classes either in person or online. You clear your mind. You do certain things where you say I am the mother of the world, male or female. You start out by saying I'm the mother of the world, everything is my choice, everything is my intention. I am so blessed is my intention, I am so blessed. And then you start doing it's a combination of different things which is fluttering of the breath and breathing a certain way. It is the chanting of people say Aum, but actually for us I'm from India it's really Aum because of the opening and closing of the mouth. Not really it. It's a three-part, exactly. It's not om, it's a three-part, exactly. It's just very mindfully. So. I learned that through the Inner Engineering class that I took in the Isha Institute. So it's Shambhavi Mahamudra. Thank you for sharing. Of course that sounds really amazing.
01:21:14
Now I realized that we opened a door really early in our conversation that we didn't close, which was a story about how you were meant to go to Harvard and then declined going to Harvard. Can you please tell me that?
01:21:34
story, absolutely so. This happened actually twice. The first time I had just finished my engineering in IIT, chemical engineering, and I applied for an MBA and I received admission to the Harvard Business School and I declined for personal reasons. Perhaps I didn't understand exactly, being quite young, the value of that MBA from Harvard. Also, there were very strong personal reasons why I wanted to stay back in India. So that was the first time.
01:22:08
I remember the first day that I instead went to IIM amazing organization loved it and they were having a mixer. And the first question that someone asked me, one of my classmates is there's this rumor that you declined Harvard to come to IM. Is that true? And I was like, yes, but how on earth would you know that? So that was the first time. The second time was after I had done my MBA and I had worked for a couple of years in the data administrative services task, and then I was planning to come to the US and I had applied to Harvard. And this time I didn't just get an admission, it was for their PhD program, also in the School of Management, and I received a scholarship it was named like a fellowship where, if I worked for a couple of years after completing my PhD. It was completely everything was free the tuition, everything, the coursework, everything was free.
01:23:06
That time I declined again for personal reasons. But what was really sad about that was when I sent the rejection. That was in the days of mail. I mailed the rejection back to Harvard and it got lost in the days of mail. I mailed the rejection back to Harvard and it got lost in the mail. So the default address, the secondary address, was my parents' home and I had unfortunately I didn't do that at all, but I had lied to my parents saying I didn't get into Harvard, because I knew that if I told them I got into Harvard and it was this amazing everything paid offer that they wouldn't understand. And so I just lied and said I didn't get into Harvard.
01:23:45
Harvard sent a second letter with all the details of the admission and the financial aid and everything and that went to my parents' address and my father opened that letter and he knew not only that I had gotten, but that I had lied to him and it broke his heart. And that's the reason, Anne, I have decided, even though my father is no more, sometime in my life I don't yet know I'm putting out there into the universe. I would like to do something at Harvard. I don't yet know I'm putting out there into the universe. I would like to do something at Harvard. I don't know if it's give a keynote, I don't know if it's do a session be a guest lecturer there are schools of gender studies or the school of business. But I'm putting it out there in the universe just so that my father, who's behind my shoulder or up in the heavens, just so that he knows I need to have it at some point.
01:24:44
Yes, I'm sure it will happen. Now, of course, it's making me terribly curious to find out about your secondary reasons not to go, but I will not pry. I feel so bad for your dad I really do. But I also have to tell you that I lied to my father about dropping out of university. Never mind, sometimes we're young and foolish. Thank you, we're going to leave it at that, thank you, Anne.
01:25:04
You have such a kind heart and such an empathetic soul. Thank you so much.
01:25:11
Oh well, you also tell stories that I felt like I was in the room with your dad somehow. Anyways, I'm sure he's very happy, if not jubilating from the heavens. Now, is there anything you would like to add? Before I ask you a few select closing questions that I like to ask all of my guests.
01:25:35
One of the things that I've realized is that in life this is something I heard in a conference when I was speaking at the IEEE conference in California, and this woman on the panel said there are three kinds of people One of them that try and put you down because maybe they are jealous or envious, or they feel if you are less, they become more.
01:25:57
So stay away from them. There are people that try and support you as you are right now, which is excellent. There is a third and rare caliber of people that see who you can be one day and support that person and if you ever find that person or that group of people, keep them close to you and I have been so blessed. A shout out to all the people that see me as I can be one day and are there to support me. So that's been huge in this. You know, I look back on my career journey and from being laid off, it's surreal to see who knew, crossing million views on TEDx talks and the books are international bestsellers who knew this would happen? It's because of these people that saw who I could be.
01:26:47
That's fantastic. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say this in those words, but it's making me want to think about how I look at my friendships. Am I reflective of what my friends could be? Because we can also become that person for others. It's not just finding them in and around.
01:27:07
Yes.
01:27:10
Thank you for that, of course. So now, some of these I have heard are quite difficult, and the first question is what is your favorite word? And by that I mean a word that you could theoretically tattoo on yourself or at least live with for a while.
01:27:32
I think my favorite word is trust. I exist because of trust. I trust certain people implicitly. I want to be worthy of trust. I had mentioned being impeccable with my word, but also in my actions. I believe that trust is the foundation of almost every interaction. I believe that trust is the foundation of almost every interaction human interaction with our pets. It's just trust is very important to me, and the betrayal of trust is also the reversal. It's very hard for me to go beyond the betrayal of trust, and so it's just very critical to my DNA is living in a world of trust and being worthy of trust. Thank you so much.
01:28:18
Of course. What does connection mean to you?
01:28:24
Great question. People speak to us in two languages. They speak to us in the language of words and they also speak to us in the language of emotions. To me, connection is when I can see someone's words and emotions and when they trust me enough to show me their words and emotions with no masks, with no subterfuge, and a connection is truly person to person, energy to energy, emotion to emotion. That's when I feel it. It could be someone I've known my whole life, or it could be someone that I just met, but to me that is connecting at almost a cellular level.
01:29:14
Thank you, that's beautiful, of course.
01:29:22
Now what song best represents you?
01:29:23
that's easy flowers by Miley Cyrus. Oh, that's awesome, because everyone else seems to be absolutely stuck with that question. Why is that? Do you want to tell me why? Because I don't know the song. It's an anthem.
01:29:35
It's an anthem of independence and freedom. I can buy myself flowers, I can take myself dancing. I can love me better than you can. That's the refrain of that. And for the longest time I felt like I was in the messy middle of being dependent on approval or caring or everything from others. And I just heard that song, less than a year ago, and I just started playing it. It was after an award ceremony where she belted it out and I put it on my Spotify and my playlist and whenever I feel a little bit down, I just turn it on and I put it in a loop and I hear it two or three times and I sing loudly and badly to it. I'm in such a good mood.
01:30:20
Oh, that sounds fantastic. I can't wait to listen to it. Thanks, what is the sweetest thing that's ever happened to you?
01:30:29
I had an epiphany when I to think about this year. I have so many examples. I am showered with sweetness. So the first thing that happened after the feeling of deep gratitude for how much sweetness I have in my life I was thinking of the birth of my child, but I think that's more momentous that led to a chain of never-ending sweetness. I'm going to cheat and give a couple of examples. So one of them I was flying earlier this year, flying from Singapore to Kolkata, exhausted, checked into my hotel, put on a do not disturb sign, and I'm just sleeping away and there's this loud banging on my door and I get up grumpy and I'm like what kind of a five-star hotel is this where there's a do not disturb sign and they're still banging on the door to do housekeeping? And I open the door and it is my sister, Rupa, who is just. She has secretly she knows that she's on the board of governors for the IIM and she has some meetings which coordinate the timing and she's just outside the door. I'm going to meet her in a few days, but she's just decided to surprise me ahead of time and I just start crying with joy. It was just so sweet. Then I've been telling you. These are all examples from this year. I have a milestone birthday and my other sister, Radhiti Venki. They fly across the world from Singapore. My aunt, my uncle, my sister, my son, my daughter-in-law there is a group of six family members just making this special day magical. And I just look around and I am bathed in sweetness. And then the final example that I'm sharing, and I've decided I'm going to actually send messages to the other 10 or 15 examples that came up. I'm going to send messages to people saying what you did was so sweet.
01:32:34
But you may have noticed, people might see that I'm wearing an opal necklace and I don't know if that's coming across, and so your listeners can imagine this opal necklace sort of sea blue in color, shimmering. So I went on this amazing holiday in August with my family and we are in Sydney, in Bondi Beach, and I go into a store. I see this opal necklace and then I walk out because it's sort of beyond my budget I wasn't planning to spend that much and my family's at this bar across the street. I walk in and I see there's this beautiful opal necklace. I'm wondering should I buy it? Blah, blah, blah. And my daughter-in-law, Frankie. She says I'll come across the street. I blah, blah.
01:33:23
And my daughter-in-law, Frankie. She says I'll come across the street, I'll come look at it. So in the meantime she's Googling the value of opals and necklaces and she's doing all her due diligence and she goes in, she sees it, it's beautiful, and we walk out I haven't yet bought it. And she just says to me she says, ma, you've worked your ass off your whole life and you don't really need to run it by anyone or ask for permission. If this is something that you want, you decide. And that is so sweet because I think I mentioned I was a people pleaser earlier. Then I became a sledgehammer and the pendulum sort of swings, but it was so liberating. I think I'm such a badass now just because I've got this permission. And then I'm like I do not need permission to ask for something that I am paying for with my heart and money and I have worked very hard my whole life. And so it was just so sweet. A daughter, my bonus daughter, just giving me a perspective that has changed the way I look at things.
01:34:31
That does feel super badass as well. What is a favorite book that you can share with me? Okay?
01:34:41
For a person who has been reading two or three books a week for their whole life. It's so difficult.
01:34:48
Atlas of the Heart. That's why I say a favorite, not a favorite, you're absolutely, because that's too hard. Yes indeed.
01:34:55
I walked through my library and I saw the book that was the most dog-eared and has a hundred post-its or little stickers in it, and that book is Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown, which I have read and reread, where she talks about the difference between grief and anguish, and it's so visceral. You can imagine that moment when you were so sad that your legs didn't hold it and you just collapsed to the carpet on the floor. It is such a powerful book to sort through your emotions with granularity. So it's Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown is a favorite book.
01:35:40
I did not finish it. Thanks for the reminder. Where is somewhere that you visited that you feel had a deep impact on the person that you are today?
01:35:55
So when I was about 12 years old I want to say 12 years old I used to go often anywhere as a child, to Darjeeling. My sister studied in Loretto and Darjeeling, but this particular holiday we went to the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute and that is, first of all, you imagine the scenery. That's the Himalayas, Kanchanjunga, Mount Everest, the view in the distance, Tiger Hill I mean it's absolutely stunning, it is awe-inspiring, just beautiful. And in the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute I was lucky enough to meet Tenzing Norgay, who is the second man who climbed Mount Everest. We only hear about Edmund Hillary and really, when you think about it, Tenzing Norgay was the Sherpa who carried all of Hillary's supplies so that Hillary could be the first man on Mount Everest, but he was the one carrying the first man's supplies.
01:36:51
I think, talk about equity, talk about equity. And I got to actually see him very tanned, wizened face, so much wisdom, so much energy to think. And then he was paying it forward with the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute and teaching generations of young climbers the pitfalls and techniques. And it was just that whole, the combination of the beauty around me, seeing this historic figure with zero arrogance and so much humility. I can visualize that scene in my mind as I'm speaking. It was impactful for me.
01:37:33
Thank you. Thank you Now, imagining that you can step into a future version of yourself. What do you think is the most?
01:37:49
important advice that future you would give to present state you as a comic reader and lover of Marvel and DC comics. I will use the analogy of kryptonite. Remember that as human beings, we have kryptonite, which is certain things or people that make us weaker or less strong. Less than Stay away from kryptonite as much as possible, or, if you physically have to be around kryptonite, surround yourself with behavioral, metaphorical lead and then surround yourself with people that heal you, that love you, that soothe you, that are joyous for you, and everything will be all right. Be grateful for all the bounty that surrounds you.
01:38:42
And this takes us to my last and favorite question what brings you happiness?
01:38:51
I think I can answer that question in terms of sound. The absence of sound, total stillness when I'm writing and reading, brings me a lot of happiness. And also music, laughter, joy, a lot of noise when I have the energy to hear it. My family trash talking each other while they're playing games or just all sorts of just lots of the joy and revelry a baby laughing. So there are certain sounds that I love, and then total stillness and the absence of sound is also a huge source of happiness.
01:39:36
Thank you so much. We have come to the end of our conversation, or let's say this conversation, because I think we should have more conversations in the future, not just on this podcast. Devjani, it was such a pleasure to talk to you, to get to know you better, to get to ask you so many questions. I want to say thank you to get to know you better, to get to ask you so many questions. I want to say thank you as well for having the guts to post about that other interview you did on the WhatsApp group that we are on together, because otherwise I would never have necessarily well, never, say never perhaps through other means we would have come into contact with each other. But I loved listening to you that time and I loved reading your book and I can't wait for the next one. Now, if people are excited about what you do and want to get in touch or find out more, can you just tell us where they can find you?
01:40:35
First of all, thank you so much for saying that and it's been such a pleasure. I'm so glad you enjoyed the earlier podcast and the books. I think the easiest way to get a hold of me is through LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn with my name, devjani Biswas, and if they're looking for books or TEDx talks, you just do a Google or look on Amazon. But I think the easiest way to get in touch with me is connect with me on LinkedIn. It would be helpful if you just give a sentence which says I heard your podcast or something when you're sending the invite, and that way I know the context and that would be the easiest way to connect.
01:41:12
Wonderful. Well, on that note, thank you. I hope that you have a wonderful month of August off, if I'm correct, have great holidays with your family, and I'm looking forward to speaking to you again in the future.
01:41:27
Thank you so much, Anne. This was such a pleasure connecting with you.
01:41:32
Same here. Take care you too. On the platform of your choice, and if you'd like to connect with me, you can find me at Anvi on threads on Instagram, Anvi Muhlethaler. On LinkedIn If you don't know how to spell it, the link is in the notes or on Instagram, at underscore. Out of the clouds, where I also share daily musings about mindfulness. You can find all of the episodes of the podcast and much more on the website outofthecloudscom. If you'd like to find out more from me, I invite you also to subscribe to the MetaView, my weekly newsletter, where I explore coaching, brand development, conscious communication and the future of work. That's the MettaView with two Ts, TheMettaView.com. So that's it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening to Out of the Clouds. I hope that you will join me again next time. Until then, be well, be safe and take care.