Marrisa Mayer, Age 40, President and CEO of Yahoo!

Satya Nadella, Age 47, CEO of Microsoft

Sundar Pichai, Age 43, CEO of Google

Dhiraj Rajaram, Age 40, Founder and CEO of MuSigma

Serena Williams, Age 33, No 1 in women’s singles tennis

Perhaps you may say….

How did they make it?

They are all young and made it from ground zero. Not born with silver spoon.

How come i am nowhere close to their accomplishments?

How can i help my kid get there?

I am a loser

They are lucky

Let us reflect more on what is going on here.

Individual success or company success fortunately don’t come from doing 100s of things right. It comes from doing a short list of fundamental things right. You may have heard about the 80 – 20 rule. When you read these, none of these would be big surprises. It would sound common sense to our thinking mind but may not be that common when it comes to implementation. I also don’t believe that we need to get a perfect score in each and every one of these factor to be successful, just got to be better than competition overall.

1) Passion
Do you know your true passion? What things will result in you forgetting time and food? What is your zone? All these questions have the same end goal which is to know our true passion. These highly successful people generally are working on their true passion. This is why what they have achieved doesn’t stop them and seek retirement, but continue taking it to the next level.

This is what Steve Jobs had to say on this topic “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.”

When you do things you don’t like, the more you do, the more tired, bored or frustrated you get. When you do what you love, the more you do, the more fun you have. At a TiE ‘My story’ event, i asked a serial entrepreneur who has made a few hundred million why he continues to work and why he doesn’t retire and enjoy life with family and friends. He said he wouldn’t know what do to if he is not doing what he is doing.

2) Risk
These successful people took a lot of risks. I personally know one of them sold their first home, moved to an apartment and invested the money in their start up. You all know about the CEO who went back to work after a 2 week maternity leave. Some would argue that the risks they took were crazy and some would call it calculated risks. Whichever camp you are, there is no denying that they took some significant risks on an ongoing basis.

3) Faster PDCA
For folks who have worked in a manufacturing job, you have heard about PDCA. Some know it as Deming wheel. Plan – DO – Check – Act.

In new initiatives, we don’t know whether it will be successful or not. You do the best planning you can, you execute the plan, you look for feedback and then you act on it. When we learned this in college, we probably said to ourselves “how else one would do it”. However, while at work, you probably saw and see repeated incidences of this not being followed, or followed well.

There are 100s of stories that support #2 and #3 but here are a few famous stories if you don’t believe me….

“Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he succeeded.

Albert Einstein did not speak until he was 4-years-old and did not read until he was 7. His parents thought he was “sub-normal,” and one of his teachers described him as “mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams.” He was expelled from school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School.”
To be successful, we not only need to do PDCA but we need to not take too long to do repeat the PDCA cycle if the expected results are not there. Don’t ever give up. Instead of worrying about the past or the future, invest that energy in the next PDCA cycle!

4) Health is wealth
If you worry too much, i strongly recommend you order Dale Carnegie’s book “How to stop worrying and start living” and begin reading. You will soon learn how you are torturing yourself and how to get smart about it. I am serious, worrying too much will lead to ulcer and other diseases that will limit your productivity and ultimately kill you sooner.

Poor eating and poor exercise habits may be alright when you are young. Similar to stress, these bad habits will soon eat us up alive. You don’t need a lecture on this. You know what to do. Just do it!

5) Sustained high performance
While at traditional schools and colleges, we knew grades where the thing. It was a simple success criteria and one could rank the whole class from 1 to n. Fortunately or unfortunately, life success ranking is not that simple as you know. There is no one metric that ensures success in life. Even the kids who want to get into Ivy league schools are expected to know this. Shouldn’t the more experienced ones like us know this even better?

One of my clients who is a CEO of a 10M business once said that big success comes from not working hard for a phase of our life and taking a backseat for the rest. It got to be high performance on an ongoing basis. Another friend of mine would say that life is not a 100 meter sprint but a marathon.

6) Partners
No man or woman is an island. Family, friends, mentors (official and unofficial) and professional network all become partners. Successful people have a couple of people who are their coaches / mentors / advisors who they regard highly and constantly bounce off key matters. Each of us have blinders or what some call filters or blind spots. Without a network of trusted advisors, we are limited by our filters and live far below our potential. Sports stars are a great analogy. Every one of the stars has a coach. Business is no different from sports in many ways. Even the super successful like Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt had coaches. Check out Eric’s video on my website.

7) Luck
This is a big discussion topic. Some people think this is THE factor for success. Not everyone who is smart and hardworking becomes a Mayer or a Pichai, right? So, is it all this one factor – luck. A lot has been debated and written about this. You may check out this Forbes article when you get a chance.  In summary, i would ask you to make sure you are hitting in all cylinders on things you can control. Keep doing it again and again. There is a very high chance you will be very successful eventually.

For me, i know i am doing well in some aspects of these success factors and not so well in other aspects. I plan to walk the talk and strive to celebrate where i am doing well and work on where i am not doing well. What do you want to do?

The cover page stated “40 under 40” in 200 font size.

It featured success stories of 40 of their successful alumni who are under 40 years.

I read and re-read their stories as I wanted to understand the common threads across these 40 people.

What have they achieved?

How old are they?

What is their favorite professional moment in the last year?

Who are their role models?

What made them successful?

What have they achieved?

2/3 of them are C-level people (CEOs, Co-founders, COOs, President’s etc.)

1/3 of them got into entertainment, journalism, government etc.

How old are they?

2/3 of them finished their MBA in the last 10 to 15 years

1/3 of them are less than 10 years after the MBA

What is their favorite professional moment in the last year?

Mostly they point to a major turning point in their career:

– Meeting an investor

– Media attention

– Social impact

– Successful launch of an initiative

Who are their role models?

The top category was parents, grandparents and family.

Surprisingly, only a couple of them mentioned famous personalities and no one identified the same person.

Many also pointed to the leaders they ran into where they worked.

Note: Just so there is no confusion, only 2 of the 40 were born with a silver spoon and may have benefitted from that.

What made them successful?

Overwhelming winner is the partnership they established with other people – their team, husband, family, generous mentors, meeting people who became investor etc.

The next winner is the their core – perseverance, ambition, hard work, relentless dedication and passion, self-discipline

Let me quote a few of them to move from statistics to the person himself/herself. This is their response to “why so successful?”

Joyce Meng, Co-Founder and CEO of Givology

“Hard work with purpose, not giving up and not compromising the original vision for what is ‘comfortable’ or ‘easily reachable’. Even if you don’t know something today, you can learn it. So many studies have empirically shown that self-discipline trumps intelligence, IQ and talent in predicting success”

Ben Nelson, Founder of San Francisco’s Minerva project

“My parents brought me up to analyze the world around me from first principles and not take conventional wisdom as given. Outside of sheer luck (of which there was plenty), nearly every positive event in my career can be traced to that upbringing’

Nat Turner, Co-Founder & CEO of Flatiron Health

“Meeting the right people early on, including future co-founders, advisers and investors”

Kunal Bahl, Co-Founder & CEO of Snapdeal

“Our rock star team is the reason for Snapdeal’s success. In addition, it helps to be objective about situations whether they are good or bad, and build a higher purpose-driven institution”

What thoughts come up for you when you read this article?

They say prime minister, president, movie star, CEO, sports star, business owner, teacher, soldier etc.

Do you remember saying something similar when you were young? Why do we have big dreams when we were young and smaller dreams when we grow up?!

Here are some of the reasons we may have:

• not lucky enough
• family responsibilities
• organization politics
• don’t have the connections
• my father was not rich
• BIG dreams are for movies
• busy with other things
• almost forgot I used to have big dreams

What is your reason?

Are these reasons true or the TRUTH? In other words, does it feel true to you or is it the ultimate TRUTH?

I found that for every reason (or to be blunt ‘excuse’ we give), we will find highly successful people who were in far worse situations.

We have more wealth, experience and independence than we ever had. We are fortunate not to be on an airplane that faced tragic ends. Let us make full use of it. Let us be role models for our children by going after the BIG goals that you care about. We may either win BIG or may not win that BIG. Either way, we will learn a lot and can teach (by example) our family and friends to dream BIG.

About Nirmal Chandrasekaran:

Nirmal is a leadership coach, consultant and founder of The Mindset Gym. He is passionate about helping middle level manager, sr. engineers executes achieve big dreams. He is one among a short list of youngest Vice Presidents’ at a big-5 high-tech electronics manufacturing company in Silicon Valley. He is also a Certified Professional Coach (CPC) from a top coaching school and Energy Leadership Index (leadership assessment tool) Master Practitioner (ELI-MP).

Here are the situations that helped me reflect on this:

1. Experience at my kids school
Our kids are at a school based on experiential learning. It is mandatory for parents to participate in class room exercises a couple of hours a week. During a snack recess last week, I noticed a special needs girl. She was hugging another child and didn’t let her go for some time. The other child was nice but she couldn’t support for too long, naturally. As I helped the situation, I was thinking about the special needs girl and her parents and the big heart they have.

2. Funeral events
All of us are going to die one day, no surprises there. I attended a funeral some years ago. It was eye opening listening to the thoughts expressed by other people about the man who passed away. He has done so much and touched his wife, kids, friends and the company where he worked in many significant ways. I knew this person for many years but didn’t know about any of this when he was alive. I wondered why we wait for someone to pass away to express our thanks to him in a big way.

3. Yoga
Years ago I was in a weekend yoga retreat in the mid-west. The yogi asked us “When was the last time you cried in joy?” That was the first time I faced a question like that. It had a big impact on me. As I was thinking of the answer to that question, I couldn’t find many instances. Many in the audience shared similar answers. The yogi said that if there weren’t many such situations we have not experienced life fully. A couple of friends and family (including several grandparents) went on a trip to Yosemite Valley about 2 years ago. The day of our return was mothers’ day. After we had lunch, we found that the restaurant was empty. Motivated by a friend (Jay), we decided to do something interesting. The adults had the task of reflecting on the impact their mother had on them and convey it liberally to everyone. It was such a joyful experience to watch the next hour play out. There we saw happy tears from 30 to 40 year old adults and their parents.

I am 100% confident you have a lot of things that are going great for you and many people have helped you in significant ways. Think about the people you are grateful for and express your thanks, liberally. Don’t be surprised if you have happy tears. Feel the recharge in you and others. If you like it, try it the rest of 2014 and throughout 2015.

People typically start in a company in a technical role. I am using the word technical to cover engineers, finance analysts, IT analysts, operations folks and even sales folks. As years go by the folks who do a great job in these individual role move up to become team leaders, department leaders, divisional leaders and ultimately the C level officers in the company. When we notice the highly successful leaders, they have got there based on people skills and less on technical skills.

Contented heart
A leader who is contented in his career and life has a higher chance of passing that on to his people and his family. People get inspired around these leaders. There are leaders who are not satisfied with their career and life. They spread misery to their team. This is of such importance that i decided to list it on top.

People power
There is no leader who is an expert in every thing, even though some leaders think they are. The good ones therefore hire a team of experts in the respective areas and create an environment and vision to lead them to collective success. Great leaders do not micro manage but hire self driven people and get out of their way.

Organization beliefs and values
People come from various background and belief system into an organization. Letting them some how figure out a way to work together is setting them up to lower level of success. This i believe is one of the reasons why when organizations apply for International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certification, they require organizations to specify the organization’s values and beliefs and display it within the company. The problem is that most organizations have these values and beliefs statements more to cross off on a check list. However, successful leaders make the beliefs and values as the connecting factor for their people to come together as one company. It sets expectations on what is right and what is wrong irrespective of their position in the company. The leaders often refer to it in their communication to the team and they themselves serve as role models for the organization values and beliefs.

Building your succession
There are managers who control all key decisions and don’t develop their next level. This is great for job security but bad for the company and the manager. The manager gets stuck in the same place as he is indispensable. If the manager leaves, the company may need to bring some one from outside instead of giving a career path for the next in line. Great managers build their next level and build transparency such that when the manager finds some thing else to do, their next in line can grow to take his / her role.

Bold vision and appreciation
Most people spend a good portion of their life at work. They want it to be time worth spent and not just for a pay check. A bold vision inspires them and makes them feel they are on a mission worth their time. Every one craves for appreciation. Great leaders have a big heart to to be lavish and genuine in their appreciation. When you hire self driven people, they will take things farther on their own. Praising them for what they do is like getting their batteries recharged to scale even higher mounts for the company.

Don’t take me wrong, technical skills are important. However, the higher you grow in the organization, people skills are what is critical for success. Hope you found this valuable. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

There are times when we live small due to scarcity thinking. Examples of this would include thoughts like, “I am not capable of achieving this”,  “I don’t know how to get there”, “I don’t trust this person” or perhaps,”I don’t know people who can help me with this challenge.” Scarcity thinking pulls you down and dis-empowers you.

Abundance thinking lifts you up, inspires you and maximizes your success. It is a whole different plane. The universe is full of individuals with abundance thinking, if we are open minded to look for it. Here are some examples:

1) Meeting someone at a networking event
My friend (who runs a successful small business) was at a seminar listening to great speakers. One of the speakers was a highly successful business man, who could potentially be one of his biggest customers (i mean big in a huge way). After the speech my friend goes over to meet him for a little chat. The speaker extended an invitation to my friend to visit his corporate office, offered to review the business and answer any questions he may have.

2) College students donating blood
My dad had a major surgery recently in India. The hospital wanted us to find volunteers to donate blood. My brother arranged for a couple of college students to help out. I spent some time talking to the students to thank them for the huge help. They said they donate blood every few months and that this was the first time they are meeting someone related to the patient. They typically don’t even know who they are donating to. I asked them why they are doing this to help strangers who they don’t even know or meet. The answer was modest and polite.

3) Rejection Therapy story
One of my friend’s friend left his job at a major computer manufacturer and decided to pursue his passion. He did was experiment with what is called rejection therapy. The idea is that lot of us are afraid of hearing a ‘no’ as the answer so we don’t even ask. This young man decided to go ask for one crazy thing every day for 100 days, i guess to test out his ability to face failures. If you have not seen this, watch this viral video (5M views) of his experience ordering Olympics shape donuts. This shows that we would get more ‘yes’ answers than we think.

Think of an area in life where you have scarcity thinking. It may be related to how you are dealing with a family member, friend, colleague or even how you are dealing with your own self. Pick some thing small to start with. Try shifting to abundance thinking and enjoy the experience, every second of it.

a) Be happy NOW

b) Friends & Family

c) If you have a dream, go for it

This tells us how important it is for us not to constantly postpone happiness but be happy NOW, whenever we can. It reminds us where friends and family fit in priority. It is also a compelling case to follow your dreams. Dr. Goldsmith said that we typically regret for not following our dreams.

I enjoy what i do in the hi-tech industry. Many times i have been asked how i can inject so much passion, detail and hours into what i do at work. Something in me was still longing for something that was missing. I couldn’t explain it. After reflecting for many months, i learned that the longing may be to do something in the area of helping people get to the next level. A level they themselves can’t see or don’t believe as within their reach. Googling some key words on this led me to a profession called “life coach”. I called a professional coaching institute (ipeccoaching.com) and also talked to a master coach – Victor Bullara. It felt like i found the passion but i wasn’t still 100% sure. I registered for iPEC’sprogram and completed the course work as i saw more and more validation that i found my passion.

Today i was coaching a veteran who has 40 years in the industry managing big jobs in various companies in hi-tech. Frankly, i was a bit nervous going into the session. I was wondering if i can really help this industry veteran. I learned a lot from my client and helped my client see some blind spots. At the end of the session i asked for feedback. I will not forget the response. The person said that conversation was valuable and that it validates that my coaching approach works. The person also went on to say that it looked as if someone watching him felt help was needed and sent me his way. This is priceless! If you have a dream, i hope this story inspires you to follow it.

Congratulations on completing a great year! Don’t be too hard on yourself. Someone once said “if you treat others the same way you treat yourself you will be in jail”. Be proud of what you did this year. You did everything you could in the circumstances you were in. Think of some of the things that could have gone wrong that didn’t. Think of all the pain you saw others go through that you were fortunate not to go through. Consider expressing your thanks to a few people who you are grateful for.

Let us now look forward. Gandhi once said “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problem”. Typically, all of us have a goldmine of untapped opportunities. To get a view of what specific opportunities you may have, complete the below questionnaire.

*******start of questionnaire*******

In order to get the best outcome for you, promise yourself that you will answer the below questions honestly and from how you typically feel and NOT how you want to feel. Please make sure you have 15 to 30 minutes set aside for this when you can completely focus on this and not be distracted by other things going on around you. You may want to copy-past the below section or print it out before you answer.

Note: If you select 1, it means you are not satisfied. If you select 5, you are totally satisfied. If you select between 1 and 5, it shows how closely you feel between either of the two sides (not satisfied and totally satisfied).

How do you feel about your financial situation?

1     2     3     4     5

How is your career going?

1     2     3     4     5

What about your family life?

1     2     3     4     5

How is your work and life balance?

1     2     3     4     5

What about your fitness?

1     2     3     4     5

How do you feel about your fitness level?

1     2     3     4     5

How about your spirituality?

1     2     3     4     5

Overall, how is your happiness level day to day?

1     2     3     4     5

*******end of questionnaire*******

Select one area where you see an opportunity to improve. Imagine how your life / career would be once you accomplish what you want to in this area. Imagine and let your thoughts go wild! How does it feel for you? If you feel great but at the same time you feel that you may not be able to accomplish what you want, remember this. Nick Vujicic was born without legs or arms. You can imagine what he would have gone through. In this book “Life without limits”, he wrote “I do believe my life has no limits. I want you to feel the same way about your life, no matter what your challenges may be”.

It is not selfish to go after your dreams. In fact, it is a disservice to yourself to hold yourself back in following your dreams. Work on your goals. Eric Schmidt (CEO of google for a decade of massive expansion) once said “Everyone needs a coach”. Hear his reasoning on YouTube. . If you need help, find the coaches on LM.

When I look at this situation as a coach, I see the value of having a 4^th Presidential debate in a coach centric leadership fashion. Here is visualization on how that would work.

Debate Format

• There will be one debate at the location of President Obama’s choice and another debate at the location of Governor Romney’s choice. The location would be one where they can be completely open and honest. It could be their dinner table at home, the place of their worship or any other place where they can be completely open and honest.
• With regard to audience, there will be no media or TV broadcast. The candidate is welcome to have their loved ones or no one other than the coach.
• The opponent won’t be there. Why it is still called a debate? The debate is within the candidate.
• The candidate is welcome to wear what they feel most comfortable with.
• There is no preparation required. The only requirement is to be completely open and play full out.
• The coach and any other audience the candidate wants to be in the audience will need to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Nothing discussed in the session will be released to any one.

Here is how the debate would start for a given candidate…….

The candidate selects to have the debate at his place of worship. He wanted to have his wife, kids and his closest family and friends (including some teachers and Iraq war veterans).

Coach:

Thank you Mr. Candidate for showing up. All of us assembled here admire your leadership to contest in this election. We understand this is a tough process. We are hurt by some of the campaign advertisements from your opponent portraying you as a bad person. We know you are a good man and you mean well for the nation. Please be completely open and honest in your responses. Please note that there is no media and nothing you say here will be made public. This is in many ways a conversation within you watched by the people who deeply care about you.

Candidate:

Thank you for this session. I like the format

Coach:

Why are you running for President?

Candidate:

I have everything I need in life. I was looking to do something to contribute to society in a big way and being President of US gives me that opportunity. It leaves foot prints in history for long.

Coach:

How will a US President make a big impact on the society?

Candidate:

Hm…..i would say by leading the country and congress to take meaningful actions on the most pressing problems in the country and the world at large.

Coach:

Please take time to think about this for a minute before your answer. When you lead the congress, what is your single most important consideration – the party you represent or the country?

Candidate:

There is silence for a few minutes. I want the country to come first but I agree it may not be possible to do that all they time.

Coach:

I admire your honesty Mr. Candidate. It shows the strength of your character. Mr. Candidate, when you are President, there are many citizens who put their life at risk to execute your orders. Even though they risk their life, they would not become anywhere close to as famous as you would be. When you think of such individuals and other nameless people who work hard every day for the nation, why would you not put the country first every time?

Candidate:

(There is long silence. The candidate’s eyes is filled with tears and so as some people in the audience)

I get your point. It is just that without my party I won’t be where I am and I don’t want to be ungrateful for all the things my party has done for me. At the same time, I realize you are calling for leadership and not what is the most convenient stand. I agree, if I am President, country would come first and I will fight with my party to take that stand. It won’t be easy but that is what I promise to do.

Coach:

Mr. Candidate, we are so grateful to have a candidate like you running for President. With your permission, may I ask how we can all hold you accountable for what you just promised?

Candidate:

Hm……how about this? I will hire a coach. I will have a session like this at least once a year.

The conversation continues in this fashion covering questions like this:

• After Nov 6^th election, we know only one candidate will win. We also know that the losing candidate will have 45% plus of the votes. We know you want to be the President for 100% of the nation. If you win, what do you think about requesting your opponent to be on your Cabinet?
• If you lose, what will you do if the President-Elect asks you to join his cabinet?
• How do you plan to pass a bill in congress with support from both parties on critical topics like deficit and jobs?
• When tough situations arise (for example you can’t make Congress make up their mind on a key topic), we have seen CEOs taking $1 salary, we have seen nation’s leaders go on fast etc. What would you do?
• Some people are troubled by red states, blue states and swing states. There is a thought that we should break it by changing Electoral College system to popularity based vote so that states are not colored red, blue and swing and that every vote in every state should matter. How would you address this concern?
• If two parties under one nation can’t work together, why do you think US and Iran can work together?