Take the Leap from Average to Extraordinary

Aswin:

Okay. So the idea was to start a new series in contra mines called the B extraordinary series. 

I wanted to double down on how can a career professional be extraordinary in his or her work.

Q1 So what separates the average worker from the extraordinary worker? The fundamental problem today is that, am I average? How do I understand if I’m average? And if I have to cross that chasm and become extraordinary, how do I become extraordinary?

Swami:

Great, it’s really a great question Aswin. I’ve been searching for this answer and I’ve had this question for a long time. The most interesting thing is there’s nobody called average. It’s about, I would say, where you inspire… and did you get inspired is really what differentiates the extraordinary from the average. That is one difference that I have seen after having spoken to many guests across multiple countries, across multiple professions. When you really look at the ones who are extraordinary, one of the most important difference that I saw was the fact that their purpose, their mindset and their practice were all aligned and that differentiated the average from the extraordinary. 

So what do I mean by purpose? The purpose means that do I find a meaning in what I do every day? Is it what I want to do and I am going to be spending almost 17-18 hours, 12 hours in office and that’s the significant amount of time that you spend every day, right? And that’s a majority of your life.

And therefore if you don’t have meaning and a purpose to why you are doing what you are doing, then you don’t do a good job at the end of the day. So therefore finding meaning is the most important thing and that’s really what I think you explore and find out. That’s really what I found most of them have in their life. That’s the first thing. And because they have a meaning,

What then happens is that their mindsets are set to say, okay, you know what, I’m going to see these barriers. I believe these are the challenges that I will face.

I think this is the mountain I need to And therefore the mindset is pretty much prepared for achieving the purpose. So therefore the purpose allows you to have the mindset ready for the challenges that lie ahead of the person. And then the practice is really about saying now that the mindset is set, nothing stops them. So what they do every day consistently, day in and day out, which I call relentless sturdiness, coming in every day, doing this stuff every day is something that they excel at. So clearly the best and the extraordinary have their purpose, mindset, and practice aligned and that is what differentiates the average from the extraordinary.

Q2 Right, I want to go deeper into that. Now you said purpose, mindset and practice. Can you define purpose? For me, if you take the career professional, the first phase for them is the early phase where they’re out of college, they’re joining a company or an organization or an institute, whatever their work entitles them to do. The first seven years, they might have a different purpose. Then middle management might have a different purpose. Once you go into senior management, you might have a different purpose. But can you go deeper into explaining what is the purpose that you mean?

Swami:

So let me give you some examples and let me tell you that the purpose that I talk about is really what you want to be. It’s about what you dream you want to be. Right? That’s really what I think the purpose is all about. Let me give you an example of say a cricketer like Rahul Dravid. Right? So when you look at Rahul Dravid as a cricketer, the dream and his purpose was being the best cricketer to have played. That’s really the purpose with which he started and not that he had the talent of a Tendulkar or probably the off drive of a Saurav Ganguly, right? He was somebody who was… grinding his way to actually being a legend, right? But his purpose was I have to be amongst the best, right? That is the purpose with which he started, right? The fact that he started with that purpose, his mindset was… pretty much said, saying I have to work hard. I’m not as talented as a tendulkar. Right. And therefore what I need to do every day is probably do hours of practice. You know, maybe I need to be in the next every day, long hours. I need to, you know, face different sets of bolus. Right. So therefore the mindset was he was prepared for the challenge that lie ahead of him. Right. And then what he did was the fact that I have to be doing it everyday, be it Australia, be it England, be it South Africa, different pitches, I need to be at my best and therefore the work that he did everyday, the work ethic that he started building to ensure that the practice and the mindset and the purpose got aligned is really what took him to where he became till he retired.

But that was not where he stopped, right? Because his purpose was to actually say, you know, I want to be the best cricketer, but I also want to create the best cricketers, right? Which India has ever produced and I would like to make cricket as an institution in the country to compete with the world. If that’s the purpose with which he started and you saw him becoming not just the coach of the India.

A team, but he went to the under 19 team. He said that’s really the best leaders of group, right? Therefore he said, I’m not in it for the glamour of it, right? I’m interested in the grinding, the work that I would be doing. There’s a lot of hard work that’s involved. I had to work with the kids at the under 19 level. And therefore he went there and said, let me work on it. And that’s not a glamorous job, but because the purpose was clear. The fact that his mindset was saying, I may need to do a lot of work with these kids, I may have to spend long hours with them and therefore build this institution of building world’s best cricketers out of our country. He is really the purpose with which he started and therefore he went back and then said okay now let me go back to NCA. Right and if you look at him he is a coach of RR. So he has remained relevant even after retirement because the purpose with which he started actually ensured that his career longevity is really really long because the purpose, the mindset and the practice with which he does things can clearly differentiate him from the rest of the cricketers.

Aswin:

Correct. Right. So if we take his example, when he started off, like, because obviously the life span of a career is much smaller than a career professional in IT or in any other industry, it starts off with him. I mean, I’m just trying to draw an analogy because he cricket, took sports. It is very similar in its fundamental principles with compared to a career professional. For him first, when he joined, I’m only going to start from when he joins the Indian team. So first he has to figure out and understand what his position is. Is he playing one down, two down, is he opening? That dynamic he has to understand. It’s exactly like how we have it in as a fresher. What is your position? You need to know what, once you understand your position, you know what your role is. Are you an opener? Are you coming at a point when you have to push the run rate? Do you have to play an anchor in inks? So that is where he finds his role.

And then once his position and role is clear and he has the right mindset, he gets a larger responsibility of being a leader as a vice captain or a captain. Once you become a captain, then you know that you’re holding the responsibility for a much larger workforce or a team.

There it becomes most important to know when to step back from that role or responsibility because you can’t be the captain for beyond your scope, beyond your life. You need to know when you have to end your career and before that you need to figure out what format can I play in beyond a point. When do I have to stop playing ODI? When do I have to stop playing Test Cricket? When do I have to pull back from IPL? 

You need to know that. After that,Once you reached a point where you are a leader, then you understand that transitioning is important for a leader. I cannot always say that I’ll be the captain, I’ll be the captain. And then you can’t jump into captain and say that, okay, organic transition for a captain is to become coach. No. You have to transition to understanding what the the skill sets of a coach are. Transition into that aspect of leadership and then staying relevant to that. So this is how even a person in the IT industry should understand their role.

Swami:

In fact in any industry, be it you are in the FMCG industry or in the consumer durable industry or in the automotive industry, whether you are in the IT industry, the difference is not very very different Ashwin. Because the way I see it is, when you are starting, maybe I want to be a DevOps engineer, maybe I want to be a marketing… head, or I want to be a supply chain head, then you have to have a vision for yourself and a purpose for yourself saying, I have to build a supply chain as good as Apple. Maybe that’s really the purpose with which you then start. Because if you read the biographies of Steve Jobs and the way you look at those books, you’ll realize that they would…they would actually come back with a design and they would give Tim Cook this phone and then say get it done for so many dollars, right? So he had to go back to Foxconn find out somebody who could produce it at that price with the design Uncompromised so therefore then you have to say you know what my hero is Tim Cook if I have to become the world’s best supply chain Professional, right? 

Then you go back and look at what did he do to become the best in the world, right? And how do you balance that between your purpose and then what are the things that he learnt as a professional and what are the skills that are required, which is really the mindset bit which is to say what am I good at, am I good at negotiations, am I good at forecasting, am I good in logistics, what are the things, how do I evaluate the cost of materials that go into the bomb, is bill of materials for building a phone, right? So what are these things that I need to know and I may not know everything. So therefore which means that I am self aware that these are what I know, these are some of the things I don’t know, right? Then I have to motivate myself every day saying that I don’t know this, I’m not good at this, but I know I have to get better at this every day, which is really your practice, right? Therefore you come to office every day, you just have to get better at it every day and that’s really how you become the best at it, which is really your purpose. So when your purpose and your… mindset and your practice are aligned, then your ability to enjoy what you do and become extraordinary becomes relevant.

So the other example for me is somebody like a Sridhar Vembu, right? He actually has taken a path which is not done by many, right? Ideally, you would want to build a software product out of the Silicon Valley, right? And he somebody from IIT. He decided to go to Princeton. He did his PhD there and he decided to come back at some point in time, right? But his purpose in life was to build a world-class software product out of India and not just from the metro cities, but from you know, can I get the, you know, would say the tier two towns and the engineers from there or the people from there, not even just engineers, right. How can I enable an economy of…building software products out of India from tier 1, tier 2 cities. His purpose was actually building those kinds of products out of India for the world. So when he then looked back, that is his purpose. Now was that easy? No, that was not easy because you needed an infrastructure, people were not ready to build products in the cities and the towns that he wanted to set up, Zoho offices. 

So he had to go back and build the Zoho School of Learning, where they had to train the rural folks to actually do programming. So therefore the mindset that he decided to actually go through was the fact that it is a challenge, it is going to be hard work, it’s a long grind that I have to go through and I’m not willing to take VC money. Again that’s another purpose which is I want to be privately owned. Therefore the purpose was clear, therefore the mindset of going through the grind and the challenges was something that was something that he was prepared for and then the practice every day was actually ensuring that you build this world-class process of building these products out of India and therefore you know what would what would I do with my developers every day with my programmers every day how do I build my wireframes for my products, how do I build quality in these products, how do I ship them out, what’s the infrastructure needed if I’m building a SaaS product, right? So all these were things that probably were not known. 

But the practice of saying, okay, how should I build it, what are the processes that I need to put in, how do I ensure that I do product reviews every day, how do I set up my customer service? So clearly, that practice of ensuring that it gets done is really what you have to go through the discipline of doing it rigorously every day. The purpose, practice and the mindset if you see, the purpose, mindset and the practice have to be aligned and that’s really the reason why Zoho is where Zoho is today and that’s really where he is extraordinary. And that’s really what I think professionals need to look at.

Aswin:

Yeah, I think well, also a like Sridhar Vembu stands out is more for me in the mindset because he didn’t follow the template of other IT companies having to set up a large in a tier one city, construct a big building, get the best of talent, go do campus interviews, get the IITs and the IIMs, pay them huge salaries, put them on bench, figure out what the project is and go that route.

And beyond the point, those are the kind of companies that started saying that India has an unemployable workforce. They were only blaming the system. What his mindset was, I will change the system. I will reinterpret what efficiency is. I will go to the grassroots. I will pick talent. I will train them. I will make them work within the grassroots so there is a generational shift in…that person will be the first graduate in his family and he has a significant shift in lifestyle.

Swami: 

Absolutely and therefore Ashwin the example that I always give is that would you want to go to a mediocre doctor? Right? So therefore if you want to go to the best doctor, the best doctor has to have a purpose saying that this is the way you know I would treat my patients, this is really how I would run my profession, right? So you know I would actually do all of this, I should be the best at what I do, then the mindset of then saying, okay, what are the skill sets and challenges that I will face? How do I prepare myself for it? And therefore, what would I do every day? Okay, to ensure that my purpose is there. So therefore, you have to take examples from adjacent industries and then start applying it in a corporate world, right? Because a corporate world actually does not…teach you these things. Even from our schooling days or college days, these are not taught to you. Therefore, you have to spend enough time looking at the purpose, why you are doing what you are doing and then getting your mind ready for what it takes to achieve your purpose and doing it relentlessly every day, irrespective of any short term gratification that you might get or not. And I always say, efforts and outcomes are non-linear. the extraordinary ones understand that. And that’s really what differentiates the average from the extraordinary. And as I think back, if there is one more example that I can give you is Nandan Nilekani. If you look at Nandan, at a very, very important stage of his life, is was a fairly senior professional. Because his purpose was clear that he wanted to change the way India IT had to, you know be built, right? The public goods that we talk about today.

The purpose actually made it important for him to shift and jump from a private enterprise to a public enterprise. So he moved from being head of a public private company to becoming a part of the government. And once the purpose was clear, that he would build the best public goods infrastructure for the world and has to be led from India. Once that purpose was clear, then the mindset was now I’ll work through the government. I know it may not be efficient. I know I face a lot of resistance, right? So the mindset was about saying now how do I ensure that my purpose gets fulfilled, right? And the practice of then doing it every day, right? Saying that, okay, how do I run my teams? How should I tell them the story? How should I give them the big picture? How do I get them aligned? How do I make them delivered to a timeline like a private limited company that I worked for and he doesn’t have a command and control structure like he had in a private limited company. had to work through collaboration, he had to go through a democratic process of aligning people and the mindset was ready for it because the purpose was clear. So therefore when you actually have the purpose, mindset and the practice aligned, I think you have an opportunity to become extraordinary.

Q3 But how does purpose, and practice align? How does that happen?

Swami:

See, I personally think, Aswin, that it’s a process of discovery. And most importantly, don’t follow the mentality, right? You know, don’t follow the herd mentality. Right? Because which is to say, you know what, I did my graduation, I go to this college, I want to work for this large company. But if you don’t enjoy doing that, but you keep coming back every day being dissatisfied then it doesn’t, know, what you do every day is not linked to what your purpose is, right. So therefore, spend some time reflecting on what is that energizes you, right. And what is your priority, right. And that is something that I think we have been able to do with, after having spoken to so many leaders, so many guess in contra minds, you have recently come out with what is called as a my true compass. It’s all almost like a professional compass where you can discover for yourself, right. What are your priorities as far as your purpose is concerned. If career is your purpose, right…then you have to actually look back and say, always say that, you know, there could be a purpose, is family could be a purpose, money could be a purpose.

You know your well-being could be a purpose okay Spirituality and community could be a purpose okay you go and build an NGO company for all you might know you can do you can still do that right so therefore if your purpose Becomes clear right then what happens is that what you do with that purpose in terms of your mindset becomes clear and therefore your Practices right so therefore what we have done in this my true Contraminds My True Compass really is it’s an exploration where you you can actually discover for yourself what are your purpose then you actually have a battery of questions okay around you know what is how do you really handle the emotions how do you are you self aware of what

what you are doing every day, are you actually having the discipline of getting it done every day, right? And how do you practice it every day, right? So therefore, if you have a mindset and purpose, but you don’t practice it every day, it’s almost like saying that, you know, I want to lose weight, but that’s just the intent, right? My purpose and mindset is to lose weight, but… the fact is that do you practice it everyday? So just like how you… actually do it for fitness. I think there is also a need to do it in your profession. And that’s really what My TRUE Compass does. So you take this battery of tests, then instantly it gives you a kind of a report, okay, which tells you what are your priorities, which from a purpose point of view, how do you see your purpose and is there some alignment between your purpose and the mindset in terms of what it takes to do. therefore you may actually see that career is my purpose, being top of my career is my purpose.

I may not have enough tenacity to motivate myself. I may not be self aware that these are my weaknesses. And therefore do I work on them everyday. So therefore when you take this My TRUE Compass test or the exploration as we call it. What it does is that it just gives you a snapshot of who you are, what are my strengths and how can I leverage them and that’s really a starting point. Just use your perspective and that’s when you actually say you know what if for example money is my purpose then the most important thing is then don’t you know then look for a company where you know that purpose is achievable but then it’s almost like a graphic audio equalizer that you look at because in some parts of your life you may want your career to have a lot of focus, but maybe in some other time in your phase of life you would want health and family to be more important. So it’s about how you balance this across your career span. That’s what I think people with extraordinary success have achieved.

So Dravid… he was the wicket keeper for that World Cup, right? In one of the World Cups where I think we lost in the final, right? So therefore there was no job description. He said, no, I have to do what my team does. So therefore that’s what he did, right? And then he said, okay, now this audio equalizer then went back and said, you know what, if my purpose is to create an institution of world-class cricketers, right? Then, you know, he basically then… moved and then became a coach. Therefore the way he extended it based on the purpose and that aligned with the way he earned, the way he earned his reputation, the way he spent time, the way he prepared his mindset to succeed, what he did every day in terms of the workouts that he had to do, he had to really realign it every 5 years. 

So if you are somebody who wants to be extraordinary, I would say start looking at it in this manner. Actually take the My TRUE Compass test now look at what the strengths are then start looking at it and saying okay these are the areas that I think I have to provide some I would call it a stimulus to my purpose right so this is really I have to do it therefore you could actually learn it and say these are some of the things that I would focus then maybe you know maybe two years three years later take the mitral compass test again. Then you get a sense of am I moving in the right direction, right. So that is something that you do and that is really your path to being extraordinary.

Aswin:

And the My TRUE compass exploration is available on the ContraMinds website.

Swami:

Yeah, it’s pretty much, you know, we have built it as a platform, right? So you can go there, you log in, and I’m sure, you know, you can pay online, right? And what you do is that you can register yourself, pay online take this test and the report is actually emailed to you and then you can actually look at it and then say, know, is this what I am? Do I have the mindset to what my purpose is? And therefore, am I having the right regimen, right? To actually help me achieve my purpose. So I think it just gives you a snapshot and it’s a beautiful snapshot. And I have taken it myself, okay. And I think it just gives me a nice snapshot of who I am.

Aswin:

So therefore it works for people across the spectrum of being a professional.

Swami:

Absolutely, know for entry level people, you know if you I think for entry level people just lets you Set up the early phase of your career. Okay So that you are preparing yourself for it. Okay, which is really what I said, right? So if for example You are you are somebody in a procurement in a company, you know It could be any any company that you’re working for then you know You you actually say this is really okay if career is my purpose then Cook is your hero, right. Therefore, learn what are the things that are needed and then you then start to do it. Or if you are an, you know, if you are, if you are say an enterprise architect or if you are, if you are a cloud, you know, architect, okay, then you go back and then say who is the best in that business, right. And that is what I want to be. Then you go back and look at what it takes to achieve that, right. And then it every day. It is not going to happen overnight. Right? So therefore, I would say that is really how you can get extraordinary. That is really what the Contraminds My True Compass is all about.

CLOSING

Aswin

Right. There are a lot of… So I have… Over the course of our conversation, there are questions that I’ve written that I would want to ask you, but I think each of those questions deserves their own time and space. So I think we should… We’ll end the episode here today. This has been a fantastic start to the series called Be Extraordinary, I think so. I’ll meet you next week. I have a whole lot of questions for you.

So I’ll pick you up next week. You have a great day. Thank you so much for your time, Swami.

Swami

Thanks Ashwin, lovely and very insightful questions and it was great having a conversation with you.

Aswin

Thank you. Thank you, Swami. Same here.