Podcast Themes

Alan speaks about what mattered to Bill and how he measured his impact or success. He speaks about Bill’s genuine love for people, his keen desire to help them succeed and his passion for building communities around him.

Chris speaks about how Roger thought about success at various points in time but at the same time was sowing the seeds for his next innings of his life (e.g., the connect with Bill Gates in the context of his Foundation).

Ravi speaks about how we could think about measuring our life. He speaks about how he has gone about discovering what makes him distinctive and chosen the various initiatives that he has participated in.

Ravi speaks about how we can create a mindset of abundance even if we are in a situation where we might face material scarcity. He speaks about the link with Philanthropy and makes the distinction between having resources and being resourceful.

Ravi speaks about the different forms of Capital that we possess and how we can deploy that in the context of a situation. He specifically refers to the conversations at Social Venture Partners, a philanthropic organization I am a part of.

Ravi speaks about how it is very easy to drift through life and it is critical for us to be deliberate about the various choices we make. He urges to pay attention to what we are paying attention to.

Dorie speaks about how we should think about situations where the green-shots might take a while to appear especially when we embark on something new. She shares some perspectives around how we should think about cutting losses versus persisting and what metrics we should track.

Dorie speaks about how Marshall Goldsmith (inspired by Paul Hersey) moved from being an effective Coach to start thinking about his legacy and started writing and conceiving of several initiatives including MG100.

Rajiv speaks about how he thought about money when he decided to step off the financially lucrative corporate track. He also makes the distinction between foregoing future upside versus taking a cut on the lifestyle as things stand today.

In one of the stories, Harish takes us back to 1930 when the competition was to see who could complete the fastest solo flight between India and England that year. JRD Tata (flying from India to England) and Aspy Engineer (flying from England to India) are two of the competitors and it turns out to be a close rase to the finish line with these two. The story is about something that transpires between them when they meet in Egypt, something that illustrates the approach to competition in the Tata Group.

Bob speaks about the notion of a Chief Life Officer, and how each one of us can play that role for ourselves as we go through life. He also makes the distinction between what is valuable and what is priceless and urges us to think about the distinction as we think about choices as we often move from being a warrior to a king to a sage in our respective journeys.

Sally speaks about how women often think about ambition slightly differently from men. She also goes onto to say that the paradigm of leadership has evolved over the last few decades that a lot more men today also have started looking at ambition in a holistic manner compared to a few decades back. However, she says – “women got there first”.