Podcast

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing. If you know a leader whom you would like to see celebrated on the show, please send me a message on LinkedIn with their name.

In the interview, Smiti shares her journey as a woman leader and the kind of unique challenges it presents. She talks about how she was raised as second to none and how led to confidence and growth as a leader as she is on a mission to create happier workplaces. She gives practical nuggets of wisdom from her life and simple advice for leaders when it comes to dealing with the challenges that come with leading by example.

You can find Smiti at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/smitibhattdeorah/

In the interview, Smiti shares

• I think as a person your Priorities and your ambitions in life keep changing over time. As you grow, as you experience more of the world, you realize that, okay, this is the right fit for me.
•  I do love technology, It’s not like I cannot code for the life of me, but I realized that maybe business is something which I’m more interested in. 
• One of the major things which women, not just leaders or otherwise, lack today is self-worth which comes from the lack of support, which comes to men naturally from their peers. 
• General stereotyping definitely affects the way one thinks and of course eventually has a major impact on ones growth.
• Men are naturally accepted as leaders as compared to a woman who have to prove herself to then be accepted as a leader.
• I’ve been lucky enough to have a great family support structure, not just from my parents, but also like from my in-laws and that has helped in my own self-confidence.
• my mom always had that ideology that she’ll not make her girls feel any lesser than the boys and overprotect us.
•  to create happier workplaces, to create digitized programs through which in a hybrid work setup, you can actually bring employees closer together to the organization, make them more productive, uh, reduce attrition, increase retention overall. 
• So employee retention has become very big problem, not just in one country, but globally
• biggest challenge from an Advantage Club’s perspective, which we see today is the is that there’s so much to cover and there is so little time to cover so much.

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing. If you know a leader whom you would like to see celebrated on the show, please send me a message on LinkedIn with their name.

In the interview, Markus shares his story of starting as a scientist and and his growth as a leader. He shares about some of the important but difficult lessons that he had learned along the way. He also explains how he has invested in his own leadership and now continues to grow the next level of leaders in his organisation as they scale .

You can find Markus at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-markus-wuebben/

In the interview, Markus shares

• how he founded his company in 2015 and their main focus was on increasing the customer lifetime values.
• In his young years he always wanted to achieve more, he wanted to play a lot of basketball and be successful and just create things and create something out of his own hands. 
• When you’re really in charge, you need to understand everything and be realistic and honest to yourself in order to see when things are not running right and when you need help.
• as an entrepreneur, one of the key things you need to do is you need to surround yourself with the people who are better at things than you are not.
• I think it’s important that we focus on the learning and development aspect because times and society is changing.
• In my company, we have flexible working hours, but we don’t allow people to work at night because we believe we are humans and need to interact.
• I’m very reliable, so when I say something, I’ll get it done. If something doesn’t go well, I try to always be there
• I never demand anything from my employees that I’m not doing myself. I can’t demand anything from people that I’m not really showing.
• So when there are setbacks, it’s really around what can we do to be better next time.
• thing that worries me in terms of maybe the business is the way that we sometimes lack to accept the opportunities and innovation. We are focused on the risks and things that could go wrong if you were employing new technologies.

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing. If you know a leader whom you would like to see celebrated on the show, please send me a message on LinkedIn with their name.

We spoke about his interesting story of starting multiple companies in the last 15 years. He shares how he has learned the value of meditation, slowing down, and keeping your balance over the years, and how he maintains boundaries between work and his personal life now. He also shared a dream which keeps coming back to him, and we explored trusting our intuition and what it could mean.

You can find Gabriel at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabrieljarrosson/
• https://twitter.com/GJarrosson

In the interview, Gabriel shares

•  I’ve been  an entrepreneur my whole life when I was, 13 started. Learning html, css, creating websites and actually trying to sell them to friends of my parents.
• No one in my family was an entrepreneur, but, My family had an entrepreneurial spirit. I would say a project spirit, like if you wanna go after something, go do it.
• I was really passionate about building a business and I really to make it, whatever that means. And for me, when I was really young, 18, 20 was have a business that grows, that exists that, is a real business, not just a hobby. And so the first thing that I did was I was starting a new business every week, every month. That was obviously a mistake I’ve come to realize.
• It’s actually my first exit that I mentioned, and I realized that wine is a terrible business because white is heavy and so it’s very expensive to ship. Shipping is by weight.  and it’s also very fragile so it breaks, you have to send it again.
• when you’re investing in a startup, you want to reduce. , everything that can go wrong. There’s this thing that says anything that can go wrong will. And so you wanna reduce all of those potential problems, shipping, but even, production, there’s, raw materials that you gotta have. There’s production in itself, the assembly line. So many little things that can go wrong.
• If you wanna succeed, you are going to have at some point to work super hard for some periods of time. Maybe when you’re when you’ve made it, you can relax
• I’ve learned that the importance of self-care, if you wanna work hard and be able to keep doing this in a long time, you gotta, take care of yourself, not do it not burning out and meditate
• the only way to be sure to fail is to, forfeit and abandon. But if you keep going, at some point, something is gonna happen.
•  learned the value of your, reputation, your kindness, being nice to others. That’s something that I, completely didn’t care about at the beginning. 
• On the side, helping coaching entrepreneurs, helping them grow, develop their business and also I’m, helping the companies that I invest in grow.

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing. If you know a leader whom you would like to see celebrated on the show, please send me a message on LinkedIn with their name.

In the interview, Leslie shares how travelling to China opened up his perspective and helped him become an entrepreneur. He also shares his vision of trust and transparency that he sees in the world of HR in organisations. We also explore how every leadership journey is also a personal journey, he shares how he has grown and evolved over the years.

You can find Leslie at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslielapwingkivit/
• https://twitter.com/LeslieKivit

In the interview, Leslie shares

• That he has been working in the HR space for about 15 years where he mostly worked within startups and also into scale up.
• He describes himself as a leader who has strong hands-on experience.
• I studied and worked at the same time which was very beneficial for my own development.
• I started to work for booking.com and I think this was personally the first company where I truly experienced, professionalism in a way and hyper-growth and the use of data to make really good decisions.
• I had the support also of my parents and that was great. But I also realized this kind of pushed me to go out of my comfort zone so I decided to do an internship in Shanghai China because I felt that I needed to do something that was not very obvious.
• I think we can Restore trust to become more transparent, to become more clear and to overcommunicate on the expected impact, right before we actually start a work. 
• It’s becoming more and more important that employees would also like to have a stronger say to have more access in the organizations that they work for so they would like to influence a certain process.

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing. If you know a leader whom you would like to see celebrated on the show, please send me a message on LinkedIn with their name.

In the interview, Shay reveals both the very practical data-driven as well as grounded spiritual part of himself, and how he balances both in his day-to-day. We spoke about his vision for the future, how he deals with often debated topics like AI and unemployment, and how entrepreneurship is different now than when he started his first company.

You can find Shay at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaydavid/
• http://www.retrain.ai/

In the interview, Shay shares

• That he has been working in the HR space for about 15 years where he mostly worked within startups and also into scale up.
• He describes himself as a leader who has strong hands-on experience.
• I studied and worked at the same time which was very beneficial for my own development.
• I started to work for booking.com and I think this was personally the first company where I truly experienced, professionalism in a way and hyper growth and the use of data to make really good decisions.
• I had the support also of my parents and that was great. But I also realized this kind of pushed me to go out of my comfort zone so I decided to do an internship in Shanghai China because I felt that I needed to do something that was not very obvious.
• I think we can Restore trust to become more transparent, to become more clear and to overcommunicate on the expected impact, right before we actually start a work. 
• It’s becoming more and more important that employees would also like to have a stronger say to have more access in the organizations that they work for so they would like to influence a certain process.

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing. If you know a leader whom you would like to see celebrated on the show, please send me a message on LinkedIn with their name.

In the interview, Manish shared the secrets behind his calm and balanced answers to my questions. We also talk about why there is no one right or wrong way to be a leader and an entrepreneur and unpack some of the unconventional choices he has made. He also shared his vision for the future as he looks to take his organization to the next level of growth.

He also shares his thoughts on entrepreneurship and how to deal with setbacks. He emphasizes the importance of having a growth mindset and building expertise to provide the best value to clients. Additionally, he talks about his interests outside of work, including reading about fundamental sciences and building audio equipment. Overall, the conversation provides insight into entrepreneurship, renewable energy, and personal interests.

You can find Manish at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/manishgodha/
• http://www.advaiya.com/

In the interview, Manish shares

• My father has a background in engineering, power production, and power generation, so I became interested in those fields and got an opportunity to work on solar power.
• As a chartered accountant, you definitely gain exposure to how enterprises use technology, especially in their business processes and overall enterprise resource planning.
• You have to choose a few things that are fixed and non-negotiable, and other things will then fall into place around those choices.
• Most entrepreneurs, especially traditional ones of my generation or the one before, tend to have this tendency.
• One of the challenges is how to continue building, growing, and refreshing your expertise in your business.
• We have to have the right set of people who share a growth mindset and are willing to build expertise in themselves and provide the benefit of that expertise to others.
• Things have a way of taking care of themselves, and we just have to ensure that we learn the right things and continue to persist
• I love reading a lot of things of a fundamental nature, like aspects of physics and the laws of basic sciences. They have quite a calming effect.

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing. If you know a leader whom you would like to see celebrated on the show, please send me a message on LinkedIn with their name.

In the interview, Sooraj shared his creative side as he also has a popular youtube channel where he makes web series and short films in the Malayalam Language. We also spoke about his transition from technology to sales, and how creativity is very important in sales as well as leadership.

You can find Sooraj at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/soorajjayaraman/

In the interview, Sooraj shares

• when an opportunity comes to you, if you are hesitant to, uh, even attempt that you never know that’s what you are missing. 
• I always enjoy solving problems instead of just doing for one company or one organization.
• So we are, our YouTube channel is called we are a Sambhavan which stands for Awesome. So the motto is like, we are awesome. It’s not only us, but everybody in this world is, awesome. , that’s the kind of message you want to put across.
• I used to write blogs a lot, so when blogs were popular long back when I was in Toronto so we. Same thing. I take this experience, uh, of my life and put that in a very,  comical way.
• everything I have done in that video production is self-taught. YouTube is my group till now. So I go and uh, view stuff, you know, how to edit a video and how to shoot a video about lenses to use.
• creativity and playfulness play in your journey as a leader, obviously like that in the communication conversations this skill, uh, really gives an advantage over, anything else. It becomes an icebreaker. 
• creative person, which certainly creates curiosity on the other person.  in the business aspect, it helps in conversations. A beautiful conversation sometimes, and suddenly you hit with another person who says, I always wanted to be an actor.
• every leader should be creative. If not, you want, because every, the problems you face on a day-to-day basis, you need creative solutions.
• if you want your people to listen to you, you must first listen to your people then. You get into their life, you understand what they’re feeling, you know, their difficulties, their happiness.

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing. If you know a leader whom you would like to see celebrated on the show, please send me a message on LinkedIn with their name.

In the conversation, Manoj shares how growing up in a small town and then living in the United States shaped him as a person. He shares that his next level of success is not about him but something much larger than himself, and how he runs away from negativity and only chooses to focus on opportunities and growth. He shares that his confidence comes from the fact that he started from nothing and he has nothing to lose.

You can find Manoj at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/manojdhanotiya/
• aitrillion.com 

In the interview, Manoj shares

• Pressure is simple. If you create hurdles which are unachievable, basically, then you have pressure. You know, if you know your limits and you try to build around it. I don’t think there is any pressure. 
• Change is not pressure. Change is okay. Change will happen. Change has to happen.
• For a first generation entrepreneur, there are no choices, you are molded by direction You. It is always just the direction you want to grow towards and Are you content with what you are.
• When you attain certain level of maturity, it’s not like we are like very successful, but our mindsets have changed. Now we are content in terms of what we are doing, not in terms of what we are, but content, what we’re doing. 
• It’s not about me anymore, it’s more about making a contribution, helping people lead better lives or do better in their business.
• I will not deny that I am not working for money. Money comes automatically with it, it is just part of the process. The more known you are, the more your product is doing, better automated that comes in.
• I’ve realized that you cannot do everything alone. You need to have team and finding the best person across the world, challenge is global then is something you have to figure it out if you can build a great.
• You have to make it easy for others to work with you. That is my landing. Otherwise, we used especially in India when I came back here, use the different culture. 
• If you make it easier for people to work with you, and if you create a opportunities to grow, that is the only way you can avoid electrication is the only way you can avoid bonds and people will work with you.
• Being positive is something I totally believe in, it’s simple. If somebody’s not positive, he may have his own reasons. I am always positive no matter what.

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing. If you know a leader whom you would like to see celebrated on the show, please send me a message on LinkedIn with their name.

In the heart-felt, Ben shares his vision for a better world, and included a call for all leaders to embrace their humanity. We talk about learning and integrating the feminine side of humanity, and how he sees exchange and making changes in small increments as the way to create tectonic shifts in the way leaders and companies operate today.

You can find Ben at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-demiri-a7aaa06/

In the interview, Ben shares

• The most defining moment I would say is when I was asked to step into a C E O role, which was through a mentor of mine.
• It starts with a gradual degree of holding responsibility and really, taking it closely when it comes to both the execution, and also the nurturing element, making sure that things really fall under your care.
• Gradual ascend in leadership positions has really created a much necessary awareness that things are complex.
• It is very easy to say I care about this or I care about people, but it’s very difficult to take care, especially when in the heat of everything. So you’re have to have balance. 
• we need to recognize the reality that sometimes there’s simply very little choices depending on where you are and the environments, the microeconomics. So you’ve got to sometimes do what you’ve got to do, but I always think there is a degree in that decision making. 

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing. If you know a leader whom you would like to see celebrated on the show, please send me a message on LinkedIn with their name.

In this open and honest conversation, he shares how living in Canada but having Indian roots has shaped his personality. We also discussed the role money play in our economic and psychological worlds, and how he sees Bitcoin as the future. Sunny also shared the difficult challenge they faced in 2018 and how they challenged and won against the Indian government in the Supreme Court of India.

You can find Sunny at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunnyray/
• http://unocoin.com/

In the interview, Sunny shares

• Combination of curiosity and money coupled with my engineering degree gave me the ability to  read the white paper, not be and start tinkering and playing and learning and this led to my obsession with Bitcoin. 
• India everyone loves cricket and in Canada everybody’s loves football. I didn’t want to around people who only talk about sports, so I started India’s first Bitcoin meetups which eventually grew to even larger ones.  
• When growing up in Canada, I realized that kids took a lot of this for granted where else in Kolkata life was tough. It was a struggle to even have one meal a day. It really helps shape your view because you start to realize that the world is not like.
• Our goal is really to let people know that, once they get into Bitcoin they can have flexibility and they have options  if they need to buy something from Amazon or acquire a gift card.
• I highly believe in connecting with people and talking to them and not just sitting behind a computer and programming and hoping that, you’ll hit the mark.

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing. If you know a leader whom you would like to see celebrated on the show, please send me a message on LinkedIn with their name.

In the interview, Barnaby shared his early fascination with technology, the challenges of leading a distributed and remote team, and what he has learned by leading across cultures and geographies. We also talk about the importance of quarterly planning, agile, and his plans to travel as he enjoys his sabbatical with his family.

You can find Barnaby at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/barnaby/
• https://twitter.com/barnaby

In the interview, Barnaby shares

• How his father’s filmmaking helped him in early adoption of technology which led him to writing codes as a kid. 
• That the role of a CTO, is really about working with people and helping them in innovation and development.
• Great leaders are able to really observe and have empathy and understand what other people are going through, what motivates people to do and achieve things. 
• That helping people with curiosity and also helping them get past their fears and all the reasons why you can’t. 
• How it is important to connect with people as people so that you are able to communicate you goals to them.
• It is important that you have structure, humans are creatures of habit and if you don’t create structure, people will create their own structure and those structures won’t be aligned. 
• I left my last role and just decided that it was time for something new and take some time off. 

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing. If you know a leader whom you would like to see celebrated on the show, please send me a message on LinkedIn with their name.

In the interview, Gaurav shared how entrepreneurship is in his roots, and that has always meant he is comfortable taking risks. We also spoke about the importance of OKRs, the role of intuition in his decision making, and the importance of being present and keeping the balance between work and family.

You can find Gaurav at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/gsabharwal/
• getjop.com/ 

In the interview, Gaurav shares

• I decided to help my father expand his business in the US rather than spending ours doing jobs during school break. 
• Growing up I always saw my family talking about business on dinner table and that had a huge impact on me, how I looked at life and at business. 
• Our biggest challenge as a company would be trying to emerge as a mature player in this space that we are creating.
• As an entrepreneur, sometimes you get so absorbed with the passion of your business that you tend to ignore or miss on things which are beautiful and which will not come back in your life again.

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing. If you know a leader whom you would like to see celebrated on the show, please send me a message on LinkedIn with their name.

In this open and honest conversation, Shakun her personal story of living in the Netherlands and how that led her to start a company in an otherwise taboo industry. We also spoke about what gives her the confidence and grounding to lead her team, as well as the importance of slowing down and establishing clear boundaries.

You can find Shakun at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethishakun/
• https://twitter.com/SethiShakun

In the interview, Shakun shares

• One of the problem I had when I was starting my company was that it was difficult for me to go into an sex store and look around while asking questions.
• I lost a lot of friends when I started my company because I come from a culture where talking about sex openly is a taboo
• Demand is completely, nullified. Everybody has a demand, everybody wants it.
• Due to the nature of my company, we started facing problems like banks would not allow us to have a bank account, PayPal and Stripe flagged us too.
• Starting a company in an otherwise taboo industry led to the realization that this is not something bad or wrong, and then internally you feel okay, you feel more confident, you feel more open while otherwise.
• After my 12 or 13 hours shift when I lie down in the bed, I have a smile on my face. I know that, we are onto something big and what we are building is like we are in a position to make it.