Episode 78- Designing & Building a Career: Investing in Yourself, Finding a Career Coach w/Sawan Kapoor
About Sawan Kapoor:
My next guest is Sawan Kapoor. Sawan is widely recognised as 'The Career Guy' and India’s foremost career coach. From his early days at Daymon Worldwide, the largest private label broker in the FMCG industry, to his rise as CEO of a multi-million-dollar organisation in the Wine & Spirits industry, Sawan's journey is marked by rapid progression and visionary leadership. His ability to navigate challenging situations, like a sudden job loss in a foreign country, spurred him to develop a systematic, scientific approach to finding the perfect job fit, a methodology he uses to guide thousands of professionals towards career success.
In this episode, we will dive deep into Sawan Kapoor's life, extracting insights and wisdom that have the potential to reshape career journeys. Discover how Sawan's experiences, from the corporate world to entrepreneurship, have shaped his perspectives on adversity, growth, and the art of career development.
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Key takeaways:
By acknowledging setbacks as stepping stones and embracing challenges as opportunities, one can navigate their journey with purpose. Seeking mentorship, adopting a strategic mindset, and staying committed to personal development can lead to overcoming obstacles and achieving remarkable outcomes.
Strong connections and friendships can become valuable for personal and collective advancement. These relationships often endure over time, transcend geographical distances and foster a network of mutual support that aids growth.
There are career growth programs with flashy marketing but little substance, but it's crucial for individuals to discern the substance of what they're investing in. By participating in structured learning and seeking guidance from experienced coaches, individuals can accelerate their journey and achieve growth that would otherwise take years of trial and error. It is important to view the cost of such programs as an investment rather than an expense.
Designing a successful career involves several key elements. First, it's vital to identify the right fit for one’s skills and values within an organisation. Second, understanding one’s value proposition in terms of the value one can provide to the organisation is crucial. Third, a different type of leadership that prioritises altruism and benevolence is essential for career growth. Lastly, recognising and addressing the "permission paradox,” i.e., gaining experience before getting the job, is crucial, and strategic career approaches can help break through this limitation.
It's important to choose a coach who has demonstrated success and proven results through their methodology with multiple case studies. A coach should have originality in their approach and the relevance of their content to the contemporary world. Equally crucial is the connection and resonance between the individual and the coach so that despite the discomfort that introspection might bring, one is able to open up and be receptive to the coach’s advice.
Sawan’s book recommendations:
In this conversation, he talks about:
00:00 Intro
02:13 History of career guidance and coaching.
03:22 Early life.
13:53 Path to becoming a CEO.
18:40 How important is it to invest in yourself?
20:08 His journey to becoming a Career Coach.
23:56 How to design a career?
29:02 How to find the right career coach?
32:38 Why do you need to surrender to your coach?
37:07 How to kick off a career in coaching?
40:11 How do you create a brand that lasts for generations?
45:33 His views on being a generalist vs. a specialist.
47:23 Counterintuitive insights about career coaching.
50:13 Books that have influenced him the most.
51:45 Advice to his younger self.
Transcript:
Pritish: Welcome Sawan to The One Percent Project.
Sawan: Thanks for having me, Pritish!
Pritish: What is the history of career coaching?
Sawan: Value to advice, especially if you look at ancient cultures, you look at dynasties, you look at rulers, they've all had that coveted position in their gem courtiers that has been the head of the men, somebody who dispels advice because of their maturity, their perspective, their life experiences, and their wisdom. I would think one of the earlier ones that comes to mind would be somebody like Chanakya because he was able to see how a situation may possibly play out, advise his kingdom, advise his ruler, Chandragupta Maurya, on how to be able to take the appropriate steps to cater to self-interest, and yet be a fair ruler who can expand the kingdom. So, it would be fair to say that it's one of the older examples of where coaching and advice, and specifically career coaching and how to develop and run a format of an enterprise, took shape. If you go back in history, there are others as well, but that's one that, in the context of India, really stands out and comes to mind.
Pritish: Absolutely. Adding to that is Akbar and Birbal, right? Our parents teach us about their historic conversations on solving different things. So, how was your early life? What were the values?
Sawan: Early life was enjoyable, very blessed. I was born in a family where my grandfather had come from Peshawar in British India. There was no Pakistan then, but right at the time of partition, he was only school-educated. He went to his father with the 'arzi' to say that he wanted to go to college, and his father said, Nothing doing, you have to get to work. We have to earn money, and we have to feed ourselves. And that is where, through a connection, he found a government job. And six months into working for the British Empire, he realised this was not something for him. At that point, he started looking for a private job, and he found employment at a shop in Peshawar called Khyber Electricals. And that is where he learned how to wire a lamp and make the shade. And then post-partition, when he came to India, that's the only trade he knew. So, he would buy a stump of wood, carve it into a lamp, and do the wiring. And my grandmother would stitch the shade and put the parchment paper and the translucent liniment oil and all of that. And by the evening, he would try to take it to the market and sell it. Some days, he was able to sell it. Some days, he was not able to sell it. And then, the government gave these tin shacks to many refugees who had come in. They were Hindus and had returned to India, which was Hindustan. And on Panchkuian Road in Delhi, they got a little shack. That's where he set up the business named Kapoor Lamps. Then, one day, there was an electrical short, and that entire row of tin shacks burnt down. And then, on the way back, he had an accident and broke his arm. By then, he had three children. He had four children, but by then, he had three of his children, and he got a little depressed. and that's when they, as a couple, found their wherewithal to start again. Soon, they could make their first store, which also happened to be on Pachkuian Road. By then, some of his sons were coming of age, and they started to join the business. This is the late 60s. Then came a progression as my father joined the business. He grew that brand. In 1969, my father joined in 1970 when my father joined Panika Bazaar, and then in 1973, Janpath. Then, the first outstation store for Kapoor Labs was in Chennai in 1974. And then, from there, it started to spread. So, Bangalore, Indore, Calicut, Calcutta, and Mumbai grew from there. And by the time I came of age, I had a drive to prove myself. I failed my 12th. That was a little bit of a wake-up call. I was interested in everything that I should not be interested in. I'm not taking an interest in my education. There was a little bit of a rebel in me. I failed my 12th, and I was going to an excellent school. I was going to St. Columbus in Delhi, the same school for people like Shah Rukh Khan, but I did not do well in the 12th. I failed three out of five subjects, and the school kicked me out, naturally. And it took some time and a fair bit of effort for my parents to find admission to another school for me. And I got admission to a school in Faridabad, and I started to transform. I started to take my education more seriously, and I graduated with a fairly high percentage. Then, after that, it was obvious I wanted to go abroad for my education, but my father was also apparent, saying that you're not mentally ready to go abroad. So, we compromised, and I found a twinning program where the first two years were in India and the first two years were at Christ College in Bangalore. The American University ran the program, but it was administered for the first two years at an Indian campus at a local university. And then, when I completed the first two years, I had seen a little more of life. My father felt that this was now much more appropriate. I was better prepared. Not that I did not give them trouble and enough surprises in that time as well. But I remember an episode where I was not attending classes again in college. The college's principal sent a telegraph to my parents that said ‘Sawan not attending classes’. That's all it said. It had four words on it. And the next morning, my mother is in doubt. That's like, what is going on? They did work with a child that kept them up a fair bit of nights. But that is where I got progressively better. And then, when I got to the United States, I had an amazing group of friends. And with that good company, there was a fire that was lit in me, and I got going. So, I joined a business fraternity, I went for a study abroad program, I had four internships, I got involved in many co-curricular, I was on the Dean's list, I was now attending the honours college. People had a hard time believing that this was the same kid. That sense of confidence and the pride that you feel when you are able to accomplish something that takes a fair bit of effort over a period, that dynamic sets in. Then, when I graduated, I can tell you, I had eight job offers. On the evening of the 10th of September, 2001, I had eight job offers. The next day, the terrorist attacks occurred in New York and Washington, and the planes flew into the Twin Towers. And it was a very confusing time for that country. I'm not blaming anyone, but all of the offers were rescinded. These were big companies like Heinz and Conagra, Pepsi, and Bottling Grover. They were all big brand-name FMCG companies. Their policies changed overnight. It was a time of great confusion, and the offers that I had were gone. So, I went into a little bit of depression, wondering about all of the sacrifices and the money that my parents had invested. Everything that I have done here is vanishing in front of my eyes. And I'm going to have to go back home. After two weeks of feeling sorry for myself, I realised that if I don't get up and do something, nothing will change. I remember I used to come back to my dorm room after classes in the afternoon at about three o'clock. And I would start walking up and down my dorm room. And it was a small room. It must've been what, maybe 12 feet by 8 feet, with a small bathroom attached. And I would be walking up and down this room. And the next time I looked at the watch, it was 11 at night. So, from 3 to 11, I'd be walking, overthinking, and not knowing, pitching uncertainty or what might happen. But then I got out of that, and I started doing everything I could in an individual capacity. So, I reached out to every professor. I reached out to all of the career counsellors on campus. I contacted everybody in my network, hoping somebody could connect me with an organisation. Because at that time, for a student of brown colour skin, it was tough even to get an interview because so many companies had changed policies across the board. I remember this professor of mine, a very dear professor of mine that I'm still connected with. His name is Dr. Frank Gambino, and he was instrumental. You find these teachers who know what to do with you in their loving and capable hands. Somebody, I have a lot of regard for. This man stepped in. When he stepped in, he helped me get an interview with Daymon Associates. They were the largest private label brokers on the planet. And they were working across two or three countries at that time. They were working with a hundred-plus retailers, developing their private label programs. And I went for the interview. I was very nervous, but I was also grateful that I finally had an interview after two months of facing this anxiety. And the interview went well, and a week later, they called me for a second interview. So, I remember I had to hire a car and drive to that location, which was about an hour away. And I went there for the second interview, and the second interview went even better. And they ended up making me an offer. And two weeks before I graduated, before the actual graduation ceremony, I had the offer in hand. I filed for an express visa because I needed that approval to stay in the country. One evening before, when I was to take the flight, if I didn't get that approval letter, I would have to take the flight back to India. One evening before, I got approval from what was known as the Citizenship and Immigration Service of the United States. And I was able to stay back, and then the following month, I returned to have my visa stamped and everything. And then I started with them.
Pritish: Oh, that is a brilliant hero's journey, right? It's a movie.
Sawan: It was a lot of fun. If you're asking why I chose to work for someone else, it came from wanting to make it alone. I was very driven by what my father had made of himself and what my grandfather had been able to make of himself. It came from that that I have something in me. I, of course, did not understand my place in the world at that point. Like many, I was a hot-blooded young man with a little chip on my shoulder. It was all of that that I was able to turn into fuel appropriately; given the influences that I got in my life and being able to use them to be able to serve appropriately, it worked out. There's, you know, it takes a village to raise a child. And I just look back that I was very blessed. I had a very appropriate village of associates and friends and family and network around.
Pritish: Absolutely. It does. And in that conversation, one thing I'm very inquisitive about is why, of all the cities in terms of expansion, your family chose Chennai as the first place outside Delhi.
Sawan: I don't think there was a lot of science to it. Chennai was one of the major metropolitan cities in India at that time. Rents in Mumbai comparatively have always been very high. Chennai was one of those states that had a lot of old money. It had a lot of business, but it also had a tremendous amount of humility. So, Tamil Nadu, I've been living here for several years. I Love life here, and I love the value system of the people in this part of the country. It's a very deep and rich value system. They're very grounded. They're very humble. It would be similar factors to why they chose something like Chennai. And my grandfather was very against it. I remember my father said that I would look after everything, and by then, he had gained sufficient control of the business that even though his father disagreed with it, he would not be denied the opportunity to try this. He came here, and he set up a business and entered into a partnership with Spencer's, which is the old company from Calcutta, the RPG group, Ram Prasad Goenka, and the group. It was their building, mainly on Mount Road on Anna Salai we had a showroom there for many years. On the day of the inauguration, my father told me this story several times; of course, on the day of the inauguration, he saw an ambassador pull up to the front of the showroom and out of the ambassador are coming out of my grandparents, my grandfather and my grandmother, my father was so relieved and so happy. And when my grandfather saw what he had pulled off, you know, a complete showroom stocks and it's a lovely display, nice interiors, staffed well, ads in the local newspaper, when he saw all of this, he said, all right, you have my blessing. Let's start on a good note.
Pritish: You talked about friends, Christ College. I have studied in RV in Bangalore. So, I know Christ. It's a brilliant school. And you're right. More than the education at RV, my friends pushed me to where I am today. As college-goers, we don't realise those relationships, those friendships last long, even today, all those friends, it's 20 odd years. We almost regularly talk in different parts of the world. The network is one of the most valuable assets we accumulate as we go ahead.
Sawan: And the same with my group of college friends. they're spread all over the world, but that is the one group on WhatsApp that is buzzing with everything from banter to people meeting up and catching up and helping each other out in life situations. And there is a bright group of individuals. Some are leading companies. My roommate from college was this guy from Sweden. He is now the Chief Financial Officer of Scania Group, the largest builder of trucks and buses in the world. Like this, there's a whole cohort of friends who have been very supportive and very welcoming throughout the journey of life so far.
Pritish: So, from your first job in the US, you scaled that to becoming a CEO of an organisation. How did you plan that? Because you were young, at your age, back then, people didn't have a lot of bearing; they're still figuring things out. So, how did you traverse that? How did you plan?
Sawan: As much as I'd like to take credit for it, I was very much like what you described. I was still figuring things out. Something changed when I was working at Daymon. They sent me for this training. And this was training with Jack Canfield. I can tell you the highest potential managers in the company; it was a big company, and there were almost, at that time, 20,000 plus employees that grew in my tenure from 20,000 to almost 50,000. But at that point, the top 50 managers were identified as having high potential, and I was told you have to go for this training. And I said I've never been to a personal development training. I am still determining what they're going to do there. Well, I'll have to take circles around the fire and marry myself. Or do I need to find out what happens at events like this? I'm not comfortable. I have a lot of work, and this work is urgent. And my boss at the time told me, you're not listening. You're not being given a choice. You have to go. And I'll tell you, one of the most fortunate things that happened to me is when I went for this training, it was a seven-day, super intensive training. Talking in the year back in 2003, that one week rebooted. And I was like, somebody for the first time had switched off the CPU and rebooted it and defragged the memory and removed all of the viruses and give me an anchored direction in what I was supposed to do and how I should live learning from the experiences of others because life's too short to experience it all by yourself. So, that was a milestone in my life that I value. And then, after I had been for it, I became addicted. I went back for the advanced course. I paid the money myself, and I went back for the advanced course. And then, after that, I started attending multiple other personal development trainings. It started a natural progression in how I could plan for what was ahead. And I think that one factor played a huge role in my being able to accelerate my corporate journey. The second thing that happened that I was able to connect with as I went through this process of engaging with personal development was that as a child, from the sixth grade on, I was bullied very heavily in school. I was not popular, and I was bullied very heavily. And it was nothing but an ego-based fight over some rock star's poster with a friend. There was only one last piece left, and I was the one who got to the shop first and bought it. I denied him the chance to buy it. And that turned into a six-year nightmare where I would be going to school, and I would have this vision that I hope something happens and I don't have to be in school today. It was that bad for me. Even though I had people to talk to, nobody was listening. Nobody intervened in that capacity that they should have. Because of that, I started taking a tremendous interest in learning because I felt that when I knew different subjects, I could speak well. I wanted to be accurate in what came out of my mouth because I didn't want to be ridiculed. And that created a lifelong learner kind of attitude where I went on to read very heavily. With all of that accumulation of knowledge, I feel knowledge never goes to waste. All of that began to compound in a manner that led to this accelerated journey. I also remember that there was a time when I was in my first or second assignment, my job became very travel-heavy. So, I was taking three or four flights a week. And that was my pattern for several years. Before that happened, I had saved a salary for three or four months to buy a television. When I started working, the only things in my apartment were a mattress and a chair you needed to blow air into to fill it up. I remember there was always a fic pack in the fridge that was my apartment. So, I'd saved up money to buy this Sony television. The first time that I moved, the movers broke the TV, and it was insured. So, I collected the insurance, but my travel had picked up so much that I never repurchased a TV. And I was always going through airports and bookstores and all of that. So, I developed a voracious habit of reading. And at this point, I think it's probably somewhere around 2,500 or 3,000 books or something like that., You can't see that far out, but this kind of came together as a perfect storm to help me get where I am. And life had to play out in this sequence for me to experience the reality that is there today.
Pritish: How important is investing yourself in programs and education? While you understand that you were exposed to the first program, you went to the second higher-grade program by investing yourself. How important is that?
Sawan: It is incredibly important. And, of course, there are programs where the program is marketed better than the substance that it holds. So, it puts the burden back on the individual who is going for the program. You must do more than fall for the marketing. You also have to see beyond that. And that is where a coach has to earn the right in your eyes. This is the one thing that allowed me to accelerate the journey because it shows that otherwise, you would take decades to accumulate through experimentation and trial. A lot of people will come to a coaching program, and they will say, wow, it costs this much money. That's too expensive. What you're saying at that moment is that I am not working. What you need to understand is that when you get structured learning from someone who has walked the journey before you, the kind of acceleration you are going to achieve is something that is outside of your experience. You can appreciate it, but you cannot fully understand. A journey that should take a few months ends up taking decades for people because they resist spending that money or they have some other excuse that will block them from that knowledge coming into their awareness. And therefore, the process of compounding on that knowledge will never begin.
Pritish: In 2013, you returned to India and joined your family business. I'm assuming you reorganised it; you resettled it, made it into a growth machine, and then became a career coach. How was that journey from a transition from setting up the business, your family business, and then becoming a career coach? As you mentioned in your classes, many people join your class just to get the material to become a career coach.
Sawan: On the last count, it was over 150 different career coaches that had come. In India, you want to get this content. I should be able to get the content. When somebody tries to copy you, it's the highest form of a compliment; it's flattery. But you can't copy the specifics of my journey or the heart of service from where one comes. But I can tell you that was a very difficult time. I had achieved a level of income and life there in the United States that was not easy to say goodbye to. My wife wanted to return to India, and I could see her reasons. We had our son by then, and wanting to give him an Indian upbringing, wanting to have the larger family around us, was something very important to her. It was difficult because I was in the 0. 1% of the population, and the level of success and the level of income that I was enjoying there. That said, you can't prepare for it because the India that I left and the India that I came back to were two very different countries. And when I came back, it was like a culture shock in reverse. I had been promised all of the support. But in reality, when I got here to the ground, there was not nearly that level of support. There was a lot of disturbance that I experienced at that time because my ways of working were also very American. Do you know what my company people and the inner circle of members were telling me about how I should conduct myself? I was in no way going to act in that manner. I couldn't do what I wanted, so I was in Lippo, not knowing how to do what I needed. And it took me some time to reacclimatise the system. It took me a good couple of years, and in that time, there were many instances where I would curse myself and say, what did I do? Why did I come back? The business needed a fair bit of funding, and to be able to put that into and reorganise it to that level was a crazy effort. Fortunately, I was again, by the grace of God and by the excellent advice of the people around me and, you know, having just a fantastic team, it's an old business, so people who are there and will know the business really know the business, but of course the times were changing. Technology, marketing, finance, all of these things were changing in a very rapid way. So, to make use of where the world was going and what was available as tools, there was a lot of. Strategic thought needed to be implemented, and money needed to be invested to build those solutions. Thankfully, I was able to do so. And that was a lot of fun. That was just a lot of fun. So, two years of such hard struggle where I remember I would go back home and I've just said something on another property to put back into the business. And my wife is looking at me and saying, what wrong have my children done to you? Why are you liquidating their inheritance? At the same time, it was one failure after another. And there were nine consecutive. So, I was losing credibility very quickly. So, the next time I was, I would propose something to my family, to my wife, and say that this is the right step. She would, enough. You need to be right once, and the 10th time played out very correctly. But to have that wherewithal to go through those nine times of consecutive failures, oh, it was the most trying time of my life.
Pritish: You have trained thousands of individuals across age groups to transform their careers. How does one design their career?
Sawan: A career has to be positioned on the premise of giving extreme value, especially if you're ambitious and want to achieve exceptional success. How to choose your career or how to choose your career path. There are tools; there are assessments. You have to recognize today that you're not going to find people who are meant for one field and one career alone for the entirety of their lives. Today, people are multipotentialites. This has to be acknowledged. You're going to do something for a particular segment of your life. For, let's say, five, seven, ten years. And then you should move on to something else, something totally unrelated and very different. But the fundamentals remain the same. The underlying, evergreen classics, if you understand your IKIGAI at that point in your life and set up the right goals, those processes remain the same. Careers achieve exceptional success. They have some common elements. So, if you ask me how to design the right career I have to show you these things coming up. The first thing is finding the right fit. And the right fit is where what you have is of extreme value and solves the needs, the extraordinary needs that an organisation has. So, it doesn't matter what industry you're in or what business function you're involved with, whether entry-level or mid-level, or senior level, or what company you work for; you have to provide irresistible value. So, for that, you have to find the right fit. And that right fit is not just a competency fit in terms of you can deliver the actual outcomes to the organisation, but it is also the environment of the organisation should be one where you fit well. When you find these two factors, then the other factors like work-life balance and growth opportunities, all of those things will figure themselves out, but you have to find these fundamental factors. So, finding the right fit is one very important thing. The second thing is understanding your value, and your value is based on the value that you're going to provide to that organisation. So, you have to fundamentally understand how value is generated in the company, who is successful here, and why is a very good question to ask. Once you understand that or who it was, you may join a turnaround company or a realignment situation. But understanding that is very important. And then being able to translate that knowledge rapidly into action. The third thing is you must practise a very different type of leadership because you cannot claw your way to the top. In any culture in humanity, if your interest is greater, if self-interest is greater than the larger interest, the system will not allow you to progress. If you raise your head for the wrong reason, the system will chop your head off. Leaders understand you cannot claw your way to the company's top. You have to be carried there by other people. Other people just want you to be the leader for who you are as a human being. So, you have to have a tremendous amount of altruism and benevolence in how you lead and manage. The fourth thing is that this is a big one because I find many of my students running into this problem. It's called the permission paradox. You must get the experience and get the experience before you get the job. And it becomes a major limitation for so many talented professionals. Now, there is a full custom mix of career strategies, some direct strategies, and some implied strategies that I use on a case-by-case basis to help professionals break through this barrier. They then know how to create that environment of support that will allow them to break through this problem. And the fifth one is Pareto's principle, which is the 20/80 rule. 20% of your work will create 80% of the impact. And 80% is only going to create 20% of the impact. So, understanding what the core of that 20% is. And usually, it is that 20% that is most deeply connected to the financial statements of the company. Now, that's something that you cannot delegate or outsource. You cannot hand it off to your team. That's something that you're going to have to master yourself. So, when you find these patterns coming up in your career, then rest assured you're designing your career appropriately. You see why these five patterns are not something else like empathy or communication skills or another attribute because this is the value of a career coach. When you are able to look at thousands and lakhs of careers, your ability to pick up patterns from them is what creates success because success leaves clues. Success has a very solid foundation, and there are patterns to be understood from that data. When you're able to see that, that is what puts you in a position to be able to guide others.
Pritish: That brings me to a very obvious question: How do I find the right career coach?
Sawan: Like I said, the coach has to be able to earn the right in your eyes. And that's a subjective statement. So, to quantify it, here is what I look for. One, they must have demonstrated that success themselves. They must replicate that success unquestionably for multiple case studies and students. Not everyone will be successful, but a successful person can come from anywhere. If you join a great school or a great college, that is no guarantee that you are going to be a scholar or a topper. You've just gotten into the game. The way you play the game is the other half of the equation. Such a system is making that level of success possible; that is one thing that I look for. The second thing that I look for is that there must be something original to the system or the methodology or what that coach is preaching. It cannot just be repackaged information. It has to be original content of leading thought and must be relevant in the world of today. And the third thing that I look for is the connection and the vibe with the coach. If you don't resonate with the energy, you will not be able to sustain that coaching relationship. It is because a coach is not a paid best friend. They are not there to patronise you. They are there to help you see the limitations holding you back. And then they have the process to move you past those limitations. It requires the ability to be very comfortable with being uncomfortable. And if your ego is not in check, then when you are asked to be introspecting in that manner, you will find it. So, it's a person that you can love on some days, and it's a person that you can hate on some days. It is because they are bringing that mirror. They are bringing that tough love to your life. So, these are the things that I look for. And when I find them, because I'll tell you a coach that doesn't have a coach is not a coach, they're a hypocrite. We are all works in progress. Sometimes, we mistakenly think that we are finished products. We are never finished products. There are people and coaches that I learned from. The last program I attended was about three, maybe four years ago. And this was an intense program. It was all about consciousness, and it was all about working with extreme trauma, people who have gone through an extreme level of physical or sexual or mental abuse, and how to be able to deal with those situations. And it took me, it's taken me almost four years to integrate those lessons into my life. Now, the person who runs that program runs a bigger program, which is a 28-day program that I'm planning to go for. But when I'm going to find 28 days in my life, because it's a residential-style program in California, there's a significant cost and a significant timeline to it. But I've scheduled it for some point in later 2024 or early 2025 because we have to keep learning. After all, that's the only way to reinvent ourselves for what is coming up. You can't bear it the same way today because the goalpost is moving. It's a very different way. It's a very different world. So yes, some of the underlying lessons will be evergreen, like honesty is something everybody should practise. Hard work, there is no replacement for it. But what are you going to work hard towards that goalpost is moving. These are the things that I look for in a coach. And when I find them, then my surrender is a hundred percent.
Pritish: One thing you overemphasise while you're teaching is surrendering 100%. Can you double-click on that? Why is it important? What does that mean?
Sawan: See, the more senior you are, the harder you will be to coach because people, especially those who have experienced some level of success in their life, by default, intellectual arrogance begins to set in where they feel they know better. But the best way to break through that is to check with your reality. If success is not showing up in your reality and you're living in this illusion that you know better, then there is a disconnect between what you're experiencing and who you think you are. The reason I ask for surrender is because of two reasons. One, it is going to make your implementation easier. It's not for me. It's for you. It's not that my ego is demanding that you surrender to me. That's not the reason at all. When you surrender, you will be much more receptive to what I have to say or what any coach has to say. And thereby, you will proceed in a manner where you will implement it with much more sincerity. The second reason I ask for surrender is because I'm only asking for something that I had to give myself. So, I have earned the right to ask for it. Because this chain of links that connects teachers and students, it's an unbroken chain. Every teacher was, at one point, a student. Every master was, at one point, a disaster. If you go deeper into the sentiment, it's very important to bring that to the table. Because if you keep second-guessing, you're neither here nor there. That is why it is so important to check that vibe with the coach that you're selling it. If you match that vibe, and if you know that you can work with them, not only on your good days but even on the bad days, then you find somebody who could make an impact in your life.
Pritish: Which is one piece of advice from your career coaches that has stuck with you?
Sawan: The number one piece of advice that I have received from people who are far smarter and far more learned than me is the ability to take feedback. This is a game-changer. This is the one thing that allows you to reinvent yourself to handle unfair situations of increasing complexity, and the world is an unfair place. Let's not be naive and say that the world is lovely and everything is rosy and hunky. Of course, we look for good in the world, and most people are decent and honest. I'm not trying to take away from that premise. But bad things can happen to good people. Let's be smart about it. And when you are able to increase muscle, that is able to solve problems of complexity that are unfair to begin with; that is what builds work. That is who you become. It's not the goal that you achieve. It's who you become in that process. That is the real prize. One piece of advice is the ability to take feedback because it allows you to reinvent yourself. And this is the problem with personal development. What you are trying to understand is something that is fundamentally outside of your experience. And it is very easy to comprehend it intellectually, but it is tough to understand fully. Now, if you have climbed a small hill, you know that climbing a hill, you know, you're going to be out of breath. You might experience some joint pain; you're going to sweat. But if you have yet to climb Mount Everest, then you don't know the intensity at which it can play out. Because when you're in the death zone above 26 000 feet, where your body is in itself, the fluid is filling up in your lungs and your brain, and you can't think straight, and you have to make life or death decisions, that dynamic is entirely different. Now you can understand it. But if you have yet to be through it yourself, you cannot fully appreciate what happens, how you act in that manner, in that moment. And the way you deal with difficulty is the best predictor of your capacity for success. So, this is a real game changer: the ability to take feedback. And that goes to the heart of how coachable someone is. So, when I onboard people, I test this, I have multiple ways to test this. I'll poke a finger to see how coachable someone is. And if they are coachable only, then I will take on them.
Pritish: There are genuine career coaches who would like to start a career in this space, as you did a few years ago. As a business, where would you direct someone who wants to start?
Sawan: Wow. Okay. See now that as a question is today, one of the terms that I find in the market is I'm a mid-career coach. There are a lot of these mid-career coaches, and a lot of them joined my program as well to grab content, give it a different marketing spin, and try to do what we do. But fundamentally, you must understand you cannot give what you don't have. Somebody with ten years of experience who made it to the position of a senior manager or a vice president, you can't coach somebody who's going for a CEO role. You have yet to see that journey. Nobody will give you the medal for climbing only half the mountain. If you're a mid-career coach and you know the mid-career journey well, the problem is you may be leading them down a path that falls into the valley. It's not taking you to the top of the mountain because you haven't experienced that part of the journey. It has to be taken with a bit of salt because the marketing in today's world and what is happening in the coaching industry is very seductive. People who may not be able to find a resonance with a conventional career are starting to see this as a choice. Yes, for many people, it will be an appropriate choice. But for many people, it will also not be an appropriate choice. So that is very important. You have to understand the ability to coach is only one element of becoming a good or successful career coach. The ability to market and fill your rooms is an entirely different skill set. Many people go into this business thinking that they are great coaches, they are people persons, and they can connect well with an individual. All of that might be true. It's saying I cook great food, so I should open a restaurant. Now, if you're a restaurant owner, you will have to do the books, the staffing, and deal with the MCDs and the city corporation and the parking laws and all of that. You're going to have to manage your ingredient costs and sourcing. You will have to train that staff, which is unreliable and may not show up at the time of your peak hours. Are you willing to do all of that? And I call this paying the price for your success. You have to fundamentally understand that there is a lot of what you will be doing that you don't enjoy, and if you don't get good even at the things that you don't enjoy, you won't get to do the things that you do enjoy. Walk into any of these things with open eyes, okay? Don't just jump into it blindly. Because there are many parts, and this is the price for your success because you have to fundamentally understand that there is a lot of what you will be doing that you don't enjoy. And if you don't get good, even at the things that you don't enjoy, you won't get to do the things that you do enjoy. Walk into any of these things with open eyes. Okay. Don't just jump into it blindly because there are many parts to this puzzle. And you will have to fill all of the bars. You need to get all these parts to get the outcome, which is a scalable coaching business. So, the ability to coach, learning how to fill your rooms, how to market, how to create traffic, all of these things are important. And if you get all of them, you will make a significant impact and help a lot of people who need your services.
Pritish: You come from a generational business. How do you make career coaching a generational business? What I mean by that is, in this case, you are the asset. Your knowledge is what is being percolated. How do you make it something that goes across generations? So those grow, grow beyond you.
Sawan: This is a problem that all physical face-driven brands have, where the brand is a person. How do you take a Shah Rukh Khan and help others become a Shah Rukh Khan? Now, in the coaching industry, it can be done, but it takes work. And that is why you have to build with an exit strategy in mind. My favourite example is the wine business. There was this gentleman named Robert Parker, who at one time was probably the most influential critic, no matter what the subject was in the world. He is known as the emperor of wine. Now, this guy was trained as a lawyer, and he was working for an insurance company. His girlfriend then had a study abroad program in France, and she went to France. While they were there, they were high school sweethearts. At that time, she went to France, and he followed; he was so love-lured. He followed, and he wanted to spend some time with her in France, and they travelled the countryside, visited many vineyards, and sampled a lot of wine. And he found that he had a supreme palate. His ability to pick up the nuances and the flavours in wine was exceptional. And he just fell in love with wine. Of course, he finished his education as a lawyer, joined this insurance company, and worked there for a few years. And he said this is not meaningful to me. I want to do something else. And on the side, he was catering to his passion for wine. At one point, he started a newsletter called The Wine Advocate, which was a black-and-white publication that he would write up. So, he would put in his own money, he would travel to France, travel to Italy, travel to all of the wine-making countries, and he would sample the wines, and he would write about these wines before they came to the market. And the year that changed his fortunes was 1982. 1982 was an exceptional vintage in the world of wines. And he went to Bordeaux, and he sampled all of these famous chateaux and vineyards, and he came back, and he wrote about them before they came to the market, and he said, they are going to be phenomenal wines, and they are going to be age-worthy like you cannot imagine. And every other critic went against the grain and said, this is untrue. And when the wines came out, they were truly spectacular. 1982 was one of the vintages of the century that enhanced his credibility. And the way he spread from there on was a story and a journey. He was a business was his palate's ability to be able to understand how beautiful that wine is. Now, that is challenging to give to someone else. But he recently retired, and he sold the business to the Michelin group, the tire-making company; the Michelin group also runs the Michelin Guide, which is the restaurant guide of three-star Michelin restaurants. And he sold the business. And it went for some $50 million or something like that from the publication itself. He was probably earning some $3 million a year. He was a very well-to-do man who had worked very hard to build his reputation and build this business. And it was a black-and-white publication. He never took any advertisements because he wanted to maintain his independence fiercely. He never wanted to be a business that gives advice on the basis of taking money from someone and favouring them. This is what influencers are doing today. So, they build influence, go brand hunting, and who will pay me? Whose headphones should I wear? And whose sunglasses should I put on to be able to make money? So, he maintained his independence. And that's one of the most brilliant examples of how he built that business. And then he built a second line of defence, which took time. He identified other people who had a super palate, and he worked with them tirelessly for years to create the Robert Parker and the Vine Advocate brand. And that brand had become so well entrenched. The advice is so looked forward to by connoisseurs in that industry that the worth assessed was millions of dollars. And he was able to pass it on. That is why when we get started, you know, we are all brands like Sawan Kapoor or any other coach. And then, we start giving prominence to the actual brand. In my case, it is Apex. Accelerated professional excellence in X. So, where X is any career or any industry or any function or field, that natural transition will take place. Right now, I still have at least a decade or a decade and a half in front of me before I have to worry about those things, but I'm designing it in a manner where if it continues to stay meaningful, then it can continue to serve people who will need this.
Pritish: Brilliant. To add to Michelin, you mentioned, you may know this, the Michelin Guide was one of the very first content marketing stunts that was built. They wrote the book, or basically, the Michelin Guide concept came up because people would use their cars to go to different restaurants. That's how the tires will wear out, and they would buy new tires.
Sawan: Absolutely. Yes. And now the ownership is in your part of the world in Hong Kong.
Pritish: As a career coach, how do you see being a generalist versus a specialist?
Sawan: See, there was a type, this goes in cycles. This goes in cycles. There are times when a generalist is preferred. And then there are times when the world's favour changes to specialists. When new deep industries open up, then, of course, you need special expertise in those industries because they are yet to take shape. And once they become more part of the normal, you return to generalism. So, it comes and goes in cycles. But in general, if I had to pick one, I would pick generalists all the way. The reason for that is you look at most CEOs, and it's a heavy percentage; almost 65 or 70% plus of CEOs come from the operations function. Now, the operations function is a generalist function. See, the nature of the problem that will come and hit you is going to be from something other than IT; it's going to be from sales. It's going to be a mix. And if you look at what people who build great careers have in common, one of those things that you see is that regardless of the nature of the problem, they have the methodology to engage and solve the problem. So, I think that there was a time, especially when we saw the IT boom, there was a time where everybody felt that if you're going to be Jesus Christ, it's going to be an IT or every Indian father who sends their son to the United States, wants them to become an engineer or a doctor or a lawyer. And every doctor and lawyer's father wants his son to become an industrialist. So, this all plays out in cycles. But if I were to pick one, it's generalist. Because a generalist has that underlying framework to take whatever the problem is and bring a solution to it. And part of that solution may be assembling a team of specialists.
Pritish: What is your counterintuitive insight about career coaching?
Sawan: We touched upon it a little bit. One that has to deal with people who have that intellectual arrogance. And the more senior you are, the harder you will be to coach. And it is fundamentally because that's the problem with personal development, things that lie outside of your experience, and that is where you ask for surrender because the surrender is not for the coach; the surrender is to make your journey easy. It can be a love-hate relationship. And your ability to take the U-turn in your life is essential. If you made a mistake. If you can't take that U-turn, then you are like, you're already in a hole, and you're not letting go of the shovel. You're digging deeper. Many people end up taking that level of dysfunction to their grave. That's why today, the world does not have an information problem. The world has an implementation problem. The way technology now pervades humanity, it has democratised information. Of course, the quality of that information is still the receiver's burden. They have to sift through what is valuable and what is not. Just because you have a voice today doesn't mean what you have to say has substance. Saying something and saying anything, there is a big difference between the two. So, that still has to be understood. But fundamentally, this is what is counterintuitive about coaching. You have to deal with people deeply married to their dysfunction. And people don't understand when you just say it in words. You know what to do to lose weight. You have to diet, and you have to exercise but put chola bhaturas and gulab jamuns in front of you, and all of that knowledge goes out the window. So that's the problem. In a classroom, the lesson comes first, and the test comes afterward. But in life, the test comes first, and the lesson is delivered afterward. If you can be that dynamic of what life demands from you at that moment, then you're well ahead of the curve. Because if you look at it this way, when we are young, we have time and energy, but we don't have much money. When we reach our middle age, we need more time. We've gotten incredibly busy. We have a little bit of money, and we certainly have the energy. And when we get to our old age, we don't have the energy left, but now we have the time, and we probably have significant money. So, the stage of life is going to ask for something from you, and your personal development is what allows you to build that muscle where you are ahead of what that stage of life is going to demand. And if you can do that, you have been a lifelong learner appropriately. But it's all counterintuitive because when the son realises what the father was saying was right, he has a son who misunderstands him.
Pritish: Brilliant. I love that. Three books or blogs that have influenced you the most.
Sawan: One book that I would recommend is a book called Ishmael, I S H M A E L. It was written by an Australian author by the name of Daniel D. Quid. And fundamentally, the question that he is asking is how man should live, how humanity should live their life. This book was almost 40 years in writing before it came out in its first draft. And I won't spoil the takeaway of the book. It's a brilliant book to read. I read it in my third year of college, and I try to read it every couple to three years because it's just such an impactful read. Another thing that I recommend is the work of Dr. John Demartini. He's one of the most amazing individuals who understand human behaviour, in a way that seldom people ever will. If you can engage with his work, it is brilliant. And a third thing is this book that made such a strong impression, I remember Jack Welch's story 'Straight from the Gut' had a very big impact on me and his tenure at GE. What he took over as an unprofitable, huge behemoth of a company and how he took it to the largest market capitalization in the world was a very impactful read. A second, very impactful read was 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins. These are some things that I recommend.
Pritish: Advice to your younger self?
Sawan: Do more, care less about opinions, and develop better relationships. I had an accelerated journey, but the comparison is the ultimate thief of joy and peace. And I'm also human, and sometimes when I look back and compare what I should have done, there is a certain amount of regret that comes up when I say, you know what? I could have done that better. I could have done this better. And I could have done that better. And that is where the six-pack in the fridge helps because it makes it more pleasant. I'm not trying to promote drinking at all, by the way.
Pritish: Understood. Sawan, that was a great conversation. Thank you for being on the show.
Sawan: Thank you, Pritish!
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