Thank you Hitendra! What a pleasure to see you.

The feelings were naturally mutual. I saw you and I said, "Well, he's already doing everything that I want to do," So, I'm equally inspired. And thank you for inviting me.

That's right.

Well, I think, like you mentioned, I grew up in New Delhi. I went to DPS and then to St Stephen's, which was, in those days, one of the premier colleges in Delhi, especially for Economics and the Arts. My fondest memory has to be the incredible friends that I met there. It was a great institution that brought people who were remarkably similar in terms of their outlook, their values and what they believed in, and many of them have stayed lifelong friends. It's been so many years since I graduated, but my closest friends are the friends that have formed during my days at the college. I think that is probably my most powerful memory. Everything in the college is connected to those friendships, the conversations and the discovery of people and possibilities that happened at that time.

Well, as you were saying that, I remembered those mince cutlets in the cafeteria that were famous and having breakfast there with some friends. But equally, in that hall that you were describing, my mind went back to a rock band called Electric Plant that was playing some Dire Straits. I remember walking into that and being absolutely mesmerized and inspired by how good they sounded. That kept fueling my desire to actually be on stage and play music. I think I had started playing music back in school, but then it just got kicked into the next gear once I went into college and with all these college festivals, if you remember, all these different colleges at these festivals. Our band was called "Applied For" and we used to look forward to going to these festivals and entertaining the crowds.

By the way, most of the band members I had then are still my band members now. They are, of course, older and don't quite look the same, nor do I, but we still have the same amount of fun and connection. It's an incredible memory.

"Oh, absolutely! I think maybe at a few levels. One is just being your authentic self and not taking yourself too seriously makes you more relatable. So, I think if you play the guitar and you're willing to look stupid on stage and not be perfect and still be willing to go out there, I think it is a great way to humanize yourself as you become a leader and make it easy for people to connect with you.

In fact, in most of my jobs, I was known as a singing CEO. The reason was that I think my employees would have to politely listen to me. I used to whip out the guitar and I kid you not, it used to actually encourage people to just reach out to me a lot more and speak to me a lot more honestly and tell me exactly what was going on, because I seemed so much more accessible. I think that's one aspect of it.

The second aspect, I think, is one of tenacity and discipline, which is, I think any skill, I believe that you try to learn, be it music, sports, a language, it follows a similar curve. You have very quick progress, then you get encouraged and then you stagnate. Then you stagnate for a long time. That's when you get tested. If you stick with it and if you're tenacious, then you get the next lift-up again. It is that resilience over talent that actually wins.

I think it's the mental tenacity of: "I'm not just going to give it up when it gets hard. I'm going to basically stick with it." That I think as a micro habit of sticking with it and doing it even when you don't feel like doing it, doing it even when you think you can't do it. I think it's a great habit to inculcate in many other aspects of life and I've certainly found that to be true.

"You're right. I went recently to a guitar workshop by Steve Vai, who is one of my most favorite musicians. He, for one hour, spoke about the philosophy of music which sounded like the philosophy of life or the philosophy of leadership, where he talked about the importance of just being in the moment and not second guessing yourself, not trying too hard, but just trying enough and doing it to not to inspire others, but to inspire yourself. And how by inspiring yourself, you inspire others, because people see that joy in who you are.

Now, that is so applicable, right? I mean, it's applicable to life, it's applicable to work, it's applicable to our relationships. So, I think you're right. I think I also see a lot of connectivity and similar principles across all of these dimensions. That is absolutely fascinating.

"Yeah, Sultans of Swing and Wild West. I think that was the time when they were absolutely crushing it, and there was again, a new, different authentic sound, the uniqueness of it, which is what cut through. Once again, a similar analogy for work, for businesses to have a unique proposition that you stand for, and that's what actually cuts through.

Yeah. That's right. Just a short story before the MBA thing. So, St Stephen's was good. Then I actually wanted to go to the Harvard of India called IIM Ahmedabad. I was so arrogant about the likelihood of me getting there, I didn't apply anywhere else. And low and behold, I did not get in there.

I made it to the interview, but I didn't show up very well in the interview and I didn't get through. That was a great learning lesson, which was, never take anything for granted and always prepare and then prepare some more. And always stay grounded and don't declare victory before you have actually won it.

So, I went to FMS, which is a good school and I had a really good exposure there, learnt a lot, and made some great friends. Through them, I joined the Tata Administrative Service, which is the premier industrial house in India. They have businesses in various different sectors. And as part of that, I went to the Indian Hotels Company. For those of you listeners who've been to India, it's the Taj Group of Hotels. They had an affiliation, a partnership with Intercontinental Hotels. I was the Resident Manager at the young age of 24-25 of a 600-room hotel in New Delhi. That's how I started. That's how I actually fell in love with the whole hospitality business.

There's something remarkably cool. You walk into your product; you're standing inside your product in a hotel and the product is nothing but basically a set of experiences that you create for people. I think the people-centricity of it was remarkable. I think the fact that it's experiential and you can stand in it, and you can actually observe what's happening was fascinating. That's where I started my career.

When I was that young, I just wanted to do well. What that meant was, whatever was at hand, I wanted to make sure that I was able to deliver on that and some more. I realized I was very young, I was in my mid-20s, I was leading a group of about a thousand people who are much older than I was, and therefore my immediate task was to be able to achieve anything, I need to first be credible as a leader with the people who know a lot more than me. So, my first task was to be able to achieve and do better than I thought needed to be done. I needed to first be credible. The only way I could be credible was to try and to know, to listen and to learn as much as I could from the people who knew more than me, and to be willing to do all the tasks that people did around me and to actually respect whatever task anybody did in that hotel environment by actually doing it myself.

I think listening, learning, respecting and acknowledging that I don't know much and that I need to learn, I think was the way in which I tried to build credibility. Of course, very quickly, once you've done that, you need to then lead. You need to define current reality, but also articulate where it needs to go. And then you're able to connect and inspire people to get it done.

I had this unique opportunity at a very young age to start learning some of those important attributes of leadership.

So, Tata was basically an incredible learning ground. What I learned most of all at the House of Tatas was the importance of doing business with integrity, and that it was possible even in a tough environment like India to do things the right way if you believe that it could be done the right way. I think that the House of Tatas are a shining example of that value and I deeply connected with it, and it has really shaped and stayed with me all these years. It is doing business the right way with integrity.

So, I was doing very well there. I was enjoying it. I loved the hotel business. But there came a moment in time, say early 30s and I said, as we often do, I said, "Okay, where is my life going? I was recently married and where do I wish to be in the next 5 to 10 years?" And I would really encourage our listeners, if they haven't done that, to periodically, no matter where you are in your life, to just step back and say, "Where do I see myself living in 5 to 10 years?" And think of that dream in very practical terms, in terms of who am I living with? How many children do I have if I want them? How do I spend my time? What gives me joy? What gives me fulfillment? What's really driving and motivating me? Just thinking about these things and there's no precise answer, but the important thing is to paint that vision.

I did that when I was 30. I was living in Delhi. I had never left the country and my dream was to live and compete with the best in the world. My dream was to give my family and my children a life infinitely better than I had, full of opportunities. My dream was to become a global citizen and embrace opportunities at that level and not just limit myself to where I am and not be, to quote Pink Floyd, "Comfortably Numb." So, when I stepped back and thought of it, I realized that the track I was on, which was good as it was, which was within India with a premier business institution like the Tatas in the hotels, Resident Manager, etc., was unlikely to take me to that direction. That's when I did an audit of my value.

It was not going to take me there. I think one of the things I realized was that how we make important, pivotal life decisions are very subconsciously conditioned by our values. We don't realize it, but what we believe is important. Our decisions are in service of those values, and if we don't surface our values, we are in the risk and danger of repeating and making incremental decisions. So, what I did then was that I looked at this vision and I did an audit of my values, and I said, "What should I do? Should I stay or should I seek adventure?"

Hitendra, you will connect with this, having grown up in a middle-class home with very loving parents, my father in the government service, my mother, a doctor, loyalty and gratitude to your first employer is ingrained in our heads. Just be grateful you have a job and spend your entire life doing just that, right? That's how I was raised and I had this deep sense of gratitude and loyalty to the House of Tatas. And then when I was doing my values audit, I said, "Will that top value take me to where I think my human potential is?" And the answer was no. And I said, "So which of my values I need to elevate?" The value of adventure of seeking a challenge naturally rose to the top, and it was more reconciled with the vision that I had. Once I had that insight, it was blindingly clear to me that I had to move, even though it was tough for me, how hard it was, because there was no reason for me to move. I think choosing to move and choosing to seek adventure, because it was more in service of the future I wish to create was a pivotal point, and I think when you put your intent out there in the universe, doors start opening mysteriously, and Yum, which was at that time PepsiCo, Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell were coming into India for the first time and they were looking for an Operations Director. I'd never heard of those brands. I had never heard of KFC, Pizza Hut or Taco Bell. I didn't know what on Earth those brands were, but I knew that this was a global company. I'd heard of PepsiCo. I knew that it was a very successful multinational company. I knew I would learn a lot. I knew that I would have the possibility to impact a lot more, and through that create the life that I wanted to create for my family and for myself, full of exciting adventures in the future. That was how I then pivoted and joined Yum brands.

I think the common thread everywhere has been a desire to learn, a desire to impact and seeking opportunities that enabled me to do that consistently. That's the common thread. Whenever a wave of change appears at my door, to have the courage to step onto it and just see where it goes. Therefore, the mindset of saying yes a lot more than saying no to opportunities, a lot of that.

I'll give you some specific examples. I started off in India as the Operations Director then moved to the UK as Ops Engineer, learnt the nuts and bolts of the business in those two roles from the ground up, like the details of how to really run restaurants individually, but then as clusters and so on. Then I had the privilege of being asked to lead our business in Holland and then Germany. Those were fascinating experiences. I spent about 10 years moving to Netherlands and running that business, which is a start-up business, setting up the entire company from scratch, learning the language, understanding the culture and scaling this global brand, but in a very local Dutch way. It was fascinating.

Then, I think in Germany, after 5 years, that was a turnaround situation again, sort of rebuilding the local team there and doing much the same, a global brand in a German way. I think these experiences of me having much like the story you were describing of "How are the people out there."

As I stepped into the UK, then Netherlands and then Germany, and had the good fortune and opportunity of not only working there but living there. To live in a different culture is probably the most adventurous, fulfilling opportunity that anyone can ever find and I would strongly encourage our listeners to look for that.

Here are my two important examples of the learning of having worked and lived in different cultures in the context of scaling global companies.

One is, I think when we scale global companies across the 150 odd countries in the world, very often the instinct is to look for differences. My learning has been that you can build global businesses by looking for similarities and respecting the differences. It is not built on differences. You can't build global businesses on differences. It's actually by looking for similarities and then respecting differences. Let me give you two concrete examples.

I'll give you some examples in two areas. One is on people and one is on brands.

On people, look for what's similar and respect what's different. What's similar as you know, no matter the color of your skin or your accent or how you speak, we're all wired the same way as human beings. We all want the same thing. We all have goodness. We respond well to kindness, compassion, and empathy. We're also mostly morally wired the right way. We all are looking for purpose, for recognition, for love, for acceptance, for respect. That's common no matter where you go. However, there are some important stylistic differences in how people behave and how they communicate that you have to respect if you want to really connect to the hearts and minds of people that you're leading.

In the UK, for example, the difference was coming out from India. I was not used to the subtlety of the English language. So when my boss would say to me "nice effort", that normally meant that I did a terrible job or if the boss said to me, "I'd like to have a quiet word with you", it didn't mean that he wanted to build his relationship with me, it means that I was in deep trouble. So, understanding that, how to really unpack what is truly being said.

Holland was also fascinating. I think out there in my team, I felt that it's a very validating society. Everybody has a point of view, people are very spontaneous, and have a lot of energy. They don't really care much about the level that you are in the organization, and they want to be respected and consulted. So, when you want to make a decision in Holland, you have to bring your entire team together and ask them, what do you think across the table and then lead by consensus. That's how they operate.

In Germany, you just can't do that. I mean, you can't sort of show up and say, "What do you think?" They'll think you're absolutely nuts and say that you're such a weak leader. "It is your job to tell us what to do." And then they are world class at executing.

I think that's what I mean by looking for what is similar at a human-to-human level, but then have the ability to pick up on the differences. And I found that on that subject, I can't overemphasize the importance of language.

I picked up Dutch and I spoke reasonably good Dutch. Then I picked up a bit of German as well. Now I'm trying to learn Spanish. The reason is because I feel that language is the way in which you build true connection and trust. Through trying to learn the language as an outsider, you demonstrate to the local people that you respect them. You are here to learn. You will actually make the effort much more than you expect them to embrace and include you. It is up to you as the outsider to make the effort and demonstrate that you first respect the culture and the country in which you're going to live, to get the same reciprocal relationship in return, which has been my experience. And when I do that, I have always been welcomed and embraced with open arms because people feel that, "Okay, he at least first respects who we are." That's one example on the people's side.

The other one very quickly on brand, is similarly, look for what is similar and respect the difference.

What's similar is that when you're scaling brands, if you look at all of these global retail brands, they're pretty much the same iconic products all over the world. So, look for what's similar in terms of the operating platform that you have at the back, the way in which your kitchen is organized and the technology that you use, the recipes that you have. Those are consistent all over the world, there's no change, and that's the only way in which you're able to replicate and create the value proposition. But, you need to respect the emotional difference and the cultural context of that brand, and therefore, the way in which you bring it to life through your communication, through your design, the way in which you connect emotionally with the consumers has to be local.

So, the language is local, the connection is local, the emotions are local, but the platform is global. That is what's similar and that has been my learnings in these countries where I lived and worked.

Yeah, that's a great question. There are a couple of thoughts that come to mind. The reason I was just thinking, what are my motivations to do this? So, first off, I think it's different if you're just visiting and it's different if you're living. I think if you're living and you're living there for 5 years, 6 years, and you're leading a consumer facing company where your product is your employees in those stores, it's a very personalized service experience. How can you expect to lead and inspire your group of humans if you cannot connect to their hearts through the window of the language?

That's one and the second thing is, it demonstrates more powerfully than anything else that I respect you. And I think I respect you and I will make the effort to learn, to get to know you so that you can in turn open the door for me. I will do it first. But I think it's probably more applicable if you're living and have to lead an enterprise which is very people driven, very people focused etc.

We were talking a little bit earlier about this leadership muscle and your daily micro habits, and I was talking about how resilience is also a micro habit. I spoke to you that for me, my big motivators are learning and having an impact. I think of these micro habits of how can I keep pushing my learning button and curiosity. I have found that language which is suddenly acquiring a set of 1,000 new words to say the same thing that I thought in a particular way is incredibly empowering and liberating.

I don't live in a Spanish speaking country, but I'm learning Spanish and I have 2 classes every week, and it's the most joyful hour that I spend with a Spanish teacher that I Zoom in with. I'm slowly sort of making progress. It's been 2 or 3 years now, and I just do it just for the love of it. It is hard. It's the learning muscle of: I'm going to learn a new skill and if I learn a new skill, especially as you get older, I'll probably remain curious for longer, and language is kind of more of the right brain, left brain. And then finally, there is something incredibly magical when you have learned a language to the level, where if you're in that coffee shop in that country, or looking at the headlines of a newspaper or listening to some conversation in a train, or indeed watching a movie in that language that suddenly it makes sense, and you can understand that what people are saying in a language that is that was completely alien to you a couple of years ago There's something incredibly magical about that. Therefore, I get inspired by it. I found language as a good sort of a lane to pick up for all of those reasons.

Sure. A couple of things. I think I'll just complete the story arc from where we left off to the present day and then answer your questions. From those European experiences, I became the global head for KFC, running a portfolio of countries, about 50 countries, 5,000 stores. And there the job was how do you allocate resources, time, attention and focus to maximize enterprise value.

And then I moved on to Krispy Kreme, again, doing a global role, selling doughnuts to all over the world. Fantastic job. And then, the last 5 years I've been stewarding Panera and Caribou Einstein, the CEO and now chairman of the company.

It's been a privilege of a lifetime, really, as I look back, Hitendra, from where I came and I would never have thought that I would have had the kind of opportunities I've had to learn, to grow, to contribute.

I just want to say, firstly, that it is not as if my career has just one trajectory of unconstrained success. Far from it. I've had many failures along the way. I continue to have failures and that's part of the journey. And I think what really matters, of course, is what you learn and how you step up and how you keep trying to get better and do the very best that you can. I'm by no means claiming that I have the final word on what works, but I'll share with you my approach, right?

My approach and my business philosophy is the following, and I've led all my companies with this mindset. First, I really, genuinely believe that leadership is a privilege. It's a privilege because you have a unique opportunity to be a force multiplier for good, which means that enterprise value is the outcome of doing the right big things, and is not the only objective that one should pursue, especially in a world with the kind of challenges that we have and I think as a leader today, it is our fundamental foundational responsibility to have an agenda which covers people, community, planet and enterprise value. That's my foundational belief. If you're not doing that, we're not doing the right thing.

I do believe that to be able to have a more holistic impact, we have to find ways to build a virtuous cycle of profit, drive and purpose, but purpose drive and profit. If purpose does not drive profit, then you will see the kind of understandable tensions that we are seeing today, right? But if it is a virtuous cycle and it is hardwired into the business model, that's the only way it will have perpetually and it will sustain. I'm a big believer that it's difficult, but it is possible to create this virtuous cycle.

So, with that as the background and as the intent that I try to work for, my belief is that to do that, you need a strategy, as we all know, which is how will I win? And then you need to execute that strategy. I hope you'll agree with me that strategy, I think, is somewhat easier in a sense, because it's to do with the intellect. It's about setting the agenda, defining where we are, where we need to go etc. What is harder and probably more important to get right is, execution, because execution is about getting it done and it is more a function of your heart, not only your head. Companies that win, I believe, which may have similar strategies are the ones that out-execute their competitors.

The reason they out-execute the competitor is because they have a culture where people want to win more badly than the other guys, and they have this desire every single day that I'm going to do whatever I can to be the best version of who I am, to do my very best in my piece of the enterprise. I'm going to make it better than it was yesterday, and I'm on this virtuous cycle of continuous improvement. And you light that fire in the hearts of employees all across the enterprise. That is a hard thing to do, right?

At Panera Brands we had 130,000 people, so, how do you really ignite that spirit and the desire to win so you can out execute. My belief is that, that in turn is a function of 3 important things, which is, having the right people, doing the right things in the right way. That's how you get superior execution. The right people to me are a function almost entirely on recruitment. I deeply believe that you have to hire the right attitude. You can't teach the right attitude. You hire the right attitude that basically are compliant with the values that you believe in for the organization and you hire those skills. Those are the right people.

Then, the right things are the fewest things that matter most. Ideally, no more than 1 or 2 things that matter most. You lock and load that into a point of focus for the organization, and then the right way is basically the behavioral norms on how to behave, how to treat each other. That's the culture. Culture to me is that special feeling that you create through a common language in an enterprise.

If you have the right people focused on the right few things and treating each other the right way, that becomes almost like a virtuous circle of executional excellence at an individual level, but also at a collective level. And then that will unlock superior performance, and then that will have an impact on people, community, planet and the enterprise. That's my belief. And finally, I'm a big believer in organizations that are basically an endeavor to create enterprise value through human experience. It's people with people trying to do something. Therefore, I think, having a people focused culture, having that humanity, that empathy, that compassion, that respect, even when you're doing tough things, you're doing it with transparency and candor, and respect is so important. If you get that aspect right as a leader, then you're creating the right conditions for the right people, doing the right things the right way, and then creating a bigger impact on the world around you.

The other thing that I'm actually thinking hard about is that I heard that the distinction you made about, if it's not profitable, will you stop doing the right thing? I am sort of saying that business leaders need to challenge ourselves in saying that how can I make doing the right things profit accretive? And, I think there is a way to do it. The more you can do it, the more understandably the shareholder will remain committed, because eventually it's the shareholder's money and the shareholder wants a return. That's understandable.

The real challenge for business leaders is, can doing the right thing be profit accretive, not just in a vague, loose sense, but in a very meaningful way. I've had experiences where I do believe that it is possible, and we can discuss that at some other time, but I think that is the real challenge for leaders today and in the future.

Sure. I think for the benefit of the listeners, I've lost two children, two daughters, Tanya and Aisha, over the years. I have a son, Ishan, who's a rock star and has a band called MEMBA, lives in New York, Brooklyn. I'm super proud of him. My daughter is the first one, Tanya, I had when I was very young, 24. She was 8 months old. She was born with a compromised immune system and before we knew what happened, she died and passed away, which was very heartbreaking at that time. At that time, we did not realize it was genetic and that Aditi and I had a 25% chance of that recurring. And then we had my son, who was fine. Then we had my daughter Aisha, who unfortunately again, had the same immune compromised situation, but this time we knew what needed to be done, which was that she needed to be flown out to the UK for a bone marrow transplant, and that was the only way to save her life. I knew that. I also knew that it was very expensive, which was going to cost more than £150,000, which was about £150,000 more than the money I had. I had only about $2,000 in the bank and so I bought the tickets. I was determined as a father, like anybody would be to save my daughter's life and just go there and figure it out.

I went there to reconfirm the diagnosis, which unfortunately was reconfirmed at the Great Ormond Street hospital, but also kind of really understanding what needed to be done from a fund generation standpoint. It was a staggering experience Hitendra, one that deeply moved me, and still humbles me when I think of it that within the span of about two weeks, we did a radio appeal for my daughter Aisha, and we had to then appeal and ask people to stop sending money because we had raised in excess of £200,000, far in excess of what we needed. We had generated some funds, obviously, of our own, but this is far more than what we had needed.

I was just staggered by the compassion from a country that was not our own and from people that were not our own to save the life of a daughter who was not theirs. Aisha, her name, interestingly, was she could be a Christian, she could be a Muslim, she could be a Hindu, she could be a Sri Lankan, a Sinhalese, a Bangladeshi, or anybody from Asia or even from the Western world. Her name was so magical that it connected with everybody. And when it connected universally with people, people just contributed. I was the donor and we were able to save her life.

We thought we had beaten the odds, because what are the odds of this happening? It's like less than zero, but that was not to be. Fast forward, she was 13 years old when we discovered that the chemotherapy that she had to undertake for the bone marrow transplant had ended up damaging her lungs irreversibly. She had now developed a condition called fibrotic lung pulmonary fibrosis, which is like a hardening of the lung. We were told she had only five years to live, and you can imagine that it was a crushing blow. I shared that with Aisha when she was 13 and we were told that she won't survive more than her 18th birthday. And that's what happened. Aisha passed away in 2015, 24th of January, exactly 5 years after the diagnosis and she lived a short but exceptionally powerful life.

What I would love for all of us to do is to really cherish and remember Aisha for the inspiration that she was. Her story is not one of despair and sadness, about a beautiful life that ended so early, but rather a life that accomplished so much and lived so fully that she lit up the skies. So, in her short 18 years, she achieved more than many of us do in a lifetime. Certainly, what I will do is she's got a feature film inspired by her called "Sky Is Pink" on Netflix, and also has a documentary inspired by her called "Black Sunshine Baby" on Netflix. I'd love it if people could watch that. She's the author of a bestselling book called "My Little Epiphanies" on Amazon. She was a motivational speaker on Ted talks and has her videos on YouTube. Over a million hits. I would love it if you could go and have a look at her work.

For me personally, I have kind of dug in deep and through my journey, which has been a process to get out of it, has been one of creating hope by converting my pain into meaningful purpose. How can I make a difference in the lives of those who are less privileged? And that's why I believe that human beings strongly believe are born to serve and it is through service that we get strength. It is through service through which we get healing. It is through service through which we create hope. That's how I want to live my life, honoring her, inspiring others to live a life of service and making a difference to the lives of those who are less fortunate. Which is why, as you mentioned, I am now part of DKMS, which is the world's largest bone marrow stem cell registry and one thing that the listeners could do is just go on to their website, dkms.org or .com and sign up. You could be a registered donor and you might end up saving a life one day.

Yes, I think I'd like to share with everybody that Aisha was 13 and she had this remarkable ability to focus on what she could control and not what was happening to her. Her story of having achieved so much, it's a story of courage, gratitude and generosity, and how those 3 values helped her to make decisions and to live more fully in the moments of life that she had left. I can't underscore the importance of those values. Let me just elaborate a little bit on it.

She writes in a book, pick the highest mountain to climb on in the dullest of days to shine on, on courage, meaning that when things are bleak and dark, that's when you need to set yourself a new goal and then do your very best to get to the top of that goal, top of that mountain. Fulfillment does not lie in reaching the top of the mountain, it's in the endeavor of trying to get to the top of the mountain by doing the very best that you can do. That's how she lived. She couldn't speak to a big audience and therefore she said, "I must speak." And she spoke to 300 people in Ted talks. Then she couldn't walk, and she said, "I'm going to paint because my hands still work." She became a fantastic painter. After that, she couldn't breathe, and she was strapped to an oxygen tank. She said, "I refuse to be constrained by this. I'm going to speak without it." And then finally, in her last moments, when she was lying in bed and she couldn't move, she said, "My fingers are still working. My arms don't, my legs don't, my lungs don't, but my fingers work and I'm going to write a book." And that's how she wrote the book. So that is on courage, where focusing on what you can control and not what's happening to you.

The second thing about gratitude in every single moment or just taking a breath and a moment and saying, let's remind ourselves of everything that's going right in our lives, not despair for what's going wrong, because there's always something that's going right in the darkest of situations. I think, if we look at life through the lens of gratitude, you can discover everyday miracles, and I think such a far more empowered way to live is to be in gratitude and awe, as opposed to despair and anger.

The last one is about generosity. She writes in her book, "If you can't change your own life, there's always someone else's looking for opportunities to serve and to connect and to inspire, is so important." That's how she lived her life.

But let me tell you this. I've been asked, where did she get this from? It is unusual for a little girl of 13-years-old to have this wisdom and this point of view. I have to give the credit completely to my wife, Aditi. She's an exceptional mentor, and she was her closest companion, mother, friend till the day that she died. I would say that the way in which my wife shaped her, and I hope that this can be a great toolbox for others to use in their lives for when they have these difficulties or even if they don't have these difficulties. The main tool is to create moments of inspiration that can be really catalytic to unlock and sharpen your own values.

I'll give you 2 examples. Aditi would take Aisha away to experience something that was truly remarkable and magical, that would help Aisha connect the dots far more than anything she could read or be told, because that's not how we learn. We learn through experiences. So, when Aisha was struggling with her lungs and her breath and feeling very helpless and not strong and feeling like a prisoner in her own body, my wife invited one of her friends who's like an Aikido master. I don't know if you've come across Aikido as a martial arts practice. He was a diminutive guy. He said, "Aisha, stand here and just breathe. Be in the moment and tell yourself that your legs are like rooted to the ground and nobody can move you." I don't know if you've tried this, but with the right techniques with Aikido, we asked my son who was about 6 foot 3 inches, to come and try and move Aisha, he couldn't. Aisha was suddenly startled by my mind is stronger than my body. And that's the realization that she had and got inspired by it.

The second one was, I don't know if you've heard of Erik Weihenmayer, who's one of the world's first blind people to scale Mount Everest. Just think about that. He's a blind guy who has scaled Mount Everest. We went and saw one of his speeches and we were very blown by it. Aditi arranged for Aisha to be flown all the way to the UK, where Eric was speaking. He's a blind guy and he was speaking, and he was speaking with such joy and inspiration about not what he was constrained by, but by what he was able to do and achieve and experience despite his handicaps. That moment just sat with Aisha and she said, "Oh wow, this is incredible." I think, creating those moments for people around us of awe, of wonder, of inspiration, can shape and move us in ways that we may not even realize and help unlock our true potential. I think collecting those precious moments to help inspire those in our care, I think is a wonderful thing to do.

I think Aditi has been probably the most pivotal, influential human in my life. I saw her when she was 14 and I was 16 in school. The minute I saw her, I said, "I'm going to marry you." She didn't quite feel the same way. And to be candid, a lot of the music and everything else I do comes with my desire to impress her, which I've failed repeatedly even to this day. But she's been a great friend and my life companion for so many years and been through so many ups and downs.

She went to Miranda, did economics and then got into the world of programming. She worked on the IT side with Nestlé and a few other companies and then just was struggling to just look after our children, whose health were failing. As you saw that, it's been like 2 decades of an immense amount of pain and she dedicated her life to doing that and supporting me all the way. I don't think I could have achieved even 10% of whatever I've tried to do without her willingness to actually relocate again and again. We probably moved about 20 times in the last 35 years, and she has always said yes. It's only recently she started saying no. She's been a great supporter. And then, she almost sort of reinvented herself, with her life experiences. If you can't change your own life, change somebody else's, which is what my daughter wrote is what she has done. She has become a mental health therapist and a life coach. She has her own practice for the last several years, a very good practice and she's just spending her time helping people deal with life issues and certainly helps me deal with my issues at home.

Absolutely! I think one of the perils of being a leader in the corporate world is, if you're not careful you start to sort of, assuming that you're much better than you actually are. There's this sense of hubris that creeps in and the ego gets fed and becomes a monster. If it's unchecked, it basically takes you down. You need somebody in your life who's constantly keeping you grounded and kicking your butt periodically, and she does that extremely well. And Aisha used to do that as well. She used to remind me that I'm just her dad at the end of the day and nothing more.

Aditi does that. She grounds me, keeps me grounded, I turn to her. She's incredibly wise and has great intuition about people. Very often, if I'm a bit unsure about relationships or potential partnerships, I really love to take her out for that dinner and have her, just, without knowing much, just her instinct on the level of mutual trust and compatibility that she's extremely good at. I would say that she is more than an equal partner in all aspects of life, in our parenting, at work and just who I am and who I wish to be. I trust her and she wants the best for me more than anybody else would. She understands me at a much deeper level. We've been through so many things together. I'm grateful for my relationship with her.

The story about her book is that she was lying in bed, 2-3 months before she knew she was going to die, and she told Aditi, "I'm so bored. What am I supposed to do lying in bed? All my friends are in college and people have forgotten about me. What should I be doing?" And my wife said, "Why don't you read a book?" And she said, "Like what?" My wife said "Notes to Myself" by Hugh Prather. I don't know if anybody has read that book, but it's written in a very different style in the form of epiphanies and thoughts. That's what triggered her thought and she said, "Actually, I have so many thoughts as I lie here. I think I can write even better than this book." And there she went again, her highest mountain to climb.

She's lying there. People would have just given up and said what the hell? And would have been angry and bitter, but she said, "I have so many thoughts which express for me the richness and beauty of life and all the extremes, the happiness and the sadness, the joys and the losses. All these extremes that make life what it is. I mean, we feel pleasure because we have pain, the world of duality. And she teases that out through the mind of an 18-year-old who's feeling helpless about what's happening to her and all her desires of wanting to be loved and connection, to fall in love, to have a boyfriend, everything in between.

She wrote this fascinating book along with a lot of beautiful doodle art that she was able to do. That is part of her book. Then, when the book was done, I told her I was blown away by it. I said, Aisha, "Would you like for me to get this printed?" She said "Yes, but only the best publishing house." I said, "What do you mean?" She said "Well, I don't want you to have a self-published book. My daughter is dying, and dad pays money and gets it published. I don't want that. I want a good publishing house of repute to genuinely like my work and to want to publish it. But I have a condition, not even one word can be edited, especially the profanity." So, before I knew it, she had high standards. So, I had Bloomsbury, which has done Harry Potter and such like come to the House. The book agent came, and I explained to him the situation. She was barely able to sit up in bed. She was coughing. She had this oxygen mask, and she was asking him, "Have you really read my book? Have you just turned up? And if you have really read my book, tell me, which epiphany do you really like?"

She really put him on the spot, and he didn't have many answers. But, in the end, that's how it got printed. Bloomsbury was excellent. We were in touch with them. She was about to die, and she hadn't seen her book. The book meant a lot to her because that really expressed what she truly thought in a very honest way. We were able to actually get the book in her hand just before she passed away. The doorbell rings, the book comes in, and the title, "My Little Epiphanies" is embossed a bit like Braille. Her eyes were closed, and she was like, totally out of it. And we put her fingers on the title, and we said, "Aisha, your book is here." And she just had this faint smile. After a few hours of that she passed away. So, it was a very poignant moment. In a way, her legacy and what she thought kind of lives on. Which is why I believe in the power of just writing, of penning your thoughts, of inspiring, and connecting with people is so important.

As we discussed earlier, you never know what might actually trigger an inspiration for somebody out there to go beyond what they thought was possible. That's what she did and that's what I also aspire to do.

No.

Yes, I remain very inspired for what I have to do for the rest of my life. I feel there's a lot of gas in the tank and there's lots to be done, and I'm very inspired by it. I feel like in a way, sort of I'm close to ending one chapter, which was pursuing personal success. And we talked about that.

Now, I'm very drawn to this idea at the right time of creating significance by serving others and very drawn to that idea of serving others. And we talked a lot about the reasons why. My headline idea and thought is that I want to spend my life being a catalyst to help people discover and unlock their true potential. I want to unlock human potential. I want to be a catalyst to help people discover their own inner light and their own inner greatness, and just be a servant to enable that. In that endeavor, I decided that I need to upskill, I need to acquire new skills. So, for that, I'm getting certified as an executive coach. I've just gone back to college. I'm at Harvard, doing an advanced leadership initiative for a full year, to do a fellowship, to discover and get clarity on my third chapter. And when I land on the other side, I want to essentially work against this intent of being a catalyst to unlock human potential. One by being a coach, a book writer, a speaker, being involved in academics, like you are Hitendra, speaking to the leaders of the future. That's kind of the coaching, mentoring bucket.

The other bucket would be that I would want to be a catalyst to unlock human potential for people who are less privileged, women entrepreneurs, people of color, as an investor, advisor and a mentor. So being a mentor and a coach is the overarching game plan, and then there are these other ways in which I'm thinking about how I might be able to do that. I'm still working on defining exactly what it is, but I'm super excited about spending all my time just helping people become much better than they thought was possible, so that they can live glorious lives.

Thank you so much Hitendra. That means a lot to me.

Thank you, I really enjoyed our chat.