Nuggets On
identity
Identity refers to the reputation, characteristics etc. of a person that makes the individual or the people around him/her think about them in a certain way. To put simply, how do we think of ourselves and what to the others think of us. Identity is a key element that we need to wrestle with during pivotal transitions. Herminia Ibarra shares her insights on how we should treat Identity as a Work in Progress that gets influenced by the journey we go through and the choices we make. Ram Guha speaks about the multiple identities of Gandhiji. Atul Kasbekar speaks about how he saw his identity evolve from being a photographer to a producer. All this and more in this playlist.
Entrepreneurial pursuits beyond photography
We often have to reinvent ourselves along the way as we go through our career. There are variuos trigger points where our priorities change and market opportunities change. Atul shares his perspectives around how he has managed to go beyond Photography to venture into new domains. He shares a piece of feedback that one of his friends provides which paved the way to a new possibility.
Multiple identities of Gandhiji
Dr. Guha speaks about how Gandhiji straddled multiple careers concurrently (including that of a Politician, Social Reformer, Prophet and Writer). He talks about the fact that he saw his life as one indivisible whole where he emphasized each facet at a different point in time.
More from Dr. Ramachandra Guha
Acting your way to new thinking
Herminia speaks about the criticality of not over-thinking around transitions and urges us to take actions which gives us new “material” for us to reflect on and move forward. She specifically urges us to craft experiments (try new activities and roles), shifting connections (find doors into new worlds) and making sense to rework our story.
Experimenting with different pathways
Herminia speaks about the criticality of sticking to your core and playing to your strengths but at the same time finding a way you can experiment and try different experiences on the edges. She speaks about how you need to build a bridge into a new possibility. Has parallels with the journey of Papa CJ and Amish Tripathi.
Pausing to reinvent
Herminia speaks about how it is critical to create mind-space for us to reflect on our experiences especially when we deviate from the standard path. That process of reflection is often critical for people to have a clearer sense of their identity and their fit with the initiatives they are pursuing. She also speaks about how reinventing yourself around mid-life can sometimes take as long as 3 years.
Identity play versus Identity work
Herminia speaks about the distinction between Identity Work and Identity Play and speaks about how we should think about crafting experiments where we can play around with our identity authentically rather than going down the “fake it till you make it” path. She re-iterates that how we show up is as critical as what we do.
Keeping the identity small
James speaks about how we sometimes get crippled or limited by the identity we carry about ourselves. He makes the case for a smaller identity for us to evaluate new possibilities and walk down new pathways and reinvent ourselves.
The third transition - Who are we now?
Jennifer speaks about the third transition that couples often face often when they are empty nesters and when they have exhausted the gunpowder in their artillery. They now take stock of life and say “Who are we now” and what is the purpose behind our existence.
More from Jennifer Petriglieri
The knowing-doing gap
BJ speaks about why several people cognitively “get” what they need to do but struggle to move the needle in that direction. He links it back to the early success some of them experience in their journey and why that leads to a certain “fixed mindset” that comes in the way of them experimenting with new ideas that could potentially be a failure. He also talks about how we need to work on minimizing our expectations for new behaviours to take root and grow.
Fertilizing a new possibility
Atul speaks about how he straddled the two worlds concurrently – one in which he was running an IT business, the other where he was an emerging comedian. He speaks about how these two ecosystems were very different and how he moved from one domain to another. He also speaks about how doing more stand up made him better in his IT job despite getting busier.
Passion versus Pragmatism
Atul speaks about how he had to be pragmatic about the cash flows given the lop-sided odds of success in this industry. He also speaks about the support that his wife offered to ensure that there is some buffer in the system. He speaks about the timing around moving from his career as a businessman to doing comedy full time.
Handling our identity
Whitney speaks about how we should think about our identity when we experience the free fall when we move from the top of an S curve to the foothills of a new S curve. She speaks about the criticality of having a clear “Why” and the notion of smaller S curves to make it less risky when you transition from one trapeze to another.
Getting comfortable with contradictions
Vinay speaks about the many layers of Vajpayee and how he had several contradictions within. He goes on to speak about great leaders and how we have to study them in a non-linear fashion for us to make sense of them.
More from Vinay Sitapati - Jugalbandhi
Notion of identitylessness
Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi speaks about how we can sometimes get trapped in all kinds of labels around us. He speaks about how he has been guided by his curiosity and his quest for spirituality without getting pigeonholed into some box.
Developing directional clarity
Dan speaks about how we can think about our strengths when we are at an inflection point. He goes on to say that recognizing our strengths is not about being stuck to the past but really about stretching into new areas that could help us lead a more authentic life and sometimes cues for this could come from domains outside of work.
Boosting morale instead of Unsolicited advice
Katy speaks about one of the attributes of Dr Max Bazerman, her advisor (who has a track record of having several of his students in reputed colleges around the world) when she was a PhD student. She speaks about how he would behave when his students would often face a bump or deal with a rejection and come to him for advise. Katy says that rather than focusing on critiquing the work content, he would focus on encouraging the student, highly counterintuitive for a lot of us.
From Interest to Identity
Lloyd speaks about how we get interested in a certain topic or an area and how it slowly grows to becoming a part of our identity. He speaks about how we can look for some of the cues from the past to see how we can reflect on some of our experiences that move us and see if there is an opportunity to lean in towards any of those as we architect our lives.
Decade long coaching journey
Sukhinder speaks about her decade long journey with David Lesser and speaks about the different ways in which he added value to her. She speaks about the benefit of cumulative context that David had that helped him work with Sukhinder to reconcile various pieces over time and across her distinct identities.
Stepping off the corporate track
Rajiv speaks about how he thought about stepping off the corporate track despite being on a very good wicket at Franklin Templeton. He speaks about the growing dissonance within and the quest for purpose and self-improvement that led him to this path.
Nelson Mandela - a Master Life Designer
Ayse speaks about why she thinks Nelson Mandela is one of the Master Designers of Life she admires. She speaks about how he evolved through the various twists and turns he went through. We connect the dots with some of the insights we learnt about Gandhiji from Dr Ramachandra Guha.
Specialization vs Generalization
Ravi speaks about how he thinks about Specialization and Generalization. He uses the metaphor of Birds and Frogs to talk about the ability to adapt to new environments. He urges us to be a Swiss Army Knife rather than super specialty special purpose knife that could lose context if the environment changes.
Regrets and Transitions
Dan speaks about the role of regret especially around transitions. He refers to the Japanese art form of Kintsugi which is about embracing the negatives and bringing beauty because of them and not in spite of them. He also refers to the work of Herminia Ibarra who speaks about acting your way into a new way of thinking.
Connecting with our future self
We normally think of empathy when we think of the way we connect with others. Ayelet speaks about how we could build a deeper connect with our future selves and how that can act as an inspiration for us to make meaningful choices in the present. She speaks about the discount rate we apply on the future and how that can lead to us either over-indexing on the future or ignoring it depending on what we do.
Identity and Optimizing vs Satisficing
Ayelet speaks about the link between our approach to optimizing or satisficing in a certain domain and our identity. She goes on to say that our identity often helps us prioritize across different choices and the extent to which we push ourselves in a certain domain.
Journey as an action researcher
Raghu speaks about his journey on three fronts as an action researcher – Understanding how Systems work, Study of Yoga in depth with Krishnamachari, Process work with Prof Pulin Garg. He also speaks about how he has experimented and engaged with institutions like the Murugappa Group, TCS and Core Healthcare. He speaks about how he has used some of these organizations as a laboratory to try and develop some leadership development and culture building approaches that have been tried and tested.
More from Raghu Ananthanarayanan
