Trust Is the Ultimate Skill: From Stanford Engineer to Leadership Expert

what happens when an engineer realizes that people matter more than technology my guest chog has spent 20 years at top companies like John Deere leading digital transformation supply chain modernization and Executive coaching but here's what's fascinating despite his Stanford education and Engineering background his biggest leadership lesson wasn't about technology it was about people trust and transformation how do you lead when everything is changing how do you build trust when employees don't believe in leadership and what hard-earned lesson can you take from

sho's career this episode is packed with real world leadership wisdom coaching insight and career defining moments let's dive in okay everybody uh I'm with chog this is uh the aligned ambition podcast and I want you all to imagine for a second that you're leading a team at a legacy company and suddenly everything is changing you have ai automation supply chain disruptions and now you need a coach to guide you through it an executive coach that's value based who would you go to we got churro here could uh he's our guest

speaker and he is a Right End person for this kind of challenge he's a Stanford trained engineer turned leadership coach and he spent 20 years at top companies spearheading digital transformation supply chain modernization and Executive coaching uh so trog I'm curious if you could just give us a quick introduction to yourself did I miss anything there no I mean you said it better than my LinkedIn probably did so thank you uh again chirak panjikar um everything you said is absolutely right

um train I got my masters in Manufacturing Systems at Stanford I was uh working in the US um after that and then I I had a chance to go back to India which is where I'm from uh in 2006 uh to start um to be one of the first employees with uh John Deere to set up their India facility um in their virtual manufacturing um position so um my wife and I didn't have

children at that time and uh we said well we always wanted to go back to India since that's where our family was from and this position was in the same town that uh both my wife and I grew up in so we said perfect uh we can go back and um so I I was like I said one of the first employees with my company uh John Deere which is where I still work um and um John in India sorry and uh set up

that facility had a whole bunch of different roles in managerial in individual contributor roles um I was a new product program manager I was an IT program manager um people leader of a fairly large team um about 250 people excuse me and uh in 2018 I got a chance chance to come through deer on an expert assignment in the US um as again

it was a developmental opportunity um and my wife and I since like we' lived in the US but by then we'd had children and we always wanted our kids to have a flavor for what our life was we said okay let's take a two-year gig um and come and that two-year gig is become now seven years big and more and Counting and um so now I'm based out of the K North Carolina area um and uh within

deer in I think 2013 I may have the year there about 2013 or so I we used to have an internal coaching Cadre um so I was one of those members and we used to have a fairly functional um group of coaches who would coach members or or upand cominging leaders and high potential employees um and that's so I did this coaching for

about seven six six years thereabouts uh I think 2019 was the last I did it and then you know you know that coincided with the time that I was here and I had other responsibilities and I stopped that and um early 2 2024 I was like I was feeling a little I'd say unsure of what's happening with myself I was like feeling a little in a funk if I may use that

phrase and when I did some reflection I felt that you know hey I was at my best when I was a coach so I said okay let me get back into coaching and um so while I still have my job I am also um an executive leadership career coach um like for me I don't like to bracket myself as an ex coach or Y coach coach uh I think a coach is a coach um and uh from my perspective

um I'm I just like to help people and I have found that helping people helps me uh become a lot better at what I do so that's that's about me that's huge thanks for sharing that and I think that's amazing that you have such a successful career and an amazing education and you're taking a a different path than a lot of people where you're leaning into coaching and

finding values based work and so I'm curious what leadership Journey along the way made you realize that um I've so I've always felt that for me um leadership is not just about My Success um I think the uh the team that I you know started out my my first leadership experience was quite

transformative for me um in that I was along with developing my own organization um like I said I was the first employee at in in that function so I I had to set it up you know I had to set up practices I had to set up policies I had to set I had to do some of the hiring and recruitment I had to do like whole bunch of it along with also doing my work and and the job itself was very exciting but I realized that what we

were doing at that time without going into too many details was quite futuristic for 2006 okay so like today it's fairly common place but 19 years ago it was like quite futuristic to having to create that Vision having to create that theme camarad or whatever was just as important as getting my work done cuz if people are not bought in it doesn't work right and as far as possible I've tried to keep that uh

philosophy like if I can't do this alone um and I've tried to be as true to it as possible makes that sorry go ahead no that that I think that's powerful like you it sounds like I just play back at you it sounds like you're saying you went into this role as a technical expert and then you realized that the people were even more important than the technical expertise is that what you're saying absolutely I mean I think you put

it really well like for me it was we ended up or you end up starting I mean when you look at a resume you know you know their technical skills at some level but you also need to know the person behind that resume um because that person has certain characteristics has certain capabilities um and you need those just as much to succeed as their technical knowledge if that makes sense so often

times we would hire we would recruit on potential yeah that that makes perfect sense to me I can't tell you how many times in my organization I've seen someone maybe failing in one area and then you if you map his skill sets to another area his or her school skill sets they can thrive in a different area and so knowing your people is so essential to not just your team but the organization as a whole and so that's really insightful with that in mind what's your leadership style what's the

one principle you say that you live by or what I I'm trying to I'm not asking the question the right way if I was if I had worked with you for 10 years in that 250 person organization what would I be like oh this is what this is his style you know oh okay um I'd like to say approachable um I would think that at least this is how I'd like to think of myself right

is I don't I think people find me and this is uncomfortable talking good things about yourself right but um I think people find me approachable um and um I've tried to be deliberate about that approachability um because if people if I can give my team members a a um a feeling of

safety then they can Thrive like I think of myself kind of like maybe I I'll go back to my childhood you know when we would have the circus performers you know there's always safety net I mean they don't need a safety net but there always has to be one and and I've always felt that that leader has to be a kind of a safety net um to the the team members um and then the

other thing what I've always felt is and this is again just my opinion is a lot of leadership is to clear out the the the haziness for your employees or for your team members so I think good leaders can take abstract Concepts and convert them into actionable activities versus a a I'd say a not so

good leader would probably try to only talk in those abstract terms and then not connect with their employees so I've tried to be as far as possible like take an abstract term and say okay what does this mean in my daily life and how can I live that abstract how can I you know deliver those um qualities um in that and um again some of the stuff I read and research I did that followed in and you know it's

that's been the philosophy like taking taking abstract terms and then converting That Into actionable You Know or or visible behaviors yeah I mean that's complex I hear so I hear three things there approachable building safe spaces and then taking a vision and that strategy and then leading into execution and it's not always easy right it's taking an objective and then try to make into the key results oh my gosh it sounds easy on

paper but it's hard yeah I mean I I'll put it this way right you have um you know we talk about a leader should develop trust you know I mean that's I guess a fairly given statement right but what does that mean you know how do you convert that abstract noun of trust into actionable behaviors you know and and that's the skill of

leadership you know the the I've always felt that it's very difficult to Define what is leadership what is trust what is community etc etc but it's very easy to Define what it is like when it is not being displayed so for example you'll hear oh this is a clear case where it's lack of leadership right but there's it's very difficult to Define what is leadership and and I've at least the formula I've used is to convert that those abstract

nouns into actionable items or actionable behavior wow so what's the secret there on the team I know building trust especially bridging in that in that large team Bridging the organizational policies and things that might be outside of our control versus the things that are in our control like our interactions with the teams how do you bridge that and then I'm not trying to focus on your corporate leadership here like maybe take it from a perspective of if you're

coaching a leader who's saying I'm having trouble building trust with my team because the organization keeps changing policies how how can I hey can you help me coach me through this what what would you advise them so the first question that I would probably ask them is what about these changing policies is changing of philosophies right I mean I don't believe

organizations do like a 180 degree turn on their philosophy and on their priorities they might change a policy and some of those policies might be sometimes you know just existential you know um so they need to make those changes and and setting those contexts are important you know um and how do you then take that policy end of the day as a i'

would say as a loyal member of the organization your job as a leader is as much to defend that policy to your to your team members but also be that I would say connection to show how this is impacting your employees or your team members daily lives in some way you know if if if as a leader we are not able to pass that message upwards

then there is no way um we are doing our effective job cuz as a leader it is just as much of our job to you know be that messenger it's it's not just a one-way message right it has to be a two-way message and to the point of trust that's where I felt that you know people will trust you even if you're giving them bad news if they feel like they can come and be open

with you you know um because we are dealing with adults here and you know they know employees and team members know some of the constraints that leaders operate under but if you if we can give them that safe space to come and say you know just speak what's on their mind and if nothing else just went sometimes that's all that you need that's great and so no I love you

keep bringing up safe spaces that's a really interesting theme because that's powerful right having an employee me me let's say I'm having trust trust with my team there's this is happening a lot in a lot of organizations right now with the work from home situation it's like oh we're going to do remote forever four years later okay you're back in office five days a week and now M uh BPS large leaders are now having to articulate that down and I think what you're saying here is hey if you're frustrated with that or if that's going to interfere with your family make a safe space for

them right make a safe space for them to communicate that to you and also make sure that message gets up maybe anonymously so the feedback gets up to upper management but doesn't doesn't lets the team have a safe based event but also be transparent and not sugar coating it like hey this is our policy now and um and we're gonna have to operate right yeah and I think that's where some of the lack of leadership also gets displayed because people don't mind the

what as long as you can have a reasonable why you know um because like I said we're all adults um and I mean I've been happy that I've never I shouldn't say never for the majority of the times you know whenever my leadership has had any conversations theyve also been able to give a good why with it so you know I I would say I'm lucky um but for sure um a

Leader's job and maybe this gos more into management rather than leadership but you know as a as a leader of people your job is to be the bridge between your higher organiz your hierarchy and um your upper hierarchy and lower hierarchy maybe I'll that yeah that that's as powerful I'm curious I want to focus on your coaching here what let's flip the script let's say an employee come employee one of those bosses comes up to you and says hey I'm having trouble trusting my boss what's

something I think when I read your work it sounded like you're a big and and what you're saying here you're a big believer in agency if we take responsibility for our own action so what would you say to that employee to help them build resilience through a situation like that or how would you coach them through it so the first question would be again you know convert that statement from I'm having difficulty trusting my boss to saying Okay g what what exactly are you

struggling to do I I mean that then becomes like then you start getting into that next question becomes like okay when my boss says this I hear this you know and then you get down to saying okay if you hearing that why do you think like that and maybe they say well you know in the past this this this has happened often times and and I don't say this every time but often times it even happens

that the problem was never with that boss you know it's it's just baggage that they've carried from a some a completely different boss in a previous job that now makes you never want to trust a boss's words again you know I mean I'm not saying that always is the situation sometimes I mean nobody I don't think we can say we have 100% great bosses on this planet uh but often times it could just be distilling down

that and saying okay if you were to give them the benefit of the doubt what would you say and maybe that's that's generally the question that I would ask them like get it down to that question like maybe they're a horrible human being but if you were to give them the benefit of the doubt in What scenario would you give them the benefit of the doubt and then is that scenario reasonable you know CU as a as a as a leader as a manager I can't tell you

everything that happens CU I just can't and I shouldn't and and if I can give you some of those reasons then I'm violating you know my oath of office if you will so sometimes you have to put yourself in the shoes of your boss and say okay in What scenario would I give this person the benefit of the doubt um not necessary that that's what is

happening um but then start saying okay there is another way to look at this same situation and if if that was the case would you be okay with it you know and not again this maybe it comes off as saying I'm on the boss's side no it's just trying to say the way you're looking at this could there be a different way of looking at the same thing it's perception right reframing the conversation to

saying I mean and and then there can be other questions as well but how can you try and reframe the question that's the fundamental of coaching which is if you have a coach the best coaches I believe can help you look at the same problem in different ways right um and then you can stick to your opinion and say well my boss believes this because they don't like me fine you know then of course the

question will be okay what are you going to do about um but overall my question my preference is always to at least open different routes for them and try as far as possible to give that benefit of the doubt to people because very easy to jump to conclusions do you see this sounds like it's a common problem in coaching or do you see it a lot of people kind of jumping to

conclusions I it's not an uncommon problem if I'll put it that way right it's um a lot of times um I mean granted there are incompetent bosses you know for sure but majority of the times people are really good at what they're doing and they just feel like their manager or their bosses are not seeing the same things and they're seeing

something different the question is okay if you were to put yourself in your m man shoes what would what would you say and often times that's like oh I never thought about that yeah and that could be so helpful right they could be to solve the problems then then you can get the real work okay what problem are you actually trying to solve here it's great uh so you mentioned it briefly but can you

dive into is there a story behind this you know getting your ACC going for from being so credentialed you know Stanford isn't the easiest School in the world to get into or so I hear and then to to be leading 250 person teams to now Executive coaching what's like what's the driver and who are you trying to help who who's the people that you're targeting right now um okay

so honestly Stanford was um I never thought I'd get like like you said it's a pretty difficult school to get in um I I I'll be lying if I said that you know I was always going to get there I was like what you know um and and this was uh this was like gosh 25 24 25 years ago when email was just starting so you know it's like I don't even I can't even comprehend

what it's going to be like um but I like I said I've always felt that I do better at whatever it is that I'm doing when I have an outlet to help people right um and I'm fairly clear that for me coaching is I don't want to call it voluntary you know because it is my time but it is excuse me it is my way of helping the

community right I don't see myself becoming a full-time coach anytime in the near future okay um it is my way of saying that gives me an outlet to then focus on my job um at least that's where I am right now now your question of how I got into coaching how I got into it was kind of accidental um

I ALS but I also found that I I think I got lucky with a really good coach for myself when I was getting into this and I then could see firsthand the power of what a really good coach could do in a very short amount of time and I said well okay well this is what this person did for me seems easy enough yeah uh but it's

not um and then you learn and and if you have I mean I I felt that like I said it makes me better at my day job if that makes any sense yeah yeah it makes perfect so it sounds like like dig in there do you had your own executive coach it sounds like and they inspired you was that how it worked uh yes so I was I had an I so in like I said we had an internal coaching G within the

company right yeah and just like I was coaching people when I was new in my job I had a coach internal coach who I think I was super lucky with was really invested in me and my success um and all I'm doing right now is Bay It Forward maybe that's awesome so it just had such a big impact on you and you want to have that impact on other people yeah and and

that showed me the importance of having a coach because like there were things that I felt uncomfortable talking to my boss or you know my team members and my coach basically said well then who's affected by this you know and I mean it was just one simple question which was like the the realization was if I don't have these conversations with my boss or my team members the only

person affected is me you know so I have to do it and and having those conversations later really helped me in my job as well so if my Coach had not asked me those questions you know maybe I would have still been stuck with some of those barriers and and had to pay a price that probably I was not willing to pay yeah it's that's fascinating because I I've had a similar experience with my executive coaches that I've worked with

that got me passionate about it but you're C there is something to having that safe space outside of mentors like mentors give you this I don't know about you but all my mentors if they're a partner at some firm they're always telling me how to become a partner at that firm you know like here you got to get back into they're telling you what worked for them and then you have advisers or you have sponsors in your company or helping you move up in the company but it sounds like that coach gives you that safe space to actually figure out what you want right and that

you want to be able to do that for other people too right absolutely and and I think that's what so I'm also a mentor right and I'm also a coach and it excuse me I think especially when you're new in coaching you you can't distinguish the two right um but what I realized that coach a good coach is is not

the uh how do I put this um the the the maybe I'll put it like in in this in the in a movie or in a story you know um the coach is not the protagonist if if that makes sense you know the coach is the camera versus in a mentoring relationship the mentor is as much of a

character in that story as the protagonist whereas a coach is just like just a camera I don't know if that makes any sense but if if the coach is part of the story then the coach is not doing a good job yeah it's kind of it's really interesting I don't know why it keeps coming to mind but It's like Star Wars like your mentors is like Yoda and then but the coach you're just looking in the water you're just it's Luke looking in

the water and int helping introspection right and figureing out what you really want exactly the coaches a camera or on a mirror or whatever you may call it um if the and and that's why you can have very powerful coaching moments um I've I've had power I mean I've had good mentoring relationships but I've never had a powerful mentoring moment if that makes sense because I'm just basically talking

about what works for me can you tell me give me an example of a powerful coaching moment you've had you can keep it confidential obviously um I so so I think yeah maybe I'll put it this way there was one um situation and this is somebody um I hope sees this podcast at some point as well so uh I'll try and keep it as confidential as you can but they

were um battling I would say a personal situation um where they were doing fairly well professionally um but from a I'll just say from a social life perspective they were it it was it's it was not a great situation for them so they were considering and

honestly at this point I don't know what result they what what they ended up doing so um cavat there but they called me once and said you know hey these are the situations and there's this really good I mean I'm doing well career-wise but you know this doesn't feel right for me and my family versus this other situation which is probably a not such a great move career-wise but I know my family would be happier um and in that situation all it took me

to ask them was well sounds like you're choosing between two really good options and it sounds like both options would have some regrets so which regret would you rather want to live with and that was that was it w you know cuz again life is about making

choices and there is if if if there was a choice which was like 100% pros and zero% cons why are we even having this conversation right there has to be some regrets with every choice you make and if you are going to choose something which regret are you comfortable living with I mean like again from from my own personal perspective

like maybe the regret I'm comfortable living with now is that you know I'm not in the country I live in I grew up in you know a real sacrifice that's a comfortable that's a reget r that I'm willing to live with for a positive that I'm willing to pay for thank you no thank you for sharing I think that's I think that's my favorite thing about meeting coaches so far or people about coaching is U this industry is the first time I've seen in business

where people start being authentic and you start to actually dig beneath those layers and realize yeah it's every there are sacrifices if you're going to pursue a career and make a director in a big company are you willing to have daycare for your kids or are you willing to have a maid or someone to help you out do that stuff and make that sacrifice and is that sacrifice worth it to you or are you g to take the other one and make the career sacrifice you don't get to do both and or or is there a third path and

thinking through those and helping people work through that that's that's a human it's a really powerful thing right yeah absolutely and which regret are you more comfortable living with also then allows you in my allows me at least to make peace with the choices I made you know cuz often times we have I mean I used to be this way which was like I would take a path and then whine

for the other part you know I feel yeah very human that's very human to do sorry I so that that's kind of so one coaching moment there that's something that I remember and I've tried to use it often which is which regret are you more comfortable living with that's a powerful question thank you for sharing that I might borrow it one of these days feel it's not patented go for it okay thanks thank you I appreciate it the I'm curious since you've been you've been

going through the Stanford like you said before the email right when email was coming out what are you seeing the trends of leadership and coaching and over and how are they evolving over the recent years are you seeing any changes um I think technology is going to be a big role player um now is your question related

to changes in coaching or changes in leadership or just just dig a to that question it's a good let stick with I guess I'm asking leadership from the perspective of the challenges people will need coaching through what do you are you seeing that change or are these Timeless um I think people will need coaching through um the the biggest so there are

two or three questions in my opinion that we as Society or or we as a Workforce haven't quite figured out right one is um what is the relationship between an employee and an organization going to look like in a technology driven world right um and the reason I say that is um I mean you you read the news I'm

sure as much as I do and you know we we see hiring spikes and then layoffs and you know and and those layoffs often are not associated with an equal amount of hiring in that field so you hear about how technology is taken some of that away um and I go back just one generation and and maybe just some of that comes from like my own life which is even one generation ago most people

would feel like okay I want to retire with this company you know and that Unwritten Bond contract or or Covenant between the employer and employee doesn't exist anymore and and that's going to go down further I I will be super surprised I mean I was reading a uh BBC article just couple of days ago

as to how there's a village in India where most people are now YouTube content creators right um of course that's a technology as a force multiplier for employees in this case but what's that contract between employer and employee is going to go through a rapid change in a technology word um and can we pause on that for a second I think that's fascinating yeah I'm seeing similar I'm seeing more people

looking at short-term employment and Contracting and gig economy kind of work and even taking big jobs at places like Google or Facebook they're kind of saying I'm going to go into it for two years and same to your point 20 years ago when I started working I did everyone was like wait till you get the gold watch you know wait you stay with the company for that's a huge change very fast and how do you what do you what's your advice to people navigating that right now coaching how would you coach someone through recognizing that

maybe the social contracts changeed between employee and Company um again there's no formula for this right because from one so okay there's no formula for the very simple reason that your circumstances are different than mine so what works for you may not work for me may not even be close to what works

for me I'll give you an example I mean I'm saying this more from my personal life that is not the case for me right now but as you can tell I'm not from the US right and for a l large amount of time I was on a Visa so if I get laid off versus you get laid off you know the the circumstances are completely different and that's just one example right um so those what would be my standard coaching question might be different based on the

circumstances of that person right but what I would probably ask them to focus on is how they can get control of their own narrative back um and what I mean by that is just as much as technology is making it tougher [Music] to or just as technology is making employee work I'll just say redundant in a way it

is also making employee work a lot easier and a lot more productive and how can you take control of that narrative how can you help Define yourself more than just your job in a way I mean maybe it's a male thing okay um but if you go meet a stranger okay just go meet a stranger go talk to

them within five and and you introduce yourself to them and you introduce each other I'm betting within five sentences you're going to say where you work especially in the Bay Area yep possi well in the Bay Area you're probably talking about like how much your startup has been funded by whichever venture capitalist whatever no no I think your first senten is hi I'm Devin and I work at right um so so your organization kind of becomes

part of your narrative it becomes part of your identity right and I believe now in this world that technology allows us to be more than just that identity we are way more than just employees at Google or or John de or whatever so just take what I'm saying right I am a proud John Deere employee

and I'm also an executive coach and I'm a father and I'm a husband and you know it's it's always and and technology is going to make more and more ANS possible for us and the the difference between the Haves and the Have Nots I think is going to be those people who can really leverage all these ANS for their benefit that's really powerful no thank you I can't believe how fast the time's

going I have already we're already running we're already running the clock so I want to Circle back so that that was originally to the question of what are what are some of the trends you're seeing or problems you intend for people to face and with the changes in Tech and the changes in the landscape leadership landscape and Technology being the main one and then how can people take advant not take advantage but how can they go with the trend rather than bucket and I'm curious what's what's

your next one in that group what's another leadership Trend that you're seeing um I think the other one which I would say is um and this is more on the leader side is we're getting a lot more shortterm oriented um and I think we we the the concept of you know it's a fast changing environment

Etc can sometimes also be a self-fulfilling prophecy um so you know if as far as I know the day still is 24 hours right um yes we have information that comes set us a lot faster right what used to come with in I don't know Middle Ages with a pigeon carrying

a message probably now comes within Nan seconds through an email right and that allows you just as much to react as it you know it it's not that different when you try to break it break things so um we can also have some sort of a long-term view I think the balance between short-termism and long-termism has been kind of has been has

been I just say there there is always an equilibrium between having a short-term View and a long-term View and I think because of this you know it's a fast changing World etc etc we have become a lot more short-term than longterm and and that balance has probably shifted towards the shortterm vi a lot more and I think we need to bring it back towards uh the long term

um if we can do that we will benefit you know I mean you can tell um that and how I would put the how I would distinguish that is if somebody tells you something and then you ask them a question um they have an answer for that like you say okay we want to do this and you say why and then you say okay fine but if you dig a couple of questions further down there's no answer and often

times it's those second or third order derivative questions that need to be thought through as to why we're doing something and if we don't do that um we'll we struggle yeah I think it's that ties into a lot of what else you were saying and I'm seeing too and I'm curious your thought here how that ties into what you're saying earlier about values values based decision making and making

sure that we people know what they want and know what regrets that they're going to be making it sounds something similar there right it's yeah we kind of are We too reactive and I'm saying that too is too to reactive and how I've been trying to struggle with how do you get get people to be more proactive and in charge of their narrative as well because I feel like people are getting influenced too much by technology and how fastpaced the work is I like what you said earlier about father husband having those priorities like the ants I think are really important I do the same

as hey I'm gonna put my daughter to bed every uh at least three times a week that's important to me and knowing it's a priority if I don't do that if I'm not intentional and do the self-work then you can get really stuck and just Rea there there's an infinite amount of things that need to be done instantly now right right and and to to add to that where I would say that is really helpful is because again this employer employee contract is changing right and you will find a lot of people who have followed that old you

know I'm an XYZ employee as part of their narrative and then they reach a point where you know the the families or whatever really they've moved on and now this organization has moved on from them too and now they are like completely lost you know so building multiple narratives for yourself and being charge of all the things that you define Yourself by is helpful there too

and that's where the long-termism helps and so I'm getting your sense here this is something I think will be on a a cuss for why coaching is going to be so important going for people right absolutely abely because coaching brings those questions out in the open like have you thought of this and if nothing else like I've I've I've had coaches myself who who helped me um I'd say just structure my thought

process a lot better um and sometimes I mean I I'm just as guilty as anyone in terms of of short-term thinking and have you thought of this you know is is a very very powerful question when asked at the right time you know and um coaching is going to help you there and I think to to add you since

you asked two or three I will say the the coaches excuse me um spec coaches and even all of us who can really harness technology the best way will be the ones that succeed there's a there's a bit of a rush to use technology for technology sake and not to solve a problem and those that are using

technology to solve a problem will do better than those who are just using it to show investors 100% that's something I've been really passionate about because I'm I head up the accounting and finance me rooll for the AI deals desk but at Google Cloud but I've been well how do how did practically do you apply it and it's very fascinating there's not a lot of guidance for people on what are Best Practices to apply to improve our day-to-day life and there are tools like

you can we could record this transcript and play it back and ask you know ni hey are there things we could have talked about that were more interesting or are there ways that where do we connect and how can we Foster this relationship more or what are good collab there's ways that people aren't exploring practical application to actually be beneficial and add value and so um AB fascinating I mean my my favorite anecdote for technology and where technology helps is um he I mean I'm I'm old enough

to remember a time when we said well if computers ever beat humans at chess that's the end of humanity right um and lo and behold a computer beat the best chess player ever and right now the quality of Chess is better than it ever was because those who can leverage technology do better

so I I I'm not a AI doomsayer or whatever to say that AI is going to take away all your jobs I think there's just as much use for all of it for us that we can make value of of it it's just like email right it was 20 years ago email was get it it's just a new it's a new thing I po than hey I want to respect your time and I feel like I can talk to another for few hours I can go a little further if if your time is okay let me just switch on this slide because it's getting a little dark in here no I

appreciate I know you you're a dad dad and a husband too and so being a dad and husband too I know the importance of wrapping up on time but maybe we could continue the conversation another time I'm really enjoying this and I hope you are too I'm just curious I want takeaways for you here what is a professional opportunity or collaboration in 2025 that you're looking forward to or that you're trying to start uh for me definitely coaching I mean coming back into that same thing like I said um I made a conscious decision to have both both my job and my

coaching as part of my my narrative um so how do I balance that is my big Lookout um I would I would love to say that you know this is I'm I'm a great coach um but I'm learning uh every day every every person that I get to coach I learn something from them um so I'm not in the business of saying that you know

hey you um you know I I I only do career coaching or only leadership coaching or etc etc I'm I'm I'm just a coach right um so for me it's I'll just say getting my coaching muscle to some level of sustainability is my big goal for 2025 yeah that's admirable you already sound so amazing but I can see that continuous learning that drive to be an expert um I can see why you got into

Stanford so uh how can how can me or my audience best support you in your goals for this year or how can we engage with your work well so I started um so I kind of have a organization that I started called as the kachua collective uh what's that so the the kachua is uh the Hindi word for toris and um if you've heard of the story of

the hair and the toris um you know we slow and steady wins the race because you probably heard it in the US I heard it in India but in both versions it was the toris that won the race right um so um slow and steady um step by step ferociously is what kind of the motto of uh the organization that I'm setting up and yeah I mean just come to the website um I'm trying to also

establish a substack that I hope um has some news has some subscribers it's all on it's all there on the website um and just reach out you know there's LinkedIn there's um so many things that I mean I also believe that if you Google my name I'm the only person who that's the hit so um oh good Google my name you might just find chak by itself so um yeah

that's um that's how you can get a hold of me I'm fairly easy to get hold of and like I said I'm I like to say I'm approachable so I love that and we'll put all the links in the video descriptions and all the everything there of course um and I love that step by step ferociously I've never heard that before but I think that's really powerful I will not take credit for it um Jeff Bezos uh has this as a he has the Latin version of this for blue origin called graim

feros and I just said that's too high tech for me I'll just go with English so I like it I love it I heard another a similar saying someone else told me today was like being aggressively patient I thought was an interesting thought too uh an interesting I think it's really powerful people are moving a little too fast and the Tortoise does win at the end and know all in all dialogues and stories um what can where okay we already talked about where people can connect with you I'll add those here last challenge for you before

we'll turn off I'm going to give you imagine you on a Podium and you have 15 to 30 seconds just to give the most powerful message you can to the audience so just some words of encouragement are a big takeaway about either navigating career growth a leadership transition or just what you think resonates with this could you could you share that um so I'll just use uh this is something that I have on on a on my wall at work uh is a quote

from Samuel Becket uh which is um ever tried ever failed no matter try again fail again fail better so keep trying you have to keep doing what you're doing just fail at failing and you'll be fine I love that that is a perfect way to close this thank you so much sh I really appreciate it I'll stop the recording now thank you