71 - Understanding the Four Key Mindsets of High Achievers with Dr. Ruth Gotian

[00:00:02] People First Organizations will win in the future of work.

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[00:00:17] Welcome to the People Strategy Leaders Show.

[00:00:19] I'm your host Srikant Chellappa, founder and president of Engagedly

[00:00:23] and a serial entrepreneur in technology, films, and music.

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[00:00:30] and organizational savants about leading in the time of change.

[00:00:34] What is working, what is not working, and more importantly,

[00:00:38] what we should be thinking about.

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[00:00:47] Hello and welcome to People Strategy Leaders Podcast.

[00:00:50] This is Srikant Chellappa, your host.

[00:00:52] Today I'm joined with Dr. Ruth Gotian.

[00:00:55] Dr. Ruth Gotian is the chief learning officer, associate professor of education

[00:01:00] and anesthesiology and former assistant dean of mentoring

[00:01:03] and executive director of mentoring academy at Weill Cornell Medicine.

[00:01:08] She has been hailed by the by the nature and Columbia University

[00:01:13] as an expert in mentorship and leadership development

[00:01:16] and is currently a contributor to Forbes and Psychology Today,

[00:01:20] where she writes about optimizing success.

[00:01:23] She also has a weekly show and podcast with the same name

[00:01:25] where she gathers high achievers to talk about their journey to success.

[00:01:30] In 2021, she was one of 30 people worldwide to be named

[00:01:33] in the Thinkers 50 radar list.

[00:01:36] Dubbed the Oscars of Management Thinking is a semi-finalist

[00:01:39] for the Forbes 50 or 50 list.

[00:01:41] She regularly publishes in such journals as Nature, Scientific American,

[00:01:46] Academic Magazine, Psychology Today, Forbes and Harvard Business Review.

[00:01:51] She's the co-editor of a book on medical education,

[00:01:54] won numerous mentoring awards and is the author of The Success Factor,

[00:01:58] Developing the Mindset and Skill Set for Peak Performance.

[00:02:01] Her new book, Financial Times Guide to Mentoring is coming out in June 2024.

[00:02:07] Well, Dr. Ruth Gotian, thank you for being on my show

[00:02:10] and looking forward to having this discussion.

[00:02:12] I'm excited to talk about high achievers.

[00:02:15] Excellent.

[00:02:16] I read I was talking about the book right before we started to call

[00:02:18] The Success Factor, which is really interesting read.

[00:02:21] I really like the book so far I'm reading it.

[00:02:24] One of the things that as a CEO myself, I also think about what can I do to be more successful,

[00:02:29] more high achieving and get my team to do the same thing.

[00:02:34] What would you say is the secret ingredient if there is one

[00:02:37] of high achievers and successful people?

[00:02:40] I think it's not one, it's four.

[00:02:42] There's four things that they do but I want to start with the premise that

[00:02:47] if people are thinking they're just going to copy and paste

[00:02:49] what other people are doing, that's not going to work.

[00:02:52] If you ever heard wake up at 5 a.m. and make your bed before you do anything else

[00:02:56] and read for five hours a day and you're trying it and you wonder why it doesn't work,

[00:03:01] it's because those are habits.

[00:03:03] You can't copy other people's habits but what you can do is emulate their mindsets

[00:03:09] and make it bespoke for you and your lifestyle and your career.

[00:03:14] There's four mindsets that I found in all high achievers.

[00:03:19] I've interviewed astronauts and Nobel Prize winners and Olympians and NBA champions,

[00:03:24] Fortune 500 CEOs and it was the same four things.

[00:03:28] That's when I realized if an astronaut and an Olympic figure skater

[00:03:32] have the same four mindsets then the rest of us mere mortals can have it too.

[00:03:37] The four mindsets, we'll go through the four of them but the first one

[00:03:41] which is really the foundation of it all is really to tap into the intrinsic motivation

[00:03:48] now so often we have heard do what you love and all of that stuff and yes it's true

[00:03:55] but that's not always enough.

[00:03:57] This has to be the reason you wake up in the morning,

[00:04:00] the reason you cannot quiet your mind at night,

[00:04:04] the reason that you're thinking about all of these things all the time.

[00:04:08] You're not doing it for the awards, rewards,

[00:04:12] promotions or bonuses.

[00:04:14] You're doing it because this is what you were put on this earth to do

[00:04:18] and it's what we call in adult learning intrinsic motivation.

[00:04:22] That's the first one and I'll pause there in case you have any questions about that first one.

[00:04:27] Yeah, no I really like that one the interesting intrinsic motivation

[00:04:31] because a lot of us do things because we are told to do those things

[00:04:36] or we get paid to do those things but when there's no immediate award that you get

[00:04:42] from either outside or a pressure or the stress,

[00:04:45] yeah a lot of people wouldn't do it and that's I think what you're talking about in terms of

[00:04:49] intrinsic motivation the driver from inside versus external forces to make exactly.

[00:04:54] If you think about it, the ones who did it for the Olympic medal or any of those awards,

[00:04:59] if you're doing that for that award, that recognition,

[00:05:03] that's when other people are judging you

[00:05:06] and that's really hard to maintain that motivation when it's for someone else,

[00:05:10] when it's not for you.

[00:05:12] I don't know of a single Nobel Prize winner who stopped doing science just because they won the

[00:05:18] Nobel Prize, if anything they doubled down and they did more so that's the proof that it comes

[00:05:25] that's intrinsic motivation that it comes from within and in the book I talk about it and

[00:05:30] give a lot of exercises how to tap into your intrinsic motivation so that's the first one.

[00:05:37] You ready for the second one?

[00:05:38] Yeah.

[00:05:39] All right we talk about hard work and perseverance and grit and a work ethic and that shouldn't be any

[00:05:45] surprise right the people who are willing to outwork everyone else are going to achieve more

[00:05:52] but really what I found out is that it's how the high achievers, it's how they approach

[00:05:58] challenges which is different.

[00:06:00] Some people will quit because they don't want to fail it's just too hard I just

[00:06:05] I don't want to get dirty right but for the high achievers they fear not trying

[00:06:11] more than they fear failing.

[00:06:14] You say what do I have to lose?

[00:06:16] I have to try and I share the story in the book of Dr. Peggy Whitson who's an astronaut

[00:06:22] but that almost didn't happen she's a biochemist who worked at NASA not everyone

[00:06:27] who works at NASA is an astronaut and she wanted to be an astronaut but she kept applying

[00:06:34] and getting rejected and she kept applying over and over again for 10 years and when I

[00:06:40] interviewed her I said Dr. Whitson why don't you just quit who in their right mind applies

[00:06:44] for the same job for a decade and she said the question was never if I was going to become

[00:06:50] an astronaut it was really it's not a question of if it was a question of how

[00:06:56] what is the strategy that I have not thought of yet what is the gap between what I can do

[00:07:02] and what they perceive that I can do and how do I fill that gap what do I need to prove

[00:07:08] what do I need to show them and she kept working to close that gap now she's in the driver's seat

[00:07:15] that's very different so it's fear not trying more than you fear failing that's the second

[00:07:22] one what do you think about that one?

[00:07:24] I think that's a interesting one because I it brought me back to the same or the one of the

[00:07:31] frameworks that Jeff Bezos uses called the regret framework I guess is that's where the way you

[00:07:38] decide if you're going to do something or not is if you're going to look back even

[00:07:42] you're in your 80 or 90 years old saying do I regret not trying yeah regret trying

[00:07:48] and using that both where you fast forward yourself into the future and then look back

[00:07:52] and say that's right I should try even if I fail because I will at least not regret not

[00:07:58] trying. That's right and in fact I quote a friend of mine who's a colonel in the US army

[00:08:05] we happened to be at a conference together and people were whining and complaining about

[00:08:09] something and he you can always tell when someone's a real leader they could just stop

[00:08:13] everyone just with a few words and he just said nobody died nobody died he said that's

[00:08:21] the only mistake we cannot fix everything else can be fixed and use the information

[00:08:29] from the failure as data to improve upon all of a sudden it's that it becomes that simple

[00:08:37] right if nobody dies you try so I think that's why so many of the Olympians when the Olympics

[00:08:44] were postponed for a year because of COVID they didn't quit they found other ways to train

[00:08:50] even if they couldn't go to their gym even if they couldn't meet with their trainers

[00:08:53] they didn't quit they just found another way to do it wasn't a question of if they would get

[00:08:57] to the Olympics the question was how right same thing all right you ready for that third one

[00:09:04] all right so you have heard of Kobe Bryant right he would go to the gym at four o'clock

[00:09:11] in the morning and he would practice all his layups it's the same workout that you would

[00:09:16] see any seventh grader do at school nothing changes Kobe Bryant might have just had

[00:09:21] bansi or sneakers that's the same thing with all of these high achievers they don't quit

[00:09:27] the basics they keep doing the basic things that made them so great and even when they're great

[00:09:33] they still do it right I share a story of an attorney Neil Katyal Neil Katyal has argued 50

[00:09:42] cases before the Supreme Court of the United States more than any other minority lawyer most

[00:09:47] lawyers don't argue one he has argued 50 and I said Neil how do you prepare for these cases

[00:09:55] and he said I've been doing the same thing for every single one he said there's three

[00:09:59] things that I do the first thing is I create a binder that has the answer to every possible

[00:10:05] question that I might get asked that he said I walk into the courtroom I put that binder

[00:10:11] on the table in front of me he said in 50 cases I've never opened the binder

[00:10:15] but the practice of preparing that binder prepares me for the case

[00:10:21] the second thing he does is multiple moot courts these are simulations where he could practice

[00:10:26] and rehearse and really fine-tune his arguments and the third thing is the night before the

[00:10:33] opening arguments he gives the opening arguments to his kids as their bedtime story because he

[00:10:39] said if a child can understand it the court can understand it and he has done every single one

[00:10:45] of those practices for the last 50 cases he doesn't say I've done 50 I'm on a first name

[00:10:51] basis with the judges I don't need to practice anymore no he keeps doing it so that's the

[00:10:57] thing is we cannot rest on our laurels we have to continue how does that sound to you

[00:11:02] that one is an interesting one I had a hard time really understanding that for some reason

[00:11:07] for example as a ceo and I guess it goes back to the similar concept of a beginner's mindset

[00:11:14] on every single thing you try to do as a ceo what would something like that look like a

[00:11:19] successful ceo I should say so what is it that made you so great is it your connections with

[00:11:25] people right being a leader being a ceo can be very lonely people are afraid to come to you

[00:11:32] because now you're at the top of the heap but what made you so great was the way you're able

[00:11:37] to connect with people connect with anyone so if that made you great don't stop doing that

[00:11:43] just because you're ceo one of the people who I interviewed was hondo gertz who was the

[00:11:48] undersecretary of the US Navy and he said he takes the org chart and he flips it so the

[00:11:56] people at the top are actually the lowest ranked people but he said who has the most direct

[00:12:01] information those people and he said every day yes right every day he said 30 minutes he's

[00:12:09] walking around the office and talking to people every single day that's a good one that's a

[00:12:15] good one so they don't get complacent they just keep never yeah it's a good one exactly

[00:12:21] all right you ready for the one that surprised me the most okay all right this one I was not

[00:12:27] expecting but I loved as an adult educator I loved it you heard of the mark cuban and

[00:12:34] all of these people who read bill gates three to eight hours a day and people say oh that's how

[00:12:40] they became billionaires that is not how they became billionaires what made them so successful

[00:12:47] is that they are able to take two points that people don't see and make those connections

[00:12:53] and the reason they're able to make their those connections is because they're opening

[00:12:58] their minds up to new knowledge now they do it by reading that's how they consume knowledge

[00:13:04] there's so many other ways to consume knowledge you can listen to podcasts such as this one

[00:13:09] hopefully the listeners are learning something new today you can read articles you can read

[00:13:15] books you said you learned you read my book the success factor you can take courses on

[00:13:19] linkedin learning I have a bunch of courses I teach on linkedin learning you can watch

[00:13:24] webinars you can listen to lectures you can get a formal degree if you want but you don't

[00:13:29] have to there's so many other ways that you can consume new knowledge and once you start

[00:13:35] doing that and opening your mind up to learn from people who are senior to you at your level

[00:13:41] or junior to you and junior to you you will start to be able to make these connections

[00:13:48] now that last point of learning from everyone around you was such a common thread within

[00:13:55] all the high achievers who I spoke to they surrounded themselves with a team of mentors

[00:14:01] these are Nobel Prize winners and Olympic medalists they said I will go to anyone who

[00:14:07] has the vision of what I could do a vision that I don't yet see they surrounded themselves with

[00:14:14] a team of mentors who believed in them more than they believed in themselves and I decided

[00:14:20] to pull on that string because I saw it and I saw its power and that's why mentoring is

[00:14:26] the topic of my next book Financial Times Guide to Mentoring which comes out do you believe

[00:14:32] every person should have a mentor I guess at that point not just one I believe in a team of

[00:14:40] mentors okay the data shows us that those who have mentors out earn and outperform those who

[00:14:47] don't and they have lower burnout and it's better for the institution because it the those

[00:14:56] who are mentored actually stay at the institution so it provides greater loyalty

[00:15:00] and to replace someone takes a lot of time and is very expensive so if the people at the top

[00:15:06] have mentors why do the rest of us think that we don't need them no that's true I do talk about

[00:15:12] how people in their roles whether you are a CEO or you're a business analyst or a researcher

[00:15:20] it's not different than an athlete correct coaches they practice they have a routine

[00:15:26] they focus on refining their craft and unfortunately most people in their job don't think like that

[00:15:32] they think about a job make a paycheck they're not thinking about how do I make a

[00:15:37] there's an example here how do I make a better pizza tomorrow that's right are you going for

[00:15:41] the job or you're going for the career very different yeah yeah oh just refining the craft

[00:15:45] that I think the joy is just refining the craft even if you're just working as a person

[00:15:51] making pizza at a yes had changed that's very insightful just four strong areas or pillars

[00:15:58] so this one quote that I read in your book that it came from one of your mentors actually

[00:16:05] before I come to that I do want to ask about this mentors one more one question that I have

[00:16:08] in my head how does one you said a team of mentors for anybody especially if you're a leader

[00:16:14] what how do I decide who how does one decide who my mentor should be like how many mentors

[00:16:20] what areas do I need three or five yeah that's a whole that's three chapters in the book as I

[00:16:27] talk about it because it's so critical I think first of all don't worry about the label of

[00:16:33] mentor because once you start thinking about who do I give this label to it becomes very

[00:16:38] stressful because you need to pick the right one don't worry about picking the right one

[00:16:44] pick people that you can learn from and don't worry about the title the title comes much later

[00:16:50] and in terms of how many unlimited I have mentors who are physicians scientists educators finance

[00:16:59] military legal and I'm working on one in the arts I think I have a gap there basically anyone

[00:17:06] I can learn from to me is worth having as a mentor and those mentors evolve and change over

[00:17:13] time the mentors I have in my 20s are not going to be my mentors in my 40s right because

[00:17:19] we change and that's okay it's not a life sentence so I think that it's important to understand how

[00:17:26] to do that there is a resource if your listeners want to start creating their own mentoring team

[00:17:33] right now to give them some thought questions about who should be on the mentoring team they

[00:17:39] can go to my website ruth gotian r-u-t-h-g-o-t like tom i-a-n like nancy ruthgotian.com

[00:17:48] slash mentoring team and there is a worksheet they can download awesome yeah finding a good

[00:17:56] mentor is also not the easiest because you got to find the one that you can align with

[00:18:03] and have some time for you and one of the things you mentioned in your book as well as

[00:18:07] high achievers and highly successful people also make good mentors yeah as well is that have you

[00:18:13] found that always to be true or is that generally true but maybe not always true

[00:18:19] the way I define success and I think that that helped in how I selected these people

[00:18:25] who I interviewed and I interviewed well over a hundred of these people for the book is they

[00:18:30] had to create a paradigm shift in the way we do things think about things and process things

[00:18:34] we're doing things differently today because of what they did as they rise through the ranks

[00:18:39] they are pulling other people up with them because they understand that there's enough

[00:18:44] light for all of us to shine and when they get to the apex of their career they are now

[00:18:50] mentoring the next generation either one-to-one or one-to-many model and I have noticed that

[00:18:56] if they are olympians or astronauts or nobel prize winners or nba champions they were all

[00:19:01] doing that all of them so that's why I think it's so important and I saw them doing it and

[00:19:08] they what's the way to train that next generation yeah one thing I will say though as I have

[00:19:15] mentored people in my life and I have mentors now as well and I found that I am more inclined

[00:19:23] to mentor people who are willing to put in some work of course I feel like some of them

[00:19:29] just show up at a meeting and then they always consistently show up for the meeting

[00:19:33] and I try to give them some homework with each mentoring session it's not big homework usually

[00:19:39] you think about some projects yeah take up develop yourself for example and if I feel

[00:19:45] like they have not it's like my advice is falling on deaf ears or if I'm wasting time

[00:19:50] I basically back off at that point I'm like I'm not wasting my time on that is that so can

[00:19:54] you give some advice on that I don't know if that is me as a mentor or if it is true of every

[00:20:01] mentor that they're like I'm not going to waste my time as person who's not willing to do the

[00:20:04] work can you give some advice to people who are seeking mentors and what they need to show

[00:20:09] to get good mentors yeah look people want to help rising stars people want to help people

[00:20:16] who want to put in the work and are willing to do the work and if you ask the mentors

[00:20:22] how they the good mentors how they measure their success they measure their success through the

[00:20:28] output and success of their mentees so the good ones are going to be very selective they want

[00:20:34] to get people who are willing to put in the work and show their curiosity so you have to

[00:20:40] as a mentee really do that work and meet your mentor at the 50 yard line to see if this

[00:20:47] is working because you know what if you're not going to put in the work they're not

[00:20:50] going to put in the work to mentor you properly instead they're going to choose someone who is

[00:20:55] really a rising star right because that's what you want to invest your time in because we don't

[00:21:00] have remnants of time time is a finite resource for us I will tell you as a mentor if you

[00:21:08] want to check the impact of your mentoring is it worth continuing there is a resource that my

[00:21:15] co-author and I Andy Lapada put together if you go to mentoring-guide.com

[00:21:24] and there's a score app there that you can measure the impact of your mentoring

[00:21:29] oh that's impressive what can you give you a high level view on what that scorecard is

[00:21:35] it working is it not working how impactful is it worth continuing or not great all right so

[00:21:43] I want to the question I was going to ask you it really was about quote that you have in the

[00:21:50] book from one of your mentors of going for something important and not just interesting

[00:21:56] and that's is that a common trait first of all I want to explain what that means and then

[00:22:01] explain is that a common trait you found in all these successful leaders and people

[00:22:06] it absolutely is so I went back to school later in life I was 43 years old when I

[00:22:11] went to get my doctorate and I was working full-time and had a family and I told my mentor

[00:22:18] who never tried to talk me out of it but when I was about to select a dissertation topic he

[00:22:23] said to me do something important not just interesting because if it's interesting to you

[00:22:30] that's great it will have no impact but if you pick something that's important

[00:22:36] it'll create these ripple effects and it'll impact many people you'll never even have the

[00:22:41] opportunity to meet if you're already going to do the work have that ripple effect now it's so

[00:22:48] fascinating because years later when I interviewed dr. Tony Fauci who led our

[00:22:53] covid response in the United States he has advised seven eight us presidents he has seen

[00:23:00] every major infectious disease that we had zika SARS all of them HIV aids and I said how do you

[00:23:11] pick which infectious disease to focus on there's so many and he said I pick something important

[00:23:19] not just interesting if I could impact millions of people I will never have the opportunity to

[00:23:26] meet it's worth investing my time in so now two people said the same thing to me

[00:23:33] so the thing about important versus interesting is it I guess it has to be important and at

[00:23:39] least somewhat interesting for you interesting to you because of that first element of success

[00:23:44] that intrinsic motivation yeah yeah now in terms of being important obviously if it is important

[00:23:50] enough it's probably going to be difficult as well it's not going to be something easy

[00:23:54] if it is important anything worth having is worth working for right working for so that's

[00:23:59] what I guess also another thing is they don't take easy projects the people who are highly

[00:24:04] successful they're going for the stars and not it's interesting I'm working with a two-time

[00:24:10] Olympic medalist in judo big guy a mountain big guy and he retired from sports

[00:24:18] and now he's in his country he's doing dancing with the stars I said why in the

[00:24:25] world are you doing this this could not be more different from where you came from and

[00:24:30] now he's a keynote speaker etc he said it's a challenge and I don't shy away from a challenge

[00:24:39] and not only is he taking the dance lessons of four hours a day he also signed up for yoga

[00:24:44] and pilates I said why did you do that he said because I have to learn to be more graceful

[00:24:50] this is the opposite of what I was doing in judo so they go all in they're not afraid

[00:24:57] from the challenge they fear not trying more than they fear failing and they go all in when

[00:25:04] it's time to learn something they will learn from anyone who can teach it to them that's why

[00:25:11] he'll go far that's awesome this has been very insightful I could talk for on this topic

[00:25:16] for hours but I do want to ask one last thing before we conclude this session here

[00:25:23] what are some you have you said you have some resources online for the success factor book

[00:25:29] can you guide the listeners to specifically what they can look for online sure so if you go

[00:25:36] to my website ruthgotian.com you will see resources for everything from how to create

[00:25:42] a mentoring team how to tap into your intrinsic motivation and they're also conversation

[00:25:49] starters how to start conversations with a stranger because half the time how do you

[00:25:54] find mentors you need to see who you connect with right so those are all on my website ruthgotian.com

[00:26:01] just click on resources you'll see them all there and if you want to learn more about

[00:26:06] mentoring and developing your mentoring team and checking the impact of your mentoring

[00:26:10] relationship and see a ton of resources around mentoring that's related to my new book financial

[00:26:17] times guide to mentoring and those resources can be found at mentoring-guide.com thank you so

[00:26:25] much for your time ruth I really appreciate it this has been extremely helpful for the people

[00:26:31] on the video this is the book that I was referring to the success factor developing

[00:26:36] the mindset and skill set for peak business performance thanks ruth it was wonderful talking

[00:26:41] to you thanks for having me shri chalapa here thank you so much for listening to the people

[00:26:46] strategy leaders podcast if you are a successful leader or a people strategist who would like to

[00:26:51] be on this program please visit engagedly.com people strategy leaders podcast if you got

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