How I Got Hired

139. Gianpiero Petriglieri II: From Psychiatry to Executive Education, Exploring Leadership, Vulnerability, and Career Transformation

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What if the key to a thriving career lies in embracing the unexpected? Discover the riveting journey of Gianpiero Petriglieri, a celebrated professor at INSEAD, who turned setbacks into stepping stones on his path to success. Sparked by the urging of his wife, Jennifer, Gianpiero's unconventional road to academia is a compelling testament to the power of self-belief and seizing opportunities. Together, we explore his unique insights on leadership, fear, and ego, revealing the profound impact of trusting oneself despite external doubts.

Journey with us as we unpack the delicate dance of professional and personal balance. Gianpiero sheds light on the enriching environment at INSEAD, where diversity and collaboration rewrite career scripts, transforming dreams into dynamic roles. Through shared experiences, we highlight the value of nurturing relationships that challenge and uplift, illustrating how embracing the unforeseen can lead to significant breakthroughs in both life and work. The episode paints a vivid picture of relationship-based leadership and its transformative potential.

Navigate the inner landscape of self-reflection and self-doubt as we discuss strategies to silence the critical inner voice. Gianpiero and I chat about the importance of supportive friendships, mentorship, and the courage to lean on others when self-assurance falters. These relationships act as anchors, providing the confidence needed to transcend limitations and reach new heights. By sharing personal stories and experiences, we unpack the profound shift that occurs when we open ourselves to developmental encounters, ultimately unlocking the door to personal and professional growth.

Learn more about GP:
On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gpetriglieri/
On the INSEAD Website: https://www.insead.edu/faculty/gianpiero-petriglieri
Blog on friendship: https://gpetriglieri.com/on-friendship-at-work/
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Sonal:

Hey there, welcome to the how I Got Hired podcast. I'm your host, sonal Behal, former HR director, founder of Supercharge and corporate survivor of an epic career roller coaster that started out in India, zipped through South America and landed in Europe, and it's been such a wild ride navigating visa, sponsorships, layoffs, recessions, all while working in Spanish and French, which I learned on the fly somehow, raising two kids somehow, and sometimes just trying to remember where I parked my car. Now, as a career strategist, I believe a fulfilling career isn't just for those with Ivy League degrees or fancy connections. No, it's a right we all deserve. That's why I'm here to bring you top tier career advice through coaching courses and this very podcast where we meet ordinary people like you and me who share extraordinary stories of career success, to prove that if they can do it, you can do it too. So buckle up and get ready to get supercharged.

Sonal:

Hey, welcome back to my conversation with Gianpiero Petriglieri, and we will continue where we left off. We will talk about how exactly GP got into INSEAD, and we will continue with leadership and GP's definitions of leadership, which I personally think are fascinating, and one of my favorite parts of this interview is the end, where you know this question I ask every single guest about what is that moment that supercharged their career? And GP's answer was so unique. I've never heard anybody answer this, so stay till the end Without further ado, let's get into it.

Sonal:

We like you, but there's no we can't put you in a box there's no box for you and um that's three. It took 18 months for them to figure it out.

GP:

There's nothing I can do. And so at the time and you know, bless Herminia for kind of keeping, try and keeping me in mind, and so this is what happens. And you know, this is actually not it's a public story because it's in. You know, jennifer Petriglieri, my wife, was also a colleague here. She's written a book on couples and she's written this story in her book how sometimes our careers are not changed just by people we meet at work, but with people. And although Jennifer is also a colleague people we have a romantic relationship.

GP:

So at some point INSEAD, as a course, leading people in groups of b1 it's a core course in organizational behavior yes and like a month before the course is about to start, a professor I think gets sick and they have no anyone to teach it and and they're basically desperate. So I get this email that says you know, you know what you know. We've gone back and forth a few but we thought it would be, instead of kind of doing the normal hiring process, why don't you come to teach here so you can spend a couple of months and it'll be like flirting. We can meet more of you and you know you can meet more of us.

GP:

Yeah, dating, yeah, but this is a very asymmetric dating. I am desperate for you when you're still trying to figure out whether you want to see me again. So, anyway, I get this email and this is where I was just so hurt, I have been so upset, I deleted it. And so I, and you know, the day after I'm having breakfast with Jennifer and we are chatting, I like you couldn't believe you know these people. I didn't say they rejected me three times and now they say you know, can you come and teach in four weeks time? You know, this is like the, the.

GP:

I mean imagine and she says, yeah, yeah, you know we chat and then can we move on. And then after breakfast she goes in my email, finds the email in the deleted folder and replies when do I start what? She comes to me and say you know, look, I've done something. And uh, you know, at the end of the day you've got to believe in yourself like I believe in you. You know they will love you. Let them see what you do. They will love you. And that's how I got my job.

GP:

I didn't say that I went to teach, hold on once you like, live it with her, or you kind of later realized you were grateful, I mean in those moments so, first of all, you know, jen and I are not very good at being angry at each other, but in that moment I realized, you know, first of all, this was an early non-religious nothing she would have done wrong okay um second, you know she was right.

GP:

I don't really listen, but there are some people that when this she was right, I was I again, who was I thinking? I was a nameless junior, I was a nobody. Okay, I was a 30-year-old nobody you know thinking, oh you know, I'm just going to turn down teaching a course. I didn't say people die.

Sonal:

And here you're saying my feelings were hurt.

GP:

Yeah, my feelings were hurt, yeah, my feelings were hurt and thank goodness, thank goodness, I had someone in my life who realized it will be okay. You're afraid. You are afraid because that's what happens very often when we are arrogant we are just afraid the ego, when we, when the ego leads, we are freaking out.

Sonal:

Oh my gosh, so then when you started? What year is this? When you started the course this?

GP:

is 2006. This is January 2006. We are there. We are there, I'm teaching.

Sonal:

And they're observing. They're observing one-sided, like you said. And how was?

GP:

it, so I'm teaching almost every class. Someone is coming to watch me teach. Yeah. By the end. By the end the students are just delightful, you know, by the end it's kind of a love fest, know I?

GP:

think institutions need to do what they need to do, which is, you know, they're designed to. They're designed for conformity, but somehow sometimes they have people, give them the capacity to find someone that might doesn't yet fit, that might fit. And so, you know, the institution did not mean what I think was supposed to do, and so, you know, the institution did with me what I think was supposed to do, but what it gave me was a profound gift, that I had a realization. The people who hired me were the students. I work for the students, I write for people out there, you see, and so many academics because they go through the progression. They think the people who have, like I, have to impress a few peers.

Sonal:

Fellow academics.

GP:

Yeah, I have to be, you know, I have to live, you know it's very. Academia can become very internally focused because, of course, our judgment of each other matters so much. Yes. We can make or break our career, and it was true even for me, of course. But the fact that the students that I got my job that way made me realize it's the work. Yes, the work has to come before everything, before pleasing, before status, before networking, before all the other stuff that really matters yes, the work has to be found.

GP:

Do the work, and in fact, this is the thing. The most important thing is not what the 24 year old gp say to me. The most most important thing is what I would say to the 24-year-old GP, something that he profoundly didn't understand have faith in the work.

Sonal:

Have faith in the work.

GP:

Instead of having faith in your talent, instead of having faith in trying to please people, instead of having faith in the kind of CV you built. Those things will always work out, but the work will never betray you. And now I tell students never love a job, never love an institution. Honestly, they will not love you back. Yes. Never will Love people. Yes, never will Love people. Yes, love the work.

GP:

And the work brings you into contact with people. And think about who is my work for? Who am I delighting, who am I helping? Who am I orienting? Who am I elevating? Who am I reass, reassuring, who am I liberating with my work? And focus on that? Yes, and for me that's, and for me that's really what's shaped my career as a professor. Yes, and that's what has shaped, and you know know it's interesting, it's shaped my view of leadership.

Sonal:

Yes, yes, I just want to pause here. This is one of the reasons you're so successful and I think I said it in the intro and I will remind our listener you were always the voted the most not like popular and fun and all that, but the most impactful professor almost every. Not just that is like. That makes it, that is accessible, that makes you human. But it's not just that. What I mean is it wasn't just a popularity contest, there's substance, you know. You know the substance and you know screws down I'm fishing for compliments but I'm giving you because it's it's uh, it's fun here.

Sonal:

Have faith in the work and trust the process. Trust the process. I say this to my clients Trust the process. More importantly, trust yourself. I love that you said follow good people. Don't always look at the work, the shiny company name and the titles, because, guess what, they don't always love us back, right. But but people, people love people. I can't love by as much as I love my laptop and all the work that it's love me back, um, and I, I love how you, how humble you are here. Your humility here really shines, gp, because it's like you know you talk to uh. I remember when I was interviewing a long time ago for a job at a pharma company and they they were really serious about they're like we're patient centric, it's patient care, and I wish, I thought I wish there would be more uh people like that, because at the end of the day, it's the patients that matter.

Sonal:

And here what you're saying is let's be clear, I got hired because of the students, the, the students' opinion is the one that matters, and you know I'm thinking like you know, that checked coat with the circular elbow and all these academicians like next academics next to the fireplace with their cigar, People can get very, very self-centeredcentered in general and particularly academics can have a reputation for.

GP:

But if you focus, so I'm not gonna I'm not gonna participate in academia bashing simply because I've now kind of been in other institutions not academic institutions and I, you and I know people can get self-centered in any industry. That's what.

GP:

I meant Every time they forget Every time we forget. And I also want to say I'm not even sure it was true, but I think what matters is that that was my truth, because it shaped my approach. Because people spend a lot of time thinking about their career approach. Because people spend a lot of time thinking about their career as opposed to what is my?

GP:

approach to doing the work and the career for me is a consequence of that, is a consequence of that approach unfolding over time in more places, hopefully, with different audiences, with more finesse, with bigger, with bigger scope, with more resources. And then suddenly, over time, you look back and say, oh, you know, I remember at some point I came up with this idea.

GP:

Oh my, the purpose of my work is humanizing leadership, which is now is the banner of everything I do, right, making room for all this messiness we have inside us the complexity we have inside us and the and the conflicts that there are around us, making room for all that mess inside and around people and make it part of leadership, instead of making leadership look so simple, so linear, so pure. Um, but it's not like. I started by saying, oh, I want to be, I want a career in humanizing leadership. It kind of the words come after evolved.

Sonal:

Yeah, yeah, I completely, I completely understand. Um, this is fantastic. I love the story of how you got into ins. Yet and uh, jp, there was a brief period at harvard business school and you you mentioned mentioned your wife as well and dual careers, and I highly recommend to the reader. I have the book, I have read the book Couples that Work. You should check that out because dual careers are a reality in 2024.

GP:

Yeah, I mean, I think we and they have been.

Sonal:

Yeah, they have been for a while. So talk to us about that period at Harvard Business School. What happened? And you know it didn't last that long and you got magnificent time.

GP:

Yeah, I mean it was a. It was a. It was a fabulous time. I learned an incredible amount about bringing together your intellectual work, your teaching and your and your public engagement, which I thought colleagues there, that that that piece. I really. I really learned that here and um, and Janet finished her PhD and she was doing a postdoc there and so I got the opportunity to teach the MBAs there, um, with just some of the some of the finest teachers, um, I've ever taught alongside outside of NCED, um and um. And then you know it was um, jen and I, uh, I mean we had a very deliberate approach to our careers where we wanted well, we had two small kids and we didn't want to live apart. There's many of our colleagues who kind of live apart, but if we could, we wanted a job in the same institution because we also caught or we enjoyed working together, and if we couldn't, we wanted a job in institutions in the same city so we could at least live together and um, if not, who knows what would have happened?

GP:

um but those are the two options and we were fortunate. At the time things were going a little better, we had a little bit more um, marketability and um, and so instead hired jen and there was no question for me that we were coming back the instant she was hired. I wouldn't have entertained any other offer, because this is my home. Yeah.

GP:

What can I say? I love you know you've been at INSEAD. I love the idea of INSEAD, this idea of bringing together people, cultures, all that kind of stuff. But this idea of bringing together this, it's a place where there's a lot of people together, people, cultures, all that kind of stuff. But this idea of bringing together this, it's a place where there's a lot of people like us, different nationalities, strange backgrounds, among the students, among the faculty, and so I feel I wanted to be part of this idea and I wanted this idea to be around me. And, you know, they gave us both jobs which was an incredible blessing, I mean.

GP:

I cannot say how privileged we are for that, and you know we've been able to. And then they kept us. We were able to progress in our career, they gave us interesting opportunities, they helped. You know, I think INSEAD has been a place where I've also feel I've been able to build a group of colleagues and leadership development, a community, a group of coaches that I think touches tons of people and and where the you know my work, I think you know you couldn't ask for better than to find a place where your work can deepen and broaden, and this is what this place has been for me.

GP:

So you know we could spend another five podcasts telling you all the little indignities of institutional life, but for me those are minutiae. At the end of the day, the work is what matters, and if a place allows you to do the work, then everything else you put up with it, and it's a little bit, of course. I've been here for 18 years now. Yes.

GP:

And so I think you know I always make the joke you know your dream job is when you don't have it. But then it's like when you meet someone and you get together and then you live together for a very long time. Your love expands and evolves and deepens. But it's a more realistic. It's not a romanticized, idealized love. It's a realistic love in which you commit every day to the yes, this, yes, this, no, I wanna. You know you have to work at it.

GP:

And I think you know it's funny because I think you know you and I are both interested in careers and this is one thing I find often among students that when they look at their romantic choices, no one is waiting for Prince Charming, no one says, oh, you know, I'm just gonna, maybe they think it, but you know, meanwhile they know they need to kind of go out and look and you know, and there's this idea that love is something that you have to cultivate. But when it comes to work, sometimes, especially in a place like this, I'm sorry to say elite institutions really cultivate this idea of the dream job. There's this idea that if I find a dream job, everything's gonna be okay and if I don't, I'm gonna be devastated. It doesn't work like that. This, you know this wasn't my dream job yeah.

GP:

I bumped. This wasn't, this was not my dream job. I have made it. Yes, it is now the best. It's a job better than could I could have dream yes and I've made it and people have allowed me to make it, and it's in those relationships that jobs are made great. And sometimes great jobs are better than dreams jobs because they make you discover your edges, they make you discover your depth, they push you to places where you sometimes are a little bit uncomfortable and um.

Sonal:

I love that. I think, um, the 25 year old GP, when he would see you today, I mean, like you said, he you know he would feel relief and he'd be like, oh dude, you're in pretty good shape for an old man. All of that stuff aside, I think he wouldn't have ever imagined. Because we don't know, at that time, right, you let it unfold, you surrendered. Of course, you put in the work. You weren't just sitting there waiting for things to happen, but you said yes to opportunities. Even when you didn't say yes to opportunities, some a loved one snuck behind your back and said yes to the opportunity you surrendered.

Sonal:

So that's beautiful.

GP:

You know that's interesting. Maybe that's in my capacity to surrender oh man, that takes courage.

Sonal:

Surrendering is hard, because our ego is like hey not easily I don't surrender easily yeah yeah but I can't surrender.

Sonal:

It doesn't come easily, but, oh my gosh, it is. It is, it is worth it. Um, you hinted at this gp. I want to talk about that l word. I want to talk about leadership, because so much of your research and teaching is about leading in. You know diverse, fast-changing and uncertain environments at work, so I know that this question could literally take us the whole day. Yeah, um, not just one you know tiny part of a podcast episode, but tell us about some fundamental principles that have always been relevant and will continue to be relevant in terms of how we, learning from you directly, can each of us be a better leader I'll do something I'm not good at.

GP:

I'll give you a short answer. Um, I, when you said the l word, I thought thought you were you were talking about love. Uh, that's the L word for me, and, and I think, um, you know, I've said it many times, I've written about, for me, leadership is a kind of love, and so if there's a principle that I'm I always try to impress is this leadership is a relationship, it's not a position, it's not a set of skills, it is a relationship. It's not a position, it's not a set of skills, it's a relationship. So the simplest piece of advice and it's really all we've been talking about is the secret of a healthy relationship is honesty and some degree of consistency.

GP:

So, find what you care about, find who you care about, and show it. Show it, yeah. Say this is. And, um, you know, live with the vulnerability that comes with it. You know, yeah, show it, show. I mean, so often people think of leadership in such technical and stylistic way. Leadership is I care about this, I care about us, and I want this to be possible for us, and I'm gonna do whatever I can. I'm gonna bring whatever I've got in my heart, in my mind, in my body to this and us. That's what love is I don't.

Sonal:

I love this. Find what you care about, find who you care about and just simply show it. Don't I love this? Find what you care about, find who you care about and just simply show it. Don't have to overthink it, and I love that you have.

GP:

And surrender to it and surrender to it. Oh yeah, I care about this, but for now I should also do a bit more of something else. I care about this person, but I also want to make sure I spend. I also don't want to be seen as too close to this person because then people might think these people might then be suspicious of me surrender let go, man. That's it, that's this is my work. Yeah, this is my work.

Sonal:

This is my people yes, yes, um you'll never be incompetent yeah. You'll never be incompetent. Yeah.

GP:

You'll never be alone, and it's very hard to have a good career if you're incompetent, if you're alone provocative here, but I love that you have the word love here.

Sonal:

Um, and I've had another guest on the show. In fact, at the time of our recording it's released today it's. I don't believe in any such thing as a coincidence. Her name is claire harbour.

Sonal:

You were on her podcast and you talked about the art you talked about the art of leadership and she started a company called love works, and it's all about love as well, and I know you're a very collaborative person because you, you, you, you, you admired this quality in Armenia, ibarra, which means you have it inside you, right. So I want to give a quick shout out to Claire, because I think we need to talk about the heart Big shout out to Claire At work.

GP:

Big shout out to Claire, yeah.

Sonal:

Claire's lovely. I love her, and also the. We don't have to be. This work is like this and serious, and put on a suit and come home Like I can't wait to strip all of those layers. Why can't we have fun in both?

GP:

Well, and it's also. I mean, look, I think now companies have become very, very adamant in their rhetoric. You know, we want you to be passionate at work and all that, and so we need to learn also how to deal once you bring passion to work. I mean, passion can make you do stupid things, it can make you get hurt, it can disappear, and so for me, you know, I'm much more interested in care, because it's care is what happens when passion lasts and morphs you know, passion is relatively fickle, but when it it turns into care, then it can last a very, a very long time.

GP:

And I think you know all these ideas around and I think there's now a growing community thinking about how do we understand work as a relationship with an activity, with other people, with an institutions, and how do we conduct ourselves in those relationships in a way that is that has dignity, that has care, that is responsible, yes, that is, that is playful and that is fun. And sometimes how do we break up?

GP:

how do we break up and um, and the answer to that is always friends find, friends sometimes find friends find, find the village, the village that will get you through 100.

Sonal:

okay, now I want to talk to you. It'll be a juicy question coming up and I I know we've gone over time, but this is so worth it, this is so worth it. I want to talk to you about your thoughts on this. Uh, the feeling of being lost or being stuck, and particularly, you know, when, um, all of us do this at some point or the other. We don't like to admit, but we do compare ourselves with our fellow classmates, fellow you know so peers, and there can be a sense of disappointment, you know, who knows, maybe even jealousy, envy, shame, all of those feelings when we get into that comparison loop.

Sonal:

And I do want to quote a very, very little piece of an article you wrote in the Harvard Business Review a while ago, quite a while ago, and this is what you said For all the value we put on plans and pursuits, what makes us who we are is often what we do with life's surprises is often what we do with life's surprises. Temptations don't always point to what we really want, but often hint towards who we are trying to become, and maturity is not the ability to pursue or suppress them. Instead, it's the ability to take them seriously without always taking them literally literally yeah do you sometimes like read your work and you're like, wow, who wrote that?

Sonal:

that was smart? So what are your thoughts when someone who's like listening to you today and thinking they're feeling like they're feeling really good listening to us right now, but their reality?

GP:

maybe they're thinking they're a bit lost or stuck somewhere so no, I don't read my work and think, oh, that's smart. I mostly read my work and think, oh, I should have written it better and that sounds so presumptuous and and all of that. So I do know that feeling of getting lost and stuck and comparing yourself and and I call it the voice. You know, we all, we all battle with it. You know, look, I think anyone who has talent, who has opportunities, always lives unless they're completely deluded, which I try not to be always lives in a gap. I constantly live in the gap between what I think I should be able to accomplish and offer the world and what I'm actually able to accomplish and offer the world. And in that gap it's easy to get lost, it's easy to get stuck and it's easy to kind of become overwhelmed with the voice that says, look, he's published more papers and you know she's getting more speaking opportunities and you know that person you know would have said and can you listen to yourself?

GP:

when you're talking in this podcast, you say, you know all the time you're not articulate, you're, you say, and I'm, and I hear so many other people who speak so fluently. There's always that constant sense of comparison, the gap. You fall into the gap and you start hearing the voice and you've got to battle that voice and the only way to battle that voice is finding friends. And this is where it's important, you see, and I think this is a byproduct. So, because we are so obsessed with the career and the institution, then these people around us are competitors. Are they better or more of me? And if we forgot, if we remember for a second, uh-uh, we're. These are my people, and this is a thing that I learned from my dad. I wish I had a little bit of that. He was really very rarely. He was really very rarely envious of someone who was good at something and in fact, he always told me your dad.

Sonal:

He told you about your dad.

GP:

He was always, he, always. I remember when I was young and this is one of the best lessons I got he always told me, like, find the people who are good and copy them, like don't. And he always gave me this idea like you know, don't, don't compare yourself. And I kind of do this all the time I look. So this is a class like when you're a writer, right, you know, you start writing a paper. And when I started writing a, a paper, I read a lot of what other people have written and I read their published papers and immediately think like, oh my god, I could have ever gonna be able to do this. And and I know now because I know people read my stuff and and of course, it's brilliant but this is what happens.

GP:

I'm comparing my first draft to the piece that someone has finished, you know, five years later, yeah and that's. And so I think this gets caught. This is very important, because ambitious people usually find, you know, very good role models, but then they compare themselves to those role models. Now, when I think of myself, when I started teaching, I wasn't good enough. I wasn't as good as this, and it was really kind of difficult for me to understand Me. In 20 years, I'm better than most of the people I was compared to at the time, but that's not incompatible with the fact that then I wasn't good enough.

GP:

And so I think what we do in that moment in which we actually make a comparison, an accurate comparison in which we are falling short, is crucial, and for me it's almost impossible. This is why I evoke my dad right In this moment of the conversation. What that's about? Because it's almost impossible to be at the bottom of a social comparison and be aspirational unless we have someone that reminds us. But in the work, you could be like that, like that, yeah, and so for me, in that moment we are not lacking confidence.

Sonal:

We are not lacking courage.

GP:

We are lacking friends, because every time this is yeah, it really is, it really is. Don't you, don't fight the voice on your own. You find the voice with the voice of someone who loves you, yes, says yeah, they're pretty good if and they're, if, they're really good friend. They don't tell you, oh no, they're crap. They're also strong.

Sonal:

They say yeah but those are not. Those are not friends.

GP:

Uh no, they're pretty good friends what would it take for you to be like that and what would you have to give up? What would you have to give up? Yes, that's a powerful question. What would you have to give up? What would you have to give up?

Sonal:

yes, that's a powerful question, you know what?

GP:

would you have to give up? That's, that's extremely important, yes, and I think for me, you know, and I think for me the answer is, um, you know? Look, I'm a big friend of self-reflection, of becoming becoming more confident and all of that. But what's been true for me is every time you're in that moment where you are alone with the voice that makes you feel lost and makes you feel stuck, that diminishes you, you need to reach out. Sometimes we can't hold ourselves. We need others to hold us.

Sonal:

We can be our worst enemy, a hundred percent. And I think my coach told me this. She's, her name is Maggie and there is a bully voice. She calls her Marge. She's even gone to AI and she has a diagram of a very you know, like in Matilda, that really angry matron woman and she's like shut up, marge, not today, marge. That voice and I have, I think her name is Sonia and she's just so judgmental all the time. I'm like not today, sonia, shut up. Not today, sonia.

GP:

So that voice, I don't know anyone who probably does not have that voice, everyone has that voice and I also think you know, to be honest, to be friendly to the voice, because I think we shouldn't kind of demonize. Sure, the voice is often an enemy If it comes from a place of, you know, belittling and insecurity.

GP:

Occasionally, the voice is talking to you Because you're not honoring who you could be and the voice is angry and it's a very dysfunctional way, and so you got to talk back to the voice and say, okay, I'm willing to listen if you say it in a caring way yeah, yeah yeah, I had um yeah, you know I, one of the people that had influenced on me as a as a kid, was my athletics coach, and you know I was always talented academically and it was good for me to do sports because I was very untalented and my coach used to tell me make sure you focus on school, because you ain't going to the Olympics it's very important, but I love doing something where I wasn't good at it, because it forced me to kind of, you know, focus on little improvements and all of that. And he always said very brutally in athletics there's two kind of people those that cry in the training and laugh in the race and those that laugh in the training and cry in the race.

Sonal:

And there was a laugh in the training and cry in the race.

GP:

So try in the training. You know, push yourself and then you will have the confidence. And the confidence won't come from I am good. The confidence will come from I've put in the work and then the work I've used, you know that served me so well. You know I am I the night before I go to a new class. So now I never sleep because just because you know my classes have gone well before, it doesn't mean this time it's going to work out. You know, maybe I'm, you know I'm all, you know over the hill, who knows? And I, and I've now learned that everyone was good. You know they, they're, they're tortured.

GP:

Before that moment's all new. You have to restart from scratch and all that and um. And I don't tell myself I'm good at this. You know I won teaching awards. Who cares about that? I tell myself I have put in the work, so there's nothing else I can do now. I have to treat myself with kindness. So I treat myself pretty harshly in the moments when I'm trying to develop. I hold myself accountable, I give myself stretch goals, I berate myself if I slack off and and all of that. But when you go to that job interview, when you go to the class, when you go to that big meeting, that's the moment to say I put, put in the work. I have 50. I'm going to give 50. I have 80. I'm going to give 80. I have 120. I'm going to give 120. That I've learned from sports. That's such a skill to be at the starting line, yeah, and say I'm all in.

Sonal:

I'm going to give what I've got.

GP:

And the voice then doesn't make you what you've got. The voice needs to be kinder. The voice needs to say come on, you can do it. Yeah, and sometimes I talk back to the voice. The voice says you suck and I say do you mean to say you can do better? That'd be a little bit nicer. You know that's reframing friends. Yeah, reframing be. Make friends with the voice and maybe it treats you more kindly.

Sonal:

I think the friend part is so important and so under, even though it sounds very obvious to every single person, it's not obvious and I think that someone listening today is probably thinking do I need to do a little bit of an audit of my social circles? Because, because there will be people and I know this because I work with my clients and my students there will be people who'll say, really, that's never gonna work. Create content on linkedin or youtube, you're gonna be the laughing stock. That's not a friend, that's someone who's threatened by you. So you want to find that group that loves you no matter what, even if you fall flat on your face.

GP:

Then they'll be like, hey, we'll, we'll get you there, I got you yeah, they're threatened by you, or that's the way they talk to themselves, which is which is pretty sad, which is, awful, which is sad.

GP:

Can I pitch one thing? Yes, I've. Actually, one of my favorite pieces of writing is one of my latest articles and it's on friendship and it's called how to Make Better Friends at Work and it really makes that distinction we are talking about. We actually sometimes have too many friends who are friends of our performance, who keep us the way we are, and then we have a few friends that kind of say oh you know, try it. I mean, at the end of the day, take a few risks, you know that's the. You see what what the voice does is.

GP:

It makes it very difficult to stay with your truth and to take a few risks for your truth and for the people you care about yeah and I think the kind of friends that really matter are those friends I call them friends of your learning, yeah, friends of your performance, those friends that help you close the gap not between the worst that could happen and normal, but the friends that help you close the gap between normal and the best that could happen.

Sonal:

And the greatness? Yeah, yeah, they don't reassure you.

GP:

They don't reassure you. And you see, this is what the people I mentioned earlier all did for me. They didn't reassure me, they actually put me in positions where I was more stretched, but they imagined me and then I could make a choice whether to put in the work to become that or to give up. I'm glad I have done that.

Sonal:

No, I'm a hundred percent. I'm so glad you talked about friends, because so many times we can have peer mentors. When somebody thinks of a mentor, we think of someone who's older, wiser, 50 steps ahead of us. Those micro mentorship moments can come in any shape or form, even from like high school friends or you know absolutely friends who are five years, ten years younger to you, graduated from a different class, an MBA doesn't matter.

Sonal:

But they see, see, they see something in you that you don't even imagine in yourself. And that is the call, right, that is the call that you gotta answer, the call jp. Oh my gosh, uh, time has flown. Um, I want to ask you this one question that I ask every single guest, and that is when you look back on your beautiful, glorious career, I'm imagining you in 1999, you know, in that classroom, these 25 years, 25 odd years, is there one standout, defining moment that supercharged your career and helped you to move closer to where you are today?

GP:

I mean. I mean I would betray everything I believe in and study and write about, and teach if I said there is just a single moment. And, as I've said, it's a series of encounters, and every encounter has helped me become the person I became, and then we can call it a career. But it's also beyond, you know, any of those encounters I've spoken about, um, but if I had to pick one, of course, was if I had to pick, one, of course, was.

GP:

Jennifer, that changed everything. That changed everything Because, although you know it was a work relationship, it was a romantic relationship. It still is a work relationship. It still is a romantic relationship. We're now parents of children and all that, but it was also a moment that changed my relationship with work because work so was so everything and I had relationships before that I regret.

GP:

I was so just, um, I was just so unavailable because work so, so central. I was so anxious about myself and me at work and what was happening at my work. And I think meeting Jennifer gave me the kind of confidence and the roots to somehow realize that there were other parts of life that were as important as work. And then, paradoxically, then it made my work a lot deeper. It grounded me. It grounded me and I think you know it was almost the archetypal developmental encounter for me, right when you find a home and then suddenly you can grow in that place. You know a home place where you can be safe and free, and that was that for me. And then, of course, you know everything we've done together. You know a lot of my work is really our work and, um and uh, you know being able to do it while also you know enjoying the ups and downs, the roller coaster of life, uh, with someone that you feel is a partner is a big, is a big part and, um, yeah, so that was that was.

GP:

That was the moment um many other you know, and then I, but I don't want that to shut overshadow all the other moments we talked about. Um, you know that that that class of 2006, the, you know still when I walk in now in that classroom where I used I taught my first class I still.

GP:

I still remember and that's still like a place where I feel like my spirit will will remain there for a long time collectively they shaped right. Collectively they kind of shaped who you are today without that moment, you know they open a door for me that you know I would never, I would never be able to be, and it's not a point to give, it's not a kind of, it's not a given thing, but you know it's no, it's beautiful.

GP:

They open the door for you and I believed and I also believed. You know they made me believe I could be who I'd been told I couldn't, and just I couldn't, be more grateful for that. It's so healing and ever since I've had other moments where people have told me I couldn't be this or I couldn't be that, and I've learned well to take with a grain of salt. But when you're at the beginning of your career, when people tell you who you can and cannot be, it's harder.

Sonal:

Yeah, no, you take it more literally. This is beautiful. And you're saying the class of you know, 2006, december, because you started in January 2006, and this is the graduating class. 12 months later, you said they opened a door for you. They opened a door for you which had been shut on your face. Let's be clear a couple of times already.

GP:

And and you know you, went there you said I don't believe that. I don't believe that. I don't think it hadn't been shut on my face. It had kind of been held ajar. I couldn't just squeeze through to get inside kind of. They kind of pushed it open.

Sonal:

Yeah no, I got a shot on my face otherwise I wouldn't have been no. When you said no, what I'm what I meant is when you said that, oh, you're neither here nor there. We can't put you in a box.

GP:

That's what I meant yeah, and here you are, I think it. You know the door. I've been sometimes and this is sometimes. I find sometimes in careers this is frustrating because you know, an open door is fine and a door shut on your face is also fine, at least it's clear.

GP:

But sometimes there are these doors that are kind of ajar or someone told you no, we left it open for you. But then you, you, you kind of turn the the thing and it's locked and they, I mean I do this, I do this for my children. Sometimes you know we left it open for you, but then you, you, you kind of turn the the thing and it's locked and they, I mean, I do this, I do this for my children. Sometimes, you know, I forget I'm busy thinking of something, I left the door open for you and then I, I lock it because in my reflex, and then I get this panic call what did you do? You know? And sometimes in careers there are those people you know they mean to leave the door open for you, but then they're so used to keeping it shut, because they've been taught to keep it shut, that you kind of find the door shut and they didn't mean it. They wanted to open it for you, but it was their habits to keep it shut to people like you, so it's tricky.

Sonal:

I love this. I love this answer. I love that you're crediting a whole class for one of the reasons you're so successful today, but also that you met your wife. I think I've done, at the point of publishing this episode, I think 135 episodes already, 135 interviews. Yours is probably the. Of course, it's GP who said this the first time. This is the first time I've heard this answer. The day, you know, I met my wife and everything that's happened ever since. I credit a lot of my success to her. I love this answer, and you clearly are. I mean, insead is lucky that you both are there. I'm just going to say it. Okay, amazing, gp, so I'm going to link your website.

Sonal:

I'm going to link your article that you talked about on friendship. I'm going to Google it and I'm going to link the article. Your article that you talked about on friendship. I'm going to google it and I'm going to link it. I'm going to link your LinkedIn profile. Is there any other way we can especially those of us who didn't have the fortune of going to INSEAD? Is there any other way we can learn more about you and follow your work?

GP:

I saw on my website and LinkedIn is where I put everything new. Yeah, everything is on the website the research, the essays, the videos. So that's really the place where I put everything, and LinkedIn. Now, this is fine and you know, come to INSEAD or invite me to your company or something like that, and I'll, and I'll be there.

Sonal:

Yeah, yeah, you want to get thoughts on leadership and you want to get like modern ways of thinking about leadership and bring heart into the conversation. Gp is your guy, so definitely make sure you reach out to him. I'll put all the links into the show notes. Gp, this has been such a pleasure. It's been long overdue. You talked about misfits. I felt like such a misfit at my time at INSEAD. Your presence and you know you had this PowerPoint when we were there at the reunion and you talked about sometimes, you know, you don't, just you don't even have to, you just have to be. What was that? You have to be awake. Do you remember that one? Yeah, you don't need to be. What was that? You have to be awake. Do you remember that one?

GP:

Yeah, you don't need to be perfect, you need to be awake, you don't need to be perfect, you need to be awake.

Sonal:

You were there and you were non-judgmental and you were like, yeah, it's a pleasure, it's been great teaching you. You have no idea how impactful that was, and it also helps that I think I got an A in one of your papers. In leading people in groups, I still remember that. It validated a lot of what I was going through at the time. But this is so emotional for me. So thank you so much for your honesty, your vulnerability, your humanity. What was the word you used? Emotional honesty. Thank you so much.

Sonal:

Thank you for being here and and wish you continued success at incia and beyond you were brilliant then and you still are hey, you made it to the end and that means a lot to me because you could have been listening to a bajillion other things, so this likely means you enjoyed the episode. So I recommend that you hit follow on the app you were listening this podcast on and share it with a friend who could use some career inspiration. Come on, sharing is caring, right. Thank you so much for spending time with me today and catch you next time on how I Got Hired.