Shilpa and Kapil are co-authors of their International best seller book “Play It Full” that is creating waves around the world. “Play it full” has become a new norm today. Let us take this opportunity to get a peep into the story of their lives and how did they get to where they are today.
Shilpa- through her own eyes
As part of the Corporate world for 16 years, I had worked with start-ups, top consultancies and financial institutions.
Known as someone with a Midas touch, I started my corporate career as a high flier, a national level ranker, with a huge fire in the belly and soon enough, I stood out for the outstanding results that I always produced.
However, life does take everyone on a roller coaster ride.
10 years down the line, all that fire got dried up. The challenges of life started to show up one by one. Pregnancy, kids, multi-tasking, conflicting priorities- all started to test my patience.
As the monster of work-life balance roared loud in the corporate workplaces, gobbling up excellence for many, I fell a voluntary prey and before I knew, I landed myself in the average game.
Money was not an issue. Fat paychecks were finding their way in my bank account and I was successful in the traditional sense.
Sailing through with ease, I continued to do my bare minimum and my average game continued. As I satisfied myself with small wins, somewhere my heart knew that I could do much more. But what more and why especially if I was comfortable and happy?
Life continued to push me to a corner and I started becoming more and more aware that probably I had stopped blossoming at work.
My wakeup call was a restructure in my company, as a result of which my position became redundant.
At that point, I realised that I had fallen down, pretty badly and reached my bottommost.
I decided to press the pause button; to reflect and evaluate where I was going and this time, I decided to create a pivot in my life.
And I did…
I realised that my life could be much more. And I was capable of creating a much larger impact.
Having been an outstanding performer earlier, I had understood by then that although there is a huge difference between an average, good and outstanding performer, the jump from one level to another was not difficult.
And for a higher jump, all that is required is a thought-through, well-structured approach to attract growth, rather than wait for it.
You can attain incredible results across all aspects of life- Achievements, Health and Relationships. You can have it all!
Today I am on a mission to impact 1 million people move from the role of creation to a creator.
Kapil- The Guy Who Never Fitted In
Throughout my corporate career, I was a misfit. Every single job that I worked for, across a corporate career of over two decades.
I am dramatizing it a bit but I am also 95% correct.
Why 95%? Because I once wrote down all the time in my career, when I was on top of my game. The “top of my game” added up to about 5%.
For most people, it will probably add up to 20% – and that is acceptable. “Life is not all rosy, there are thorns as well”.
Whether it is 20% or 5%, that is not important here.
What is important is that with my 5%, I achieved amazing success. With names like Microsoft and Cognizant, I was in that elite group of people who could look at statistics, compare against college friends to get a rough idea of their salary and be satisfied by being somewhat ahead.
That should have made me feel good.
Only, it didn’t. I knew everyone around me, including my dad told me that “don’t think of how many are ahead of you but think of how many you are ahead of”.
But I couldn’t.
Perhaps because, for me, a comparison with others was almost obscene. Perhaps it was because I didn’t really care.
I continued to be a misfit.
And that impacted my personal life immeasurably. I was a misfit with friends, a rebel, who had to be so because that is the only image, I could find some comfort in. Even when I ended up faking it at times.
I literally ran away from my first job because I got into a good business school in India.
So, without resigning, I just left. Even when I was there, I still remember that after six months, when the probation time came, the boss actually said, “Hey, I was considering not to confirm you, but last one month you worked very well. So, I will confirm your job”
You can probably guess, I worked hard in the last one month. because I knew that probation was coming.
And from that job to my MBA, where again, I did not fit in. I had an All India rank and got a scholarship. I was probably the only one who lost his scholarship that year because I couldn’t maintain healthy grades.
Didn’t fit in.
I went back to the workplace. For the next 2 jobs, I was relieved the day I resigned. I believe, THEY were relieved that they didn’t have to fire me!
Then I worked for a start-up, where after a 1 year of great work – probably 3-4 months of REAL good work and remaining was just riding the wave of good work, I left with a week’s notice.
I was definitely improving. From same-day relieved from the job to 1 whole week!
And then, I landed at Microsoft. It wasn’t luck – I worked hard, blew the interviewers away and got myself hired for one level higher than what they had originally planned for.
It was a dream come true; I was at the best possible place in the world!
For the first year, it was absolutely fantastic because there was a variation in what I had to do. I set up their IT operations for a BU in India and everything was phenomenal. People in Redmond, USA called me “a powerhouse, a force to reckon with, etc, etc, …”
1 year seemed like a norm and after that the work, focus, commitment, everything tanked down.
Till 2.5 years later, I got myself fired.
This was so embarrassing. If you are in India, this is like THE worst thing that can happen! Fortunately for me, the push led me to Cognizant, an excellent company, where I stayed for the next 12 years.
Once there, I discovered a pattern that 1 year is all that I could manage – I HAD to change. Fortunately, all my managers noticed it as well and kept on giving me really good stuff to do.
It was good until 2012, when it all came crashing down and I hit my second career crisis. This time, instead of firing me, the company arranged for a coach for a day. It took him hours but he changed my perspective.
I survived but I became aware that this pattern of 1 year was not about getting bored but something deeper and more sinister.
It took me 5 years to figure it out.
And when I did, the unimaginable amount of gratitude it has created inside me for all my coaches and managers, including the one who fired me. The rich experience of feeling like a failure and actually jumping in each pothole I could put my eyes on, made me realise that the only way to not jump is to take the road less taken.
This is what I did in 2017. Be it my 20 KG weight loss, or be changing people’s lives, or be it having a deep, authentic Personal Power, all the accomplishments that I am proud of have meant that I have cracked the code of turning the 5-95 to 95-5.
Remember what I shared earlier. 5% peaks and 95% lows. I have managed to turn it around for myself and I have managed to enable others to do the same.
Since 2017, the patterns that defined my life are gone. The richness of happiness, the lack of boredom, the ability to impact lives, the purposefulness and the associated financial rewards I have received have been a gift.
Touching a million people as my goal, will take a lot of time, but I know exactly where I’m going and WHY I exist.
On top of it, because I have a partner who understands it, a partner who’s IN the journey with me, a partner, who is my best mate, life is absolutely smashingly awesome!
We are rocking life together, changing lives with fulfilment and an awesomely sound sleep each night.
To get a copy of our book, here is the link:
