The story of Ravi Venkatesan - Ex-Microsoft Chairman Ravi

Ex-Microsoft  chairman talks about the things that are in my mind :-)
It's a good read for anyone contemplating a new career or a break.

1) Crossing the Mid-Career Chasm

2) Breaking the Shackles of Success

3) Fear of Being a Nobody 
4) Dealing with the demons of conditioned habits
5) How the darkest thoughts are the strongest clues for our personal growth



 Helen, 45, is a mid-level employee in a large American company. She hates the stifling bureaucracy, the long hours, the politics, stress, her uninspiring boss. Helen would like to leave but doesn't know what else to do. She fears all others are jobs just like this. She has monthly payments to make and needs the salary. But she wants to have more time for her kids and for her own hobbies. Helen knows she should be grateful to have a stable and reasonably wellpaying job. However, given half a chance, she would love do something else. But what?

Steve, who is 65 and retired five years ago after a successful career as an executive. Living life intensely till the end, Steve failed to anticipate the changes that would come after retirement. At one point, he was working 70 hours a week, solving problems and enjoying the adulation of people. Then there were no calls, no email, no visitors. Having given no thought to what he wanted to do next, having no responsibilities, no significant hobbies and having lost the capacity to have fun, Steve fell into a deep depression and is a shadow of his charismatic self. A pity really because he is an extraordinary mentor and developer of talent and so many people would have given anything to be coached by Steve.

These archetypal stories indicate an increasingly common predicament around the world. Lots of talented people don't have jobs, or are underemployed. Many more are very frustrated in their jobs but stuck due to their fears and confusion, 'living lives of quiet desperation', as Thoreau said. More and more people are living longer and are productive into their 70s but employers prefer younger, hungrier employees who cost less.

Retiring early, even if it is financially feasible, results in boredom, frustration, depression and rapid aging. This is truly an equal-opportunity problem that is relevant not just to CEOs and successful people but every middle-aged, educated professional in every country. Some people, unfortunately, are truly limited in their options-financial compulsions, lack of relevant skills or turbulence on the personal front may require them to find or simply hold down as steady a job as possible no matter how meaningless it may feel for the moment.

However, for many professionals, it IS indeed possible to develop a much more fulfilling professional and personal life. For this, they must be willing to take risks and shift from thinking about finding (or staying in) a traditional, full-time job to building a new 'portfolio life' where they are productive, happy and self-reliant. The key is to drive this shift proactively before being forced to do so by adverse circumstances. How do I speak with such conviction?

From personal experience. Two years back, I turned 48 and decided to walk away from a coveted job as the Chairman of Microsoft India to reinvent myself and my life. Heading Microsoft in a dynamic market like India was about as terrific a job as any ambitious leader would ever want. It offered intellectual stimulation, compensation, respect, access to networks and a lot of satisfaction. But by 2010, the intensity of the job was getting to me; I was weary, restless and no longer thrilled by the challenges of my work. I had achieved my goal of building Microsoft India to a $1 billion business and making it amongst the most respected companies in India.

My work no longer felt like a mission - it felt like a job. Steve Jobs' advice resonated deeply: "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life." If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today? And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. I had answered 'No' for too many days; I knew I had to reinvent myself once again as I had done every decade or so. But deciding I needed to do something different, was easy; deciding WHAT to do was much harder.

As I agonized over my choices, the reason why people stay trapped in jobs they no longer enjoy or why CEOs and others in positions of power cling on so desperately to their roles long after their expiry date, became very clear. The answer is simple. Confusion and Fear.

Confusion because very few people are so lucky as to know exactly what they want to do; most of us have only vague notions, half-baked ideas and fantasies about what we want to do with our lives. And fear because leaving a familiar situation, even if it is not pleasant, has risks.

The combination of confusion and fear drains us of the conviction that is necessary to overcome fears and boldly strike out in a new direction. Fears hold us back while passion and conviction propels us forward. So unless one's passion for an idea is able to overcome whatever fears we have, the result is paralysis and inaction.

The task, therefore, is to develop clarity of direction and confront the fears that hold us back. It was no different with me. I had so many ideas that interested me. An entrepreneurial venture. Join the government. Private Equity. Director of a business school. Why not simply take a year off and travel around India and the world? But while they all felt interesting or plausible, I didn't have real conviction around any of them.

All kinds of fears also bubbled up. Who am I if I am not the CEO of a big company? Will people still care or simply melt away? Will I become bored quickly? Have I saved enough money to not care about earning money? What if I want to get back to a job-will the door still be open or is this a one-way street? Am I 'retiring' too early?

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At this time a friend gave me a copy of Joseph Campbell's book " The Hero with a Thousand Faces" and it seemed to speak to me. It turns out that in every culture, the hero's journey follows a predictable pattern.

The hero becomes dissatisfied with his lot in life and receives a call to plunge into the unknown. The hero who accepts the challenge faces many trials and tribulations.

At the most precarious moment, help arrives from unexpected quarters. If the hero survives, he often obtains a great gift or "boon." The hero must then return to the ordinary world with this boon but faces challenges on the return journey also.

But he eventually returns triumphant. Every person is the hero of his or her own life so I gathered the courage to set out on my big journey. Turning down several similar CEO jobs, I simply decided to make a leap of faith and leave Microsoft without a clear idea of what I really wanted to do.

Campbell was right. My journey over the past two years has been thrilling. There are indeed incredible challenges with the biggest ones being those in the mind. There are unpredictable twists and turns.

People appear magically in moments of need. But ultimately, if you persevere, you do get to a happier place. Although I am still on the journey, I have made considerable progress towards creating a new, more fulfilling life.

I have always enjoyed writing and have completed my first book titled Conquering the Chaos which shows global companies how to succeed in India and other emerging markets. I joined the Boards of three very interesting companies, one in Europe, one in the US and one in India; these provide some of the intellectual engagement that I need.

I spend a day a week advising a friend who runs a well-known family business and also work with a couple of startups; these too provide intellectual engagement and a lot of satisfaction. Along with some others, I helped start a venture-philanthropy driven organization called Social Venture Partners India that is growing rapidly. (see www.about.me/rvenk)

I finally have the time to do things I enjoy,read books, listen to music, visit interesting places, and interact with lots of people. If there is one thing that I am convinced of, it is that many more people could have so much more- more excitement, more impact, more complete lives- if only they would be willing to confront their fears and experiment.

In the rest of this article, I will reflect on my experiments and learning with the hope that some of it might resonate and be helpful to you.

STORIES AND EXPERIMENTS

Fear and confusion. As I said, these are the twin enemies that must be overcome to build a new life and a new career. I discovered that fears arise from "stories" -powerful, hidden subprograms that are in the subconscious mind and end up defining how we think of ourselves and what we allow ourselves to do in life. We are usually unaware of the stories in our lives.

For instance, I found I had all kinds of nonsensical stories about what success means. Stoked by media and the company around me, I had gradually come to define success as being the CEO of a large and important company, frequently in the media, seen at places like Davos and with a net worth of millions. Conversely failure meant being obscure and "irrelevant".

So deep was this 'story' that I was terrified of walking away from Microsoft. We each have different stories and limiting beliefs ("I can't possibly be an entrepreneur", "Who in their right mind would pay for my advice?", "I really don't have any marketable skills") that define how we see ourselves and what we allow us to do. This is what prevents us from being our fullest selves and from living a much more happy and rewarding life. We have to go deep within ourselves and uncover these stories and beliefs and gradually reprogram ourselves.

If fears arise from stories, confusion seems to stem from lack of information. We simply lack information about what we might be really good at, what opportunities might exist out there, what things might give a sense of purpose and versus other things might merely be enjoyable.

I might think that what I would really like to do is head a large philanthropic Foundation. But would such a Foundation really be interested in me? What does the work really involve and would I enjoy most aspects of it or is it just some fantasy I have that would quickly become irksome if I were to somehow land in such a role? I discovered that there is really only one reliable way to answer these questions and that is by going beyond one's comfort zone and conducting many experiments.

Experiments that reveal more information about the world and about yourself, experiments that validate or refute assumptions one has about the world and self. The reason why there is no reliable alternative to experimentation is because if your mind is anything like mine, it is creative, cunning, fickle and unreliable.

(Mahatma Gandhi came to a similar conclusion a long time ago; read his extraordinary autobiography " My Experiments with Truth" in which he describes the disciplined manner in which he conducted and reflected on experiments his entire life) Take a question like "What is really important to me?" My mind can make up lots of textbook answers for all these questions but which aren't authentic - they don't really reflect who I am.

For instance, I can say "I want to be healthy and really fit"... but the truth is different; this is not really a priority. While I intellectually understand the importance of good health, the reality is that I want to do the barest minimum to avoid serious ailments and pains.

Being able to run a half marathon again, wear my suits from 5 years ago and so on aren't really that important. This is why simply thinking about these questions, meditating, or even talking to others is unlikely to provide real breakthroughs.

You have to try many things and see what fits and what doesn't. Building a new professional life is a lot like starting a new business as an entrepreneur. In fact, you are becoming an entrepreneur except that your new venture is not a new business but in fact a new life. There are many questions and many uncertainties. For instance, will you enjoy teaching? Will you be any good as a writer? Can you get paid for your consulting service? It's extremely hard to think your way to success.

You need to experientially navigate and feel your way forward and that means trying many different things and learning from these experiences. You need to systematically conduct "experiments" that will reveal both your true self and the real opportunities around you?

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Having worked hard for nearly 25 years, I had learned to take work for granted and it was only some months after stepping away that I realized that work provides much more than just income. Intense work is like an addiction to a videogame. It absorbs the mind completely. When you then take away the work, there is a period of de-addiction. It is tough because for the first time there is space to see oneself.
All kinds of thoughts and feelings that were suppressed come welling up and not all of them are pleasant. The idle mind is indeed the devil's workshop. I realized that work is profoundly important and provides us at least six things. Work provides money.

Without a job, how will I provide for myself and others who depend on me? Work is identity. How do I introduce myself to strangers? Who am I if I am not part of an organization? Work provides purpose. Simply going to a familiar place everyday, being responsible for some things and doing these as best as you can be meaningful.
If you take this away, what is your life about? Work provides an instant community of colleagues and friends. No man is an island. We need to be part of a community and the workplace often provides a nice one. Work provides challenges that stimulate learning and allows us to develop personally.
Finally, work is often fun. So when you step out of a structured job you lose not just your income but you risk losing a big chunk of all these things. You then have to then quickly find ways of feeding all these six needs. Good experiments are those that yield clues if not answers to each of these needs as I will now describe.
Identity- who am I? This is not a problem that dogs everyone but is a big issue for me. One of my big fears from childhood was being 'a nobody'. A huge part of my drive for achievement came from a need for affirmation — the need to be somebody. So being the CEO of Microsoft India felt very good. But who am I if I am not a CEO? Will people care? Will people who matter care? I realized soon that I didn't want to be seen simply by my last title — as the "former Chairman of Microsoft India".
For a while I thought being a member of important Boards might help. It did. Being introduced as a "Director of Big Company X" is no shame. But I slowly realized that that's not who I really am. Through trial and error, I found I am not an entrepreneur either. But as I wrote my book, as I gave talks in various places, I came to realize that my primary identity is that of a thinker. Ideas interest me. I am at heart a thinker, teacher, writer. This is the mantle that felt authentic. Fortunately with my book I have some credibility especially when it comes to globalization. I began to see my Board memberships as a component of this identity which I would have to reinforce continuously through writing, blogging, speaking and teaching.
Notice that I didn't arrive at this through a leap of the mind. I arrived at it through experimentation, trying different things on and seeing what fits. What is your identity? Who are you if you aren't identified by your organization? What experiments can help you discover this? How do you know if it is authentic or just another mask to fool the world? Financial security — how much is enough? Some people have no problem with money. They are fortunate to not care beyond a point. Others are equally fortunate — they have unbounded need to accumulate and flaunt wealth. They too are not tormented, since they simply go after wealth unabashedly.

The tough part is being caught in the middle which is the reality for most of us. There are the real compulsion of monthly installments for the house and car, paying for children's education. Then there is insecurity fuelled by inflation, by seeing other people's savings decimated by the financial crisis, families ruined by healthcare costs. Money is also a proxy for success — a story reinforced daily by media. So you are not successful unless you have XYZ. All this can create a really tortured attitude towards wealth. The fundamental question that each of us has to answer is "How much is enough?" This is really hard.
How do you separate your real wants from your greed? I personally found three things to be helpful in getting to a more comfortable place in my head around wealth. The first is some basic planning; I had survived for decades without doing any financial planning. As long as my income each month exceeded my expenses and I had money to buy the things I wanted including a home and the occasional toy, I never bothered sitting with a spreadsheet and modeling my financial needs over a lifetime. I am hardly unique; it's amazing how few people actually bother doing this. But not only is it important, it can also be very comforting.

Once you think about what lifestyle you want to have, you put in assumptions about inflation, about realistic yields and arrive at a plausible range of numbers for the income you need and the nest egg you need to create. A sense of security may then be closer than you imagined. The second thing that really helped me was reducing the complexity and clutter in my life. One day, the amount of 'stuff" we had in the house really got to me. The clothes I would never again fit into, books I would never read, computers of various vintages.
Clearing out my parents' home after they both passed away was particularly poignant; what did a lifetime of buying and hoarding really get anyone? I realized that my parents at least had my sister and I to leave things to. Without children, who would we leave all this to? Why then am I continuing to buy stuff I don't really need? If I don't buy new things, how much money do we really need? Surprisingly little it turns out.

Suddenly the perniciousness of our consumerist society dawned on me. Not only does it put us on a treadmill of consumption and therefore makes us cling to jobs we don't like, it is choking the planet and destroying our environment. I became obsessed with simplifying my life, selling and giving things away.
The more I gave, the easier it became to give more away. I instituted a simple discipline - for everything that came into the house, we needed to give two things away. The practice of simplifying really is very powerful in reducing acquisitiveness and hankering for more.
The third idea came from a simple book by Tim Ferris that made an impression me. He makes the argument that quite often our basic financial needs can be met by simply working for four hours a week. That frees up enormous amounts of time to do what we really want — and not knowing what to do with this time is often the real problem rather than lack of money. I found this idea intriguing and decided to explore it.
To my surprise, I discovered I too could meet all my current financial needs by working just a few days /month. Now I don't mean to imply that every person can get away by literally working four hours a week. The real message is: don't make money the reason for not doing what you really love. If you manage your needs reasonably, many professionals ought to be able to create the space to explore. For the first time in decades, I began to feel lighter and free.

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In his remarkable book, Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl points out that search for meaning is the fundamental drive of every human being even in the most dire and unimaginably bad circumstances. The principal regret of a dying person is never that he or she didn't work hard enough. It often has to do with having lived a life that didn't matter. As I neared 50, I became more aware of my mortality and the fragility of life. My need to feel like my life had made a difference, became more urgent.

My book project, the company directorships, my consulting were all intellectually stimulating and served other needs but I was under no illusions about how any of this was contributing to improving lives. I experimented with the idea of starting a good private university and a leadership academy for future CEOs but was discouraged by the challenges and somewhere into these experiments, realized that my heart really wasn't in it. I got involved with a foundation that does really remarkable work and funded a rural clinic and a home for destitute old people. This felt good but didn't quite fill the void I felt.

However, a chance conversation with a friend and former colleague from Microsoft in Seattle opened a potential pathway to purpose. Will Poole was active with a US based organization called Social Venture partners; this organization essentially enabled successful people in a city like Seattle to come together, pool some of their philanthropic giving and their time and talent and direct it to worthy non-profits and social enterprises using a disciplined process. It appealed to me because I see more and more people in India hitting middle age, realizing they are quite successful and now wanting to 'give back to society' but with no idea of how to go about this. So we started SVP India and are trying to build it into a platform for any person with a desire to contribute to plug in and make of it as much as they want to. SVP India has over 60 partners in Bangalore and is now scaling to several other cities. What began as a simple process of giving grants is rapidly expanding to other areas, such as creating an incubator for social enterprises, taking on local issues, such as waste and garbage disposal, and who know what else. How far can we take this over the next 5-10 years? Can we grow 100 new social enterprises? Can we help create 100,000 new jobs at the bottom of the pyramid? Who knows? My quest for purpose continues but the challenge of building this organization into one that allows hundreds of successful professionals across India express their desire to contribute to society feels pretty good.

My point again is the same-experiment till you find something that fits you.

Communities — where do I belong?

'No Man is an Island', the poet John Donne said. When we walk away from a job, an organization, we leave behind a ready-made community of colleagues and friends with whom we spent the largest number of our waking hours. How do you replace this? One thing you quickly realize when you step instance, Social Venture Partners or my colleagues at Infosys. Also, people in our own neighbourhood-not just neighbours, but also the fruit and flower sellers and regular walkers in the park nearby. These communities were available to me earlier as well but I was too much in a rush-and so my engagement was efficient and transactional. Now the engagement was slower and more meaningful.

Re-learn how to have Fun

Fun? What is fun beyond work? One of the things I realized after 25 years of running very hard on the job is that while I had lots of fun at work, I had forgotten how to have fun. Internet, email and phones were 24x7, work flowed into everything and overwhelmed many weekends. Vacations were short. Somewhere, I also started feeling guilty when I wasn't 'productive'. These were deeply conditioned habits. Even a year after leaving Microsoft, I would often feel terribly guilty about reading a book in the middle of the day or taking a nap one afternoon or simply having a long coffee with a friend. My mind said these are things retired people do and at 50, you are too young to retire and so stop these dissolute behaviours and get back to work.

So I started by making lists. What would I regret not doing if I ran out of time to live? Well, travelling around India and seeing more of the world is high on that list. So I made a list of places to visit, either with my wife or with friends or if need be, by myself. For instance, I accepted an invitation from my friend, Steve, to fly in his small plane from Santa Fe to Canada over 3 weeks, stopping at six magnificent national parks along the way; it was terrifying given my fear of small planes but also exhilarating. I spent a delightful month in Bellagio, Italy, writing my book at the Rockefeller Center there.

One question to ask is, "what did I really enjoy when I was young that I gave up along the way?" For me, that was music. I was a good musician and had built up a huge collection I had always said I would listen to someday. Well, the time was now. I rediscovered music. I rediscovered my library of books, which again I had bought over time and said I would read someday. What better day than today? The idea is simple-experiment doing things that you like, the hobbies you once enjoyed, the things that you forever have postponed doing. Start living again!

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When we stop learning, we start dying. One of the good things about "work" is that everyday, we learn new things and over time we develop new skills. Overcoming tough situations and challenges at work also strengthens us. In Stephen Covey's terms, we sharpen saw everyday even if inadvertently. One of my big worries as I stepped out is whether I would gradually become stale and obsolete especially given the declining half -life of all knowledge. It is a genuine concern but I realized that stepping away from a job is also a terrific opportunity to become a student all over again. For some people, staying abreast of developments in business, in technology, current affairs might be a big challenge; given my natural thirst for ideas and knowledge, it wasn't. Instead, for me the big challenge was to rewire my mind so I would grow as a person. 

The reduced intensity of work, the much more measured tempo of my life enabled all kinds of emotions and thoughts to come welling up. Many of them were dark and not pleasant. However, my friend Tim Butler at Harvard advised me to not suppress these but rather treat them as friends and "sit with them". These thoughts are good friends and provide the strongest clues for your personal growth he told me. It isn't easy but I followed Tim's advice and I began to see ever more clearly how the biggest challenges to happiness and fulfillment are usually internal. For example, I saw my professional drive to climb yet another, bigger mountain simply the result of not internalizing my success and needed external affirmation. This helped me resist the temptation to accept the biggest CEO job that came along. Sitting besides a babbling brook in my friends ranch in Montana on a spectacular evening with a glass of superb wine without any worldly problems I should have been joyous…but I wasn't. I was vaguely worried and distracted. Observing myself and reflecting on this made me realize how I have to learn to be present and live in the moment rather than in the past and the future. I have to learn to worry less and live more. Learn to be optimistic. I have to learn to internalize all my success and blessings and enjoy them more. In the words of one guru, I needed "Inner Reengineering" and growth on this dimension has become a priority. I wish I could say I was making  great progress or that I had found some incredible solutions but alas all I can say is that I have greater awareness and am hopeful this is the first step towards change.

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER
Over a period of a year or two or three, reflecting on these experiments and one's own feelings and reactions inevitably results in much greater self knowledge. It is impossible to not come away with a clearer sense of who you are, what direction your calling lies, what you are good at. Such experimentation will  likely reveal your real nature- for instance are you a builder, a teacher, an organizer. It also reveals who your real friends are and  what really matters to you- your anchor commitments going forward. At this point the future looks clearer. Some  people may realize that what they are doing is exactly right for them and therefore stay put but approach the old job with a fresh perspective and renewed energy. Others may opt for a job but in another industry or field. Some will be inspired to start something while yet others like me may decide that they are happiest doing multiple things rather than just one and build a 'portfolio life". What one inevitably realizes that there is no recipe or right answer; there is only what works for you and that it is critical to develop an internal definition of success rather than being defined by what society, family or friends may define as success. What one also realizes is that this is a journey and  that the answers will evolve as do you. And that what matters most are rich experiences that expand one's perspective
and result in inner growth.

CROSSING THE CHASM

Many friends who kindly read drafts of this article agreed with a lot of my points and found the approach both appealing and helpful. However almost no one has made any proactive moves as a result of reading this. Somehow this idea of walking away from something familiar into the unknown feels way too risky to most people. Without a crisis to propel them, few people are willing to spontaneously undertake the 'hero's journey". There is no guarantee that the journey is going to be pleasant; on the contrary there is every assurance that the journey will be exciting but often uncomfortable if not extremely difficult because you are stepping way out of your comfort zone. There is no assurance of success either- in mythology heroes sometimes fail to return alive. As a result, it often takes a real crisis or an extremely attractive and safe alternative to get most of us to move.  But without making the journey, there is no hope of finding that better
state except by serendipity.

Many readers were honest and said "this is fine for you to say Ravi; you have made decent money. You have no children. You have already achieved your ambitions in the corporate world. You can afford to experiment. I have real financial constraints, I don't have the same opportunities and I can't the same risks. "

This argument misses the point. The perception of risk is often unrelated to one's reality. Very successful people can often be more risk averse than the average professional because they feel they have more to lose. In any case, the idea is not to put your life at risk ; rather it is to manage the risks through careful experiments.

For instance, it may be possible to do some of these experiments while still in your current job; it is entirely possible for instance to try your hand at teaching or volunteering on weekends or advising a startup or doing a part-time MBA. If your job allows this, this is obviously the best route. It may be possible to request a sabbatical or leave of absence of some months during which you undertake  experiments. If this is not possible and you must take the risk of leaving shore for deeper waters, you may be able to don a lifejacket.

This is what I did. I built a solid core that reduced my risks and yet left space for experimentation. These included three Board memberships, a consulting arrangement and a contract to write my book. These commitments took less than half my time but provided financial stability, identity, community and gave me a safe way to experiment. I had planned well and I was also lucky. Many others are not. I have seen people work so intensely that they have no clue what they are interested in or good at, no real network, no personal brand and one fine day they retire or lose their job and now they are thrust into deep waters without that lifejacket. Experimentation then feels far more risky especially when the financial situation is precarious.

Being proactive is critical. Crossing the chasm is also much easier if you have a supportive spouse and family who will encourage and support your journey instead of being critical. Good friends and mentors are also invaluable. But the good news is that there are people and resources out there who are willing to help -one has to simply be open minded.

The final thing that I think is incredibly important in crossing the chasm is a reasonably disciplined daily and weekly routine that keeps you grounded even as you experiment. A job provides a certain scaffolding that many of us need because we may not have great internal discipline. When you remove the scaffolding, there is a risk of lassitude or drift. So I find it very important to have a routine of exercise, going out every day to an office or business center, of meeting others and so on. These are important guardrails to put in place.

CONCLUSION
The Dalai lama is said to have remarked that the biggest tragedy of human existence is that most people live as though they will never die and they die as though they have never lived. It's also interesting to see the top regrets of dying people.

Here’s a list that The Guardian published:

Top 5 regrets of dying people

Had the courage to live a life true to myself

Hadn't worked so hard

Had the courage to express my feelings

Stayed in touch with friends

Let myself be happier

As I talk to aging people, very few talk about the risks they took that didn't work out. Most of them talk instead about the risks they didn't
take.

Your time on earth is limited. Isn't it time to reclaim your life and start living? Isn't it time to embark on your heroic journey?