IAM452- Podcast Host Shares Personal and Business Growth Strategies

Rajeev Mudumba is a dynamic entrepreneur, executive, business strategist, coach, and advisor. He is also an accomplished author, speaker, and thought leader. Above all, Rajeev is a diehard optimist with a “can do” attitude.

Throughout his professional life, Rajeev has built profitable, value-based businesses, nurtured strategic partnerships and built lifelong friendships. He has worked with organizations and individuals to remedy challenges and achieve results. Rajeev has achieved stellar results in international business, startups, and new business lines, and now, is focused on helping you succeed in your profession and/ or business and get the most out of your life.

Rajeev hosts an award-winning popular podcast, Plan B Success (www.planb.live) where he shares insightful and thought-provoking personal and business growth strategies and interviews inspiring entrepreneurs and professionals. Visit www.planbsuccess.live for more information.

He also speaks and writes frequently on the topics of personal and professional growth, self-empowerment, and life & career coaching among others.
He has recently launched his book “My Inspiration: Quotes that shaped my self-improvement journey” which is available on Amazon @ https://amzn.to/2JG1DRL. Rajeev has delivered several keynote/ topical speeches at national & international conferences. He has made it his mission to extract from his experiences and share value to mentor individuals, current/ future entrepreneurs and executives, startups, scale-ups, and large corporations.

Accolades include the World Affairs Council of Kentucky and Southern Indiana's 2010 Global Visionary Award, Business First of Louisville's Forty Under 40 Award, Telehealth and Medicine Today's 2016 Publisher's Award & Indian Achievers Forum's 2017 Indian Achievers' Award for Healthcare and Education.

• CEO Hack: Consistent morning routine
• CEO Nugget: Trying something matters
• CEO Defined: Taking action

Website: http://www.planbsuccess.live/

Rajeev Mudumba's Website: www.rajeevmudumba.com
Plan B Success Podcast: Available on your favorite platform including iTunes @ https://apple.co/2JCSysL?ls=1 or www.planbsuccess.live or www.planb.live
Rajeev's Book – My Inspiration: Quotes that shaped my self-improvement journey – Available on Amazon Worldwide on your local Amazon site or @ https://amzn.to/2JG1DRL
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajeevmudumba/
Facebook Plan B Success Page: https://www.facebook.com/planbsuccess.live/
Facebook My Inspiration Book Page: https://www.facebook.com/myinspirationbook/
Instagram: @hifromraj1
Twitter: @hifromraj

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Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast and we have a very special guest on the show today, Rajeev Mudumba Plan B Success Rajeev, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Rajeev Mudumba 0:38

Hey, thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Gresham Harkless 0:40

No problem. Super excited to have you on and what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Rajeev so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Rajeev is a dynamic entrepreneur, executive business strategist, coach, and advisor. He is also an accomplished author, speaker, and thought leader. Above all, Rajeev is a die-hard optimist with a can-do attitude. Throughout his professional life, Rajeev has built profitable, value-based businesses nurtured strategic partnerships, and built lifelong friendships. He's worked with organizations and individuals to remedy challenges and achieve results. Rajeev hosts an award-winning popular podcast Plan B Success, where he shares insight, thought-provoking personal and business growth strategies, and interviews, inspiring entrepreneurs and professionals. Rajeev, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

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Rajeev Mudumba 1:21

Absolutely.

Gresham Harkless 1:22

Awesome. Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I want to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story and what led you to get started with your business.

Rajeev Mudumba 1:28

Awesome. So you know, my story goes back about 20-plus years, have a couple of master's degrees two MBAs, and a master's in personal management. I started off in the direct marketing business. I went door to door for the first year and a half of the beginning of my career. I built a business, it grew to about 12 locations. 300 Associates ended up divesting from it and got involved in technology technology was booming in the mid-90s, and helped a couple of companies start their exports division for consulting services. After that came over to the US I've been in the US for the last 19 years and came here as a student and got introduced to benefits administration benefits consulting in the health and wellness space.

Throughout the last 18 years. I've grown through the ranks and have dabbled in entrepreneurial ventures throughout my career. I think I'm at a point where I decided that, hey, after this kind of career, it's time I start giving back from what I've learned so far. And that's where the podcast and the book came from. The podcast Plan B Success is a three-episode podcast, basically, for entrepreneurs, professionals, and students. One of them is an interview. Two of them are actual original business content that I talk about. Other than that, my book that got published recently is a collection of my own thoughts in the form, of course, over the last five to six years.

I put it together in a book format, I wanted to immortalize it, and it's out there available on Amazon. It's called “My Inspiration: quotes that shaped my self-improvement journey”. I'm also getting into the coaching business, I'm starting off with my coaching program, which is called Plan B Success Blueprint. It's for people like me who have had careers and either is unhappy or either are tired or have done it for so long, and they want to do more. How do they get started and get to personal brand themselves create a market for themselves and go out and do what they are passionate about?

Gresham Harkless 3:24

Nice, I definitely appreciate that. It seems like he might just be getting started with everything but with everything. I'm just joking by saying that because you have so much experience and so much opportunity to kind of get back there. Always appreciate people who have reached a level of success and are able to kind of harness, their skills and their expertise and be able to help out so many people, whether it be in coaching the podcast or in the book that you've created.

Rajeev Mudumba 3:48

Absolutely, absolutely. It's an exciting part of the journey. I'm really excited about the things that I've been doing and have been so focused on my work for so long. It's kind of exciting digging in. It's something, you're learning about yourself through the process. I think that's the exciting part for me as well.

Gresham Harkless 4:06

Yeah, and I think that and I don't know, if you find the exact same thing, I feel like, we're always kind of evolving as well, too. So we always find that opportunity to kind of try different things, but also to learn, learn, I always say the best sign of excellence is not sometimes in doing it yourself, but also being able to teach somebody else how to do it. So I think by you doing the coaching in the podcast, and in the book, as you mentioned, as well, too, it gives that opportunity to again, kind of relearn a lot of stuff again.

Rajeev Mudumba 4:33

Absolutely. I think the exciting part for me, you know, if I talk about the podcast, it's called Plan B success. As I said, it's interviews and I interview all kinds of people. So it's pretty exciting to meet new people without really stepping out of your house for that matter, or your office wherever you're doing it and there's no excuse even right it's not I can reach out to anybody and everybody, and try to get them on my podcast and I can also interact with 20 years old, 22-year-olds, a lot of the new generation that's already. For them, it's second nature, a lot of the stuff that they're doing, for us, or for me, or for that matter, the world's had loads moved from when I was a kid. That's the exciting part for me.

So the different things, at the same time, I think I have a lot to give back in the sense that my experience is my expertise, my skill set my stories, there's so much that I can glean from all of that over the last several years in the form of a podcast or a book or speaking sessions, whatever it is. That's my way of giving back.

Gresham Harkless 5:33

Nice, I appreciate that. I think that it's always hard to kind of replicate the experience that somebody has. So I appreciate, people like you who are writing books that are creating content, so that, the younger generations can always learn more, or even actually, not even younger, as far as age, but just as far as experience, because there might be somebody that is just trying to start a business or just trying to get started. They're a little bit further along in life. Just as those are some of the people that you work with, as will, get that opportunity to learn how to tap into all that experience that you have.

Rajeev Mudumba 6:04

Absolutely. I think I see that a lot with the ones that are just starting off right out of school, or those who have just gotten into business in their 20s. For them, they haven't had that experience. Of course, it's a different different world. But they look up to that experience to learn from others' experiences so that they don't have to go through that long learning curve. I think that's really beneficial for them. So that's the difference between when you bring experience to the table, and you can talk through it and how you can help others in terms of, you know, turbocharging through their success.

Gresham Harkless 6:32

Yeah, absolutely. If you can, you know, learn from others, it helps to expedite your likelihood of being successful doesn't always guarantee success, but it helps kind of stack the deck towards that, which is what I think, you know, super successful people are able to kind of accomplish. So I appreciate you for doing that. I know you touched on, you know, everything that you're doing, so I wasn't sure if there was anything else that you do to kind of serve the clients that you work with. But I wanted to hear about that, if there was anything you didn't touch on, and then also what I call your secret sauce, and what you feel sets you apart.

Rajeev Mudumba 6:57

Sure. So, you know, I've like I said, right, my career is one thing, my entrepreneurial journey is one thing, I've had successes, I've had failures, I've dabbled into different kinds of startups and startups that I dabble into, even now. Now I'm in more of an advisor, mentor, and investor role that I play. You know, I've learned through my journey, and I think my secret sauce is the experience, the expertise, the skill set that I bring, based on my background, it's also my willingness to not just be in my comfort spot, you know, as far as where I am, from a career standpoint, and extending myself out in order to reach out and be able to provide the, the help that I can to people that seek it.

So at this point, it is just that it is and it's my book that's out there on Amazon, it's called “My Inspiration: Quotes That Shaped my Self-improvement Journey”. The way I like to call it is it's a book, where, you know, generally, you're told by your elders that whenever you're challenged, go and open up a spiritual book like a Bible. You know, you get into you open up any page, and you will hopefully try to find an answer for your challenge right there. So my inspiration is that kind of a book, it's a book of quotes, they are formed through my own experiences over the last five plus years, it's about 650 700 quotes, which is distilling my experience every single day of the last five, six years, based on whatever I've been through and distilling it into an actual quote.

So for anybody who's starting a business, or who's a professional, whatever challenges they have, they could open up the book, any page, and I'm sure any of those quotes are going to talk to them to help them with their challenges. So that's the kind of book it is, I'm also in the process of writing a couple of other books, based on my experiences, my podcast, it's purely for people who enjoy that kind of cutting-edge content. I talk about topics that people generally don't want to talk about, you know, I have to give you an example.

Do nice people make poor managers? You know, there is this thing out there saying that if you're nice, maybe you're too soft, maybe you won't make a strong manager, not true at all, you know, things like what's HR, is it a weak link in your organization, when it's supposed to be the backbone of your organization, and in a lot of organizations it is because they're solely dependent on the executive team. They are there to put the executive team's perspective and mandate in place, but they're supposed to be serving all of the employees equitably.

So that's a good one in terms of different schools of thought, you know, the kind of players that your organization needs, you can't always have all A players in an organization, if players are ambitious, they need to be seeing movement for them from time to time and you as an organization cannot have jobs or increments where you can move them so quickly, every time an ideal organization is formed with A players and B players. You may not want C players but you need B players who are loyal, who do their job well without much supervision who are really not having the same goals as A players but you need them in an organization.

So things like those are what I talk about on the podcast. And then I bring people CEOs and athletes and anybody who's got an inspiring story to tell to be able to inspire people. So those are the two things I'm doing and my coaching program, Plan B success blueprint is basically for anyone who's looking to stretch out and take that next step. So the way I like to say it is I like to see people in three different buckets, I believe people are in three different buckets.

The first bucket is, you know, you probably holding on to a job, you're not happy with it, or you're living paycheque to paycheque, or it's not your passion, or you're just doing it for the heck of doing it, but you want to get out of it, you're desperate to get out of it but you don't know where to start, you're probably confused, you don't know what kind of skill sets what kind of expertise you have, but you want to get started. So, these are the kinds of people who need a reintroduction to their own confident selves.

These are the kinds of people that need to be reintroduced to look deeper within themselves, then the second set of people are the ones who are a little more confident, but they don't know what kind of skill sets they have and where they can shine. So this is where they need to be introduced to their expertise, their skill set, what they're good at, and what they can help contribute to the world at the same time monetize. Then the third set of people know exactly what they want to do. They just don't know how to go about it. For them, it's a blueprint of what kind of avenues are out there. How do they leverage technology in order to spread their message? How do they build it up? What do they need to do?

So those are the three different buckets and my coaching program, when we success blueprint talks to all these three different groups in a step-by-step manner, takes them through a series of hands-on exercises in order to make them realize their own potential and actually succeed by extracting it and using it.

Gresham Harkless 11:27

Nice, so I definitely appreciate that I think success is always the ultimate goal. So whether you're advertising or you're looking for that specific success in your career, I think you want to be able to have that blueprint, so to speak, to be able to make sure that that happens. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an apple book or have that you have but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Rajeev Mudumba 11:47

I think what makes me more efficient, and effective is my morning routine, you know, as a person. As a business person tool or a professional, you have challenges every single day, you have different kinds of challenges, you can be in this, but you cannot be in the same frame of mind at all points in time, although you know that you have to go in the direction of being positive, and you gotta keep chugging along. So one of the things that I do is, I try to keep my morning routine, consistent, and no matter what's happening, and what mode or how I'm doing, I make sure I follow through with it, which is basically you know, when you get up don't spend, don't spend any time trying to get on your devices immediately, you know, have some Me time.

Gresham Harkless 12:26

Appreciate those CEO hacks. And now I want to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. You might have already touched on this. But this is like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. Or if you can happen to a time machine. What would you tell your younger business self?

Rajeev Mudumba 12:36

So I've actually written a blog article on this, which is what would I tell my 22-year-old self. I wouldn't change a thing if I had looked back at my life. If I were to tell myself that I could have done this differently and that differently. I don't think I would change the thing. You know, I think one of the most important things that any person, you know whether you're in business, or whatever you're doing is you have to make it a point in your life that you never have any regrets. You know, if you want to do something, at least you got to try it out. Whether it's success or failure doesn't matter. The trial does matter.

Gresham Harkless 13:08

I appreciate that nugget. Now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is a definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Rajeev, what does being CEO mean to you?

Rajeev Mudumba 13:18

I think what being a CEO means to me is taking action. You know, you can plan all day long, you can tweak your plans all day long, but the most important thing is taking action. Don't wait till things are perfect. Don't keep on pruning and crafting till things are perfect before you execute. Because until you execute, the ball is not going to move. So it's important to take action, if you have an idea, if you have a thought, make it a point that you have a timeline to take action, irrespective of what shape or form it is in. because once you have taken action, there's no going back on it. The only way you want to work on it is to improve it and it will improve as you move forward. So I think for me being CEO is taking action.

Gresham Harkless 13:57

Absolutely, absolutely. There are so many people that are that have ideas and are thinking about doing things but they never take action. So I definitely agree with you that that separates the CEO and entrepreneur and business owner somebody who goes after it and gets it done and rolls up their sleeves to try to make those things happen. So I appreciate that reminder and that definition as well. Rajeev, I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do is pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and listeners know. Then of course, how best they can get a hold of you. Subscribe to the podcast and find out about all the awesome things we're working on.

Rajeev Mudumba 14:26

Sure. I think one of the other things that I do want to leave with the listeners is that at any given opportunity, no matter how big or small, if you have an opportunity to help somebody do absolutely help people. You know, there's also this saying out there that it's, you know, especially CEOs and senior executives that it's lonely at the top. It doesn't have to be lonely, you did not make it out or you did not make it up there on your own. There's a lot of help you get on the way through your subordinates or other people that you work with. Make sure you give a hand and pull people up and take them along with you on the ride I think that's important. Not a lot of people do that. But I think that's absolutely important.

My podcast Plan B Success podcast is available on all the different platforms out there, all the major platforms, you will any of them, it's available. It's also available on Plan B.live or Plan Bsuccess.live. Anybody can go there and subscribe. And it's fresh content three times a week, every single week. I think I made about 39 episodes at this point. And it's interesting content, and I'm bringing a cross-section of people from across the globe. I've got people all the way from the east, west, north, and south as well. In my book, it's “My Inspiration: quotes that shaped my self-improvement journey”. It's available on Amazon and Audible. There's an audio version available on Article there's a printed version, as well as an E-copy available on Amazon. And my own personal website is RajeevMudumba.com. All of my information, it's the main house for everything that I do. My coaching program is going to be available on it on the 15th of this month.

Gresham Harkless 16:07

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Rajiv, what we'll do is we'll have those links and that information in the show notes but thank you so much, again, for that reminder to make sure that we go out and just do it and just create stuff and don't stay on the sidelines. So I appreciate that. Appreciate your time and even more, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Outro 16:23

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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