IAM1870 – Coach Helps Leaders in Making Sustainable Changes in their Thinking, Behaviors and Actions

In this episode of the IAMCEO Podcast, the speaker is Payal Nanjiani, a globally acclaimed leadership expert, executive coach, and author. Lauded by the TIMES Group as the most influential leadership speaker and executive coach, Payal is on a mission to humanize leadership through her distinct concept of ‘Success Within Leadership,' focusing on helping leaders make sustainable changes in their thinking, behaviors, and actions.

With over two decades of experience, she has assisted leaders in achieving massive breakthroughs, propelling them and their organizations to extraordinary levels of success. Her journey began when she started working in corporate America and noticed that about 75%-80% of employees were stuck in mid-level roles despite working exceptionally hard, with only about 15% reaching the top. This prompted her to seek answers and led to the birth of the idea of Success Within Leadership.

Payal offers coaching to clients ready to elevate their current position and willing to make necessary changes. Her unique factor, or ‘Secret Sauce,' lies in her deep passion for serving people and transforming their thinking and behavior.

Transcription:

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Payal Nanjiani 00:00

Please take care of yourself physically, emotionally, financially, spiritually. You can only play your role and win the game if you feel stable, nourished in all dimensions of your life, and if not in all, at least in the majority part of your life.

Intro 00:18

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 Harkness values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is the IAMCEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:45

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresham from the IAMCEO podcast, and I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you've been listening this year, you know that we hit 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year. We're doing something a little bit different where we're repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories, topics, or as I like to call them, business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners, or what I like to call the CB nation, architects who are looking to level up their organizations.

This month we are focused on leadership management and coaching. When we think of leadership, management and coaching, we often think of doing all of the other things, but often it's a person that's able to build up their team, that's able to cultivate a creative and innovative culture so that people can excel and actually be their own leaders. So that's why this month we're focusing on those three big topics because they make a huge impact on the organizations that we're part of.

Now you'll hear some of those topics this month, and of course, some really great perspectives on how people are even defining leadership, which I think is extremely exciting. So sit back and enjoy this special episode of the IAMCEO podcast.

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the IAMCEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Payal Nanjiani of PayalNanjiani.com. Payal, it's great to have you on the show.

Payal Nanjiani 02:04

Thank you so much, Gresham. It's a pleasure and an honor to be here with you.

Gresham Harkless 02:10

Yes, it's a pleasure. It's definitely all ours. I love all the awesome things that you're working on, so before we jumped into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Payal so you can hear about some of those awesome things.

Recognized by the Times Group as the most influential leadership speaker and executive coach, Payal is an Indian American globally acclaimed leadership expert, executive coach and an author. With the mission to humanize leadership, Payal has popularized the concept of success within leadership with the primary focus on leaders making sustainable changes in their thinking, behaviors and their actions.

She has been over two decades helping leaders to achieve a massive leadership breakthrough, get to the next level and achieve extraordinary levels of success for themselves and their organizations. For almost 21 years, has been a highly sought after leadership speaker for organizations and conferences that have chosen Payal for their most important events and her talks and training and help people to achieve a leadership breakthrough like never before.

She is a New York award-winning author. Payal's books help you to be a peak performer and reach your next level in her new book, When the Leadership Game Every Time is going to be something where we're going to touch on a little bit today.

Payal, excited again to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the IAMCEO community?

Payal Nanjiani 03:23

Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here.

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Gresham Harkless 03:25

Yes. let's jump in then. So to kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

Payal Nanjiani 03:32

Oh, okay. That's an interesting question. So let me just give you a little bit of my backstory. So I come from a very loving family where education has been given the prime importance. And so after completing my undergraduation, in fact, after completing my undergraduation, I went into the B school. I did that not because I had a passion for studying more or something, but purely because I was just seduced by the way this culture and the society placed MBAs and made the life very easier.

And so later on, when I entered the workforce in corporate America, what I saw around me just blew my mind off. There were people working hard around the clock, putting in the efforts and billions of dollars were being spent in corporate America on training and development. Yet we were seeing majority of the people, like the 75% of the people in the organization, working hard, but not getting there. They were not achieving what they want to achieve, and they were not leaving a life of significance or a fulfilled career life.

So I think that became a big question in my life that why do we have only 15% of the people in any organization reach to the top, whereas we have 75% to 80% of them stuck in the mid-level. I think that that became a huge difference in my life because I wanted to make that change. I wanted to get into the core of it. And that's when I began the research. I began to see what's missing. That's where success within leadership was born from. It encouraged me to leave corporate America, get into doing what I'm doing and coaching and speaking with people. Making them realize why the gap exists between where they are and where they want to go. So that's where it all started from.

Gresham Harkless 05:29

Nice. I truly appreciate you sharing your story and it sounds like you've been able to dedicate a lot of your gifts, your abilities, your talents to being able to help not just, I think, let people know about it, but probably help them execute as far as being able to fill in that gap.

Payal Nanjiani 05:44

Yes, absolutely. And I think like I said, the gap always exists. There will never be a time in your life where the gap will not exist. Today, whatever you have, you will always want to get to the next level. I think that's what we are all created for. That's what we human beings are created for.

The more you are able to know how to fill those gaps in your career life, the easier it becomes for you to move ahead and to lead that fulfilled life. Otherwise, it's going to be a life where you go 9 to 5 paycheck, or you're doing your business, but, it's not giving you the results that you want.

So, I always believe that each of us here in our career life, whether you're doing a business or you're working in a corporate. We are really not here to survive. We are here to thrive. We are here to succeed. I believe that we are all born for success. So yeah, what you said is correct. We just move on to fill that gap.

Gresham Harkless 06:37

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I know you touched on a little bit on how you work with clients. I wanted to drill down more, hear a little bit more about that. And of course, want to hear more about your newest book and what you're talking about there.

Payal Nanjiani 06:47

So how I work with my clients. Okay. I think that's that's a very simple thing for me to do is because to me, the clients that come to me Gresham, they do not come to me for any motivation. I expect that they are already motivated enough to give their best and to take themselves to the next level. So once they know that this is where they want to reach, they would, either they have heard about me from somewhere or whatever. What we do is wherever you are, we take you up from there. The idea is not to tell you what I know. The idea is for me to know what you know and where you want to reach.

So that gap that is filled in their life is based on three things. One is they should be coming to me so that they can leave themselves better. Second, they are willing to change their behaviors so that they can adapt more quickly to the changes in the business environment that's happening around. And number three, they really want to change their thinking. They want to upgrade their thinking and they want to make sure that they can think in terms of not just the environment, which is outside in business terms, or, in terms of ranking in money or something, but more in how do I change my thinking so that I can lead the company and grow the company?

So, these three aspects are what they would be looking for when they want to come for coaching. They don't want inspiration. They don't want motivation. I'm not here to motivate anybody. I'm not a very great motivational speaker either. But if you're looking for results, if you're looking for taking yourself ahead, because here's my big belief, this being a CEO show, I think everyone who is either in the corporate or is leading their own business, we need to hear this out, that businesses don't die. It's we, as a leader who die from within. Because businesses never slow down. It's we as a leader who slows down.

So we need to be very clear on this aspect that when they are reaching out to me or when they are taking coaching from anyone for that matter, we are ready to change ourselves. That is the core of every coaching session that you must take. It's a very simple message in the book that winning does not discriminate between genders or color. Okay, so winning is for everyone. It's for you. It's for me. It's for every person in the workplace and people in the business and corporate world have somehow forgotten that they are here to win.

Gresham Harkless 09:21

Awesome. So what would you consider to be what I like to call your secret sauce? This could be for yourself, the business or a combination of both, but what do you feel sets you apart and makes you unique?

Payal Nanjiani 09:30

What sets me apart is basically just my passion for serving people. I think that's where I see myself. I have dedicated my life. It's been 21 years now doing what I'm doing, but I've really dedicated my life to help more and more people become successful in their work life. And to really become world-class leaders without really stressing too much about it and taking a different route, not the same route of trainings and getting into the same game like everyone else. So that's what I think sets me apart.

What sets my business apart, I think in a very simple one-liner, I would say that, today in the business world, we have plenty of trainings, but we don't have anything that transforms people because transformation is what leads to real results in the corporate and business world. So my work is to transform people, transform their thinking, transform their behaviors that can lead to a huge change in their results and their actions. That's what I think puts me apart.

Gresham Harkless 10:32

Absolutely appreciate that. I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. You might have already touched on these, but it could be an app, a book, or even a habit that you have, but something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Payal Nanjiani 10:46

Reading. I love to read. So I think every day I dedicate more than 50 percent of my time purely in reading, and people absolutely do not believe that because they know my schedule is very tight, and they feel that how can you read?

I think that's one hack that I have done is that the more I read, the more I feel connected to serve people. So reading is one thing I have incorporated in my life since many, many years.

Gresham Harkless 11:13

Awesome. I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this is a little bit more word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It can be something from your book, but it's something you would tell your favorite client or something you might tell yourself if you were to hop into a time machine.

Payal Nanjiani 11:25

You take yourself with you everywhere. So please take care of yourself physically, emotionally, financially, and spiritually. You can only play your role and win the game if you feel stable knowledge in all dimensions of your life, if not in all, at least in the majority part of your life. I'm seeing people rushing through their day, rushing through getting their outcomes, wanting to do more, achieve more, progress more, have more success. And these are wonderful things to have. Everyone wants it. I want it, you want it everyone wants it and it's great.

You should be the one who is an achiever, but do not make it at the cost of your health. If that goes, you have nothing left. You're no good to anyone. Let me tell you that. So don't feel that it's your company, your boss or anyone. You've got to work more on yourself than you can work on your job. Working on yourself starts with you, how you take care of yourself in all these areas, physically, emotionally, mentally, financially, spiritually. So that would be my biggest, biggest nugget, which I have also learned in my life.

I have written it in one of my books. I don't know which one that health is your biggest wealth that you can have if you want to run in this game and you want to finish and you want to play long in this game.

Gresham Harkless 12:47

Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate you breaking down each of those different aspects because I think automatically when you think, I need to take care of myself, but financially, spiritually, the health all those aspects worked in so much in tandem, like the legs of a stool where if you don't have one of those things in place, or they're very, very weak, the entire stool can topple over and all those things that you're striving and you invested in can fall from there.

Payal Nanjiani 13:09

True. And when you said about sleep, I always feel that it's really not the number of hours of sleep that is important. It's the quality. You may be sleeping for 10 hours, but yet the quality of the sleep was not that great to give you tremendous energy to capture your day, whereas a person might be sleeping just for four or five hours a day and in the night and waking up with utmost energy and passion.

So, taking all your problems with you in bed is no good. You need to have some place where you can deposit them. And I'm telling you by morning, those problems are vanished. Because, you've got to take them out of your brain, of your mind, put them somewhere, have a peaceful and restful sleep.

I can almost assure you by the time you wake up in the morning, not only is that problem disappeared, but you've actually woken up with new energy and if the problem still persists in your life, you have a solution to it now because your mind is fresh.

Gresham Harkless 14:07

Awesome. Now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping out different quote and quote CEOs on this show.

So Payal what does being a CEO mean to you?

Payal Nanjiani 14:17

From the time I have done what I'm doing in the role of a CEO, for me it is service to two things. One is service to the people, more than anything else. And the other is keeping the power within you. Just like I say, success is within you. You have to make sure that when you are playing a role as high as a CEO, now some people take CEO and, in different phases, I do take it as a role as a responsibility. You cannot allow anyone else to determine your work. You cannot allow someone to tell you exactly where you are, what you're doing.

You have to have a lot of power within you to build your intuitiveness. You have to know how to guide yourself in the right direction. So to me, a CEO means anyone who is helping people get there, getting their people to achieve great results, and is able to convert their goals into reality more sooner than anyone else.

Gresham Harkless 15:16

Awesome. Payal, I truly appreciate that definition and of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know.

And of course, how best people can get out of you, get a copy of your books and find out about all the awesome things that you're working on.

Payal Nanjiani 15:32

The book is available on Amazon worldwide, and it's also available on my website which is payalnanjiani.com. It's got a section of books, you can order it from there. I love to keep in touch with people so they can always reach out to me by saying that they heard me on this show.

They can reach out to me on Instagram or on LinkedIn by just mentioning this show on LinkedIn or on Instagram. You can just follow.

Gresham Harkless 16:00

Awesome. Payal, I truly appreciate that. We will have the links and information in the show notes as well, too so that everybody can get ahold of you, connect and find out about all the awesome things that you're working on.

I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Payal Nanjiani 16:11

Thank you so much. It's really an honor to be on this show.

Outro 16:14

Thank you for listening to the IAMCEO podcast, powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. IAMCEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Want to level up your business even more? Read blogs, listen to podcasts, and watch videos@cbnation.co. Also, Check out our IAMCEO Facebook group.

This has been the IAMCEO podcast with Gresham Harkless, Jr. Thank you for listening.

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