@arish
Arish Ali
@arish · 1:55

Mid career pivots for professionals through reskilling - An Interview with Purushottam Awasthi

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Hello everyone. I would like to welcome purushottham avasti from Singapore to talk about the importance of making professional pivots in your career by reskilling yourself. The interview is starting today, that's February 28 and in the Us time zone and after listening to him, if you have any questions, please hit reply and submit them for puru to answer by Tuesday, February 21. peru and I actually have an old connection

#InterviewAFriend #Career #jaipuria #interview #reskilling #SwellInterview #TalkToArish

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@Puru
Puru Awasthi
@Puru · 4:59
So it's then in that moment of crisis, I realize that there's an opportunity and I became an entrepreneur. Maybe I became a forced entrepreneur because there were no jobs in the market. But along with two co founders, we built a boutique consulting firm doing tier two, tier three growth strategy commercial due diligence for angel investors, and successfully did that for five years, hid it off, and then took like another significant pivot or turn by becoming an investor
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@arish
Arish Ali
@arish · 1:42

@Puru "What got me here, might not take me further" vs Path Dependance

And what was the point of what was the evaluation you did which made you realize that, no, this will not take me further, I have to reskill. And as a follow up on that is, how did you get the courage to take that decision? Because such a huge kind of decision to do a massive reskilling like this, was there a personal kind of motivation support or something that made you do it? What gave you the courage to make the change as well?
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@Puru
Puru Awasthi
@Puru · 4:39
The potential here in this case is your skills, is your relationship, is your network, is basically the theoretical concepts, your ideas, your risk taking ability, your bravado, whatever. All these categories that I define are your potential energies. And what you end up doing with that is kinetic. So as you move forward in your life and your career, it is not an ideal world. It is not the ideal standard temperature and pressure conditions, right?
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@Puru
Puru Awasthi
@Puru · 4:45
And just to close out on the final point, that was really very important for me when I was planning my commitment to my path and my decision to reskill is, you know, I spent the first 15 years of my career developing an upwards stakeholder network. I'm just taking an example to make my point, to elucidate upon my point
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@arish
Arish Ali
@arish · 1:36

@Puru Brilliant analogies!

And also, I mean, I'm sure you have a lot of friends that you made who also went through the same kind of change of career path through an MBA option. So if you're in touch with them, how are they finding that experience? I think this will be really good context to understand people who are thinking about it, what to expect after such a reskilling
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@Puru
Puru Awasthi
@Puru · 4:26
Yes. So before I talk about my experience post this program, I think it is important for me to raise this big question that we've not managed to discuss but is of paramount importance is the format of reskilling. And when I talk about the format of reskilling, I'm essentially hinting at choosing between the following two
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@Puru
Puru Awasthi
@Puru · 4:58
I have a higher regard for people and their circumstances when they present themselves in the workplace. I am far more accommodating of diversity. I am very conscious about my choice of words. I'm very conscious about my dressing up, my body language. So, in summary, while all 130 of us were very confident professionals, we graduated as very cognizant professionals. So that probably is the single line summary that we just become more cognizant about who we are and what we want to become
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@Karan.Dev
Karan Dev
@Karan.Dev · 1:50

@Puru

But a lot of times I wonder if that is the main route to take or maybe spend a few more years pursuing my curiosity and seeing where that takes me and then deciding if the MBA makes sense or not. So I was just wondering if, at my age, did you feel anxious about the future when you were kind of because, you know, you made a switch as well. And I was wondering if you felt this, you know, anxious about what to do in general
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@Puru
Puru Awasthi
@Puru · 4:57
And then probably use business school as a Pivot to strengthen it, to launch it in a different orbit, rather than going to business school with an expectation that your batchmates, your professors, the environment will help you solve for it, which may happen, by the way, but which might also not happen because ultimately it's an individual call. So I'd rather have you spend time doing this introspection, testing that introspection, and then going to business school
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@Puru
Puru Awasthi
@Puru · 4:49
And that takes a period of time and it is always linked with the financial performance. So you must understand finance really well to be able to be a strong strategy professional you must build your muscles and finance adequately because at some point your strategy will be cross examined by the CFOs and the financial controllers in the organization because they will be the gatekeepers of investing in that strategy. So you have to make your strategy palatable to them, appealing to them and you have to talk their language
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@Karan.Dev
Karan Dev
@Karan.Dev · 1:31
I think the time now is for me to focus, like you said, and I'm also very interested in strategy and how that works. So thank you for also clarifying about the importance of aligning with the finance team and also understanding the world of finance in general. I'm currently actually reading a book called How Finance Works, which is a famous book. And, you know, I'm actually trying to understand REHOS myself
@arish
Arish Ali
@arish · 0:49

@Puru Thank You! And inviting people for Q&A

Ask your questions from Puru. I will ping him and bring him back on so that he can respond to them. And also, Puru, we look forward to having you on for follow ups. As Karan said, if there are panels and discussions, we would love to invite you to come back onto Swell and share your thoughts. Thank you again and we look forward to hearing more of you as well. Bye
@Puru
Puru Awasthi
@Puru · 0:46
Dear Arish and Karan, thank you for having me on. Swell on this really interesting topic. I enjoyed every bit of interacting with the both of you and also on experiencing this new way of conducting podcasts which is nonsynchronous in time and really allows a lot of comfort and convenience to people to share at a time of their convenience
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