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Pushing Beyond the Obvious - Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed

Pushing Beyond the Obvious - Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed

By: Mukesh Gupta
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 Pushing Beyond the Obvious is a podcast dedicated to help entrepreneurs succeed in a hyper-competitive & ever-changing business environment. We will invite practitioners and thought leaders to share their experience, strategies and secrets about their success, that can entrepreneurs can apply in their day-to-day life. Join us on a journey of discovering new insights every week.Copyright: All rights reserved - Mukesh Gupta, 2015 Economics
Episodes
  • Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable

    Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable
    Jan 26 2026
    Introduction: The Emotional Roller Coaster of the Workplace Life and work are never static; they operate on an emotional roller coaster where peaks of success are inevitably followed by valleys of struggle. Far too many leaders view their teams as "resources"—cogs in a machine designed for output—rather than recognizing the complex human beings behind the results. The most effective leaders possess the strategic agility to serve as both a sanctuary and a catalyst. Our core mandate is to build an environment where we provide psychological safety for the struggling while simultaneously disrupting the complacency of those hitting a stride of peak performance. Takeaway 1: Stop Managing "Resources," Start Leading People Leadership excellence begins with the paradigm shift of viewing every team member as a "whole person." This means acknowledging that every individual brings their own aspirations, challenges, strengths, and weaknesses to the office every single day. When we move beyond transactional management, we cultivate a culture of deep mutual respect. By understanding that our people are on the same emotional roller coaster as us, we transform the leadership relationship from a cold exchange of labor into a human-centric partnership. Takeaway 2: The Critical Responsibility of Comforting the Disturbed Every high-performer eventually hits a "lean period" where nothing goes according to plan, regardless of their effort. During these downturns, the leader's mandate is the preservation of human dignity over the scrutiny of short-term metrics. Our strategic intervention during a crisis is to ensure the individual feels seen and valued despite their current performance dip. This human-centric support is what builds a lasting legacy and identifies us as a role model worth following. We need to make them feel seen heard and that they matter, not just their performance, but they as a human being, that they are not just a resource to be exploited. By offering comfort when it is least expected but most needed, we earn a level of loyalty that cannot be bought. We prove that our leadership is an investment in the person, not just the output. Takeaway 3: The Success Trap—Why "Winning" Can Be Dangerous Operating in a season of abundance can be deceptively hazardous for organizational health. When luck and success align, people naturally begin to reside in "comfy worlds" where they take their winning streaks for granted. This comfort is a precursor to stagnation, as it often leads to a subtle decline in intention and energy. As a strategist, we must recognize that the very success someone on the team is enjoying can become the catalyst for their future decline if they stop putting in the necessary work. Takeaway 4: The Strategy of "Disturbing" the Comfortable When a team member is riding a wave of success, it is our responsibility to "shake things a bit" to prevent complacency. This isn't about creating unnecessary stress, but rather about believing in their potential to achieve even more than they originally thought possible. Disturbing the comfortable serves to extend the winning streak by demanding a return to the "smart or hard work" that created the success in the first place. It forces the individual to reconnect with the energy and intention required to maintain peak performance. We need to disturb them and their comfy world in a way that they realize that they can't take things for granted and start putting in the intention energy and effort. Furthermore, this disturbance prepares the individual for the moment the streak inevitably ends. By keeping them disciplined, we enable them to face future challenges with gratitude and acceptance, enabling them to move on without bitterness. Conclusion: The Leader's Dual Mandate The most profound leadership strategy is a simple dual mandate: comfort the disturbed and disturb those who are comfortable. This balance ensures that we are providing a safety net for those in lean periods while preventing stagnation during periods of peak performance. We must pay it forward by emulating the role models who stood by us and comforted us during our own professional trials. True leadership is about observing the emotional and professional state of our team and having the courage to act as the specific catalyst they need at any given moment. Look closely at your team today. Which individual is currently weathering a lean period and needs your comfort, and who has become so comfortable that they require a strategic disturbance?
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    3 mins
  • How to Become an Inspirational Leader

    How to Become an Inspirational Leader
    Jan 20 2026

    In this episode, I discuss how to become an inspirational leader.

    I believe that leaders should not start with the goal of becoming an inspirational leader, as that is a self-centered perspective. Instead, becoming inspirational is a result of certain actions and learnings. Key ways to become an inspirational leader:

    1. Be inspired In order to be inspirational, you need to be inspired. One way to be inspired is by keeping the company of other inspired people. Inspiration, like energy, is contagious. Another way to be truly inspired is by having a clear purpose or intention behind all your actions. To be inspired, we need to live in the present moment. This means not only being present but also "showing presence". Showing presence is being fully engaged in that moment, in partnership with whoever you are with.

    2. Help people achieve their aspirations: Inspirational people are often just trying to be helpful. People feel seen, heard, and understood by them. Inspirational leaders actively help people achieve their aspirations "faster, cheaper, and better". They want to see others succeed. They inspire others to achieve and be more than what they thought was possible.

    3. Believe in the potential of people: Inspirational leaders spot potential in people and believe in it even before the person sees or believes in the potential themselves. Leaders who spot limiting beliefs in the people they lead and help them change these beliefs by reiterating their belief in the person's potential are seen as inspirational.

    4. Believe in and aspire for something bigger than all of us: This belief can make a leader feel inspirational. It is about making the people in our charge feel that they are part of something much bigger than their individual selves. This can be done by creating a vision that is both challenging and inspiring, and by creating a sense of togetherness and camaraderie. This sense encourages everyone to do and be better.

    Conclusion:

    The shift needed to become an inspirational leader is to move from thinking about "me" to thinking about "you" (the people you lead), and then to "us" (everyone put together). This requires showing presence, being empathetic, and genuinely wanting to help people achieve their goals and aspirations. The intention to help must shine through, not just to become an inspirational leader, but because it is the right thing to do. Becoming an inspirational leader is a byproduct of doing everything else right.

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    11 mins
  • The Play Advantage - Why Fun is the New Frontier of High Performance Leadership

    The Play Advantage - Why Fun is the New Frontier of High Performance Leadership
    Jan 18 2026
    Premise For decades, the standard leadership playbook has been built upon an ironclad, yet increasingly fragile, triad: vision, strategy, and execution. While these pillars are foundational, they are no longer sufficient to navigate the complexities of the modern knowledge economy. A significant, transformative chapter is missing from the manual—one that addresses the human engine of performance. We have been conditioned to believe that leadership is exclusively "serious work" and that joy is a frivolous activity, which is at best emerges as after work activities and at worst considered a liability to be checked at the door. This cultural perception has architected a structural deficit in our organizations. Leaders and their teams find themselves "drudging to work," trapped in a cycle of professional survival rather than creative thrive-states. This has led to a significant percentage of of employees having checked out at work and just going through the motions. We treat fun as a distraction, something reserved for after-hours or relegated to the periphery of "real" work. This is one of the most damaging assumptions in modern business. It creates a false dichotomy that suggests one must choose between delivering results and experiencing joy. As an Executive Leadership coach, I contend that this dichotomy is not only false but strategically dangerous. Treating play as a distraction rather than a performance engine directly degrades a team's capacity for innovation. In an era where the primary differentiator is the quality of thought, the traditional leadership playbook is suffering from a cognitive bottleneck. To remain competitive, we must dismantle this outdated view and recognize that play is a competitive necessity, a high-performance engine designed to galvanize teams and produce superior outcomes. The High-Performance Definition of Play To leverage play as a strategic asset, we must first strip away the superficiality that often surrounds the concept in corporate circles. Strategic play is not found in the aesthetics of Silicon Valley—it is not about installing ping-pong tables, stocking breakrooms with board games, or the hollow performance of "mandated fun" events that often feel more like an obligation than an escape. These are mere pastimes; they do not drive performance. Instead, we must adopt an operational definition: play as an intentional, high-performance psychological and physiological state. It is about architecting an environment where teams can achieve a state of "flow" while tackling their most rigorous and demanding objectives. In this state, the traditional friction of work evaporates and teams end up doing a lot more work with a lot less stress. This lack of stress, despite the immense workload proves that play is not the absence of work; it is the absence of the psychological friction that usually accompanies work. When work is operationalized as play, the team doesn't just work harder; they work with a clarity and resilience that "serious" drudgery can never replicate. Six Elements of Play To move from theory to tactical application, we must look at the structural components of play. Organizational researcher Scott Eberle identified six core elements that define a playful mindset. When leaders intentionally weave these elements into the cultural fabric of their teams, they transform the very nature of the work being produced. 1. Anticipation: The Catalyst for Engagement Anticipation is the palpable excitement that arises from looking forward to a challenge. In a professional context, this is the antidote to "initiative fatigue." Just as an athlete anticipates the opening whistle, a high-performing team thrives when the challenge ahead is framed not as a burden, but as an opportunity for discovery. Anticipation acts as the mental "hook." In modern business environments, specifically those utilizing Agile methodologies, anticipation transforms a "backlog" from a list of chores into a series of upcoming hurdles to be cleared. It primes the team to be mentally "in the game" before the first line of code is written or the first slide is designed. 2. Surprise: Disrupting Cognitive Entrenchment Surprise involves the novelty and unexpected discoveries encountered during a project. Significant challenges naturally produce new insights, both positive and negative. Surprise is the primary catalyst for innovation. In a "serious" environment, the unexpected is often viewed as a risk to be mitigated. In a playful environment, surprise is welcomed as a means to break routine thinking and force the brain to make new, non-linear connections. It disrupts "cognitive entrenchment"—the tendency for experts to rely on outdated mental models—and opens the door for genuine breakthroughs. 3. Pleasure: Sustaining the Performance Loop Pleasure is the intrinsic satisfaction derived from the activity itself. When the reward is the work, the ...
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    11 mins
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