How Childhood Informs Adult View of a Life Well Lived - Nina Godiwalla

In Chapter 1 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "When are You at Your Best?"  She finds she is at her best when she is doing something meaningful.  She goes into detail about when and how this happens and what it allows her to project that energy into the world.  She shares how as a child she learned to appreciate and embrace dance.  As Godiwalla focuses more and more on dancing, she learns progressively cultivates her passion, deriving happiness from the process.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  When are you at your best?

Nina Godiwalla:  I’m at my best when I’m doing something that I think is meaningful.  I think in general, kind of 99% of us are just kind of going through life for what it is and then there’s those rare moments where something just really sparks for me and I have something that I’m just extraordinarily excited about and when I’m in that – when I’m concentrated and focused on that, I find that – I find that usually it can be above average but when I have that, I find myself just kind of soaring above everything and part of it is just that I’m thrilled and happy with what I’m doing.

Erik Michielsen:  Do you remember back to your childhood when you first remember that happening?

Nina Godiwalla:  There wasn’t a whole lot in my childhood that -- I didn’t spend a lot of time looking for things like that.  I – one thing I really enjoyed in my childhood, it was – we didn’t have a lot of hobbies.  My parents were immigrants and it wasn’t the – we did not have the life where you go do piano and then this and then that and that. The one thing we did was dance because my mom always wanted to be a ballerina and so she had me and she tried to get all of us, there’s four girls.  Each child, she would just be like, “Okay, that’s our thing, we’re doing dance.  You guys are going to dance classes.” So, me – two of us caught on to the dance thing, my older sister, my younger sister, they never really did much of it but me and my – the two middle kids, me and my sister, we really enjoyed dance so we would be in dance probably like four or five nights a week, we joined a company and we’re dancing. So for me that was something I loved and we did for fun but otherwise, there wasn’t a whole lot we did for fun.  It was just kind of you know, we just did what we needed to do, we had to do well in school, we hung out with our friends, like more social but the dancing for me was like where my passion lied growing up.

Nina Godiwalla on What Gets Easier and What Gets Harder

In Chapter 2 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "What is Getting Easier and What is Getting Harder in Your Life?"  She notes how she has pushed herself to overcome challenges and identify with and connect to a tribe of like-minded aspirational peers.  Through the process, she finds it getting easier to find herself.  What becomes more difficult is putting this into action.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin.  

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What is getting easier and what is getting harder in your life?

Nina Godiwalla:  When I grew up, there wasn’t a whole lot of focus on what do I love, what do I want to do, so I’d say it wasn’t until my 20s that I kind of got to a point and I call it -- I had my midlife crisis in my 20s because I was an investment banker and I realized, “Oh wow” everything the way that -- the whole way my life of success has been defined to date is not in line with what I want. So I think what’s getting easier is starting to understand what I like and what I enjoy in life and that was very hard for me before because I had never focused on that so that’s getting easier and then the challenge becomes, okay, now I’m starting to get it, I’m slowly starting to learn about myself and who I am and now what’s getting harder is putting that into the world, like how do I actually create my life around that and at moments, it’s hard and then there’s something about it that’s so easy honestly because when you love it, you’re so good at what you’re doing and you find a way to move through things and I really believe that there’s people that come along in your path and you -- I call it your tribe.  You find people that are like you in your tribe and through that, you start to build your world around it and so, I think that parts, it’s challenging yet at the same time, it’s exhilarating and when you’re around in the right world and the right people, everything starts to work out.

Erik Michielsen:  Can you give me an example of that?

Nina Godiwalla:  Yeah, I mean my book is a great example of that.  That was something – it was something that kind of sat in me that I needed to do.  I was actually, I was in a corporate job not doing, it was when the economy was low and everyone was like trying to hang on to any job they had and the reality was my job at that time was not very thought-provoking.  It was just – it was a job.  It got to a point it where it’s job.  Our client cut back so much that we weren’t doing a lot of interesting work and in the end, what happened was I had in my head like this is kind of boring.  I’m not learning a lot.  I’m not doing a whole lot and I left to pursue my book and it’s cause -- it’s kind of that book kind of looked at me and I had written it before but I hadn’t really done anything with it and with that whole process, I mean I got it published very quickly.  I got -- everything fell into place along the way, just the way it should because I was so excited about it.  I mean I worked so hard towards it but also when I needed the right people to fall into place, somehow miraculously, I would meet the right person that would help me get to that next step, next step, next step and it’s because I was on the right path for me.

Nina Godiwalla on Why Authors are Entrepreneurs

In Chapter 3 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "What is the Business Model for Being an Author?"  Godiwalla notes the business model is being an entrepreneur, the book is the product, and everything else is the business world.  A Wharton MBA, Godiwalla finds her networking skills very useful making connections that create opportunities to accelerate her career.  She finds value and reward in pursuing an outreach strategy to senior level leaders as well as across her business networks.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What is the business model for being an author?

Nina Godiwalla:  The business model is being an entrepreneur and I see the book as your product and everything else is -- it’s the business world.  I used my MBA to the nth degree as part of this—as part of this book process because the reality is, is you get handed this gift of being able to have a product and then you can do nothing with it or you can expect everything to come your way but what I found is my business skills especially networking -- and I don’t even call it networking -- because what I did was I literally found people that I would have loved to meet.  Just people I would have you know like ‘oh that person is so interesting, they’re doing something so fascinating, I want to talk to them’ and I reached out to them and I – these are, some of them were authors, some of them were maybe they got a sense a better sense of the marketing than I did and it’s technically networking but the reality was it was just me reaching out to people I wanted to and the same with the networks.  I was already involved with a lot of networks and it’s basically how did I build deeper relationships with those networks.

So one of the most interesting pieces is the marketing piece, to be able to go out there and basically, you get to talk – I mean I get to talk all the time about things that I’m passionate about so I mean it’s hard to complain about any of it.  It’s just – it's fun and exciting and the other part is, is it’s what you make it, with any entrepreneurial thing.  One of the things I found astounding is you learn in a way I didn’t with a corporate job.  You have somebody standing over you and kind of telling you what you need to do and I don’t – you don’t have that.  I have that with my publisher and I do have a publicist, I have an agent, so they’re there but the reality is, is you get to do what you want to some extent and if you don’t like doing something you procrastinate, you put it off and you don’t do it.  So when you’re doing your own thing you get to do all the stuff you love because the reality is you just put your time behind things that you love.  So for me it’s just it’s been what I’ve made of it and the thing is I love is so much that you know it ended up just doing really well.

How Writer Nina Godiwalla Define and Measures Success

In Chapter 4 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "How Do You Define and Measure Success in Your Work as a Writer?"  Godiwalla realizes the importance of sharing personal experiences to create conversations, especially knowing so many that have struggled with workplace discrimination who elect not to share their stories.  She builds upon this sharing and then be able to change others lives by speaking to them.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How do you define and measure success in what you do as a writer?

Nina Godiwalla:  When I wrote the book I didn’t have a goal.  I never had that this is what I’m trying to tell people and this is the message I want, it was I really just wrote an experience and I was so focused on -- I saw so many people that had a difficult time and they weren’t willing to talk about the experience and I wanted to get that message out there.  I saw people that really struggled with it, very successful people later in life but they didn’t -- they were too scared to say, “Hey, this experience happened to me and it was difficult at the time,” because it somehow made them feel weak.  So for me I just wanted to get – I wanted to get – I wanted to get it out there but I didn’t know the bigger thing that I was working towards and so in the end, I realized like I said you know it was as much – after – after going and speaking at all these events and my even realizing I have a bigger message about diversity.  So, I feel like I’m just learning – I'm learning about what I’m interested through this process of writing the book and going out there and success for me is impacting other people.  It’s not just about putting something out there, it’s how do – how do I get to change, I feel like I have this, I’ve been handed this power of, how can I go and affect other people’s lives and make their lives better? And success to me is being able to articulate things to people and change their lives in a positive way.

Author Nina Godiwalla on How to Pitch a Book More Effectively

In Chapter 5 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "What is Your Advice to More Effectively Pitch a Book?"  She notes how pitching is but one element and that aspiring authors must embrace the process.  The process includes advice and feedback and learning how to filter this by staying open-minded, especially when statements repeatedly come up.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What’s your advice to aspiring authors in how to more effectively pitch a book?

Nina Godiwalla:  Pitching is just the beginning of it.  You have to love, love, love your topic, really enjoy it, because the process is quite extraordinary.  It’s so long and you have to live behind it.  One of the things I see with some authors is they’re very stuck on, ‘this is exactly what I want to do and I’m not going to budge at all’ and I found when I was pitching my book initially I started – I pitched it as fiction because I didn’t want to deal with the whole non-fiction aspect of it.  There are real people in there, my family was in there.  People I worked with that I still talk to, they were in there.  I didn’t want to deal with the whole ramifications of it but I was very open-minded about the process and when I pitched it, a lot of people would come back to me and say, “You know this doesn’t look like fiction to me, it reads like a memoir.  It reads like its non-fiction.”  And it was.

And I, you know, the first few people that said it, I was like whatever you know it’s – I'm not going to put it out as non-fiction so and I kind of ignored the advice that I was getting and my advice to people is you’re going to get an incredible amount of advice when you’re pitching and you don’t need to listen to all of it but certain things I heard probably about 20 times, you know, I heard it a lot.

And in the end I had to sit with myself and decide, is what they’re saying true or not true and the reality is, is yes, the whole book that I’ve written reads like a memoir.  It reads like a memoir because it is a non-fiction book and I think for people being a little bit more open to taking some feedback from people actually can make you more successful.  There are certain changes I made along the road to make the book a little bit more marketable but they were not things that I couldn’t – that were killing me.  They were things I felt comfortable with.

Nina Godiwalla on Publicity Advice for Newly Published Authors

In Chapter 6 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "How Have Your Aspirations Changed Since Writing and Promoting Your First Book?"  Godiwalla sees writing a book as a releasing a product that is part of a larger business.  In promoting her book, she gains feedback that allows her to take next steps and better control the process underlying her writing and speaking.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How have your aspirations changed since writing and promoting your first book?

Nina Godiwalla:  So the promoting never seems to end, that’s one of the catches I didn’t know.  My aspirations, so I think what’s happened with the promotion part of it is the aspirations change because what happens, I think when you start a business and I think of the book as the product, as part of a larger business is that you go along with what comes your way to some extent.  When you’re starting up, you’re just trying to get a feel out there, meet with a lot of people, see what’s working and the whole publicity piece has been what’s working, what’s not working?  Who’s coming to me? So, I mean I’ve done TV, I’ve done the interviews, I’ve done the newspaper and all these different invitations came to me from across the country from different organizations. I’m at that point right now, where I have to start thinking how do I control this process.  Not just who’s coming to me but backing up a little bit and like regaining control over the process is really where I am mentally now with the book.

How Feedback Helps Author Nina Godiwalla Refine Career Purpose

In Chapter 7 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "Where Has Audience Feedback Been Most Helpful Finding a Sense of Purpose?"  Releasing a book focused on workplace diversity for women working on Wall Street, Godiwalla finds her message appeals not only to women outside finance but also minority men.  The stories remind Godiwalla she has a greater purpose to speak for people whose voices go unheard.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  Where has audience feedback been most helpful in refining your sense of purpose?

Nina Godiwall:  What’s helped me with purpose is I went out with a story about Wall Street, a story about my experience particularly as a woman, also as a minority but less so as a minority and so I expected my audience would be women probably on Wall Street and what surprised me is I do have – I have a very strong woman audience but what I didn’t expect is I didn’t expect it to be all across corporate America and other organizations.  I’ve had so many people write me, contact me and say, “Thank you so much for just telling your story because I had a similar experience in X.”  So I’ve seen that with the women in terms of all different industries, that surprised me and it reminds me that I have a bigger message that’s just not so limited to this small world that I thought it was. 

The other part that surprised me even more is I was doing a media interview -- I was doing a TV interview -- and after I was done with the interview, I got several guys who worked at that station email me, someone from a different country -- someone in Europe -- and then someone who came to me, it was a minority man who came to me afterwards and he’s a very senior person at the company and he pulled me aside while I was trying to walk out the building and he said, “I just want to thank you so much for saying what you said.”  And I thought I didn’t necessarily say anything profound, at least I didn’t think so.  I just said, “Hey, it’s a difficult environment and you spend so much time hiding what you are to be in this culture.”  And that I never expected to strike so many men and one of them was an international guy and this other guy, he was American but he was – he talked to me a little bit about how people don’t get that I have to work so much harder and it’s not because it’s difficult for me, it’s just I’m constantly having to prove myself so even two years into this, when I’m established and everyone knows I can do a good job.  When I mess up, when something goes wrong, there are those people there that thinks it’s because I am who – it is because of who I look like.  Whereas I don’t get those cards all the time that just say, “Uhh you know.  No, we totally get you, you’re fine.”  And he said I always have to be on and I had to explain that to someone in a meeting who was trying to tell me, “You know what, we’re just going to pull one of your things together, we’re not going to put…”  You know they worked on life events and stuff and he was like, “I can’t pull something together sloppy.”  You don’t understand, he said I have to pull him out aside and quietly tell him, “I can’t be sloppy.”  That’s not a card that I have. And that was striking to me. 

I carry his story around all the time because I never expected to be touching him in that way and for me it just reminds me that I have a bigger purpose.  It’s not about me.  It’s about something much bigger and speaking for people that don’t necessarily have the opportunity or chose to speak up for themselves.

Nina Godiwalla on How to More Effectively Engage and Inspire Groups

In Chapter 8 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "How is Public Speaking Teaching You to More Effectively Engage Audiences?"  She learns the importance of preparation and getting to know her particular audience.  Godiwalla finds mingling with audiences before and after speaking events helps her better tailor her message and connect with her audience.  Ultimately, it helps her leave a more approachable impact the audience can put into action.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How is public speaking teaching you to more effectively engage an audience?

Nina Godiwalla:  The whole process has been really quite something.  For me, one of the things I’ve done is -- so when I started I would go into an event and I would speak and I would leave and now I usually, when we do events, we try and do cocktail events or something there’s mingling before and after and I think it completely changes the dynamic.  I’m asked to speak to so many different groups of people that sometimes I have to really refresh my memory.  I was asked to speak at a high school.  One day I was speaking to politicians and the next day, I was speaking to high school students and the next day, I was speaking to young professionals. And I don’t just talk about the book and we talk about bigger issues – I mean diversity is one of the larger issues I talk about and I integrate the book into whatever is important to them. 

So the audience engagement is so important to me but it’s also important to me to physically find ways to engage with them so I usually – I take very seriously the time beforehand when I – and when I did the high school event, we did – they took me on a whole high school tour and told me about what their high school represented and how it had evolved and honestly what was so helpful for me is to be into the mind of a high school student.  I don’t see high school students so I loved hearing, you know, this young girl talk about what, you know, her classes and what she does and it was just bringing me back to the reality of this is, you know, this is what her world is and I need that time for connection because it helps me switch into the mind set of what can I deliver here to you all that’s going to be inspiring to you, that’s going to make a difference to you and affect your world in a different way. I usually, I always give out my email and the conversations I get back, it’s just such an iterative process.  I learn a lot from the people that I’m with and hope to you know share something with them as well and that’s – it’s been wonderful and it’s been fun. That parts have been very fun.

Nina Godiwalla on Speaking Up for Corporate America Minority Workers

In Chapter 9 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "How are You Learning to Adapt Your Message to Reach Broader Audiences?"  Godiwalla spends considerable time on the public speaking circuit while promoting her book.  By listening to audience stories and challenges, Godiwalla accepts responsibility to be the voice of the unspoken and unheard on workplace diversity issues in corporate America.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How are you learning to adapt your message to reach broader audiences?

Nina Godiwalla:  I’m less worried about broader audiences because I feel like I didn’t realize how broad my group would be.  What I want to do is have a message that’s more focused.  That’s become more important to me.  Right now, I get invited by all different kinds of institutes and organizations that I love.  I love speaking at the literary – from literary festivals to woman in leadership to Mind Science Foundation, I mean literally I’ve been invited so I have the broad audience and now what my focus is, is giving messages that are impactful and trying to find out what it is that’s my passion – through this process, I didn’t know, I mean I wrote a book and I didn’t know what it – I didn’t know that I had a message that I specifically want to get out there.  I didn’t know what that message was and through all of these events and all these presentations and these speaking events, I’ve started to realize I’m really passionate about diversity. 

I’m really passionate about giving a voice to people that don’t necessarily have a voice and I’m in a place of power to do that.  I used to be that person that was at the bottom of a company that came from the public school background, the woman where there were no women, the minority that didn’t – there weren’t a whole lot of minorities and the attitude is is a little bit of, you don’t necessarily get an opinion at the table because you are trying to prove yourself.  You are sitting there and you don’t belong and everyone around you knows that you don’t belong and they want you to do well and they want you to succeed but you’re not in a place to say, “Hey I don’t agree with anything you all are doing and I – actually, you know, what you said was offensive and this is…”  It’s not – you’re still that little person they’re trying to make it like them and I think I’m out of that.  I’m kind of out of that mindset and unfortunately, I think a lot of people that are in several different corporate cultures feel that way.  Like, “I don’t get to have that.  I don’t get to say what I want to say all the time.” 

So, I think of myself as being that voice and saying the – I mean they’re not even controversial things but things that people would like to say and I get so many emails and you know things that people say to me afterwards of, “I’m so glad you said it because I can’t say it.”  Because if you say that while you’re part of a corporation, it’s almost like you’re not being part of that team.  You’re not, you know, “Why don’t – do you think we don’t treat you well?”  And it’s not that they don’t treat you well, it’s just that sometimes I don’t agree with the things that go on around me but I don’t always have the, you know, the comfort to say it because I don’t want to be put on the side as that that person that was too vocal about things I didn’t agree with.  So I see myself as their voice if you will.

Nina Godiwalla on Improving Diversity Training with Sharing and Story

In Chapter 10 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "How Can Diversity Training Become Less About Avoiding Problems and More About Creating Opportunities?"  Godiwalla sees diversity training as an option to have a discussion rather than give a lecture.  She shares an example from learning diversity training from a theater group as well as from her own account in her book.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How can diversity training become less about avoiding problems and more about creating opportunities?

Nina Godiwalla:  One of the things is, is the mindset that people have and I love it that you said you know that of kind of avoiding these situations.  I remember when we had diversity training specifically in investment banking, because it was a more conservative culture and there weren’t a whole lot of minorities.  There was just this incredible dread like people were angry almost that they had to take an hour or two out of their day and it was pushed on you and it was you have to do it, nobody wants to do it. I really see it as an opportunity to have a discussion and those – those typically those weren’t discussions, it was basically like, “You all are not allowed to do this.  You’re not…” You know it’s almost like these slap on the hands, slap on the hands and the people that are in the room which is interesting, that do some of the stuff.  They don’t see themselves as the people that are doing those things. 

One of the most effective things I’ve seen is when I was getting a degree up on the East Coast, the university did diversity training and they brought in a theater company and what they did is they took real issues that happened at different universities and this was for the university staff.  They took the real issues and they had a theater people act it out, so all of a sudden it’s not you know you did this or you’re inappropriate, it’s like, “Hey, we’re just showing you some of the things that didn’t necessarily happen at your university but it’s happened in places.”  And they’re nuances things, it’s not someone hitting on someone which is like, “Okay, we all know that’s not supposed to happen.”  It’s really difficult conversations where someone might make an inappropriate joke but it’s not quite that inappropriate but at the same time, it offended four people in the room but no one’s going to say anything because that person is so senior, so it’s those types of things and what happened is afterwards, it became a discussion, the whole audience was engaged in the discussion and not everyone agrees and it was the most remarkable thing because you want to hear the different perspectives and I think when something was inappropriate I didn’t know, if I thought it was inappropriate, I didn’t even know the perspective of someone who doesn’t think it’s inappropriate and so it was amazing to hear those different perspectives and it was fun.  I loved it and I thought it was interesting.

And I think of my book as that, to me it’s a story, so that you get the theater thing and you get to hear a story, the book to me is a narrative.  It’s a story.  It’s removed from everybody.  It’s not threatening necessarily to them but let’s talk about some of the things that it raises and what does that mean for people. And I think the discussion makes people from all different areas feel like they’re heard because I don’t think diversity is minorities against non-minorities or women against men, it’s how do we all come to an understanding and see each other’s perspective because so often, so many things happen innocently.  I don’t think -- there are people that are out there to get other people but I think they’re very much in the minority.  That’s not the average person.  The average person thinks they’re doing the right thing.

Nina Godiwalla on How Inclusion Improves Corporate Diversity Programs

In Chapter 11 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "Why are Corporate Diversity Programs More Necessary Than Ever in the Workplace?"  Godiwalla notes how workplace culture is far more diverse than ever before and how organizations are able to recruit entry-level and mid-level talen but rarely retain them long-term.  She finds inclusion programs complement diversity hiring programs and pushes to shift the conversation toward inclusion programs and the culture they can create.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  Why are corporate diversity programs more necessary than ever in the work place?

Nina Godiwalla:  If you look at something 30 years ago, we might not have had a whole lot of people that were different but now, we’ve even got people in the environment and one of the challenges I think is the part that I would call inclusion.  So you’ve got, there are so many organizations that are able to bring people in.  They typically stay at lower levels, maybe make it to the middle levels and then they’re gone and it’s almost mysterious to companies I feel when they talk about it is, “What happened?  I mean we put so much money behind it.”  And it’s frustrating on the their part of I don’t get it, why are these people not staying and so I think the focus needs to be a little bit more on diversity and inclusion and we’ve heard that term, some of the programs have actually changed their name to diversity and inclusion and the idea is, is it’s not you just bring people in and hope that they survive. 

The reality is when you have an environment that tends to be so closed off to any type of people that are different, thought processes that are different, to values that might be different.  If the culture is that intense and that closed, it becomes hard to keep somebody feeling happy and welcome in that culture and I think there’s more work that needs to be done around inclusion.  I actually don’t think it’s that challenging to bring in somebody.  I think it’s challenging to make it a place where somebody wants to stay.

Nina Godiwalla on Advocating Women and Minority Workplace Equality

In Chapter 12 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "What Can Organizations Do to Better Support Women and Minorities in the Workplace?"  Godiwalla finds many organizations make hiring women a top priorities but do not put as much emphasis to developing those female employees.  As a result Godiwalla comes to believe companies are not looking out for the best interests of women.  She shares investment banking experiences from when she worked at JP Morgan and associated challenges working in a male-dominated environment.  Godiwalla then discusses specific ways to improve workplace equality for women and minorities.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What can organizations do to better support women and minorities in the work place?

Nina Godiwalla:  One of the things I think is creating a culture that’s pretty open to them.  I use – I love this example that I had in investment banking. They have women initiatives, so they’re focused on bringing women in but the question is, what do you do once you bring these women in. And in my experience, we had it where women were – when I looked around and saw what the environment was, even if nothing necessarily happened to me, I would watch what they – the way women were treated by the company for – through my friends and the reality is, is I don’t necessarily think that the company really looked out for women.  Sometimes they did but often they did not.  One of the Morgan Stanley clients said, “We don’t want women working on deals.”  And so right away, she’d done a lot of work on the deal and they ended up pulling her off of the deal, when it came down to interact with the client and do all the fun exciting stuff that looks so great on your resume.  Morgan Stanley just said, “You know what?  They don’t want women on the deal.  You’re getting pulled off.” 

So it’s that type of thing where you kind of – you see that a lot of time, there was opportunities where you’d see women, the time that you’d get to network with senior management is through a lot of the social activities and you’d see all the men on a team, there’s two lower level women and they would be pulled off and they’d have to go to the spa whereas the whole rest of the guy’s team would go out golfing for like a corporate event.  So you just see a lot of things where that doesn’t necessarily make sense and that’s not how women are going to be getting ahead. 

So I think companies paying attention and saying, “What can we do to kind of advocate for the fact that this isn’t necessarily the appropriate behavior?”  And to say it from a guy’s perspective, I think there needs to be conversations because from one of those guy’s perspective that suggested, “Why don’t all the women go to a spa?”  I actually think they may have thought they were doing them a favor.  I don’t know but they could have been thinking, “You know what?  These women don’t know – I don’t even know if they did know how to play golf but they don’t -- probably don’t want to play golf.  Let me let them do what they want to do.”  And that’s why I think the conversations are important and what I really distinctly am not pleased about is when the conversations are the women and the minorities in the room because -- only -- because there is no understanding. 

When I go on – when I travel and speak, one of the most beneficial things I’ve had is we have people of all different types in the room.  We have the men in the room, the minorities in the room, the women in the room and the exchange and understanding that takes place and part of it is because we’re not in a corporate environment so you know the person across can’t say, “I’m worried about what she’s going to think about me because I have to work with her next week and I don’t want her telling my team that I said terrible things.”  There isn’t that anxiety around these talks.  It’s what can we do to learn from each other and some of the most brilliant things I’ve learned are from you know the guys that are sitting at the table saying, “Hey, I didn’t know that, I didn’t get it,” or a woman saying “Really? That’s why you did that.  I had no idea that, you know, your intentions were good.” It’s very helpful to have those conversations.

Nina Godiwalla on What Makes a Professional Women's Network Valuable

In Chapter 13 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "What Makes a Professional Women's Network Valuable?"  She shares how a network of female professionals supports her career development as well as allows her to support helping other women succeed.  Godiwalla also shares how she has built network relationships with more senior women professionals.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What makes a professional women’s network valuable?

Nina Godiwalla:  I’ve really used my network, so part of my, I think, my success with my book has been leveraging the networks that I’m part of and 85Broads is one of those and I think they’re an incredible women’s network.  I’ve had so many people that helped me.  Part of it is we share a passion for helping other women succeed because we have seen that there’s challenges out there.  Everyone’s coming from a different field and you can see how sometimes it’s not as easy to make connections and some of the organizations were most of them are in male-dominated environment so you see that connection.  What I think becomes so successful is that passion that people have for each other and what’s interesting about that particular environment is people are from across the board so when I’m interested, here I am.  I was a corporate executive.  I’ve been in the advertising world, the finance world, marketing.  I’ve just switched through so many worlds and now I’m into publishing world and the writing world and the reality is, is I need – as I switch through different things, I don’t necessarily have a network all piled up.  What I’ve found is through the women’s network, I do have a network all piled up.  I have – I can reach out to all these people in different industries and say, “Hey I just got a book deal and I have no idea what to do.  Do I need an agent?  Do I not?”  And not everyone takes the risk of going out there and just reaching out to people they don’t know but I think that’s one of the best things that I do is I’m very comfortable with it and the reality is I help so many people that you have to – it’s an exchange.  I’m always looking out for who can I help and I always have people reaching out to me and I make it within any kind of busy day that I have to help, you know a certain number of people that week.  That’s just - you make the time for it because so many people have helped me along the way and the fact that, you know, when you have that accessible – it’s just a diverse group of people that we have and it’s so accessible that I think it just – it makes it completely you know people are able to do -- kind of get whatever they need out of that environment which I think is amazing.

Erik Michielsen:  Do you tend to find yourself working more with people at your level or work, reaching up and dealing with more senior individuals or is it, does it vary?

Nina Godiwalla:  I will grab any which way and I don’t have a problem reaching out to the senior people. I think you always have to be careful and it’s one of the advice I give to younger women when I’m talking is, one of the things I wasn’t scared of and I haven’t been is, I typically do reach out to very senior people but there usually needs to be a reason so I mean I’m not talking you don’t walk into a 50,000 person corporation and contact the CEO right away but I’ve seen a lot in my environment.  I worked at Johnson & Johnson and I was interning there once and there was a president of that whole organization that I was in-charge that -- she ran that whole organization and I mean my boss’s boss’s bosses probably didn’t talk to her very often but I just decided we had a connection that we talked about meditation.  I heard her mention it to someone else.  I didn’t speak directly to her and honestly, I just wanted to meet her.  I was interning there.  She seemed really interesting so I reached out to her and nobody else would reach out to her.  My boss wouldn’t reach out to her and I just let her know I wanted to get to know her a little better.  I was interested in what she’d said about meditation and there it was.  I mean I ended up meeting her and she is one of my biggest advocates for the rest of the time and the reality is, is I think a lot of people are too scared.  We see the hierarchy and – but when I think there’s a natural -- I wouldn’t be persistent about reaching out to someone incredibly senior but sometimes you take that risk and it really pays off and I’m one of those people that are very comfortable taking that risk.

Nina Godiwalla on How to Contribute to a Professional Network

In Chapter 14 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "What is it Important Not Only to Participate in a Network But Also to Contribute?"  She shares personal experiences from writing and publishing her book.  Godiwalla notes why it is important to take responsibility contributing to a network, how to do it, and what personal and collective value it creates.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  Why is it important not only to participate in a network but also to contribute?

Nina Godiwalla:  You have to contribute when you’re part of a network partly because that’s what a network is about and the reality is, is when you’re saying contribute you’re still getting something out of that.  For me, it’s amazing to hear what people are going through so I’ve published a book, I’ve been able to do it, you, know fairly well and I have a lot of people that reach out to me for all different kinds of questions constantly like, “Hey I – constantly people have – I have an idea, talk to me about it.”  And the thing is, is that is giving back. 

I mean I’m more than willing to have conversations with people and help people understand the process, what it is and there’s something about, for me, I found even when I reached out to people sometimes I just want to hear them – I just want to be close to them because they’ve done what I want. I had a conversation with them, actually helps me get closer to achieving it and I think that’s – there’s always something to gain you know when you’re doing that and for me, I still think when you say contributing, you’re still gaining something from that.  I get to hear what people are working on, what they’re excited about, the challenges they’re having and I usually learn something from that process so I don’t think of it as -- I think it’s your responsibility definitely to have that iterative process with people and if you don’t I just don’t think you get nearly as much out of an organization.

Nina Godiwalla on How Selfless Leadership Creates Virtuous Cycles

In Chapter 15 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "What Does It Mean to Be a Leader in What You Do?"  Godiwalla notes the importance of conviction in leadership - believing in what you do.  She compares and contrasts leading and managing.  Godiwalla notes how shared passions and beliefs complement selfless approach to serve others that creates virtuous cycles, or positive feedback loops.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street".  She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What does it mean to be a leader in what you do?

Nina Godiwalla:  One the main things about that is believing in what you do.  I think there’s a difference between a manager and a leader and a leader is you’re going through and you’re inspiring people and it’s so important when you are inspiring people that you embody and love and enjoy what you do.  So being a leader, you’re able to take people along with your vision. You have a sense of what people want to do and you have a sense of what your goal is and you have to be able to marry those so that people are doing what they want to do too and I think that’s very challenging.  Managing is telling people what they need to do you know and that it should get done but you’re not really bringing in kind of their spirit with – along with that.  You need to bring in, you know what you want, you believe in it and how do you get the people below you to really believe in that as well.

Erik Michielsen:  And how is that translating into what you do and how you see yourself in the world?

Nina Godiwalla:  Well, part of it is I have a little more flexibility but it’s surrounding yourself I think by the people where you have that shared passion.  You have that shared belief and going back to what you said about networking is, the people that have helped me along the way, I am definitely there to help them as well and the people that haven’t necessarily helped me, I am there to help them because it doesn’t matter.  It’s like it’s not about you did this for me and I did this for you.  It’s kind of you just see it as larger community.  We’re part of this larger world and the more I give to other people, the more things will come back to me.  I mean it’s karma.  It just works that way.  It’s a natural thing. 

So when I’m talking to somebody I mean I have this really this young woman who is just like bursting with entrepreneurial energy and she’s kind of stuck in this, this world where she is not able to use it but she does it a lot in her personal time and I – she's the kind of person that she just wants to connect with me every now and again.  She sends me emails.  She just needs that connection and I don’t think about it as “well, what am I going to get from her, or later on what it’s going to be.”  It’s you’re putting that energy out into the world and I know that later on when she gets herself down and she gets what she wants, she will be helping that other person and it’s that feeling, that feeling that we’re all just looking out for each other and when you’re in this entrepreneurial world, I really feel that people are doing that.  Not everybody but I think the majority of the people and some people they’re not going to help you.  You reach out to some people and they won’t help you or every now and again, you might have to turn someone down but that’s just part of the process.

Nina Godiwalla on Why to Give a TED Talk

In Chapter 16 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "What Has You Most Excited About Delivering a TED Talk?"  Godiwalla finds the TED people part of her tribe - willing to speak from the heart, willing to be vulnerable and focused on trying to change the world.  Watch Nina's TED Talk from TEDxHouston 2011 here.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What has you most excited about delivering a TED talk?

Nina Godiwalla:  I’m very excited about the TED talk because I consider the TED people part of my tribe, part of the people I connect with, like there’s certain people that I’m just so excited to be around with this – it's that open-minded group, people that are willing to speak from their heart, willing to be vulnerable, they want to change the world and to me, those are my people. 

So when I was invited to do it, I was just I’m ecstatic because these are the people that are going to make the changes in the world.  These are the people that they want to learn. They’re curious and so for me, it’s interesting.  It’s been a little daunting at the same time because it’s so important to me.  I’m fascinated with them.  I love the people as part of TED and I just want it to be kind of that perfect, you know, what is it? 

You get that one chance to do that message and I’m actually ecstatic about it and I – you know I’ve gone through so many, “Well, I could talk about this.  I could talk about this.”  And you get that 18 minutes. For me it’s diversity.  I do want it to be about diversity.  I had, you know, I had a couple of ideas going back and forth but in the end like that is the core of what I want to speak about.  So I will have it focused on diversity and I’m just ecstatic about doing it.  I just feel like I’m going to be up there and I’m going to be on fire because this is where I want to be.

How Embracing Diversity Facilitates Leadership Development - Nina Godiwalla

In Chapter 17 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "What Role Does Diversity Play in Shaping Your Own Leadership Style?"  Godiwalla shares stories about how learning to appreciate different perspectives and skill sets when hiring benefits her development.  Over time, she applies this approach in many parts of her life, including in an entrepreneurial venture.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What role does diversity play in shaping your own leadership style?

Nina Godiwalla:  So one of the things I remember when I use to hire, I used to look for people that were like me, that I could connect to and it’s a natural thing that we do.  We talk to people and when they are very similar to us like, “Oh, I like you.”  You know you think along the way I think and I remember I had a manager who said to me – I said you know I love this person, we got along, we had a great conversation and she said to me, “But does she really compliment you?”  And I hadn’t thought about that.  I hadn’t – it was like “Does that person need to compliment me?  I just like them, I mean does it matter?”  She seems like she can do the job and she seems like she’s like me and I think it’s a tendency we have is we hang around people that are similar to us.  We like people that are – we have commonalities with and I think you have to step back a little bit when you’re trying to surround yourself with people. 

It is surrounding yourself with people that have kind of the values and beliefs that you have to some extent but it’s also understanding that you’re going to learn a lot from people that have different perspectives.  So for me, I have to stand back a little bit and think of, I mean it’s not diversity in terms of skin color or just gender; the diversity of mindset too is critical.  So I feel like I’ve as I’m working through and doing a lot of the entrepreneurial work that I’m doing, I need to step back and find people that are a little bit different. 

One example is I have MindWorks which is my stress management business and I – I'm actually now partnering with people and I was a little mixed at first because I’m used to doing it where I go in and I can do whatever I want.  I can go in and teach any sort of course with my own – only what I think and what I loved is I started partnering with people that have kind of different, they go about it different ways and they do it different ways and initially I thought, “Wait, I don’t know if I want to do that because they’re going to do something different.”  And what if that’s not something I agree with and the reality is, is I needed to step back from that and say, “That’s even better.” That’s going to be great that they’re going to be able to bring in a different perspective and some people are going to be able to relate a little bit better to what they’re saying and some people might relate to what I’m saying and then the reality is I’m going to learn something along the way in that process.  So it’s always thinking about the, you know, we can always learn something new from somebody.

Nina Godiwalla on How to Integrate Meditation Into Daily Routines

In Chapter 18 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "Where Has Practicing Meditation Been Most Helpful as Your Career Responsibilities Have Grown?"  She transitions from quiet, sitting meditation to integrate meditation into her lifestyle.  This helps Godiwalla stop living a double life of crazy and quiet.  Now a mother, she applies meditation principles to focus, listen and let go of anxieties and stress.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street".  She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  Where has practicing meditation been most helpful as your career responsibilities have grown?

Nina Godiwalla:  Well, integrating meditation as not just meditation so I see when I think of meditation or I think when people think of meditation is just sitting quietly, not do anything. And what I’ve had is, I’ve had a long practice of doing that over 10 years of the quiet sitting meditation and what I found at some point was I would have – I would go into my crazy world of business and then I would walk out maybe do a retreat for a weekend or do a long retreat or do my 30 minute sitting in my house and the reality is, is I was living kind of this double life in that I would go into the craziness and be that crazy person and then I would go into the quiet world that I had and be that quiet person and so in the last few years, my focus has really been living the meditation lifestyle if you will and that is – meditation is really about attention.  It’s about where you choose to put your attention at any given time and my focus now is putting it into my life so, wherever I am being able to actually choose where I put my attention. 

If I’m doing any sort of interview or if I’m doing something I’m very focused on listening.  Listening is one of the critical, critical things of meditation or if I have something very small I’m doing, like I’m walking from the door of my, you know, my car door to a building, my focus I call it you know, it’s my walking meditation where I just focus on the bottom of my feet and the reality is, is I’m kind of letting go of all the anxieties and things that I think are so important and everything during that day that I just can’t let go of and has to get done and somebody said this and so and so said this. 

I just kind of let go of all the thoughts and it’s – for me it’s how do I put it into my day every single day and it’s also more of a challenge because I have a baby so I will tell you when you’re waking up, I don’t know every three hours of the day and you’re only sleeping in 45-minute slots.  The idea of sitting there and doing an hour of meditation when you’re extraordinarily sleep deprived is not as practical and the reality is, is I don’t want to let go of that lifestyle but how do you make it your lifestyle and I have had enough introduction to the effects it has and how amazing it is to do the sitting, to where I have that – I have that, I’m able to do that. There’s a lot of people when I train people in stress management through meditation, a lot of people don’t want to sit and they don’t want to learn it that way and I have an attitude and I – not everyone would share that but it’s like, “Okay, if you don’t want to sit and do it this way through body scans or through sitting meditation, let’s talk about how you can integrate the mindset into your life.”  And I’ll take people through that angle and if later on they, you know, they build themselves up to place of sitting, that’s wonderful, but if they never even make it to sitting, it doesn’t matter to me as long as they have an understanding of they have control over their destiny.