Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / Breaking the Success Trap: The Hidden Barriers to Entrepreneurial Growth with Dr. Ravi Iyer

Transcript

Breaking the Success Trap: The Hidden Barriers to Entrepreneurial Growth with Dr. Ravi Iyer · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:04
  They literally have to unmake themselves and not focus on what they have made to be able to make something more and beyond that.
• 0:13
  And that requires a coach to guide them down that path.
• 0:19
  Have you ever wondered if the very skills and mindsets that got you where you are are now actually holding you back from what's next?
• 0:29
  In today's episode, we're tackling that head on with Dr.
• 0:32
  Ravi Iyer, a top performing entrepreneur, physician, author and leadership coach with decades of experience helping high achievers break through their own limits.
• 0:45
  Ravi will share why your past achievements can actually become obstacles, how to recognize when you've hit a success trap, and what it truly takes to shift your mindset for monumental growth.
• 0:58
  Plus, you'll get practical advice for mastering focus amidst daily chaos and even some unexpected leadership insights from Ravi's experience training elite dogs.
• 1:09
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
• 1:14
  And if you love this episode, please go to ratethispodcast.com beyondfulfillment and leave a review.
• 1:22
  All right, Dr.
• 1:24
  Ravi Iyer, welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
• 1:27
  Thank you David.
• 1:29
  Looking forward to this conversation.
• 1:31
  Absolutely.
• 1:32
  Okay, so let's get right into it.
• 1:35
  So Dr.
• 1:36
  Ravi, how has your experience working with high performing individuals shaped your understanding of what truly drives entrepreneurial success beyond just hard work?
• 1:49
  So high performing individuals have already a track record of success and what is a uniquely common trait is that track record has brought them to the point where they can no longer progress beyond that.
• 2:12
  That is whatever got them to where they are is not going to be able to take them to the next level.
• 2:19
  And the same skills and strategies and mindset and thought process that determined their arrival at this point now has to be retired.
• 2:33
  It has to be taken out on a new framework of themselves and the world they live in.
• 2:39
  And how they see themselves has to be crafted.
• 2:42
  The problem is that they cannot create that new framework by themselves because their past prevents them from seeing the future.
• 2:58
  Because everything that they see is through the lens of their past and that lens distorts what they see such that they cannot see a future that is not contaminated by their past.
• 3:12
  For that they need an outside coach.
• 3:14
  They need someone who can come and deconstruct them in a way.
• 3:19
  The other thing that's often a common feature of high performance people is they are justifiably proud of where they are.
• 3:28
  They are justifiable because they have all the evidence.
• 3:32
  They got the seven figure eight figure success they have the all the accoutrements of success is there and that is telling them that they have made it, but they literally have to unmake themselves and not focus on what
• 3:53
  they have made to be able to make something more and beyond that.
• 3:59
  And that requires a coach to guide them down that path.
• 4:06
  So that is the common feature I see in all high performance, this phenomenal potential to really perform that is completely blocked by the very success that brought them to that point.
• 4:24
  And so now you have to deconstruct it and show them a way forward so that the same drive that brought them here can be unleashed to a new horizon and a new path.
• 4:39
  And that's what I do.
• 4:42
  Okay, so just, just following up on that, it clearly sounds counterintuitive to where, you know, someone has a level of success that they've reached.
• 4:55
  And you're saying that what got them to that level is not going to get them to the next level and rather they need to, I guess, unlearn or have a coach help them deconstruct and then acquire a new
• 5:11
  set of skills or not a new set of.
• 5:15
  Skills, a new way of looking at things.
• 5:17
  A new way of looking at things.
• 5:19
  Okay.
• 5:20
  Because the skills are not the issue, it is the vision that is the issue.
• 5:30
  It is like they already have the tools to perform at the next level, but they are not able to use the tools effectively because the vision of how to leverage those tools is completely different than what is required
• 5:47
  for the next level.
• 5:50
  I'll give you an example.
• 5:54
  Most people, they get to their level of success with the belief that resources are limited and therefore they have to acquire resources.
• 6:06
  They have to grab it, use it, recognize an opportunity, and grab it before it disappears.
• 6:17
  And they are very good at that.
• 6:20
  But once you are very good at garnering all the resources, your performance level is no different than a top level predator in the wild that has captured a tract of land on the Serengeti plains and is ruling it
• 6:39
  completely un unopposed.
• 6:45
  To really go to the next level, this predator has to open up the boundaries of its land to invite people.
• 6:56
  And to do that, the predator has to start thinking of marshaling and husbanding its property rather than pillaging and using its property.
• 7:13
  I'm giving a very, very crude example from the animal world in a very allegorical way.
• 7:20
  Think about it.
• 7:21
  For a, for a CEO, he has dominated the marketplace.
• 7:25
  He's now the undominable, you know, like, incontrovertible monopoly in that area.
• 7:36
  To grow beyond that, he's actually going to have to stop behaving like a monopoly.
• 7:42
  He's going to have to open his marketplace, get some People in and actually collaborate with other partners that are potentially competitors, but in a way that they can rule a shared environment.
• 8:01
  He still has to manage that interaction in a way that preserves his strength without giving it away.
• 8:10
  But he has to now weave collaboration with his competitors that will truly allow him to dominate, because no technology can completely rule the enterprise forever and ever.
• 8:24
  New things will come up, a startup will come up that will completely disrupt the entire environment.
• 8:30
  That is what I tell people, that you gotta be able to actually use a different vision for the way in which your husband.
• 8:41
  I'm using just one example, but I'm using the example of someone who has risen to the top, but with the mindset that resources are finite objects bound by time and space that he has to control.
• 9:00
  And from there he has to move to a new mindset where he sees that resources are something that he creates by creating a space where the resources can emerge.
• 9:15
  And at that point he stops being a consumer of resources.
• 9:19
  He starts becoming a creator of resources.
• 9:22
  You're going to say something?
• 9:23
  Yeah, so what?
• 9:26
  So you're saying that someone's past kind of can blind them from the ability to see this, that they need to deconstruct?
• 9:33
  Yeah.
• 9:34
  Okay, so how does someone know, like you said, right, These high performers that have achieved this level of success, how does someone know when they need to deconstruct and change this lens to go to the next level?
• 9:48
  So what I do in my workshop is I give them exercises where they are actually capable of shifting their perception of who they are from the usual ways in which they saw themselves as who they are.
• 10:09
  And I know it sounds like very mumbo jumbo jargony, but I'll try to simplify it.
• 10:18
  We all have two modalities of knowing.
• 10:25
  We have a way of knowing our life through the input of our five senses as experience, as perception.
• 10:35
  And then we have a way of knowing life through the interpretations and the meanings we create out of these five perceptions that we have.
• 10:46
  You with me so far?
• 10:48
  Okay, so 99.9% behave as if their interpretations of their perceptions are the real life that they live in.
• 11:03
  They actually forget that life has actually got nothing to do with their interpretations.
• 11:09
  Life has everything to do with the way of knowing, of just pure observation, pure perception without a meaning attached to it.
• 11:19
  And that if they are able to remain in a space where they are just attentive to the.
• 11:25
  To the perception of opportunities, that same set of opportunities will show up with options that were completely different than the way they were showing it when they were Working through their narratives, because the narratives make them see reality
• 11:46
  through a filter, through a lens.
• 11:49
  And that filter restricts the options with which life can present themselves.
• 11:55
  Life actually presents in an infinitely more varied way.
• 12:00
  But the way you actually see it as presenting is what limits you.
• 12:06
  And all you have to do to break that limitation is to shift from a narrative based interpretation of life to a perception based life.
• 12:17
  And people will think, but wait a minute, my perception is my narrative.
• 12:21
  No, your perception is not your narrative.
• 12:26
  For example, you see color and then you give that color a certain value.
• 12:32
  You either you like it or you don't like it, and so on.
• 12:35
  The like and dislike comes on so fast to the perception that they actually become the perception, but it is not the perception, it's a superimposition.
• 12:46
  And I teach people the ability to stand in focus where they can find a 3 second space between true perception and interpreted perception.
• 13:00
  True perception gives you options.
• 13:03
  Interpreted perception restricts options.
• 13:09
  And if you want to go to the next level, you cannot go into the next level by restricting options.
• 13:16
  And the only way to do that is to move towards true perception.
• 13:19
  Go ahead.
• 13:20
  Okay, so it sounds like you're saying that the filter, so to speak, or the narrative that we give or that people give to, to their perceptions is really limiting them or holding them back from seeing what truly is
• 13:39
  available.
• 13:41
  And the fact that high performers, through their way of their lens and they.
• 13:46
  Have very powerful narratives.
• 13:48
  Okay.
• 13:48
  And it's hard for them to let that go given that it's creating success.
• 13:52
  It's worked for success, right?
• 13:54
  It has worked for them.
• 13:55
  It has worked for them.
• 13:56
  They have a lot of evidence and proof that these narratives are valuable, that they are successful.
• 14:03
  So the motivation to hold on to those narratives is very, very intense and powerful.
• 14:09
  And to be able to let go requires a certain level of humility and a certain level of openness that, that needs to be coached and cajoled and ched and pushed.
• 14:24
  And you had to create situations where they are forced to confront the fact that they may not be as open as they thought they were.
• 14:34
  Okay, and so why do you believe that mastering focus is the foundational pillar for entrepreneurs navigating the daily chaos?
• 14:48
  Because you cannot separate these two things without focus.
• 14:53
  You need intense focus to be able to separate the amalgam of your constructed narratives to your perception.
• 15:03
  To stand in that little space before your narrative takes over requires intense focus.
• 15:09
  And when you stand in that space, you can actually see the options evolving in front of you.
• 15:16
  And you can pick and choose, and you have immense Flexibility in that space, you no longer are bound by the narratives of your past.
• 15:26
  See, the narratives that we have are very powerful survival tools.
• 15:32
  Every creature tries to predict the future.
• 15:36
  The tiger that cannot predict where the deer is going to appear is going to go hungry.
• 15:41
  The deer that cannot predict where the tiger is going to appear is going to get eaten.
• 15:45
  So prediction, the ability and the desire for prediction exists in all creatures, from the lowest amoeba to the highest human.
• 15:54
  Every Wall Street Journal, every Wall street banker is trying to predict the next five minutes.
• 16:00
  The homeless hobo is trying to predict the next five minutes.
• 16:04
  So this desire to predict, it comes from two things.
• 16:09
  The desire to capture an advantage for yourself and to avoid a disadvantage.
• 16:15
  Every creature on the planet, whether it be a dog or a hue or a businessman, is the same thing.
• 16:23
  They try to predict what is going to be likely to be their advantage and what is likely to be their disadvantage and go towards one and avoid the other.
• 16:33
  This is the strategy of all businessmen.
• 16:37
  But the way they use prediction is they take a snapshot of what worked in the past and they superimpose it upon the present and say, hey, does this fit?
• 16:50
  If it fits, okay, I'm going to use this.
• 16:54
  But I'm saying, great, that's one way of dealing with, with the future.
• 17:00
  Look at it through the lens of your past.
• 17:03
  What about if you could take that lens and say, I used this in the past.
• 17:08
  But let's see, does it really have to be this way?
• 17:13
  What if I can put this aside for the time being and stand in the space of not knowing the answer?
• 17:24
  What kind of possibilities pop up?
• 17:26
  They then.
• 17:27
  And every CEO has to have the space in his life be able to do that.
• 17:35
  And for that you need focus.
• 17:38
  Okay, so I'm.
• 17:41
  What are some pr.
• 17:42
  What are some practical ways that.
• 17:45
  That entrepreneurs can train their mind to.
• 17:48
  To be able to focus?
• 17:50
  And.
• 17:51
  And begins with five minutes a day.
• 17:53
  Just like you go to the gym to build up muscle.
• 17:58
  You want to build your lats, you want to build your shoulders, you want to build your biceps, you want to build your legs.
• 18:04
  You got to devote some time, resources and energy to it.
• 18:08
  Like that.
• 18:09
  You got to devote some time.
• 18:10
  You got to take some time out of your day.
• 18:14
  Start with five minutes.
• 18:16
  And start with focusing on one thing.
• 18:19
  For example, the Chinese, sorry, the Japanese tea ceremony is a entire exercise on conscious focus.
• 18:28
  Focus on the mechanism of making tea, preparing the utensils, you know, eliciting the aroma of the tea, experiencing it by perception without getting an interpretation.
• 18:45
  And in this way, you Develop the ability to pay attention to your present situation.
• 18:54
  You start with five minutes.
• 18:55
  You can use anything that you do and start paying attention to it.
• 19:02
  You know, I had executives say, you know what, I had them actually take a few crystals of sugar and put it on their tongue.
• 19:13
  And I say, focus on just taste of that crystal of sugar on your tongue.
• 19:18
  And they'll come back and say, you know what, I have never ever tasted sugar like the way you did for the first time.
• 19:26
  I'm being aware of it.
• 19:28
  And you're saying, whatever you choose for in that case the sugar, you're saying start with intense, focus on that for beginning with five minutes.
• 19:37
  So is that what you're saying is five minutes?
• 19:39
  And you'll find it spilling over into other activities.
• 19:43
  You will find yourself being able to go through life as you go along the way.
• 19:49
  You will find just like a muscle that you build, you will find yourself developing stamina.
• 19:55
  Being able to focus on laser, focus on one set of issues, cut out the distracting noise and be able to let that occupy your entire consciousness.
• 20:10
  It's critical skill for any person in business to be able to do that.
• 20:20
  Okay, all right.
• 20:22
  And how does the success trap manifest for entrepreneurs and what are some of the early warning signs?
• 20:33
  Whenever you have an entrepreneur who says that I consistently find myself hiring the same kind of employee, or I find myself escalating to a particular level, but I'm not able to break through this particular income barrier or this
• 20:55
  particular performance metric.
• 20:58
  I find myself always plateauing at a particular level.
• 21:03
  You know that they are coming up face to face against the block of a past because that past has defined their future only up to that point, and because they continue to see life through, that are coming to
• 21:25
  a dead stop at that point.
• 21:26
  For them to go beyond that point, they're going to have to find a completely new way of building themselves.
• 21:36
  Okay, all right.
• 21:38
  And what's one counterintuitive lesson that you've learned about building a purpose driven business that many entrepreneurs might overlook?
• 21:51
  My best, my best lessons in leadership came from training dogs.
• 21:58
  Actually, it's very counterintuitive, but that's how it is.
• 22:01
  My best, for 20 years, I, I competed with police dog sports with the German shepherds.
• 22:09
  And from 2004 to 2023, I was engaged in a sport called Schutzen.
• 22:19
  And when you are working with an 8590 pound dog with Razor sharp teeth and a crushing bite and a personality that challenges authority, you learn very fast, without any, no nonsense, how to become a leader.
• 22:42
  These dogs, German Shepherds Belgian Malinois Rottweilers.
• 22:46
  These are not.
• 22:48
  These are tigers and tigresses in the form of dogs.
• 22:55
  You need to understand how to command their respect.
• 23:02
  And they taught me more about leading a team, developing a team, motivating it, giving them freedom, giving them the freedom to work independently at a distance, yet remain under control, remain obedient to command, even when there is no
• 23:27
  leash on them.
• 23:28
  All of that requires an ability to set boundaries and to give both freedom as well as accountability within those boundaries.
• 23:39
  And you understand that in the realm of a species, like a dog, and you learn to communicate in the language that species understand.
• 23:51
  But then the principles are applicable across the board to any other species.
• 23:56
  So I can take that.
• 23:58
  I took that out and employed it in my clinic.
• 24:01
  My clinic became.
• 24:03
  We have earned the Top Doctor Clinic Award for now since 2013.
• 24:12
  Every year during the pandemic, we were unbeatable.
• 24:18
  Every clinic in the area closed, and we remained open and took care of patients.
• 24:25
  We took care of 100,000 people during the pandemic for 24 months.
• 24:32
  And so that was all lessons that I applied from the sport of Schutzh.
• 24:40
  So that was a counterintuitive thing.
• 24:44
  Okay, and what's the biggest misconception that people have about the entrepreneurial journey?
• 24:51
  Based on your.
• 24:53
  Your extensive work with founders.
• 24:59
  People think that vision is enough for success.
• 25:06
  Vision is not enough.
• 25:10
  Vision is actually a smaller part of success.
• 25:14
  The ability to patiently work step by step through a process while holding on to your vision but not letting vision dominate.
• 25:31
  To have the discipline to remain focused on meeting specific goals.
• 25:39
  And the biggest goal that an entrepreneur needs to understand and never lose sight of is, how does what I do right now serve my customer?
• 25:51
  You have to identify who your customer is at all times.
• 25:56
  The name and shape of the customer may change from an external customer to an internal customer.
• 26:01
  But each time you have to ask, how do I serve this person?
• 26:05
  How do I make that person's life better?
• 26:09
  And it has to be made on the terms of the customer, not your terms.
• 26:12
  You can't come around and say, oh, I'm going to come and make your life better, because you need this.
• 26:17
  That's arrogance.
• 26:19
  You need to figure out what customer wants.
• 26:24
  And if you.
• 26:24
  If the customer doesn't know what he wants, then you got to help the customer identify what he wants and articulate.
• 26:32
  Help him articulate his want.
• 26:35
  And then out of that articulation, you have to come forward and meet that at the place where the customer is.
• 26:45
  So entrepreneurs are great at passion and vision.
• 26:51
  They are not so great at service.
• 26:55
  And this is what determines who serves customer.
• 27:01
  And success comes to the person who serves.
• 27:07
  Love that.
• 27:08
  Okay.
• 27:09
  And Dr.
• 27:10
  Ravi, if people want to find out more about your work, your coaching, your speaking, all that type of stuff, what's the best way people can reach out to you online?
• 27:20
  My website, www.DSN David RS and Robert.
• 27:27
  I as in India, Y as in yellow.
• 27:30
  E R my last name.
• 27:33
  I y e r doctoryer.com that will.
• 27:38
  That will take you to an umbrella website that puts everything you can reach me and everything that I do is in that website.
• 27:48
  The books I write, talks I give, the TED talks, I've given, you know, coaching.
• 27:59
  You want to book a call with me?
• 28:00
  You can just go and click on the link and book a call and discover what we can do together and whether or not it's something that we can work and.
• 28:12
  And we are off to the races after that.
• 28:15
  All right, we'll link that in the show.
• 28:18
  Notes for everyone.
• 28:19
  Yeah.
• 28:20
  All right, well, Dr.
• 28:20
  Ravi, thank you so much for taking the time to be here and sharing all this wisdom from your journey and the work that you do with our audience.
• 28:28
  We greatly appreciate it.
• 28:30
  Thank you, David.
• 28:31
  It's a pleasure talking to you.
• 28:33
  All right, and that's all the time we have for now.
• 28:36
  We will see you next time.