I turned to my dad for his advice. He told me there are 3 steps to take whenever you face a challenge: surround yourself with the right people — learn continuously — take action.
I soon changed schools, applied my dad’s advice, and my outlook on life changed. Since that day, I have only looked back to remember these golden words, so whenever I experience a challenge I look to connect with the right people, learn from people, books, videos, or courses and take action. This helps give me clarity, focus, direction, and a positive breakthrough. I realized that the immense value I received from this advice could benefit others too. Somewhere, subconsciously, this sowed the seeds of Breaking Bread in my mind.”, says Gautam Ganglani in episode 21 of Career Nation Show.
Gautam Ganglani runs one of the leading business speaker organizations called the Right Selection.
He is promoting great speakers and thought leadership across the world: US, Europe, Middle East, and Asia.
Gautam is also an author and he recently wrote the book “Breaking Bread” which is doing really well.
In Career Nation Show, Gautam talks about his book, leadership, and success.
Transcription:
Career Nation:
Today. We are so lucky to have Gautam Ganglani on the career nation show. Gautam runs one of the leading business speaker organizations called the right selection. He’s promoting great speakers. He promotes taught leadership across the world in the US, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia with them is also an author. And he recently wrote the book breaking bread, which is doing well. Let’s chat with Gautam Ganglani about thought leadership about his book, and many other things. Gautam, welcome to the show.
Gautam Ganglani:
Thank you very much. It’s an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me on your show.
Career Nation:
Oh, the pleasure is all mine. You know, Gautam. Give us a little backstory about the book. I mean, you’ve been working with some of the biggest brands in the top leadership, and now the book gives us some backstory about how did you conceptualize this book and how has been the journey.
Gautam Ganglani:
Thank you. Breaking bread is a philosophy that I’ve always been very familiar with, but I was born and brought up in London. There’s a term we use, you know, breaking bread when you sort of the ultimate meaning is a lively energy exchange between two or more people. When he grew up in and breaking bread, you know that when you have a meat feed, breakfast, lunch, or dinner, its foundation actually started, and we go back into visit families that eat together and stay together. The family would come together for their Sunday lunch together in the UK in the Gulf. When I moved to the Gulf 20 or data, we’d come together as a family on Fridays, your extended family. And that’s the time when you share a meal; you share news of the week, what’s working. What’s not, you share updates and sort of the story amongst your family members.
Gautam Ganglani:
And that’s the sort of time to bond and connect, build rapport with family members. So that’s sort of the foundation of how it started and being Indian and, you know, the culture and the Indian culture is all about family and food. And even the Gulf region is, I mean, food to Omni, present arts of our culture. So it was very natural for me to bring this sort of family cultural experience that I was born and brought up with to get it into the business. You know, so for me, we’ve never had a sales team or a salesperson in our organization. For and last 27 years, I’m aware of the father and son’s family business. But the idea was really about bringing the relationship sort of mindset and breaking bread philosophy into our business. So we broke bread with our internal team when he broke bread with our speakers over the years, and that’s sort of being a part of our journey.
Gautam Ganglani:
And one fine day, very recently, a year back, I was asked to speak on the sort of topics that got them. Well-Connected globally. You are friends with many of the most outstanding speakers in the world, you know, tell us more. And that’s when suddenly I did a keynote speech a year back, which was the foundation of how this book got created. And I transcribed that speech. And that was the first 5,000 words of this book. And here we are six months later in, locked down with an actual published book available on Amazon. It was so breaking bread, sort of being the journey itself.
Career Nation:
That’s amazing. And there are so many great things to unpack your book. You know, one of the turning points in your story, and you, you mentioned this in the book, is your dad’s advice. Can you please share with the audience some of the things that he mentioned that stayed with you and made a difference in your life?
Gautam Ganglani:
Thank you very much. Yeah. So I haven’t been brought up in the UK as I shared, you know, in my teenage years I went through a challenging time; actually, the age of 13 and this lasted for a couple of years. I was bullied. I was teased. I was humiliated, was made fun of this, made me feel like an introvert at very low self-esteem, tiny conference. My grades were below average, and this resulted in me having very few friends. I was anxious. I was stressed. I was worried. I was confused. And I went to my dad, and I told him nothing, makes any sense, come in. I don’t even know what the purpose is? What is the meaning? And I just expressed to my sort of negative frame of mind, my low energy. And he said, son, I’m going to help you through this and give you three pieces of advice.
Gautam Ganglani:
But before I give you that those pieces of advice, let me share with you that two things that are constant in your entire life are challenges and change. Not only now, as a teenager, but for the rest of your life, whatever level of success you achieve as a professional, as an entrepreneur, realize the challenges and changes are constant. We’ve had many recessions over the years, many challenges are related, but today we have COVID-19, you know, and that’s the challenge we face today. So the advice he gave me as a teenager was to surround yourself with the right people. Secondly, continuously learn and third and most important is take action, take massive action. I was fortunate to change schools and suddenly surround myself with positive, encouraging, uplifting people. I suddenly felt better about myself because my environment was encouraging and inspiring.
Gautam Ganglani:
I then started learning more. Whether you learn from books, you learn from people today, learn from both blogs, articles, podcasts, and then take action because you’re, you get a lot of knowledge through people, through events, through conferences that are about taking action. When the story, you either progress or you learn. And that’s the very philosophy that I went to. And since the age of 16, I’d never looked back. It transformed my entire teenage years, my university, and my entire business career because these three pieces of advice are just so simple but yet profound. And when applied, it creates breakthroughs and solutions to every challenge,
Career Nation:
Amazing got them. You know this is such a great story in itself because you you’ve overcome adversity. And thanks for your dad’s advice. You’ve been applying that consistently throughout the years, you’ve gotten great success, and now you’re sharing that with the world. I love that story, and there’s so much there for all of us to learn from, you know, you know, one of the things you mentioned there was about COVID, which is sort of the current issue at hand, if you will, you know, there is not a country in the world that is not impacted and affected by COVID. And as you are navigating this, and you’re seeing so many people, maybe they’re entrepreneurs, business leaders, speakers, and trying to navigate the situation. What advice would you have for people like people trying to make a difference in the world? Are they trying to go about their work? How should we look at COVID, and how should we look at this in terms of navigating this successfully,
Gautam Ganglani:
Thank you. First of all, I want to acknowledge that it is a very challenging time for everyone across the world. And there’s no question about it. So what I’m about to share is my perception and my sort of experience. And first and foremost is acceptance. We must accept what we cannot change, what we have no control over because only when we get, we free our minds and have space to decide then how do we use this time and what we can do. Now, it goes back to the same advice that my dad provided me. And I just reemphasize that it’s like, who are the right people? Do you want to spend time with me? You know, what do you need to learn? And what action can you take? And that’s the same advice that I did. I mean, these first three months of the lockdown for me, I immediately moved to acceptance because the moment I would accept in my mind, what opportunity is presenting today?
Gautam Ganglani:
What do I need to change? Who do I need to speak to? Who do I need to spend time with? What do I need to learn? You start asking yourself very, very good questions. And when you ask yourself the right questions by default, you will come up with great answers. Do you realize who I need to call? I made a list of over 150 people I get within the first three months. And my whole plan was just called to say, how are you? What’s news how’s progress. How are you managing during the situation? Probably 50, 60% of the people were anxious, stress, concern, uncertain, but at the end of the call, just by sharing, they felt lighter. They felt encouraged different inspired because there’s a lively energy exchange. So as a minimum, 70% of the women felt better because it just friends; they could share their grievances and challenges.
Gautam Ganglani:
And then they shifted the conversation. Well, what should we do about it? What can we do? What can I change? What can I adapt and ask themselves? What are the, you know, what can you, what changes need to happen? And there were 30% of people who were in a very positive state of mind. We’re thinking about innovation. We’re thinking about creative solutions. How do I move my business online? How do what do I need to scale down? What can I scale up? You know, what are the new things that are going to work? And they started asking themselves better questions that if this is going to last for the unforeseeable future, the quicker we accept that, the faster we adapt, the faster we evolve our businesses and move positively forward. So to me in summary, it’s really about you first and foremost, deciding, you know, who do you want to spend time with?
Gautam Ganglani:
And communication is key. The more you communicate, share, and share the more you learn, the more you learn, apply that knowledge, and evolve. And to me, it’s been a; it’s been a phenomenal six months. I mean, I split it actually in two hops. In the first three months, we just gave unconditionally, we hosted 25 virtual events in three months, or it had over 15,000 people. I grew my LinkedIn following tremendously. People said you built your brand further. You learned a lot. You provided solutions, knowledge to people in deep pain, and then you build tremendous Goodwill and their bubble. What did I do at that time? I did a lot of market research. I asked questions to say, what are you willing to learn? What are your pain points? What timeframe would you be willing to spend online? What kind of budgets do you have? We asked lots of questions. We gathered that data. We reverse-engineered our business, and the last three months have been hugely successful. And they’ve only been successful because you build Goodwill, you build your brand, and you’ve created products and services online based on the feedback you’ve had from the customers where you gave, gave, gave the first three months unconditionally,
Career Nation:
Not them. That’s amazing. And you know, that that in itself is an excellent framework for anybody to use, which is to connect with customers given unconditionally. It doesn’t matter if it results in an immediate value or not. Still, over some time, once you created enough weight for your customers, they will not only come back to you, but they’ll become even more loyal customers, and your business is going to grow. And that’s a phenomenal framework for anybody to use. And I appreciate you sharing that with the audience, right?
Gautam Ganglani:
Yeah. Thank you. My triggers, actually, my dad always said, he said to me many years ago, the most crucial bank account is the personal bank account. You know, money comes and goes in life. We all go through our cycles of in this, in the financial space, but emotional bank account, your relationship capital, that’s your asset. That’s your true valuable asset to ups and downs. So to me, that sort of represents what I also said. Breaking bread is a journey. It’s not a destination. We’re not in a race here. It needs to be done. Step-By-Step with patients with positive energy and nurture these relationships slowly but surely.
Career Nation:
Oh, a hundred percent. One of my mentors says your network drives your network. And I agree with that. So it is connected. Let’s get to know you a little more in our game than all of her guests. We call it our favourite’s game. And I’m going to ask you some point-blank questions and ask you about your favourite things, and you have to answer what is your favorite item and why it is. Are you ready to go with them? Absolutely. I’m ready. Awesome. The first question is, what’s your favourite app?
Gautam Ganglani:
My favorite app is an app called AOL. That’s spelled a Y oil. I love it because, to me, it helps me in innovation, and it helps me in productivity. And it’s, it’s a tool which is full of colors and vibrancy. So I enjoy that app. It’s one of my all-time favorites.
Career Nation:
Oh, awesome. I’ll make sure to put that in the show notes. Thank you for sharing that. Gautam. Do you have a favorite quote that you go by, or is one of your favorites?
Gautam Ganglani:
Do you know the business we’re in we’re full of coats? Every speaker has quotes, but one of the sections that, you know, always stays in my mind, I enjoy called winners. Don’t do different things. They do things differently, which is by shift Kara. I just love that. Good, but there’s, it’s all about doing things differently. Everyone’s busy, everyone’s busy doing things, but it’s winners do things differently. And when you do things differently, that resonates a lot with me.
Career Nation:
Oh, I love it. It’s brilliant. And it’s very insightful. Now let’s move on to the next question, which will probably be very difficult for you. What is your favorite book?
Gautam Ganglani:
Favorite book? Yes. Another challenging one. Again, having read many books, one of the best, best books inspired me to write my book. There’s a book called the fish philosophy. And the subtitle of that is work made fun, gets done. I love that book because it’s a simple parable, a story about a fish market in Seattle, where people have fun while selling fish. They say more fish sell purse sole per square foot than any place in America because there’s an interaction. There’s a lively energy exchange. There’s fun; there’s emotion involved. And to me, we spend more than 70% of our lives at work, excluding sleep, so we should enjoy our work. So to me, the fish philosophy work made fun gets done one of my all-time favorite books.
Career Nation:
I like that. That’s a perfect one. I’m going to check that out myself. Gotham, tell us about your favorite food.
Gautam Ganglani:
Now, having said that, the fish philosophy fishes on my mind. So one of my favorites is going fish, sorry. I enjoy eating fish and seafood in that sense and going fish Curry, I’ve always wanted it. And that would be one of my favorites that I, that I relish and enjoy. It has the right, but it’s also very spicy, which I want.
Career Nation:
That’s awesome. And given breaking bread and you’ve broken bread with so many people, I’m sure you’ve had exposure to a lot of different cuisines, and you chose this one. That’s pretty cool. I like it. Go then, which is your favorite music.
Gautam Ganglani:
And music? I’m; honestly, I love music in general across the board. I mean, reg sing would be one of my all-time favorites; you know, had the pleasure of seeing him his live concerts in Dubai twice. And it was, it was just amazing because I feel to me brings out the emotion. A lot of his songs are emotional and are inspiring as well. It’s one of my all-time favorites because there’s great energy, and there’s a lot of emotion and meaning in words. And I get inspired when music has energy, emotion, and purpose. And that is one of my, one of my favorites.
Career Nation:
Outstanding go with them. Thank you so much for being such a sport and playing the favorites game, Vanessa. Awesome. Hey, let me ask you a question because this has come up in our conversations in the past where you’ve made connections with speakers, as you know, Marshall Goldsmith, Ron Kaufman what’s, what’s, it’s been like to make connections with you know, worldwide legends. And these are folks that are brand names by themselves. Did, did that also involve breaking bread with them? How did all of that come about?
Gautam Ganglani:
Great, first and foremost, I’d say I’m abundantly grateful to know these names, be it Marshall Goldsmith, you know, Brian, Tracy, Ron Kaufman, Jack Canfield of the name of fuel that I can sit on my personal and professional friends and breaking bread has been an only present part of that journey. You know, with, with Jack Canfield chicken soup for the soul, I mean, we collaborate hosting him and, you know, multiple countries from Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Bombay, Bangalore, Chennai, numerous, numerous cities across the region. And, and you get a chance to travel with these speakers. You spend time in airports; you spend time on flights. And, and to me, when I look back, when they’re on stage, they’re inspiring the audiences, but the best learning, the best way you’ve got to build rapport and get to know each other has been when you’ve had that time to have a meal together on a flight at an airport while you’re waiting for your flights.
Gautam Ganglani:
In the evening after an event, you have a meal together. You get to understand, know each other’s families. I’ve had the pleasure of hosting each of these speakers in my home in Bombay and Dubai, they get to meet my family, my wife, my kids, and when they get to meet your family, it brings all the barriers down. It’s more of a personal relationship. The formality of a transaction’s formal relationship, which happens in a business, is removed because they got to eat your cultural food. Your homemade Indian meal got to meet your family members, meeting your family members, and eating a home cooked meal is instant rapport, instant sort of connecting, and tremendous lively energy exchange. And that’s been one of the ways that I can consider as being in a where I built relationships with each of these global speakers.
Career Nation:
Wow. That’s amazing. And considering the number of people you’re associated with, it’s a phenomenal achievement, and quite frankly, it’s one of those things. One of those fuels that fuels you not only professionally, but also personally, so it’s perfect to hear that you know, in the, in the book breaking bread, you mentioned a lot about affirmations and can you tell us a little bit about sort of what’s your perspective on promises, how you found them beneficial? Because I was, I was reading too that, and I’ve found myself looking at commitments like, Oh, this is so cool. This is, these are perfect nuggets that, you know, I can apply in my life and anybody can use in their lives.
Gautam Ganglani:
Yeah. Thanks. I’ll redo that. Formations have been a part of my entire childhood. Thanks to my dad. My dad was a big fan of Louise hay. Louisa is known as the queen of affirmations, and you know, her books, you can heal your life, and many other great bestselling books have always had promises, which have been a part of all her books, her teachings, and even music that’s been shared. So for me, I grew up with affirmations, and it’s a part of me that every morning, I have a set routine. And I, in my walk that I take for half an hour every morning, I listen to affirmations for 30 minutes, and these are all positive affirmations because to me, one of the most incredible things, I went through a challenging time in 2009, I have gifted a book.
Gautam Ganglani:
And that book helped me during that tough, painful time. Despite knowing those three pieces of advice, my dad, I still went through a low, and took me a couple of months to accept this new, painful reality in 2009. And the gentleman gifted me this book called attitude by Jeffrey determined. And the chapter in that book said, number one challenge is stopped reading the newspaper, but 30 days. And I said I’m ready for the challenge because I said anything to sort of change my mind changed my thinking. And we haven’t had a newspaper in our house since Jan 2009. It’s been 11 years. I’ve not seen a newspaper, and the newspaper hasn’t entered our home. We don’t have a CNN. We don’t have a BBC. We don’t have any new channels in our home for 11 years. Why, why do affirmations come into this?
Gautam Ganglani:
What we’ve learned is that what the mind consumes becomes a part of your DNA becomes a part of you. And your morning is a time when you’ve got a clean slate. You start every day with a clean slate. Now what you consume in the morning habits, really many people read one, two, and I know one particular article reads three newspapers a day. And when you internalize three newspapers a day, that knowledge becomes a part of you. You’re edgy during the day. You’re negative, you’re stressed. You don’t have a positive mindset, even with the best of intentions. So to me, starting my day with affirmations has made a profound difference because I consume 30 minutes of positive statements claims in my mind; I’m not ready for the day. I built up my immune system mentally, physically, emotionally to face whatever the day hasn’t placed. And I’m always looking at solutions, ideas, opportunities, collaborations because of affirmation. And one more thought, my dad and me, he has a WhatsApp group and our entire team. He sends a daily commitment for many years, a daily promise, and every team member sends a voice note of that affirmation onto the group. So I didn’t have a commitment shared by six to eight team members on a daily message on a dedicated affirmation group. So it’s very much a part of our morning routine as a team and as a family.
Career Nation:
Oh, wow. That’s brilliant at so many levels because on the one hand, affirmations help us. And you’re so right. I mean, it’s almost like you have to condition yourself mentally, like how you prepare yourself, physical exercise. You will have a good diet, and you break bread. And then, of course, similarly, mentally, you have to have that mental hygiene and affirmations is a great way to condition and program yourself or having more positive pods. And, quite frankly, that’s so much needed to go with them in these times that we live in; that’s a brilliant system. And I would, and I would almost call it a hack since I’m here in Silicon Valley that we can use for making things better for ourselves. So the audience, if you can, please check out breaking bread on Amazon and other online resellers; make sure you buy, get a Kindle edition, and write a review on Amazon. As we wrap up here, Gautam, you know, what are some of your, some of you what is it, some of your advice for career nation? Many of us are here; we are in working with technology or work with technology. And we’re always in the, in search of what’s the next big thing. You are talking to some of the most innovative and entrepreneurial and creative people around. What would you say is your advice? As we wrap up
Gautam Ganglani:
My advice to professionals, entrepreneurs, whatever the industry would be, really know your passion is first and foremost know, know your love, and know you’re why you know your purpose. And then for me, I would say whatever that maybe is looking for the sort of role models in your industry and finding who they are. Follow them, watch them learn from them. What’s the podcast, what’s the videos? Read their blogs, read their articles, engage with them online. You have a golden opportunity. Everything is online; we’re on the same playing field today. Very few people are going out. As of now, everything’s online. Find out who are your role models online and spend time learning them, learning from them engaging with them wherever possible. So you can emulate the best of the best. There must be a way to know how they grew to wherever they are as thought leaders in their chosen industry.
Gautam Ganglani:
And what stops you from me? You should be the next thought leader in your industry. It takes by finding people who’ve already been there, done that very few things haven’t done before. It’s not, it’s just about understanding, you know, the best practices from your industry and then, you know, slowly but surely investing in your learning and a bubble and taking action. And when the time permits, spend time, again, going back to spend time with people from the industry, spend time with people that are like-minded like-hearted because that’s the only way you will progress in whatever your chosen path and chosen career.
Career Nation:
Awesome. Gautam. Thank you so much for being a guest on the show. It has been a treat for us for our entire audience, and I’m sure people want to get in touch with you. What’s the best way to get in touch with you, engage with you, follow you. Is it LinkedIn, Twitter? What, what would you prefer?
Gautam Ganglani:
There are two options. I would suggest one is LinkedIn, a pleasure to connect people professionally on LinkedIn, and alternatively, you can visit gautamganglani.com. You’ll get to know about my journey and connect with me if you’d like to schedule a time to connect. So Gautam and.com or my LinkedIn profile, it goes by my name as well. Either one of those options would be great.
Career Nation:
Outstanding. Go with them. Thank you so much for being part of the show. Thank you for your time. Your valuable inputs breaking bread is online on. Please get your copy.
Career Nation:
Gautam. Thank you so much.
Gautam Ganglani:
Thank you so much, it’s been an absolute pleasure to be on your show, and I wish you continued success on your journey and continue breaking bread online and offline.