Inner Mastery, Outer Impact: The Essence of a Great Leader | Hitendra Wadhwa, PhD

Hitendra Wadhwa (0:00)

An ideal anything, an ideal piece of art, an ideal family, ideal human being, and certainly an ideal leader would be one where outer excellence and outer beauty is actually emanating from inner excellence and inner beauty.

Michael Gervais (0:25)

Okay, welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I am your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training a high-performance psychologist. What is the primary driver of effective leadership? It's a question that so many of us wrestle with. What is the primary driver of effective leadership? Is it science, or is it more soul? Is it a more practical, results-driven, organizational practice?

Or is it an inner meditative sense of self? Dr. Hitendra Wadhwa has spent his career exploring these questions. With deep roots in both Indian mystic traditions and the rigorous world of MIT Sloan School of Management, he bridges the gap between spirituality and science, leadership and personal growth. As a celebrated professor at Columbia Business School and the visionary behind the Mentora Institute, Hitendra has coached executives in Fortune 100 companies and has also penned the transformative book, Inner Mastery, Outer Impact. His teachings distilled from a life's work at the intersection of success, wisdom and authenticity have reached thousands, earning him accolades and a reputation as a pioneer in personal leadership. His philosophy is simple and so profound that when you cultivate your inner self, wisdom shows up in the outer self and that wisdom can be used to lead.

This entire conversation was full of insights and I think you may just leave it thinking about success and leadership and your relationship to them in a whole new way. So with that, let's dive into this rich conversation with Dr. Hitendra Wadhwa.

Hitendra, how are you?

Hitendra Wadhwa (2:17)

It's great to see you, Mike. Yeah, I'm good.

Michael Gervais (2:19)

I've been looking forward to this for a long time.

The way you show up in the world, the way that you've pulled on the threads of living the good life, the spiritual life, the ambitious life, the leadership life, like the way that you have straddled what seems to be a very elusive point of view, let alone an elusive practice of being, has been materially important to me in my life. And so I've been really looking forward to this with you.

Hitendra Wadhwa (2:52)

Yeah, yeah.

You know, it's one thing to just be aspiring for this and thinking about it and trying to codify it for the world. And it's another thing to be really exuding it, right, in your own energy and aura. And that's what I most remember being struck by, you know, about you, Mike, like when we first met. You had that very precious dinner in the other part, which was like, I was just observing, you know, like, wow. You know, you're actually obviously be a teacher of this stuff, but you're actually living this stuff, right, in that sort of, yeah, very hyperactive environment that we were in. So anyway, so I too, I'm just looking forward to this.

Michael Gervais (3:29)

That's awesome. Okay. So maybe that's a place that we start is your new book you've just written about living and leading.

And you've crosswalked those two concepts in what feels to me like a bit of an opus of a book. And so one congratulations on being able to get your arms around those two concepts in a rich way. But I was wondering if we could start with, I can't remember if it was a text or an email you sent me about, it was a group chat, but about a recent dilemma that you had in your life. And if you could just open that up, it was a dinner based.

Could you open that up? And I think it would just give us a nice way to think about who you are, the struggles you have, and kind of your outlook.

Hitendra Wadhwa (4:24)

Yeah, well, it relates to a moment that otherwise is very special and indulgent for me, which is when I'm in London every now and then. I mean, look, I enjoy a good company and I enjoy sort of feasting and engaging socially with others, but I also really enjoy little quiet moments of savoring and enjoying.

And this happened to be one of those moments. I had a very busy day with lots of activity and meetings and things, and so I thought of treating myself by going to one of my favorite very simple humble Sri Lankan restaurant called Hoppers in Malibu. And so I'm sitting there, and at some point, the server comes up and he says, it's time for last call if any of you need more hoppers. So a hopper is something which in South India and in Sri Lanka, you also call it an appam, and it's a very special form of warm bread, really beautiful bread, goes really well with the spices of Sri Lanka and South India. And so I was blindfolded and I ordered another hopper before the kitchen was going to be closed. And so my hopper came, the second hopper, it's lying there on the side.