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The CodeBreaker Mindset and Leading Through Change with Chitra Nawbatt 1-19-26
00:20:54
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- [00:00]
A
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and the Becker Business Podcast. We try and bring you one to two business or market episodes a day, plus an interview with a business leader almost every day. We're thrilled today to be joined by an absolutely brilliant leader. She's an investor, an entrepreneur, an author. She's got a brand new newsletter series we're excited to learn more about. We're joined today by Chitra Knobat and Church has had this magnificent career. Chitra, can you take a moment to tell us a bit about yourself and about your career? Then we'll talk about where you're most focused and some more more efforts that you've got going on.
- [00:40]
B
Scott, thank you so much. Happy New Year to everyone and so pleased and grateful to be with you today and have the time to chat and share perspective. So thank you for asking. You know, I am a multimodal and that means I sort of operate in three spheres. One is tech, a tech operator. Two, an investor and investor in a number of different areas, whether it's tech, sports, health, tech and other. And three, a media person. I'm an author, podcast host and speaker and the author, podcast host and speaking aspect that gets very much into providing information to help people make decisions and live a fuller life. And a lot of my effort there also was to support cancer research, which is an important philanthropic cause to me. In terms of a bit of a fast forward of the beginning of time to today, my career has had different sort of chapters and phases. You grew up at ey? I was CPA by origin and proud of that professional heritage of independence, objectivity, client service, audit, consulting. Then my second chapter was investment banking at Deutsche bank where I worked in M and A and fintech before Fintech was a thing. My third chapter was a very nonlinear pivot into broadcast journalism as a TV news anchor for a number of reputable platforms in the number one media market in the world, New York City. And that was about helping people through information. My fourth chapter was digital transformation consulting for a large company called genpact. Then my fifth chapter, where I first came to know you, Scott, at Becker Becker Healthcare and so forth, was an investor at General Catalyst, large venture capital firm investing in enterprise, consumer, fintech, health tech. And then my chapter post General Catalyst, has been working in startups, working with founders. Now at a large tech company focused on customer experience, investing in a portfolio of companies and other vehicles and serving through my book the Codebreaker Mindset podcast of the same name, the Codebreaker Mindset and giving back through information and on the philanthropy side through giving back to cancer research. So that's me in a nutshell. Look forward to this conversation.
- [02:56]
A
No, it's literally amazing the amount of things that you do and take a moment and talk about. I really want to talk about where you're most focused today, plus leadership. Chitra, take a moment on of the various different things you've done, what's been the most engaging to the most compelling? What have you loved the most that you've done?
- [03:19]
B
The thing about being, I call myself sort of a Swiss army knife, but the thing about being a multimodal person is the diversity of things I've been fortunate to do, the diversity of industries, ecosystem, stakeholders. And I think the thing I enjoy doing the most, frankly, is serving others. How can I help other others, whoever those stakeholders are, whether it's a direct customer, a strategic partner, whoever it might be, how to help others achieve their goals. And I've done that both through business as an operator, as an investor, in terms of deploying capital, helping companies build, grow and scale. But a current and recent passion, if you will, is this new book that I wrote, the Code Breaker Mindset, which is a book around decision making and pattern recognition. To sum it up, the proceeds of that go to cancer research because my dad died of a very rare form of cancer called Levi's sarcoma. Only 4,000 people globally get that every year. There's no treatment, no cure, so very much cause close to my heart in terms of being able to give back. But it was the book journey, writing the book over the last year to year and a half, coming up with this decision making framework around the notion of the Coker mindset, which is that there's written and unwritten rules, pivots and non linearity in decision making in everybody's journey, whether it's your career, personal life, decision as a founder, a CEO, building business, building teams. So I would say something very passionate close to my heart would be creating the thought leadership and getting it out there to help people. But the umbrella is serving others through information, through business expertise, through capital deployment. But the umbrella headline is serving others.
- [05:00]
A
And take a moment on both the book and the newsletter. The Code Breaker book and newsletter. Tell us a little bit about that and maybe a couple of the highlights that people should be thinking about.
- [05:11]
B
Sure. Thank you so much for asking and for inviting this part of the conversation. Decision making is hard, right? And especially now in this age of tech and AI. Right. In this age of tech and AI. One of the things I talk about in the book is this notion of the agents of chaos. And there's some broad agents of chaos, right? So tech and AI is one like the speed and the velocity of change. Part of what comes out of tech and AI is an evaporation of values and trust because that comes from not knowing what data is real. Right. There's a lot of fabricated data out there. So what data is real and how does that inform your decision making? And part of it also too, given the way the world is fragmentation, social media spinning and transactional relationships and ecosystems. So I think that's some of the macroeconomic, macro, societal cultural factors that are impacting all of that, all of us part of that. There's a natural higher velocity for economic pressure, business model pressure, life pressure on people, Stability I think is fleeting, if even a thing. Right. And so with all of that backdrop, how do you make decisions? And when I was growing up as a kid, you know, I was taught merit wins and rules the day. But I think there's so many forces counter to merit. And so part of why I wrote the book was to give people this thought process, this decision making pattern recognition framework around. There's always going to be written unwritten rules in every scenario you're dealing with. Whether it's getting your child into a school, whether it's what career you want to do, whether it's what business decision you want to make in terms of deploying resources or building your team or going after that customer or winning that large deal, or pivoting your business. There's always going to be written unwritten rules in any scenario. So do you know what those are? And that gets into, do you have all the right information? The second piece of that is can you interpret that information? Do you know how to interpret that information to make the necessary pivots? Because you're always going to have to be making voluntary and more importantly facing involuntary pivots, right? Involuntary pivots is the external market forces that you couldn't predict or that you didn't have the information to understand how to interpret. And the third piece of this pattern recognition decision making framework is there's always going to be some level of non linearity. And one way to think about that is serendipity. Right? Serendipity can be both headwind and tailwind, especially within the healthcare sector. They endured a lot in Covid, right? For some businesses Covid was a headwind. For certain businesses Covid was a tailwind. And so what is that serendipity, Whether it is a timing being in the being in the right place at the right time, a critical relationship, having the right informed intuition. One of the things I talk about in the book is informed intuition is your life to date pattern recognition. So raw intuition plus life to date pattern recognition. So I think these elements put together in this framework of written and unwritten rules, the pivots, voluntary, involuntary, the non linearity, which is serendipity, informed intuition that forms the code breaker mindset equation and thus an anchor in the book around decision making around the code breaker mindset. So that's the book, the newsletter is an ongoing thought leadership series related to that, which continues to provoke and carry forward that thought leadership. And the podcast series is interviewing leaders around their life journey in this context. What were the written and unwritten rules they had to figure out, the pivots that they've learned from and the non linearity in their journey.
- [08:44]
A
So Chitra, you've had this amazing professional career with, with huge highlights. Talk a little bit about when you what advice do you give to emerging leaders wanting to have great impactful careers? How do you think about that when you're mentoring others, talking to others, trying to have great careers?
- [09:03]
B
I think a couple of things. I think one is keeping yourself on the competitive edge. Status quo is not your friend. It doesn't matter what industry you're in or what life stage you're in, or even if you're retired. Right? I think in this age of tech and AI, the new baseline is that status quo is no more and status quo is not your friend. And therefore, how do you keep yourself on the edge? How do you keep your intellectual quotient, emotional quotient, holistic quotient, your entire being, your pattern recognition, the way that you view the world, how do you keep yourself on the competitive edge? And I think part of that is in being intentional about studying and looking for the outliers. Because today's outlier is tomorrow's status quo. And if you can get ahead and figure out what today's outlier is and spot the trend in that and predict the next what is the next pattern? What is the next new thing, the next big thing that helps prepare you not only in your career, not only the skills you have to build, the skills you have to build in your team, but the way that you're leading your company, whether you're running a mature company in a mature industry or, or a young company, a young startup, a new startup at the edge of the next thing. And so I think that developing the skills, the mindset, the analytical the synthesis of the data points to study the outliers, because today's outlier becomes tomorrow's status quo. I think conversely, it's also being able to understand when yesterday's legacy is being reincarnated as today's quote unquote innovation or outlier, when it really isn't right. So it's that delineation between what is really outlier and the next edge of innovation versus status quo versus incremental innovation. So I think that's one bucket. The other is going back to this notion of resilience and innovation. Because now we have to pivot more than any ever before. The order of magnitude, the frequency of change and the duration of change is now permanent and consistent. And therefore the individual, the company, the team, in whatever context, whether it's personal, professional, business, organization, nonprofit, whatever is the context, the frequency and the velocity of change is only getting higher and higher, especially because of tech and AI and therefore your ability to, to pivot, especially make those voluntary pivots get ahead of the issue, to pivot yourself before faced with an external pivot. And if you are faced with that external pivot, being able to recover, your ability to recover. So that is rooted in your resilience. And therefore resiliency is becoming a skill, a holistic skill. More so because we are all now having to pivot more often, quicker and under more duress or more extreme pressure than I think life to date we've ever been equipped to handle. So those would be a couple of things that I would encourage leaders to think about.
- [12:12]
A
I think this point, every point that you make resonates with me so well. The resilience in the recovery resonates so well as well. Talk about how you do this, because in a fast paced world, you've done this incredible job of recalibrating yourself, re energizing yourself and getting going on new challenges and new efforts every decade or so, every five years or so. How do you find that energy? Where do you find that resilience and recovery? What works for you to keep yourself motivated and sharp?
- [12:46]
B
That is an ongoing, continuous, you know, an ongoing, continuous effort. To be frank, Scott, and I think it's an important point that you raised, right? Because this stuff is hard. And one of the things that I've reflected on very deeply and I talk about in the book, is this notion of a force in nature, right? And to use a bit of a healthcare and birth analogy, right, when you think about it, everyone is born a force in nature. And why do I say that? Because that baby from birth, the moment that child comes out of his or her mother's womb, right? That is a little force of nature. When you think of a baby, whether you've had a child or whether you got nieces or nephews, godchildren, etc. Right? That little child to its parents from since the time that baby is, you know, zero days old to six months old, even a year, they say to mom and dad, no, right, they don't want to eat. They throw down the bottle, throw down the food, throw down the spoon. They're looking at what is a 6 foot, 7 foot tall adult, right? 100, 150, 200 pound adult. That little tiny baby creature is looking at that adult saying, no, I'm not going to do what you want me to do. That baby is a force in nature. Why are they not afraid that that adult is going to squash them? That baby says no, they're defiant, right? That little baby is a force in nature. So I use this analogy in the book because the reality is we're all born forces of nature. We're all born with some level of superpower, beautiful, wonderful skill that we have. We go through life, we endure whatever level of difficulty, we endure whatever level of headwinds, and I think light headwinds tend to maybe beat the force of nature out of the individual. And one of the things I say is that individual for you to encouraging that individual to meditate back to what is their core? What is your driving force? What is your driving belief system? And how do you consciously build and always fuel your belief in self, your love of self, your confidence, so that you can achieve the full life that you desire for yourself or that you know, the universe, the creator, whatever it is you believe in is meant for you. Because we're born to do positive. We're born to fulfill positive, right? And so how do you actively. So I think first of all, it starts with self love. And that might sound ambiguous or that might sound fluffy, but in my own experience it's not. It is a constant feeling to yourself every day of I do the champion pose where you look in the mirror and you say, I can do it. Something simple as I can do it. Whatever is that obstacle. I love myself, I can do it. I can problem solve, I can and find the resources, the knowledge, the help, the whatever. And even if I can't, maybe I have to wander in the wilderness a little bit longer than others. But every wandering in the wilderness, there will be a clearing. Sometimes you can't predict when that clearing is going to be, but what fuels you forward is your love of self. You're fueling your confidence and gratitude, gratitude in the accomplishments. And one of the things I talk about and I believe is that every victory, every little victory is a big victory, right? The victory is not only just, okay, you got into the school of choice, you got the big job at the company of choice, you got the big promotion, you got the big paycheck. All of those are big victories. But sometimes, depending on what you're dealing with in life, your little victory is your big victory. And to give a very brief example, when my father passed away, the grief was extremely intense. Some days my father was mother and father to me and it was extremely intense. Some days you don't even want to get up, Scott. Some days you don't even want to feel to get up and take a shower and brush your teeth, right? So those days when that grief was intense and I was able to get up, take a shower, brush my teeth, that was a victory. That was a big victory. And so sometimes we don't give ourselves enough credit for the little victories in both little to big moments. So all of this just to say that every little victory, even the beautiful opportunity to be on this podcast with you, to have a positive conversation, is a victory, is a victory in my day, is a victory in my year. And so those little victories to those big victories are positive fueling and so put a lot of emphasis on that, put a lot of positive attribution on that. Don't put a lot of weight to the person or the headwind that tells you something. Negative over index on putting positive weight on the positive things that happen on a daily basis from the little to big. Because that is what fuels your self love, your gratitude and your positive confidence.
- [17:33]
A
Chitra. I love that. And obviously we're from a similar mindset of this celebrating victories, resilience. I love that for all of us, at least for me, go through periods of life where we're totally motivated, totally compelled by what we're trying to do now. Other times we're trying to find that resilience, that motivation that drives that energy that has fueled some of our successes and so forth. And for most of it it's not linear and, and most of us are trying to find it at period periodic, different times. And I love the honesty and the reality of your answers. I just absolutely love it. Chitra, we've got to wrap up. Anything else that you want to share with the audience today? Can you tell people where to find the code breaker, the book in the newsletter. Can you tell us where people will be able to find those and whether they'll be define you? Quite frankly, no.
- [18:24]
B
And thank you so much and I'll start with that and I'll share a couple of parting thoughts. And thank you so much Scott for your beautiful positive comments. Very grateful folks can find me on my website and social media which is very simple in that it is just my name so www.chitranabat.com so c h I T R A N A W b a t t.com social media the same handle chitranabat. So there you can find information on to purchase the book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. It's on pre order. Proceeds go to cancer research. You can find information on the podcast as well as all of my social channels, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, all that good stuff. Just Chitra Nava and you know, a couple of parting thoughts for everyone, including myself, which is this to helping you in that journey. Distilling the victory, the confidence, the positivity One of the things I talk about in the book is information is power. There's three types of information Data driven, perception driven, manipulation driven. Especially in this age of tech and AI, I think it's very important for each individual to have awareness and discernment on the source of the information. Is it data driven? Meaning is it substantive? Can I triangulate or octagandulate that information versus is it perception that is designed to throw you off and is it manipulation? And manipulation is when actors, meaning whoever the agent or the actor is in the ecosystem, is taking both fact and fiction, twisting it up, giving you that information because they're trying to drive an outcome, usually the outcome that serves their agenda, not your agenda. So the biggest opportunity in this age of tech and AI is to be able to decipher between data versus perception and manipulation and focus on what is data and getting the data that helps best inform you and your journey in life, career, business decision, but also to the data that serves especially your positive will. And it's finding the data and the relationships and the ecosystem to support your positive will to succeed.
- [20:35]
A
Thank you. And Chitra, I love that. I love your attitude. It is so refreshing and inspiring. Best of luck on the book and the newsletter. We love talking to you. Thank you for joining us today on the Becker Business and the Becker Private Equity podcast.
- [20:49]
B
Thank you so much. Thank you to all your listeners. Thank you so much.