How Conscious Leadership Transforms Lives and Organizations Through Purpose with Raj Sisodia

Raj Sisodia: The good guidance for this comes from Richard Leider, one of the great thinkers about purpose. He said, if you don't know your purpose yet, the default purpose for a human being is to give and to grow and find your own expression of those two things.

How are you going to give, which means having a positive impact on the lives of others? And how are you going to grow? How are you going to become a more powerful version of yourself? Measuring success by the way you touch the lives of others. Purpose is the way you do that in a way that resonates with you.

Narrator:

Welcome to Happiness Squad, the podcast dedicated to helping you unlock your full potential by mastering the art and science of happiness. We bring on leading experts to help you live with more joy, health, love, and meaning in your life.

Your hosts, Ashish Kothari and Anil Ramjhiani, are on a mission to provide you with an unfair advantage to become the masters of your experience and leaders in your industry. Get ready to be moved, challenged, and enlightened. Thanks for joining the squad.

Anil Ramjiani:

Hey, Happiness Squad! It’s great to have you with Ashish and me as we continue to discuss with our guests—industry leaders who are helping individuals and organizations unlock their inner happiness and flourishing.

Are you clear on your path to purpose, inner peace, and healing? Our next guest is here to shed light and clarity on that very question.

We welcome Raj Sisodia, FEMSA Distinguished University Professor of Conscious Enterprise and Chairman of the Conscious Enterprise Center at Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico. He’s also the co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of Conscious Capitalism.

Raj has a PhD in Business from Columbia University and has published 15 books, including the New York Times bestseller Conscious Capitalism, the Wall Street Journal bestseller Everybody Matters, Firms of Endearment, The Healing Organization, and we’re honored that he shares his most recent book with us today, Awaken.

Raj has consulted with and taught at numerous companies, including AT&T, Verizon, Whole Foods, Tata, Walmart, and McDonald’s. He’s a multi-award recipient who has served on the boards of MassTech and The Container Store. We encourage you to learn more about him at rajsisodia.com and follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

During this beautiful conversation, Raj delves into his journey that led him to his life purpose, which puts people at the center of everything we do. He discusses consciousness in capitalism, organizations, and even at the individual level by sharing his own life story in his recent release, Awaken.

The conversation warmed our hearts, opened our minds, and shed light on the power of vulnerability. Stay tuned till the end for our rapid-fire question finale, where Raj leaves us with several insightful takeaways.

Check out Awaken when you get a chance. And in the meantime, let’s get started. Please join Ashish and me as we welcome Raj to Happiness Squad and hardwire for happiness together.

Anil Ramjiani: Hi Ashish. Hi Raj. It’s a pleasure to be with both of you. How are you both doing?

Raj Sisodia: Doing great, Anil. Great to meet you, and great to see you again, Ashish.

Ashish Kothari: Yeah, such a joy, Raj. Our conversation yesterday was wonderful. I’m so delighted to have you on this podcast, sharing your wisdom, learnings, and experiences with our listeners. I’m sure they’ll benefit so much from it. Thank you for joining us.

Anil Ramjiani: Raj, one of our favorite questions to ask all of our guests to get us started is about happiness. What is happiness to you, and how has your definition changed since your younger years?

Raj Sisodia: Happiness to me is about fulfillment. It’s about meaning. It’s about purpose. It’s about a state of peace and some degree of contentment—which doesn’t mean stopping striving in the world but feeling some level of peace and contentment with the work that you’re doing.

I’m a big believer in Viktor Frankl’s perspective, which has been very influential for me. He said happiness cannot be pursued; happiness ensues. It is the outcome of living a life of meaning and purpose.

That, he says, comes from three things: doing work that matters and makes a difference in the lives of others, loving without condition—expressing love and receiving love—and finding meaning in your suffering. It’s about looking at things that happen as opportunities to grow and to learn.

The older I get, the more I see the wisdom in what Viktor Frankl wrote, and I really tap into that very much.

Ashish Kothari: Yeah, I love it, Raj. It’s so in sync with our work here at Happiness Squad, my own personal beliefs, and what we’ve heard so often from guests.

This is about meaning, fulfillment, and peace. But it’s also about happiness—not just as a positive affect or emotion, but as this notion that we can find meaning even in suffering. Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning is a book I’ve read probably 50 times, and every time, I discover something new in it.

I’m a big fan of rereading rich texts like that because every time you go back, you unfurl a new layer. Part of it is you’re shifting as a person, and part of it is uncovering wisdom in the text that you didn’t notice before.

On books, I also just finished reading your book, Awaken, and I was so touched by your vulnerability—how you shared your story through the trials, the suffering, and also the moments of finding meaning.

As you said, it’s about discovering what gives meaning to you and what you were born to do in this life. I’d love it if you could give our listeners an overview of the book and what inspired you to go so deeply into your own journey and share it with the world.

Capitalism, which we wrote in: 2013

Before that, I had written a book called Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose. That work really led me to discover my own purpose. Before that, I was a business professor—kind of unhappy and uninspired by what I was learning and teaching.

I felt that the human aspect was missing from the whole world of business, and there were a lot of negative consequences from the way we operated, especially on people’s well-being. I started asking the question: Is there a better way? The answer, I’ve learned, is always yes. It doesn’t matter what you’re talking about; there’s always a better way. There’s no limit to how much we can enhance things.

That question led me to search for businesses that are loved by everybody and to understand what makes that happen. That work resulted in the pillars of Conscious Capitalism, which then became a movement. My journey continued, exploring other aspects of this, especially leadership.

We wrote a book called Shakti Leadership, which was about integrating the masculine and feminine energies within each of us to find wholeness—manifesting the healthy qualities of both, regardless of gender. That exploration ultimately led to The Healing Organization.

In that book, I recognized that while traditional business creates jobs, goods, services, and a certain level of prosperity, it also creates unnecessary suffering. The way we run businesses often involves using people to make money—whether they are employees, customers, or suppliers—and exploiting the planet and its resources. This causes unintended suffering.

I realized it doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t need 20% higher heart attack rates on Mondays, 120,000 people dying annually from workplace stress in the U.S., or 600,000 deaths in China from the same cause. Businesses shouldn’t create suffering or shorten lives in the pursuit of profit.

My quest was to explore whether business could be done in a way that reduces suffering and brings more joy into the world. And I found that it is indeed possible. I identified about 25 companies for the book, and like the companies in Firms of Endearment, they were more successful financially. Even though they weren’t pursuing these practices for financial gain, they had happier employees, healthier customers, and better outcomes for all stakeholders.

As you’ve probably seen in your work, when you do the right things, good outcomes result for everyone. That book was very meaningful to me. I often joke that I had tears in my eyes writing Firms of Endearment because of the stories—it was how I connected to my purpose.

When I wrote The Healing Organization, I must have had that experience half a dozen times. Tears, especially tears of joy, tell you something very important about what you value at your deepest level.

As part of that work, I encountered four women friends while discussing the book. Each of them asked me, “Are you working on your own healing? You’re writing about healing, so I assume you are.” I responded, “I don’t have time for that—I’ve got a book deadline.”

Anil Ramjiani:

Yes.

Raj Sisodia:

But they insisted, saying, “Book deadlines are flexible. You have to make time. You can’t write a book about healing unless you’re working on healing yourself.”

I listened to them. I delayed the book by five months and said yes to several life-changing experiences. I went to the Himalayas with the Shakti spiritual group, where I celebrated my 60th birthday near the border of Tibet. I learned about suffering there.

I also went on a silent retreat with the Brahma Kumaris at Peace Village in upstate New York, along with Peter Senge, David Cooperrider, and other amazing individuals. I worked with a coach for the first time and traveled to the Amazon rainforest with the Pachamama Alliance. These experiences brought deep insights into my life, purpose, and meaning.

I learned so much from these experiences that I felt the need to write another book. This wasn’t all going to fit into The Healing Organization, which was already outlined and near completion.

I initially thought of writing a book called The Path, based on seven steps that came to me during the silent retreat: know yourself, love yourself, be yourself, choose your life, express yourself, become whole, and heal yourself.

But as I began writing, the book evolved into a deeper reflection of my own journey. I started writing it around the age of 60, and now at 65, I see it as a way to take stock of my life.

Life is like a three-act play. This is the beginning of the third act—a time to reflect, understand what has happened, and determine how to live moving forward. I wanted to share my experiences to help others avoid the same level of suffering or delay.

I’ve had an unusual life—a blend of unique experiences, moving between India and the U.S., growing up in a feudal background as part of the warrior class, and ending up doing this kind of work.

There was a lot to untangle and make sense of. Carl Rogers once said, “That which is most personal is also most universal.” Even though some of my experiences are unique, they resonate with others.

I hope people connect with the book. As you mentioned, you’ve connected with parts of it, and that’s what I hope to achieve. That was the motivation for writing this book.

Ashish Kothari: I encourage our listeners to get a copy of Awaken. It’s a powerful book. As you said, Raj, while it’s a deeply personal experience, it’s also quite universal.

In all of my work with leaders, I’ve found that many themes consistently show up. They may manifest in different ways, but the underlying themes are the same. However, the lessons often go unlearned because we tend to force our way through suffering—we harden ourselves and muscle our way out instead of leaning in, learning, and finding meaning in it.

I also encourage folks to explore The Healing Organization. I discovered that book earlier this year, read it cover to cover, and was deeply moved by the stories of incredible corporations living into their purpose and truly being a force for good.

As a Chicago Booth graduate and someone who spent 17 years at McKinsey, I’ve spent a lot of time helping companies focus on increasing shareholder wealth. Often, when you talk to corporate leaders about going beyond profits, the response is, “What do you mean? Our job is to drive profits for shareholders—that’s how we keep our jobs, earn bonuses, and so on.”

Your work provides real-life examples of companies that embrace a higher purpose and still achieve success. You started highlighting this in Firms of Endearment and brought it to life further in Conscious Capitalism and The Healing Organization.

I strongly encourage leaders to read these books—they’ll inspire you to lead differently. They’ll help you achieve more, not by doing more or forcing your way through, but by being more. Not just as an individual leader, but by enabling your organization and your team to be more—more alive, more present, more in service of a greater meaning.

And through that, you’ll still achieve outcomes. As your life’s work shows, Raj, when you lead in this way, you achieve higher shareholder returns, greater profitability, higher productivity, and lower attrition. All the things we try to force through doing can instead be achieved through being.

Raj Sisodia: Absolutely. I often joke that you could take Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning and rewrite it as Corporation’s Search for Meaning. The exact same lessons apply.

Corporations pursue profit the way humans pursue happiness, but profits, like happiness, cannot be pursued. Profits ensue—they are the outcome of building a business with a higher purpose, one founded on love and care, not fear and stress, and one that grows from adversity.

Tough times are inevitable for individuals and organizations. The question is: what do we do when they come? Do we grow from them, learn from them, and turn them into positive outcomes? These lessons are universal.

As you mentioned, it’s about knowing and doing, but the most important element is being. Transforming yourself as a leader is critical.

If you’re a leader, you become a constraint on the consciousness of the organization or the part of the organization you lead. If you’re stuck at a certain level, the organization will not rise above that. But if you break through to the next level of consciousness, the organization can follow.

Working on yourself is a lifelong journey and a lifelong responsibility—not just for yourself, but for all the lives you touch, both personally and professionally. You have to keep growing, evolving, and healing.

You cannot lead a healing organization unless you’ve worked on your own healing. Without that, you’ll inadvertently inflict suffering on others without even realizing it.

Ashish Kothari: Exactly, Raj. That’s why, in Awaken, step one is about knowing yourself—self-awareness. Self-awareness is also at the heart of the nine Hardwired for Happiness practices. Like you, I firmly believe that without self-awareness, it’s hard to do anything else—whether it’s pursuing your purpose, being mindful, or practicing gratitude.

So I want to ask: what advice do you have for leaders and individuals listening who want to cultivate their self-awareness? What practices have helped you that they could adopt to start their own journey?

Raj Sisodia: Well, I think being an observer of yourself is important—paying attention to how you respond to things, what matters to you, and what moves you. Sometimes, you might be deeply impacted by something others are indifferent to, and that’s a clue about what really matters to you.

I remember reading Andrew Harvey, who said, “Follow your heartbreak.” What gives you the greatest pain? For me, it was seeing the negative impacts of business on customers, employees, and others. That was a heartbreak for me, even when others didn’t care about those issues.

Another key is to follow your bliss—what brings you the greatest joy? When I had tears in my eyes while writing certain stories, that was another clue about what truly matters to me. It’s about getting to the essence of who you are.

In India, we talk about swabhav—your essential nature. Each of us is born with a unique essence, a gift, but it only serves us when we start to embrace and love it. That’s the leap—from knowing yourself to loving yourself.

For decades, I knew myself, but I despised myself. I saw every quality I had as a weakness. My father gave me that message. I didn’t know him until I was seven because he was in Canada earning his Ph.D. When he returned, he saw me as so different from him and labeled my qualities as weaknesses.

He told me, “You’re too trusting—you shouldn’t trust anyone. You’re too idealistic—you should be pragmatic. You’re too peace-loving—you need to be rough and tough. You’re too intellectual—you need to be street-smart.” Everything natural to me was deemed a weakness.

For years, I tried to be the opposite of who I was. I wouldn’t recommend that path to anyone—it’s neither a recipe for happiness nor impact. But the voice of a parent, especially a father in Indian culture, is incredibly powerful.

Eventually, I began to see these qualities as strengths. A coach once told me, “You spent 45 years trying to impress your father, and in the last 15 years, through your Conscious Capitalism work, you’ve been honoring your mother’s energy in the world of business and capitalism.”

That insight was a revelation. I share many of my mother’s qualities, and she was a single mother to me for my first seven years. So there’s both nature and nurture at play. I started to see those qualities not as weaknesses but as gifts—something I should lean into rather than suppress.

That’s the progression: know yourself, love yourself, and then be yourself. When you stop being defensive or unhappy about who you are and recognize your qualities as gifts, they begin to work for you. It takes a tremendous burden off—not having to act or wear a mask all the time.

The world needs us to live into our unique gifts. We’re each one piece of the puzzle, and our role is to bring that piece, not try to be something else.

Ashish Kothari: Yes, exactly. As Jon Kabat-Zinn says, “You have a 0% chance of being someone else, but you have a 100% chance of being you.” So be you. Don’t pretend. Don’t try to fit in.

Raj Sisodia: Right. But it’s also about evolving yourself. You’re not a finished product. You can accept who you are while also deepening your qualities and cultivating the traits you may lack. It’s not about being static.

Ashish Kothari: I love that. In your book, you highlight that it’s not about rejecting parts of ourselves. It’s about integrating them—connecting first with the authentic self and then growing by incorporating other elements.

Raj Sisodia: Exactly. For me, the so-called feminine energy—qualities I inherited from my mother—came naturally. But I realized I needed to cultivate the healthy masculine as well.

I had rejected masculine energy because my father embodied the unhealthy masculine—domination, aggression, hyper-competition, and winning at all costs. But by rejecting that, I also lost the healthy masculine traits: courage, focus, resilience, determination, and structure.

It’s about recognizing both sides and cultivating them to become whole. That’s the essence of Shakti Leadership—achieving wholeness. Each of us has a unique blend of healthy masculine and feminine energy, and we need to develop both to show up as whole human beings.

As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We need to be tough-minded and tender-hearted.” The tender-hearted part came easily to me. I needed to cultivate the tough-mindedness. Otherwise, as we say, love without strength is ineffective, and strength without love is tyranny.

The key is finding your unique blend of these energies in a healthy way.

Narrator:

Are you enjoying the show so far? Let me ask you a few questions before we continue. Have you ever wondered why so many of us struggle with stress, anxiety, burnout, or feeling stuck in life? Maybe you’re going through this right now.

The reason for this lies in the evolutionary biology of our brains, which are hardwired for fear. That’s part of the reason our team named this podcast Happiness Squad. It’s a reminder that happiness is what truly matters—and that we’re all in this together.

We’re excited to share a resource to help you on your journey. One of our hosts, Ashish Kothari, launched a book titled Hardwired for Happiness, and it’s a number-one Amazon bestseller.

When you access this book, you’ll discover nine secular practices backed by scientific evidence from psychology and neuroscience that can change your life. You’ll learn how to integrate these practices into every part of your life to unlock your best self, no matter how busy you are.

Shift from knowing to doing, to being with a range of journaling, meditation, and group coaching exercises, and so much more. Visit www.happinesssquad.com/book to get access now. There are also exclusive bonuses on the page you don’t want to miss.

Once again, that’s www.happinesssquad.com/book. And now, back to the show.

Anil Ramjiani: We had a wonderful conversation a few weeks ago with a guest named Anna Reed, where we discussed masculine and feminine energy. To be honest, it was a new concept for me. Despite working in the corporate world, it’s not something I had been particularly aware of.

Raj, what you’re sharing about your background resonates with me on so many levels, and I’m sure our listeners feel the same. Coming from an Indian heritage, there were three words I once used to describe myself to my colleagues when I opened up to them: overachiever, seeking validation, and constantly comparing myself to others.

I’ll admit, those traits deeply affected me. Over the past eight or nine years, I’ve been on my own journey to understand my programming—examining each “line of code” and figuring out where I can reprogram and recode my thinking.

I’ve been exploring my purpose—not as a machine but as a human being. It’s not just about asking, “What is the meaning of life?” but rather, “What is my purpose?”

What I find powerful in this reflection is the idea of culturally encouraging parents of this generation to raise their kids differently than how we were raised. How can we instill in them a broader mindset, beyond stereotypes, so they have the opportunity to think and live more expansively?

On that note, your book, Awaken, and its subtitle—The Path to Purpose, Inner Peace, and Healing—really resonated with me. It’s not about judging a book by its cover, but that title speaks volumes.

Raj, could you delve into the importance of purpose? How can it shape our lives and contribute to our overall well-being? I imagine many people, myself included, are still searching for their life’s purpose. I feel closer to discovering it than ever, thanks to people like Ashish and others. For those still figuring it out, could you share your thoughts on how purpose can guide and enrich our lives?

Raj Sisodia: There are multiple pathways to discovering your purpose. One is an intellectual approach, like using the Ikigai framework: What are you good at? What do you love? What does the world need? What can you get paid for? You can work through that, and there’s value in it. I’ve seen people get closer to their purpose that way.

Another is a spiritual approach, where religious individuals might feel a calling, as if God is guiding them toward their purpose. That’s the traditional idea of a “calling.”

For me, though, it was more experiential. Growing up, nobody ever talked about “purpose.” As a child or even a young adult, the word wasn’t part of the vocabulary, even though Viktor Frankl had written Man’s Search for Meaning decades earlier. I wasn’t aware of it.

Growing up in India in the: 1970

Today, purpose is much more a part of our cultural conversation. My kids, who are in their twenties, sometimes say, “Oh my God, I don’t have a purpose yet.” I tell them, “Relax, I was nearly 50 before I figured out mine.”

Even though I wasn’t actively searching, I tried to stay true to myself as much as possible, despite the pressures to conform. A part of me remained authentic. I observed how I responded to things, and as a marketing professor, I developed a deep shame for my profession.

My research revealed how marketing was often unethical, ineffective, and inefficient. We were spending over a trillion dollars annually—more than India’s GDP at the time—on ads, coupons, and junk mail. The outcomes for customers, companies, and society were dismal or even harmful.

For customers, marketing was synonymous with manipulation. Eighty-eight percent of people didn’t trust it, saying, “If it’s marketing, it’s not true.” Society suffered from obesity, diabetes, eating disorders, and overconsumption. Companies weren’t doing any better, getting poor returns on massive investments.

I began writing a book called The Shame of Marketing, inspired by Peter Drucker, who said marketing’s job is to look after customers’ well-being. If it fails, customers organize against businesses. That title reflected my own shame as a marketing professional.

I often compared my father, who earned a Ph.D. in agricultural science to cure world hunger, to myself, pursuing a Ph.D. in marketing to sell more products—many of them unnecessary or harmful. I felt I had no noble purpose.

My mentor, Jack Sheth, challenged me. When I shared my proposal for The Shame of Marketing, he said, “Raj, people want solutions, not just more descriptions of the problem. Let’s find a better way.”

That feedback shifted my focus. I reworked the book as In Search of Marketing Excellence and began looking for companies loved by their customers—organizations succeeding without spending a fortune on traditional marketing. This led to the discovery of companies that were not only loved by customers but also by employees, communities, and stakeholders.

That journey became Firms of Endearment and ultimately led me to my bliss. I was following my heartbreak, asking, “Is there a better way?” The answer is always yes. That question guided me to uncover another way of doing business, and I realized I wanted to dedicate the rest of my life to it.

By staying aware of your experiences, noticing what pains you and what brings you joy, you can find your purpose. It’s often in the intersection of those two things. For me, this discovery transformed my work and its impact. I went from being unhappy and uninspired to living in a state of constant inspiration, experiencing deep joy and fulfillment.

But that was just the beginning. After finding purpose, I needed to work on inner peace. Purpose came first, and the next decade was about cultivating peace within myself.

Anil Ramjiani: It’s fascinating that you mentioned marketing. I work for Nike, and it’s incredible how much money is spent on advertising, consumer insights, and enticing customers.

You’ve talked about having two “wings”—customers and employees—and ensuring neither is led astray. What if a company decided to focus 100% of its marketing efforts on the people who make the products? Imagine highlighting the positive impact on society, the planet, and communities, instead of focusing solely on selling.

But back to your point, Raj. Many people—whether in marketing, corporate roles, or professional services—might feel they don’t know their purpose. From your experience, what advice would you give to someone waking up each morning, going through their day, and wanting to bring more meaning to their life, even if their purpose isn’t yet clear?

Raj Sisodia: The good guidance on this comes from Richard Leider, one of the great thinkers about purpose. He said, if you don’t know your purpose yet, the default purpose for a human being is to give and to grow. Find your own expression of those two things.

How are you going to give, meaning have a positive impact on the lives of others? And how are you going to grow, becoming a more powerful version of yourself? Think about the ways in which you need to grow and how you’re going to give. Measuring success by the way you touch the lives of others—ultimately, that’s what it’s all about. Purpose is the way you do this in a way that resonates with you.

If you haven’t found your purpose yet, just reflect on these ideas. Our culture often teaches us that the purpose of life is to grab and go—get as much as you can as quickly as you can. Ideas like “get rich or die trying,” “become a millionaire by 30 and retire,” or the old version of the “American dream,” where you work yourself to the bone and then retire on a beach somewhere, frame life as if work is merely a torturous means to an end.

I’ve seen people in fields like banking adopt this mindset: “I’ll just do this for a few years, hit a financial target, and then I can do what I really want to do.” We tend to separate work and meaning. But ultimately, it shouldn’t be about how you spend your money; it’s about how you make your money.

For businesses, it’s not about doing good through corporate social responsibility while the core business harms society. For instance, you shouldn’t sell products that contribute to obesity and then donate to anti-obesity programs. Instead, the business itself should be a force for good.

Ashish Kothari: Raj, I love that. I resonate deeply with what you’re saying about finding purpose later in life. For me, it was in my forties when I tuned into my purpose—my reason for being. It came from reflecting on my suffering and the dissonance I felt in my work.

In my consulting days, much of my focus was on driving profits—helping clients negotiate lower rates, asking, “How do we make more money or spend less?” But I often felt the broader impact was missing.

At McKinsey, where I worked, the firm had operated for nearly 90 years with a mission statement and values but had never articulated its purpose. When we finally undertook that exercise, it felt like a breath of fresh air. We defined our purpose as helping create positive, enduring change in the world.

That statement became a guiding light for the company. For years, we had excelled in marketing, operations, and organizational work, but the “why” was always missing. As Simon Sinek says, start with why. Defining our purpose brought clarity and direction.

Now, with Happiness Squad, I work with organizations like a packaging company that had a beautiful, holistic purpose. But they hadn’t activated it. Their purpose was written in PowerPoints and displayed on plaques, but it wasn’t being lived. Most of their 7,000–8,000 employees weren’t connected to it.

So much of the work I do now is helping organizations live into their purpose. It’s not just about having a purpose statement; it’s about connecting it to individuals’ lives and aligning it with the organization’s work.

People want their lives to be meaningful. They look for meaning at work but often don’t find it. As leaders, one of our most important roles is to help people connect their individual purpose to the organization’s purpose.

The impact of this alignment is profound: more resilience, better outcomes, higher productivity, and greater engagement. Nietzsche said it best: Those who have a why can survive any how. It’s so true.

I also encourage our listeners to explore job crafting. We were connected through Professor Jane Dutton and the work being done at Michigan Ross and the Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship. They’ve done incredible work in this area, and job crafting is a fantastic resource.

If we can bring purpose to life in businesses—beyond just profits—and connect it to individuals’ lives, the positive impact we can have on the world is extraordinary. It’s a profound gift.

Raj Sisodia:

The greatest gift you can give someone is the opportunity to engage in work that is meaningful, purposeful, and connected to their essence and soul. Unfortunately, 80–90% of people on the planet don’t have that luxury. They don’t receive that gift.

One company I’ve seen doing this at scale is Unilever. They’ve put 160,000 people through one-day purpose workshops, helping them connect their personal purpose to the corporate purpose.

Through job crafting and other strategies, they’ve adjusted work portfolios to align personal resonance and meaning with serving the corporation’s well-being. This is not only possible but incredibly impactful.

Anil Ramjiani: Raj, one of your quotes resonates deeply with me and feels applicable to both individuals and leaders. You said, vulnerability is an ability, not a liability. I think that’s a profound perspective, especially as people seek to understand their purpose.

Often, we might feel stoic or think, “The company’s purpose is my purpose,” but it’s an invitation to reflect. Brené Brown helped me grasp this idea of vulnerability as letting go of control over the outcome.

For organizations, controlling outcomes is essential, but as individuals, how can we embrace vulnerability—whether with managers, peers, or family? How do we say, “This isn’t what I thought it meant to me,” and start cracking open that understanding?

In Hardwired for Happiness, we talk about purpose and how it brings meaning, even if it varies from person to person. Taking the first step to understand purpose is progress, and those who do that should be applauded.

Raj Sisodia: Absolutely. Vulnerability is essential. Without it, authentic connection cannot happen because we aren’t sharing our true selves. Vulnerability is closely tied to authenticity, and it must be modeled by leaders.

A great example is Satya Nadella and the extraordinary transformation he’s brought to Microsoft. He embodies vulnerability and empathy, promotes a growth mindset, and is open about his challenges, including raising a special needs child and his upbringing.

That vulnerability has completely transformed Microsoft’s culture, catapulting the company into a new era of performance and relevance. Eight years ago, people thought Microsoft’s heyday was over, but Nadella essentially re-founded the company, leading it into its next evolution. It’s an inspiring example of what a leader can achieve, even in a large, established organization.

Anil Ramjiani: Raj, we have a relatively new segment to end this conversation—rapid fire! We’d love for you to share the first word or thought that comes to mind. What is one piece of advice you’d give someone seeking greater happiness in their life?

Raj Sisodia: Connect to your purpose. Begin that journey of self-knowledge to discover your purpose.

Anil Ramjiani: Love it. What’s the last show you binge-watched that brings you joy?

Raj Sisodia: Ted Lasso. It’s amazing. Succession did not bring me joy, though I did binge-watch it.

Anil Ramjiani: My wife keeps urging me to watch season two of White Lotus, but after season one, I need something more uplifting! What’s your favorite book on flourishing?

Raj Sisodia: Synchronicity by Joseph Jaworski. It’s a very powerful book. I love it.

Anil Ramjiani: What is an ordinary moment in your life that brings you great joy?

Raj Sisodia: Spending time with my children, especially my special needs son. Writing my latest book helped me completely reinvent and heal my relationship with him. What once felt like a responsibility has become a source of deep joy and fulfillment.ent.

Anil Ramjiani: Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. What is one thing you are deeply grateful for right now?

Raj Sisodia: That I get to do the kind of work I do. My work is a source of fulfillment for me and creates positive impact and inspiration for others. I never take that for granted—I feel grateful for it every single day.

Ashish Kothari: Raj, this has been an amazing conversation. We’d love to have you back to delve deeper into the realm of conscious capitalism. It’s such an important message for leaders to hear, and I’d love to help amplify it.

e revolution you unleashed in: 2008

I encourage our listeners to check out Raj Sisodia’s latest book, Awaken, as well as his earlier works: Healing Organizations, Shakti Leadership, Conscious Capitalism, and Firms of Endearment. I’ve read them all and benefited greatly. Thank you for your incredible work and for sharing your personal healing journey.

Raj Sisodia: Thank you, Ashish and Anil. I’ve really enjoyed this time—it went by too quickly!

Anil Ramjiani: Yes, it did! It’s been an honor and a pleasure to get to know you. As Ashish said, we look forward to continuing the conversation and amplifying the work we’re all doing to make a meaningful difference at both individual and organizational levels. Sending big hugs and lots of love to you, Raj, your family, and your friends.

Raj Sisodia: Thank you. The same to both of you. Take care.

Narrator:

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