[Music] [Applause] This is crude oil. And for those who may choose to call it fossil fuel, so be it. But this is where you are likely to be.
It's not a thought that should bother you, but it should keep you awake. Hold this thought for today. In the next 15 minutes, we'll try and see if we can avoid that metamorphosis, that journey from there to here, the inevitable avoided.
This is you. But trust me, this will keep you awake. This will keep you awake for a simple reason.
Because there have been times where you wake up middle of the night, you look at your phone and you wonder, have we upgraded to version 47. 2. 0 of the world that we live in.
It's not a pleasant sight because AI is writing essays. 12year-olds are coding apps that make more money than you and me. And the world is different.
In this moment, I'd like to remind you that I have had those sleepless nights. I started my career in fashion. Yes, fashion.
I get that. We all make some mistakes. The same fashion where you talk about fabrics, watches, you talk about trend forecasts and collections on ramp.
Somebody in their moment of cruel humor had told my parents that I'll have a futuristic career and this was their idea. But hang on, today I lead a half a billion dollar technology business. So something must have happened.
One of two things. Either I had my career completely charted out. I knew what I was doing.
Or I had no idea. And the fact that I'm standing here and talking to you guys should be anybody's guess how my career went. It was much like the Google Maps rerouting system once you take a wrong turn.
One moment I was measuring hemlines and drawing silhouettes and the next moment I was looking at P&Ls, balance sheets, building sales projections. But I did not sink all this while I remained afloat. Not because I was the best swimmer, you can tell looking at me by all means, but because I had mastered the ability to build a raft.
A raft that would ward off before the waves hit you. And that raft is adaptability. That is what we will talk about today.
Imagine this. A picture of a caveman who has mysteriously magically transported himself to 2025 and somebody walks up to him, hands him a laptop and says, "You know what? We've got a Zoom call starting in next 5 minutes.
Ensure that you've got that spreadsheet ready. " And what does he do? He looks at him and says, "Ah," or whatever language caveman spoke.
But what does he do? He panics. He looks for food.
and then hides under the desk. The fun fact that caveman is your brain. It may be 2025 outside, but we're living in an era which is 10,000 BC inside your head.
And in such times you begin to wonder what is that wonder that my brain is trying to do one thing and one thing only trying to keep me safe. And that's how your brain is wired to avoid getting you eaten by that tiger. What does it mean for leadership?
Nothing. Because your brain doesn't care about leadership, growth, evolution, none of those things. It only wants to preserve you.
And when you look at this scenario, you begin to wonder, why is my brain playing with me? Your brain is playing with you and giving you cues that you can't even imagine. That little voice in your head that keeps telling you, "Oh, why do you need to do this?
Isn't this too risky? Should you not stay with the status quo? That voice in the head will always prevent you from evolution.
Let's face it, 98% of all species that walked the earth today are extinct, right? They're all gone, wiped out. Forget that tiger.
The dinosaurs don't exist. The T-Rex was an apex predator. He's no longer alive.
I have here a can full of brontosaurus for you wiped out, wiped clean and therefore you must wonder why should your career be safe. Everything that you will learn over the course of next couple of years will become irrelevant in the next five. Trust me, this is the hard truth.
AI automation will chew that for breakfast. The skills that you're picking up today will be redundant. Your degree comes with an expiry date.
Sure, Shakespeare may have a couple of more years, but that too will end in a tragedy, if you know what I mean. The only thing that will survive is your ability to adapt. And if that's the only thing that will survive, spare a thought for this little creature, the cockroach.
It's seen 350 million years. It survived the ice age. It survived the US elections.
It survived epidemics and trust me it survived six attempts of me personally trying to murder it. But what does the cockroach do that makes it survive and still find itself crawling in some corners of this room? It adapts.
And that's what great leaders end up doing. They adapt. And when you begin to think about this, I kept questioning myself.
What was holding me back? And I had a rude shock. I had a revelation that I did not see coming.
Let me remind you back in the day I used to be a consultant. Consultants are people who are supposed to learn somebody else's business and give them the same wisdom back. So one fine day I got called by my partner.
He said, "You know what? We've got this big automobile client that we need to put a strategy document for. " I said, "Sure, hold it.
I know exactly what to do. " I went back to my desk, cracked my knuckles, opened a word document, and voila, in 30 minutes, I had managed to clear my email folder. I had seen three motivational videos to stay motivated.
And I had nothing on that sheet except for a quiz that I had taken to figure out what kind of a car I am. And that's when the penny dropped. I began wondering what was going on.
I was not a procrastinator. I knew exactly what I needed to do. But that voice in my head kept telling me, why are you taking that risk?
Why do you want to change? What if you fail? What if the plan doesn't hold?
I did not have an answer to it, but I realized the answer was something happening here. I could not figure out what was going on in my head. And that's when I referred to neuroscience.
Strange, but our brain is pretty funny. It's got two parts in there. It's got a part right behind our forehead that we call the prefrontal cortex, the rational, reasoning, the logical part of the brain.
And then it's got another part of the brain which is known as the limbic brain or the survival instinct whose fundamental job is to keep telling you no don't risk it. What if you fail? And that brain that voice is the voice that gets heard all the time.
Your brain's funny like I said. And that's when I realized that my brain was trying to sabotage me because my brain is wired to keep me safe, not successful. And at this juncture, I implore you to think that the world is changing.
World is changing as we sit right here. It's not waiting for an evolution to happen. Evolution is happening right now.
Leaders of the past saw this as chess. strategic, well planned, look at data, make maneuvers, you know, predictability to those moves. Modern-day leaders are playing Tetris where one cube changes permutations for you, where a million combinations exist.
It's fast, it's adaptive, and if you don't cope up, you're gone. It's game over. And right now, as we sit here, somebody somewhere in the corner is upgrading their skill set.
They're not waiting for you. I tried this. I thought when I migrated from fashion to technology, I could take my learnings with me.
I failed. I failed miserably because the pace of the industry is different. The obsollescent cycles are different.
The product road maps are different. I did not even know what a tech stack meant. I had to go Google it under my desk and then build my skill to cope up with the challenges that we are facing today.
And that's the world that we're living in. But you know what? In that moment, it occurred to me what my favorite superhero always said.
Why do you need to walk when you need to fly, right? You don't have to necessarily carry those skills forward. You don't have to worry about it.
Ellen Musk is failing every day sending rockets into space and they're crashing. They're crashing, but he's still bringing our heroes back home, isn't he? And NASA is still perfecting that rocket.
So, we need the ability to be able to adapt without thinking of failure because failure is not the opposite of success. Failure is the path that gets you to success. And that's the idea I want you to take home.
Because even when you take a step forward, when you're on a ladder, you have to let go of that comfort of what you have. You cannot cling on to the safety. That's the only way forward.
And please remember the next time that you're in a room and you get asked in that head of yours, what if I fail? Congratulate yourself because you've taken the first step to evolution. That voice will help you take the next step forward.
I started out as a design student but I was an engineering aspirant. That's what good academia told you to do. And then I did not design for a day.
I took out a career that was a career in the field of brand and marketing. I went on to do strategy consulting and today I lead a technology business which is one of the largest bootstrap technology businesses in the country and I'm still in my 40s. If I could do it, I am sure each of you can.
Because my question, the question I leave you with is, are you ready to build that raft? Are you still waiting for the tiger to come and get you? Because trust me, the tiger will come and get you.
That day is not far. The world will change. And if you don't upgrade your skill set in a year from now, you will be working for exactly those people who have upgraded that skill set.
So why not make the trade? Because survival will keep you alive. Taking that maneuver of adaptability will make you invincible.
It'll make you that cockroach. And I know a cockroach when I see a room full of them. So welcome to evolution adapt.
Thank you.
