Kumar Mehta | How the Best Become the Best And You Can Too

Srini Rao

All right, Kumar, welcome to The Unmistakable Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

Kumar Mehta

Thank you for having me on your show.

Srini Rao

It is my pleasure to have you here. I found out about your work because I came across your book, The Exceptionals, which is a book about how people who are the best in the world, that you know what they are become that way. And it was hands down one of my favorite books I've read this year. And that's why I wanted to kick off 2021 or 2022 with you as our first guest, because I thought people need to hear this because it's such a realistic take on self improvement that I've yet to come across and you know.

10 years of doing this work. But before we get into the book, I want to start by asking you, what did your parents do for work? And how did that end up shaping and influencing the choices that you ended up making with your own life and career?

Kumar Mehta

Wow, thank you for that introduction, and especially thank you for starting off with a hard question. My dad was a surgeon, he's no longer there, and my mom assisted him because we had a little nursing home and a hospital with about 15 or 20 beds, and so she kind of managed some of that stuff and helped keep that going, but she also took care of three kids.

So my dad had an interesting life. I mean, he was a brilliant surgeon, but he spent about half of his time working for free. He went to a municipal hospital every day that he taught he did surgery, just basically just because he felt like he had to do that. And the other half of his time, he had a private practice and actually worked so he could pay the bills. So I don't know, I mean, if you ask me specifically how my parents have influenced me.

I'd be hard to pinpoint, but I'm sure they've influenced me in everything I do.

Srini Rao

Well, I mean, did you one grow up with a typical Indian kid narrative around your house of, you know, a doctor, lawyer, engineer, because I mean, clearly your dad, you know, being a doctor, I'd imagine that might have had some influence. Cause even my parents not being doctors, that was the message throughout the house is you want a good life, become a doctor. And of course my sister did that. And I didn't, which is, you know, as I've joked before, my friend says, your sister is like every Indian parent's dream come true, which makes me every Indian parents nightmare come true.

Kumar Mehta

Yeah, I can relate to that. I actually wanted to become a doctor, but I didn't get into medical school, so I went to pharmacy school. I worked in the pharmaceutical industry, but then literally for the... That was just for a couple of years. I left the pharmaceutical industry. I moved across the country to work at Microsoft and technology when it was a tiny little company growing up.

Then I left and became a CEO and started a services company. After I exited from that, I decided to write books. So I think I haven't followed any traditional path, but I've been through many different reincarnations and different careers that are entirely unrelated to anything I've done previously.

Srini Rao

Now, were you born and raised in India, or were you born and raised here, you know, educated here early on?

Kumar Mehta

I was born and raised in India. I came to the US after finishing college. I came here to go to graduate school at the University of Iowa.

Srini Rao

What did you notice as sort of major differences in cultural values and the way that people are socialized in the United States, particularly in the education system versus the way they are in India?

Kumar Mehta

Well, I haven't been in the education system here directly. I mean, I have through my kids. And I think, well, I mean, I think that, first of all, that the two countries are entirely different in so many ways, especially 20, 30, 40 years ago. Now it's actually not that different in terms of values, just because everyone all over the world has access to the same information. As you know, the

everyone or most people in India speak English and they basically read the same news and listen to the same blogs and listen to the same tech talks as people in the US. So that difference is kind of getting, the difference isn't there as much anymore. But in the early days I just think everything was different. I just think how we related to people. I mean first of all, I remember going to Iowa City and the first thing I noticed was there are

on my street in Mumbai than live in the entire town of Iowa City. And then I'd walk to the bus stop every day to go to campus and I'd see these people I don't know say hello to me and I'm going like, wait, why are you saying hello to me? You don't know me. But then I just realized there's just people being warm and friendly. So there's so many differences in every way that I'm sure you may have experienced if you've gone back and forth.

Srini Rao

Yeah, absolutely.

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, no, I think the thing that really shocked me, I went back, uh, after about seven or eight years, I went in 2007 while I was in business school and then my sister got married in 2019 and I went back in 2018 to shop for the wedding. Cause that's what Indians do when we have weddings. We have to go to India to buy clothes because there's so many damn outfits for the whole thing. Uh, but I think what really shocked me was the dramatic shift in cultural values. I met

you know, podcast listeners of mine who are like me doing work like mine. I spent time at a surf camp, which was an ashram and I, you know, when one of the guys, uh, and I were out paddle boarding, he started just asking me about people like Tim Ferris and people, all the people that I've interviewed. And I thought to myself, wow, you've, you know, heard of these people. And this guy had abandoned a job at, you know, Deloitte consulting to go and, you know, be a photographer at a surf camp. And I thought that is a dramatic shift in the cultural narrative that we have had around.

careers for probably the better part of the last 30 years.

Kumar Mehta

Yeah, I agree.

Srini Rao

So speaking of kids, one of the things that really struck me was one of the things that you said about being raised in an environment of high expectation, which is, I think, kind of standard for most Indian kids, where nobody puts our report cards on refrigerators when we get straight A's. That's just what they expect. And I think that there are numerous benefits to that leader in life, even though they seem like a pain in the ass in childhood.

You know, I remember you saying something specifically about, you know, the pros and cons of that when it came to raising your own kids. I mean, how has this perspective on, you know, exceptional influenced your own parent?

Kumar Mehta

Well, I've been researching exceptional performance or basically what it takes for certain people to become the best in the world at what they do across multiple fields. And I've been doing that for the past several years. Unfortunately, my kids are past the age. I mean, they're young adults now. They're in their mid to late 20s. So everything I've learned in the past few years was not applicable.

when they were young. I wish it was. I wish I knew so much more. And, you know, my kids are fine. They have great lives. They've had good education. They have good jobs. They're trying to make an impact. They're trying to make a difference. But really, I didn't, I never thought when they were like three, four, five, six, you know, how do I, you know, can they become like world changers? And never, that thought never crossed my mind. I tried to do everything, you know, expose them to, you know,

Srini Rao

Hehehehehehe

Kumar Mehta

you know, baseball and piano and karate and, you know, all kinds of stuff that kids do along with, you know, acting and drama and debate and, of course, do well in school. But I never thought that, hey, you know, does any of my kids have the potential for becoming a Michael Jordan in their field?

Srini Rao

Yeah. It's funny because I had Daniel Coyle who wrote the talent code here, uh, quite a while back. And I remember talking to him, say, you know, I wish my parents had told me about this 10,000 hour thing when I was a kid. But he said often those parents do more harm than good because it doesn't give a kid the room to explore and grow and to become their own person. And often he said, this is why child prodigies don't end up becoming musicians and professional orchestras often.

Kumar Mehta

Absolutely, I think showing talent as a child is necessary, but it's just basically a modest indicator of what you can do because you absolutely need to be born with talent, but then there's so much more. I think what I would have done differently if I had kids, knowing what I know now, is create an environment that would let them do their best work. It would be to help them understand their strengths.

create a culture of striving in a sense. I would have them believe that the guys you see on TV, the people you see on TV, these people who do these incredible things in sports or in other fields or people you read about, that's just not reserved for a few special people. I think with the right things, you too can become exceptional in whatever you choose to do or whatever it meant for you to be exceptional in.

Srini Rao

Well, so the funny thing is that I think it's starting to change with people in my generation who went to college in the United States, particularly with immigrants, born and brought up here. But in our parents' generation, I think that narrative of doctor, lawyer, engineer, and high expectation is still predominant. And as I said, I think the upside to my parents being so insistent that straight A's were not negotiable is just what we did.

was that it taught me the value of intrinsic motivation. The downside of it is that I think that one of the things that happens, particularly when that's the narrative around your household, is that it blinds you to the possibilities that surround you because all you're forced to see are the options in front of you. And we're talking about changing a cultural narrative of an entire culture or race or generation. How does that begin to happen?

Kumar Mehta

Wow, that's a pretty loaded question. I mean, that's got a lot of elements. I'm trying to understand how to dissect it. I mean, is the question how we can change an entire society in terms of becoming exceptional or?

Srini Rao

I'm out.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Srini Rao

Yeah, I guess it's a big question. We could probably spend three hours talking about it. But let me frame it with an example to give you some context. So my dad had one of our uncles visiting. And he had a son in ninth grade. And my dad asked him, so what does he want to do? Does he want to become a doctor, lawyer, engineer, study computers? And this uncle was like, well, right now all he cares about is girls.

And I was like, he's in ninth grade. That's all he should care about. You know, you've just limited this kid's options to like four possible futures. And to me, that I think is one of the great disservices that we do when we insist that people should know exactly what they want to do with their lives before they've had enough data points to even make a decision. You know, like my mom always thought I should go become a doctor. And I would tell her, I'm like, I hate going to the hospital. I get sick all the time. She, and she said, well, you'll develop immunity like a typical Indian mother.

Kumar Mehta

Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, I think, I think if you want to really be successful at something, it's got to play to your strengths. And, and, and there's been there's been a lot of research that's been done in the area that they're basically, you know, eight different kinds of intelligences, you know, there's mathematical and logical, there's linguistic, there's athletic, there's musical, there's

Intrapersonal, intrapersonal, and it would be really good if you were able to identify, I mean, obviously, with the help of your parents, kind of where your natural skills lie. It's like you said, you know, maybe you're just not meant to, you know, you have great interpersonal skills, you have great linguistic skills, that's why you picked this profession. But if that was something that was identified and encouraged when you were six or eight or 12 years old,

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm.

Kumar Mehta

you know, maybe things might, you might have gotten into what you're doing earlier, you know, unless, of course, you know, getting straight A's and all that, you know, maybe hey, you're in this environment, you have to try to do the best you can. But it might have been good. And that's what happens for the most exceptional people. They've identified their strengths early on in life, and then they're able to build on them. So,

Srini Rao

Yeah. Well, let's actually start diving into the concepts in the book. So you open the book by talking about, um, sort of, you know, what's required to be exceptional. But the thing that struck me most in the introduction is that you said that being the best often means earning a lot of money. But the question is, will it make you happy when we live by the common refrain that money can't buy happiness research in the area has shown that achieving great wealth does in fact.

tend to make you happier, the caveat is that great wealth can make you happy only if you've earned it yourself as opposed to inheriting it or coming into a windfall. People with a net worth of greater than 10 million appear to be happier than others as long as they earned the wealth themselves. Now, we live in a society that puts billionaires on the covers of magazines and iconic people on pedestals almost to the point of...

leading us to compare ourselves to unrealistic models of possibility for us, which I know you go into later in the book. But what is the downside to that? Because we had Will Storr here who wrote this book called, you know, Selfie, How We Become Self-Obsessed and What It's Doing to Us, and he said, you know, part of what is happening with the media that we create is that we're perpetuating this narrative that if you're not Steve Jobs, if you're not Oprah, if you're not Beyonce, then your life has no meaning. And you and I both know the reality is that

many of us are probably not going to find ourselves with a net worth of $10 million in this lifetime. So how do you balance that reality with the drive to continue becoming exceptional?

Kumar Mehta

Right.

Kumar Mehta

So that was just a proxy for the famous exceptional people. When I talk of exceptional, it's becoming the best in your field, whatever it could be. You could be an exceptional accountant, you could be an exceptional podcaster, you could be an exceptional nurse, you could be an exceptional architect, you could be exceptional data analyst.

Pick a profession. We're not just talking of being an exceptional quarterback or being an exceptional golfer like Tiger Woods. We're talking of being the best at your field, whatever it may be. And basically, I talk about being exceptional means maximizing your potential. Now, in some cases, if you are born like a Bill Gates or a Michael Jordan or a Tiger Woods, becoming exceptional means having an impact on the world.

In other cases, it means just becoming the best you can become, you know, maximizing your physical, your mental, your social potential that's available to you. And if you do that, that's all you can hope to do, and that's being exceptional, just doing the best you possibly can. And once you do that, you have the satisfaction of knowing that you've given it your all, you've left nothing out there, and then that's a great feeling.

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm. Well, let's start by talking specifically about genetics because I think there's nothing that people hate more in the world of self improvement than genetic determinism. But there are two things that you say that really struck me. You say that although no one can exactly quantify the amount of influence genes or DNA has on performance, the estimates of how much genes contribute to high performance are generally over 50 percent. This means that innate

abilities influence the exceptional achievements we observe more than any other factor contributing to half or more of the effect. You have to be born with the right markers that will make you successful in a domain. Everyone has natural talent in some area, your chances of success will depend on whether you find your innate skills and can take advantage of them. What I wonder is why this narrative is not more prevalent and why we have basically sold people this bag of bullshit of you can be anything, do anything or have anything.

Like, you and I both know that you and I are never going to play LeBron James in a game of basketball, even a game of pickup.

Kumar Mehta

Well, I mean, I think because that's the one thing that's not in your control. It's in your parents' control. And it's also, it's just not how we talk about things. You know, we talk about 10,000 hours or we talk about grit or we talk about all these things we can do. Now, all of them are absolutely necessary. You are not going to become, like you said, a LeBron James without 10 or 20 or 50,000 hours or whatever that number is.

You're not going to do it without perseverance and grit and growth mindset and all these other things. But none of, so while all of these are necessary, they're not sufficient. You have to be born with a certain way. You know, I could, I could just, you know, building on your example, I could spend 20,000 or 30,000 hours and I could be born with a basketball ball in my lap. I'm never going to become Michael Jordan just because I'm built to do something else.

And the sooner I realized, but I could be the Michael Jordan of something else, as soon as I realized what that was. And if I realized that, hey, you know, I've got an ability to be a great writer or, you know, to be a mathematician or to be a musician, if that's what I focused on and built on that natural ability, my chances of becoming exceptional increase.

Srini Rao

Hmm. No. Well, let's talk about, you know, one, how you identify that natural ability or talent because I had this mentor, Greg, who used to say that, you know, we often focus on the possibility of being able to accomplish and ignore the probability of being able to accomplish it. And so as a result, you have a lot of people who are basically on this uphill battle to try to succeed at something they have absolutely no natural talent at.

because what are they hearing from the world around them? Everybody should start a podcast. Everybody should be a writer. Everybody should be a public speaker. Everybody should do this. And I realized there's nothing that everybody should do. And I personally said, if you see the word everybody should, you should assume that what follows is bullshit because it might be for you.

Kumar Mehta

Sorry, are you waiting for me to respond to that?

Srini Rao

Yeah, yeah. I mean, so like, you know, why, so how do you identify that natural talent? More importantly, you know, you mentioned the genetics are not in control. But then why is it you have so many people who are striving to get something good at some in an area where they have no natural aptitude. So for example, you know, I tried to study computer science in college. And by the time we got to the last two weeks, I realized I'm going to get an F in this class, I have absolutely no aptitude for this, my brain doesn't work like this.

Kumar Mehta

Correct. Yeah. No, you are absolutely right. The way you can find out, well, just think about it. If you ask 100 people around you, what are you good at, they're all going to be scratching their heads and thinking, I'm not sure what I'm really good at. I'm not sure what my aptitude is. I'm not sure what my gift is. Everyone has something that they're good at. We're born with varying...

varying abilities in different things. In your case, if you weren't good at computer science and you didn't have the aptitude for that, maybe you just didn't have that built in you, but you're good with words. You're good with connecting with people. That was your strength. The way to find out what you're good at is ask people around you. That's the simplest thing, ask people who really know you. The other thing is if you can't think back...

Think of the things you gravitated to when you were a kid. What are the things you really liked doing? Because when you have no expectations, when you've got nothing around you, you've got all the free time in the world, the things you pick are the things that kind of blend in with your natural talents and abilities. And I didn't realize this when I was a kid, but I know I loved reading. I read books all the time. I mean, I couldn't read enough books. I'd just sit in my room.

my summer vacations and read and read and read. And I didn't make any connection to this, but then I had a professional career in science, like a lot of kids, and then I went into data and analytics and did all that. But once I kind of got off that track and I wanted to do stuff that I thought I'd like doing, somehow the thought of writing books came to me and the act of writing, while it's a hard...

process, it's impossible for some other people. But for me, I realized that I could actually think and analyze and research and write. And so it was a linguistic intelligence that and then I made the connection once I studied all this. Yeah, you know, maybe I was just born with a little, you know, born a little bit more advanced on this capability than many other things that I've done in my career. Does that answer your question?

Srini Rao

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, no, it absolutely does. Well, let's talk about sort of what you call, you know, the enablers of, you know, becoming exceptional. You know, one of the things that you say is that, you know, the exceptional is honing their skills through intense effort and hard work, and there's no substitute or volume of effort for serious and deliberate practice. Every single exceptional has worked incredibly hard and devoted years, even decades to, you know.

their lives getting better at their craft. And so you go into sort of this idea, you know, idea of attitudes, habits, beliefs, and environment. Let's start with environment, because I think that people really underestimate the role that their environment plays in their ability to accomplish what they do. Because as we talked about, I mean, you know, being raised in an Indian family is an environment of high expectation. That comes with a lot of advantages that other people can't replicate.

Kumar Mehta

Yeah, so just to kind of just to put this conversation in context, the way I talk about what it takes to become exceptional is that it's a combination of three elements. The first one we've already talked about, which is your innate ability, you know, are you building on your strengths?

The second thing is just the amount of, as you pointed out, the hard work and intense effort that you put into something. Both of these are absolutely necessary. And if you just do these two things, you can become very, very good at something if you work really, really hard in an area where you have a natural ability. But to truly become exceptional, to become the best in the world at what you are, to become, you know, just to stand out, you need something else. And those are the enabling factors.

And one of those, there are five enabling factors that I discussed, and one of those is the environment you're brought up in. And the environment is actually quite simple. It's just your physical environment, you know? And if you wanna be a skier, you need to be near snow. Or, you know, I mean, if you're a scientist, you need to be near a lab. I mean, you could, it's just a simple thing. It's just a physical environment. The other thing is the social, the psychological, or the psychosocial environment, which is some of the things you're talking about.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Kumar Mehta

is are you brought up in a culture of striving? Are you brought up in an environment where you believe you can achieve or whatever you want to achieve? Are you brought up in an environment that actually shows you the link between effort and outcomes? So these are some of the elements that the most exceptional people in the world have actually grown up in. So that's what I mean when I talk about the right environment.

Srini Rao

What? Yeah, go ahead. You go ahead. Sorry.

Kumar Mehta

Partly, it's also, sorry, just to finish the thought, it's also partly being surrounded by like-minded people and being able to test your skills and test your abilities on an everyday basis. So that's also the environment you're in. Anyway, go ahead, you had a question.

Srini Rao

Yeah, well, it was a comment. So, you know, when I, as I told you, I'm writing this huge guide on how to build an audience and I cited a lot of research from your book in the guide, but, uh, I did just spent seven years in Texas and Texas has the best high school music programs in the country. And because of that, I had world-class music teachers and the contrast when I got to California was drastic and it was because of that environment that I was able to get.

really good at what I did within three years. Like I think I made more progress between seventh and ninth grade than I did for the rest of the time I was in high school as a musician, simply because of that environment.

Kumar Mehta

Yep, that makes perfect sense.

Srini Rao

So let's talk about sort of, you know, what goes into intense effort. Cause I think intense effort is somewhat, you know, misunderstood by a lot of people. I think they often think it's just, you know, hours, you know, on end of doing work. But one of the things you say is that very few people have the discipline and commitment to follow through on a single desire. Most of us get distracted or drawn to other opportunities along the way and are unable to demonstrate the singular focus required to Excel.

The exceptionals share an unwavering commitment to the targets they set. Many of them have established precise and specific goals very early on.

Kumar Mehta

Yeah, I think the people who become exceptional knew what they wanted to do very early in their lives. You know, look at Borg, the tennis legend. He knew when he was eight years old, he wanted to play on the center court at Wimbledon. And I think he ended up winning like five or six times. Same with Agassi or Tiger Woods or, you know, any of these people that we just think about when we think about these exceptional talents. So they knew.

what they wanted to do very early on. They had the North Star in their mind at a very early age. And then they also knew that that's not going to be easy. And they were willing to put in the hours, like, I mean, just the insane amount of effort and energy. And we, you know, when we see people on TV after they've achieved their success, you know, they make it look easy. But it's never easy getting to...

you know, getting to that level. You know, I talk about Usain Bolt. You know, he had this image of this, you know, smiling and, you know, waving and, you know, running around the track and, you know, being one with the crowds and he had this partying kind of look and feel. But there were probably no one who worked any harder than he did. The way his workouts were to get there were just really intense. So again, this book is...

about what it takes to become exceptional in something. It's not about sound bites. The reality, I don't know if it's a harsh reality, but the reality is that it is gonna take an immense amount of effort. And if you wanna become the best in the world at what you do, you're gonna have to put in the work.

Srini Rao

Well, let's talk about attitudes, self-belief and habits, because I know that this also plays a role. And one of the things you talk about is this idea of self-efficacy, which you say was introduced by the psychologist Albert Bandura, and it's an individual's belief in their innate capability to achieve their goals. And you say belief in ability is often a more reliable predictor of your success than your actual skills or say, capabilities.

This means your level of achievement at a task is influenced more by whether you believe you can achieve it than whether you have developed the skills and capabilities to achieve it. So the question then is for somebody who has a skill but doesn't believe they can achieve a goal, how do they begin to achieve that goal? And then, you know, for the delusional person who has the belief without the skill, what do you say to them?

Kumar Mehta

Yeah, that's a good question. So you have to, you have, you know, beyond having everything else, you just have to believe you belong on that stage. I've spoken to a number of Olympians who actually, you know, went to the Olympics, who made it there. And, you know, and when you're at the Olympics at the starting line and you're looking around you and you all of a sudden feel, you know, like an imposter syndrome or you feel like I don't belong here.

you've lost that race before the gun goes off. You have to have that belief. And again, going back to Usain Bolt, he just had that belief that he could outrun anyone. If he followed this process, he could win the race. And that is the belief you need. So for an example, if everything was on the line, and if I need someone to take the last shot on the basketball court or make that last putt,

For me, I would pick Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods, not because they have the best stats for putting or shooting baskets. Maybe they do, maybe they don't, I actually don't know. I would pick them because I know that they'll come through in the clutch. I know that they have that belief and that is the belief that you need. The way to do it, the way to do it, so belief and skills are linked by reciprocal causation. Each one relies on the other.

So if you believe you can do something, you know, your skill set stretches to meet that belief. And if your skill set is really high, then your belief increases as well. And so if you really want to build that self-belief and self-confidence, you know, start by picking tasks that are slowly outside of your comfort zone, just a little bit, and let your skill meet that, and then stretch to meet that. And if you keep doing that enough times, your belief in yourself will increase.

There are several ways to increase your self-efficacy, and then there's a lot of literature around it. But just becoming good at something, mastering something, is probably the simplest way to start increasing your self-efficacy.

Srini Rao

So one of the things that you talked about when it comes to self-efficacy is sort of looking at the people that we have as role models. And I think this really struck me because it takes us back to that idea of outliers as our role models. And primarily we look at outliers as our role models because these are the people that have press written about them. They're the ones on the covers of magazines. And yet...

most of them are unrealistic models of possibility. And one of the things you say is watching role models, say athletes on TV or others who are already exceptional, can sometimes serve as a vicarious stimulus to self-efficacy, but it's less impactful than seeing a peer do something extraordinary.

Kumar Mehta

Yeah, yeah, when you see someone, and I write about an Olympian who didn't make it to the Olympic trials, I can't remember the year, but she didn't make it to the Olympic trials. And when I was speaking with her, she visited the Olympic trials as a spectator. And when she was in the stands and she heard the names of people being called out, and she heard...

These are people that she run against in college and these are people she knew and she said, wow, if they can do it, I can do it too. And that gave her that incredible rush of self-belief and self-efficacy. So when you see Michael Jordan do something spectacular, that's great and you enjoy watching it. But when you see a friend in your classroom do something, you're going, wait a second, he can do it or she can do it, I can do it too. And that's the story.

Those are the experiences that help you grow.

Srini Rao

Well, let's talk about this whole idea of micro excellence because this is one of the things that struck me most, especially because I think this is how all writers and all creatives become successful is through what you call micro excellence. The most outstanding individuals from all walks of life have attained their greatness by focusing on the small, seemingly insignificant things, not just by focusing on the big stuff, the cumulative effect of small changes leads to significant outcomes. And...

You know, I think that struck me because so often I will have people who come to me and say things like, I want to write a New York Times bestselling book and they don't have a blog, they don't have an audience, they've never written a word, and they have these really sort of lofty goals. How do you one, break that narrative first of all, and then how do you use the concepts of micro excellence to actually accomplish it all?

Kumar Mehta

Yeah, I think you hit it on the head. I think we're just wired to think big, you know? Don't sweat the small stuff. You know, if you're in a corporate environment, you want these big, hairy goals. You want, everyone talks about being big. But the reality is that, you know, excellence is a series, it's just this countless series of little things that give you, that add up to something exceptional. It's not like one or two or three big things.

And so while we focus on the big thing, it's really impossible to get there. But if, you know, to your example, if you write every day and you become a better writer and you start publishing and you have two people or five people read your work and that five becomes 15 and that 15 becomes 100, you know, that's how you're going to grow. It's, it's, it's the only way to achieve excellence is through micro excellence by, by excelling in all the tiny, tiny details. And it's incredible.

whether you're an exceptional architect or whether you won a Nobel Prize in economics or physics or whether you're an athlete or whether you're a musician, it's always the tiniest of the details that make all the difference and too often we don't focus on them. And that's what I try to bring out is that one common trait across all of the exceptions I studied, I interviewed, I spent time with, I watched, I read about, everyone...

sweats the small stuff. Everyone focuses on the details and that whole concept is something I call micro excellence.

Srini Rao

You know, another thing that really struck me that you said was everyone wants to be excellent when it matters most, but the only way to be excellent when it matters most is to be excellent when it matters least. And you know, it made me think about sort of how people practice, you know, a musical instrument, for example. And to me, it was always practice as if you're performing in front of an audience.

And a lot of people don't do that.

Kumar Mehta

Yep. Yeah.

Yes, you're absolutely right. We think of, we just think of peak performances. We think of the game, the meet, the match, the recital, whatever it is, and you're gonna peak there. But the only way, and these are the events that actually have a peak performance day. If you are a product manager at a company or if you are a surgeon or if you are an accountant or if you are a lawyer, your peak performance is...

Whenever it is, you don't know when it is. Your peak performance is when there's a patient lying on that bed, not when you prepare for some specific outcome. So the only way to do your best when it matters the most is to be able to do it all the time. And that's the message I try to get across, is that the only way to be excellent when it matters most is to be excellent when it matters least, when no one is looking, when it's just you. And when you know that you've mastered a task,

And then you know that when you really need to do it, you'll be able to do it again.

Srini Rao

Absolutely. Let's talk specifically about this idea of no plan B. Because I don't think there's an Indian parent in America who came from my parents' generation who would say, go be an artist, no plan B. Unless they're really strange, weird parents. Because particularly for creatives and artists, they are signing up for a life where there is no guarantee of anything. And there's always a possibility that you end up in poverty or.

amount to nothing after busting your ass for years because you don't hear those stories. You know, those aren't the stories we hear about. You only hear the stories of, you know, the struggling writer who, you know, broke out of nowhere and became J.K. Rowling.

Kumar Mehta

Right. Yeah, so the one other thing, so my book is about the common elements that are shared among the most exceptional people in all fields. And one of them is that they're fully committed to what they do. And there is really no plan B. Now that doesn't mean that, you know, if for whatever reason that career has got short, in fact, I spoke to an Olympian who was, who wanted to become an Olympic skier.

and she had a skiing accident and eventually became an Olympic runner. So, you know, you do other things if something doesn't work out, but you don't go out saying that, hey, you know, I'm going to, you know, become a, you know, a rock, you know, I'm going to, you know, make a big in a rock band. But if that doesn't work, you know, my family has an auto dealership that I'll go work at. That's having a plan B because what ends up happening is that by definition, your plan B is your safety net.

It's designed to say that, hey, I'm going to go as far as I want, as high as I want. And for whatever reason, things don't work out my way and I fall, then my plan B is there to grab me. But plan B ends up doing the opposite. Things are going to get hard. We just talked about the amount of energy and effort you need to put in. And whenever you get the slightest bump in the road, people just say, ah, this is not for me. I'm just maybe I'll go and do my plan B. And that's never going to make you exceptional.

So the most, if you want to become exceptional, you gotta be fully committed, not be thinking about what else you can do. If you don't become exceptional, or if you don't achieve what you think you ought to achieve, all the skills that brought you into getting as far as you possibly can, can be transferred to something else. So you always have options, but you just don't go in saying that, hey, if this doesn't work, I got something else waiting for me.

Srini Rao

Let's do one more area of intense effort and then we'll get into, you know, what you call joining the exceptionals. This struck me because, you know, this is kind of a common debate around Silicon Valley. You know, the header of this section was 40 hours isn't nearly enough. And you say you need to be working on thinking about your cause all the time. You need to have an unmatched work ethic. You can't take evenings and weekends off. You have to be prepared to immerse yourself in improving your skills. And you know, I had Justine Musk here, who's Elad's ex-wife.

She ended up writing an article that ended up going viral about extreme success. And the thing that always struck me about what she said was that when you see people like Richard Branson and Elon Musk, she said, people don't really see the amount of work that goes into these accomplishments. She said, these often come at the cost of everything else in your life. And then yesterday I was re-listening to the How to Start a Startup podcast that Y Combinator made available. There's a lecture with Reid Hoffman on how to be a great founder.

And one of the things he talks about is the myth of balance. And he said, that is a big red flag for him. Cause he said, basically you're going to pour your life into this thing. If you're building a company, because there's so many ways to die. Um, so how do you balance that reality to becoming exceptional on what's required with the fact that everybody needs sleep food, you know, the things that we need to survive, uh, without sort of killing yourself in the process.

Kumar Mehta

Yeah. So again, I think you can become very good at something, you know, with that balance. But as you pointed out in all your examples, to become exceptional, to become, you know, an Elon Musk or Reid Hoffman or a startup successful startup founder, you know, or a world-class athlete or gymnast or whatever it is,

you just have to make that commitment. And that's just how people have done it. It's not necessarily a healthy lifestyle. It's not necessarily something I'd advocate for everyone. But if you want to become the best tennis player, the best golfer, the best pianist, the best electric car maker, or whatever it is you want to do, there is going to be that sacrifice. And what I write about is an observation that

everyone who's become exceptional has had to go through that sacrifice. So you can't, so the point I'm trying to make is that you can't say that I, you know, I want to win, you know, 10 major golf tournaments and you can't have that as a goal and yet say, well, yeah, but I'm just going to work from, you know, 10 to five or something and then go home and forget about it.

So there is that mismatch and the sad reality is that commitment is an effort is absolutely necessary to achieve that level of success.

Srini Rao

No. Now, one distinction you make is the difference between your possible and your personal best. What are, for people who haven't read your book, can you explain that?

Kumar Mehta

Yeah, so that's something I think would help all of us, whether you become exceptional in something or not. So we're all wired to think of a personal best. You do anything, you run a race, you jump on your peloton, you do something, you play around a golf, you play with your friends, you do whatever you do, you're a salesperson. You say, hey, I did X last month or last time, I wanna do X plus one, I closed eight deals last month, I wanna close nine deals.

you know, I shot, you know, this was my score, I wanna do better. We're always looking at bettering our personal bests. Now the problem with that, there's nothing really wrong with that, but one problem is that it's a very backward looking metric. You're looking at bettering something you've done in the past. What I talk about is your possible best, and instead of your benchmark being what you did in the past and trying to do one better, what if your benchmark was your possible best, how far you can go?

and start measuring yourself against that journey. And I think that's how the most exceptional people in the world have done it. And so that's the distinction I try to make between your personal best, which is backward looking, and your possible best, which is forward looking, and something that you can strive towards.

Srini Rao

So one of the things that you talk about is joining the exceptionals and you talk about the super elites and you say unlike the elites, the super elites went through a significant negative life event such as the loss of a parent or loved one, parental divorce or an unsettled environment that resulted in substantial trauma in their minds. This gave them a chip on their shoulder or extra motivation to pursue excellence. Often this negative shock was followed closely by a positive experience.

in their sport that compensated for the loss and served as a catalyst to becoming exceptional. Now, not that I consider myself super elite by any stretch of the imagination, but I can tell you being fired from every job basically was my motivation to, you know, make a career out of this hell or high water.

Kumar Mehta

Yes, and the sentence that you just quoted was actually from a research study that was done with athletes. And it was a really interesting study where they looked at the most elite athletes, you know, these Olympians and people who represented their country in the world championships, and they compared them with the super elite, not only people who had represented their country but were gold medalists.

and had won multiple medals in these events. So that was a comparison between elites and super elites. So we're already talking in verified air, even the lower group is in this verified air. And one of the differences that the researchers found was this obsessive need to succeed. This people have been through a negative life event, but one big difference between the two groups and something we can all take to heart and learn from.

is that the elites were focused on outcomes. They wanted to win their race or win their match. The super elites were also focused on outcomes because of course, they wanted to win whatever they were competing in, but they were also focused on mastery, that they were competing against themselves. They were trying to get to their possible best. And that was a big difference between the elites and super elites also.

Srini Rao

So what if you didn't have one of these sort of negative life experiences or pivot, you know, what you call pivot points or, you know, what they basically call sort of the all's lost moment in the hero's journey? Is there something you can do to bring it about or can you bring that motivation about without like, you know, dismantling your life?

Kumar Mehta

Yeah, and...

Kumar Mehta

Yeah, I think, well, I think pivot points are these events that happen there. They're basically these opportunities knocking on your door, and you've got to know that you want to answer them. And we all have pivot points. We all have this urge where we feel like we want to do something. But if you know, people make up negative life events. People just, you know, say that, you know, somebody wrote a negative article on me and I'm going to show them. Or, you know, people create these motivational things that...

to achieving what they want to do because they really want to achieve their goals so bad that if there's no reason, I mean there's always a reason which is internal, but they make up these events that give them that extra push.

Srini Rao

Wow. Now, one thing you talk about is how people respond to these negative events, right? And how the people who make something out of this, you know, these negative events respond to them positively, whereas the people who don't react to them negatively. Why is that? And you know, how do you cultivate the capacity to react or respond positively to negative events?

Kumar Mehta

I don't know if you cultivate that capacity. This is not an area of research deeply, so I really am a little bit out of my depth here. But I think that these events just give you that extra prompt or motivation. You are already on your path. You already know what you want to do. These things, just these negative events give you a little push each time. And like I said, if they aren't there, you kind of create them to give you that extra motivation.

Srini Rao

Well, let's finish up by talking about the three stages of skill development that you talk about, which are the positive, the comparative, and the superlative. What are they and how do they apply to our lives when we're trying to become exceptional?

Kumar Mehta

Yeah, and they apply to our lives in every way. So the first stage is that whatever you wanna do, let's say you pick up playing the guitar, that initial experience has to be positive. You have to enjoy it. Otherwise, you're not gonna do it for the second day. And in that positive experience, you enjoy something, you wanna do better, you just do something for the pure joy and the satisfaction it gives you.

then you start getting a little bit better at it and you get to the second stage, which is the comparative stage. And again, in whatever your activity may be, then you say, oh, can I do this? Can I do that? Am I better than someone else? Can I win this race? Can I achieve certain milestones? And when you start thinking of all that, that's when you're thinking of your personal best. And that's when you're thinking of really, you're really into an activity, you're looking to get better at it.

You have some benchmarks, the milestones, some targets, and you're trying to achieve a new personal best each time, and whatever it may be. It varies for activities. The final stage where you become exceptional at something is the superlative stage, and now you've transcended that comparison with other people or other benchmarks and metrics. You're trying to do something better for the sake of becoming better, to see how far you can go. You're not doing it purely to...

do better than someone else. You're doing it because you know you can or you want to do it for yourself. And that's when you're striving for your possible best and that's when you're in the, you know, that's when you're in the verified air and headed for something exceptional.

Srini Rao

Wow. Well, I have two final questions for you. As I mentioned, part of the reason that I wanted to interview you now in October was because I wanted to air your episode as the very first of the new year. And being a new year, a lot of people who are listening to this probably have goals that they want to accomplish in the next year. They have plans. And so often, what happens is we get to the end of the year. Half the things we thought we were going to do, you know,

goals we thought we were going to accomplish don't get realized. What is your message to them for kicking off this year?

Kumar Mehta

That's a great question. So the first thing I would say is write down your goals. And research has shown that writing down goals is already a big step than just thinking about your goals. So you write them down. And then you develop a plan or a process, and not this big heavy process. Just write down, you know, break it up. If you want to do something, if you want to lose, you know, 30 pounds by the end of the year, you know...

work backwards, start with your weight at whatever it is, minus 30 for the end of the year. But that means that you probably need to lose two pounds in this first month. How are you gonna do that? And have this step-by-step plan that gets you there. The reason people don't accomplish goals is they try to bite everything off. They just try to do everything all at once. And that's just not the right way. We've talked about microexcellence or having a process.

And that's what I would advise people to do.

Srini Rao

Hmm, amazing. Well, I have one final question for you, which is how we finish all of our interviews at the Unmistakable Creative. What do you think it is that makes somebody or something unmistakable?

Kumar Mehta

I think that's what being exceptional is. You know, you do something unmistakable, you maximize your potential. I think that it would be achieving your possible best, doing the best, making the most of your physical, mental, and social potential and achieving what you are built and made to achieve, not what someone else's.

Srini Rao

Amazing. Well, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us to share your story, your wisdom and your insights with our listeners. Where can people find out more about you, your work, the book and everything else that you're up to?

Kumar Mehta

So the book is available everywhere. You can find it on Amazon or anywhere else. It's called The Exceptional. My website is my name. It's kumarmetha.com. That'll give you more information on my background and what I do in both of my books and all the other articles I've written. So that's probably a good place to start. And I look forward to hearing from you or from other readers.

Srini Rao

Amazing. And for everybody listening, we will wrap the show with that.