What a Harvard MBA and Former McKinsey Consultant Told Me That I Did Not Want To Hear — And Why I Invited Him On Anyway
I have learned something after years of doing this work. And I see it every single day.
We come to believe firmly what we believe in. That sounds like a mouthful but stay with me. Because the danger is not in having strong beliefs. The danger is when you only allow confirmation of those beliefs to come in. When every book you read, every person you follow, every conversation you have simply reflects back what you already think is true.
When that happens you have stopped growing. You have built a fortress around your own thinking. And you are slowly becoming a prisoner inside it.
How do I know if what I am thinking is actually true?
As a podcast host I have a tool most people do not. I can bring in people who agree with me. And people who do not. People who see the world completely differently. And then I have to sit across from them and stay open. Not just listen politely while waiting to make my point. Actually staying open.
Nick Jain is one of those people. Harvard MBA. McKinsey. The kind of career that gets you into every room you want to be in. And he sat across from me and said that everything he worked for over the last thirty years does not matter anymore. For one reason only. The world changed.
I invited him on because I needed to hear that. Even though part of me did not want to.
The Fortress We Build Around Our Own Thinking
I have spent the better part of two decades building a philosophy. The inner work comes first. Strategy without foundation is just noise. You have to know your why before the how means anything. I believe this. I have lived it. I have watched it work for thousands of people I have coached and trained.
And because it has worked I have also — if I am honest — possibly stopped questioning it as much as I should.
That is how confirmation bias works. It does not announce itself. It does not feel like closed mindedness. It feels like wisdom. It feels like discernment. It feels like you have simply learned what works and stopped wasting time on what does not. Think about a wise guy sharing their knowledge. That’s so Beate… I love seeing myself that way. Hello ego!
Until someone sits across from you and says something that does not quite fit or it threatens that previous belief. And you feel that pull to find the flaw in THEIR argument. To protect what you have built.
I felt that pull with Nick.
He said in business you have to let the spirituality go to the side and focus on what you can measure. What you can prove. What the data is telling you.
My first instinct was to push back. And then I stopped. Because I thought about Sharona.
The Woman Who Refused To Leave My Office
The single most important hire I ever made in my business was a controller. She was more expensive than anyone I had ever paid. Her name was Sharona.
I will never forget the day she walked into my office in her high heels, perfectly put together, she does wear the best clothes. She closed the door behind her, threw a folder on my desk and refused to leave until I looked at those numbers. She had that look on her face. Crossed arms, too.
It was not comfortable. I did not want to look. I had been running my business on instinct and vision and sheer will for years. I knew we were doing well. I did not particularly want to know the details.
Sharona did not care what I wanted.
And she wasn’t leaving. And when I finally looked — really looked — it was the first time I truly understood where I was making my money. Not where I thought I was making it. Not where it felt like I was making it. Where I actually was.
Once I saw it I could not unsee it. I knew exactly what I needed to do more of. I knew what to stop doing. I knew what the path to an acquisition looked like in actual numbers on an actual page.
We did the work. And we sold. For a few million dollars.
Sharona was not my spiritual advisor. She was not my mindset coach. She did not ask me about my why. She threw a folder on my desk and made me look at reality. She was my numbers girl. She crunched them all day long.
And it changed everything.
What I Had To Admit To Myself
Here is what Nick made me reckon with.
I teach strategy. I teach systems. I teach the five steps and the frameworks and the operating models. And I also teach that none of it works without the inner foundation. Both things are true and I stand behind both of them completely.
But somewhere along the way I started to weigh the inner work so heavily that I was in danger of using it as a reason not to look at the numbers. If the inner works the outer will follow.
The world does not wait for your spiritual development to catch up. And neither do your numbers.
Nick said that the entire economic model of the last two thousand years was built on intelligence being expensive. The expert. The consultant. The credentialed professional. The person who knew something you did not and charged you accordingly for it. And that model is collapsing right now in real time. The intelligence that used to cost half a million dollars a year is available for a few dollars a month. That changes everything for every business owner reading this newsletter.
Including me. Including you.
Two Things That Seem Contradictory Can Both Be True
Nick is a deeply spiritual person. He told me that directly. His values — passed down from his grandparents who came from colonial India, earned through an immigrant household with every disadvantage you can imagine — are the foundation of how he runs his internal world.
He just does not let that be an excuse to avoid the numbers.
And that is the thing I keep coming back to.
His grandmother’s survival was pragmatic. You make do with the world you have. You do not mourn what is gone. You find the opportunity in what is arriving. That is faith. And it shows up differently for different people.
We prove something on this show every week. Two seemingly contradictory viewpoints can exist at the same time. The inner work matters. And the outer strategy matters. Your vision is everything. And the world is moving whether you are ready or not.
Both are true. At the same time.
Pay attention to both.
A Closing Reflection
I am still thinking about the confirmation bias question.
How do I know if what I am thinking is true? How do any of us know? We have built our beliefs from experience and evidence and the stories we tell ourselves about what happened and why. And then we go looking for more of the same. More confirmation. More validation. More proof that we were right all along.
The practice — the real practice — is to keep inviting the Nicks and the Sharonas in. The people who will throw a folder on your desk and refuse to leave until you look. The people who will sit across from you and say something that does not fit your framework and mean it.
To test what you believe. To sharpen it. To make sure it is actually yours and not just a fortress you built so long ago you forgot you were living inside it.
Nick did not change what I believe. But he sharpened it. And I am grateful for that.
The world has changed. Faster than most of us have noticed.
What are you still holding onto that used to work — and might be costing you everything?
That is the question worth sitting with this week.
Episode 217 with Nick Jain is worth your time. He will make you think differently about what is coming whether you want to or not.
Let’s grow,
Beate
Beate Chelette is The Growth Architect & Founder of The Women’s Code, a training company specialized in providing companies an ROI on Balanced Leadership. She has been named one of 50 must-follow women entrepreneurs by the Huffington Post. A first-generation immigrant who found herself $135,000 in debt as a single parent, she bootstrapped her passion for photography into a highly-successful global business, and eventually sold it to Bill Gates in a multimillion-dollar deal.
Beate works with business leaders and supports organizations by developing and providing training the training, tools, and expertise to create and maintain a balanced, equal and inclusive work environment that fosters creativity, employee engagement and corporate growth.
Recent clients include Merck, Women’s Legislative Caucus of California, Cal State University Dominguez Hills, Small Business Development Centers (SBDC), NFTE, CreativeLive, the Association of Corporate Growth, and TracyLocke.
Beate is the author of the #1 International Amazon Bestseller “Happy Woman Happy World – How to Go From Overwhelmed to Awesome” a book that corporate trainer and best-selling author Brian Tracy calls “a handbook for every woman who wants health, success and a fulfilling career.
To book Beate to speak or train please connect here.