#25: Confident Leadership with Prashha Dutra - Part 2

 📍 hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of unleash your leadership. Today, I'm  continuing my conversation with Prashha. Dutra  who's the CEO of believe in your brilliance. She's a confidence coach and an amazing woman. And I love the conversation. So this is part two. If you're new to this podcast, I encourage you to go back and listen to the last episode where we started our conversation. There's some more amazing. Topics we are going to talk about and Prashha is going to continue to share her leadership journey. So let's dive in.

 

When you then started, , after third grade and now you're becoming more and more in tune with your own qualities, how did you go about unleashing your leadership so the world could experience it?

 I think it's important to, again, if you think of it as a value, then you  conduct yourself in that way. So I feel like if you work on making it your value and evaluating where, where in my life I've not acted from that value, right?  I think Stephen Covey's book seven Highly Effective Habits, high Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

I can never get that. It's a mouthful. But he talks a lot about that. And I think reading that book later on in life, , just looking back and saying, you know what? I don't have, I don't know my value system, and I may have conducted myself in a lot of ways that was not right. And if leadership is actually a true value, then what does that look like?

And how do I, to your point, how do you unleash it, right? , how do you actually use it and use that influence to do more? And so with the podcast was probably the first. I said, okay, I'm gonna start something for myself. I've always wanted it. I had a business outta college. But I was always under the influence of other people.

, I was always under the influence that I'm not good enough or I'm, even though I'm very confident, I need somebody's support or help or mentorship or I can't do this alone. Right? Like it's, I need help. , that  was always on my mind. But  when I started the podcast, I said, I don't need anybody's help.

Even when those 33 women didn't get back to me, I did not let that be anything. I said, okay, you guys are not ready. And I. When I got the TEDx, everybody was asking me how you got it? And I said, should have responded to that message, right?  So many years ago when I asked you. So at that time that decision that 33 people have not responded, my closest friends don't wanna be on the show.

Not taking it as a sign that I shouldn't go ahead, but using my leadership abilities to say, no, it's, you know what, as a leader, they don't know it's good for them. They don't know they, this is important, it's okay, I'm gonna figure this out because the show is too important for the world because the world needs to hear these stories and, , the show TOPS charts around the world from, , from Abu Dhabi to to Romania to Malaysia and Thailand and who knows how many people listen to it , on a daily basis.

Still, even though we haven't produced a, an episode in a year, we're still in top 200 and over 20 countries. And that's the only reason for that is because it's really valuable content. And I'm glad that I was able to . Unleash my leadership skills to say this, this is going to happen regardless of what others think.

My mom said it. She's like, oh, when will you make money? And I said, I'll not talk to you about this show for at least three years. Because it has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with the fact that I wanna stand up for something, I wanna collect these stories, and  somebody needs to hear it.

? So that was probably the time when I first  took charge and said, no, I'm gonna do it. 

 One thing I wanted to just  repeat , which is very important  for everybody to hear is you said, I'm very confident and we can all hear that, but I still need help.

And that's okay.  We all need support systems in place for us even though, , you said that,  I wanna need to do this, so it's okay if I don't have immediate support. And so not getting back down by the adversity that you have come through. And for sure, that's really where I think what you're saying is like, the value really helped me get past that.

Yeah. Because  values then lead to beliefs, then lead to, , our identity. Right? So that's the val, that's the benefit of leading like value-based life or, , even, even if you don't actually sit and write those values, even if you don't do anything that's in, in that book, even if you just ask yourself , what is important to me, two or three things that I'm, I are my non-negotiables.

And then you act from that place.  You'll go much farther than just going day by day. Getting, , getting manipulated by media or other people or, , doing things that you never want to do. , I have a rule. I will never say yes to something I don't wanna do. I will just not, I will not go to a dinner just because, just because I should please these people.

I just don't want to do it, , and that's just me valuing my time and living by this value that. I'm not everybody's person. , I, I don't need to be everywhere.  I just can be in certain places, and that's okay too. But if you have some values,  you'll be able to use them as gauges.

Because I, I know you must hear this a lot in your work too, Priyanka, that women always think, oh, is this the right choice? Is this the wrong choice? Is this the right choices? So, because again, teachers, were doing this for them, parents were doing this for, they're very hard to make decisions. And if you have a value-based approach, then you can just say, okay, does this meet my value or not?

If it doesn't, I'm not doing it, and you can move on.  There is no drama around it, right? , you can make faster decisions from that place. So yeah, you're right, we all need help. And confidence is a, is up and down. , it's never the same ever,  it one day you wake up when you're doing different things, it's different levels.

, it's waves. I think it's waves. It comes in waves. And sometimes the waters are. Really great and smooth selling. And sometimes they're super choppy, right?  When you and I started our businesses, it was super choppy, and you're like, oh my God. , will I ever feel the same again? And then it's calm again.

? So confidence is on and off all the time. But asking for help, learning to lean into, , things that are  important, that are important to you whether it's through values, beliefs, or non-negotiables, or whichever way you choose will, at least you'll have a good quality of life.

Maybe you'll do some good work. Maybe you'll meet some good people. Maybe you'll get to do some podcasts. Who knows? It'll be fun. Yes comes. 

I know. It's important that we lead ourselves first because how do we expect  to lead anybody or anybody to follow us if we can't follow ourselves or our own desires.

There's a lot of the cultural upbringing that is common is there's a lot of restriction and boundaries that are set on women and how they should behave or how they should talk .  You  gotta at some point say who am I and what do I need?

Exactly. Exactly. 

When you started doing all this, and in some ways you're leading yourself and leading your life on your own terms, what is it that surprised you the most? I

 think just the fact that how easy it is when you start to lean in to do what you want to do, and you start to make peace with your decisions and choices and you start to connect the dots, basically.

 That's huge. Even in my program, I have the girls do something called your STEM story. So I have actually a goal. I tell them, you're gonna write your story, you're gonna connect these dots because they're very important. So instead of thinking at your life as this fragmented events, you start to ,  put them together and start to again, rewrite some of those narratives, right?

Like where again, it's not so much what happened, it's now knowing what you know now, what you could, how you could use that information, and how you could actually use it to push you forward. So for example,  watching how it's made with my dad was probably not a big deal, , if it's just left alone, right?

But. If I take the time to reflect and reconnect, then, then it's a huge, wonderful story, one that got me on TEDx, right? So it's,  so important to take that time to  just have that narrative and that is  what I was doing. And then finally when I started to do it all on my terms and, , make peace with a lot of it and decide that, no, you know what, just because these patterns and this data shows me that these are things that I value and these are things that are important to me.

I did a lot of work, , I've worked with many coaches. I've done a lot of work on myself. I've read 275 books in five years.  I've done way too many things. But I think what the surprising part was that it was easier than I thought it was gonna be. I think it was, I was at peace. I was like, hmm, , we may not have the money, we may not have the sale, we may not have security, da, da, da, like all those things.

But we do have  this flow and this ease to life, which. Which just makes you feel happier. So God forbid it all ended tomorrow, there'll be zero regrets. Absolutely no regrets. , and I think it was just a surprising element of ease and surprising element of just the flow that you can experience when you start to align with where your life has been taking you this far.

 A lot of people are afraid to do that.  A lot of people are afraid to look at their past. A lot of people are afraid to confront a lot of stuff and look at it and process it. Rewrite some of those narratives, rewrite some of those memories, and then use that to be like, , my life has been leading me to acts and I won't do that.

So I think a lot of people are just looking for this purpose outside and ahead, but so much of it is coming from behind. That's true. From inside of them. Exactly from their own experiences, because especially when you're at 30, you don't have the time to rewrite this whole thing.  You don't get to restart.

, you, what you get to do is make peace with what happened and take the best out of that, and that will accelerate it. Otherwise, if I say, oh, I'm gonna abandon all my strengths and all the things that my life has taught me, and now I'm gonna try to become priyanka, like, that's  silly. And  a lot of people waste their time doing that, ?

And so for me, , it's just very easy to align and,  just accept that certain things will never happen for me and I don't want them, it's fine. But this is what I was born to do. This is the path I, I was supposed to take. My whole life has been leading me up to it, and I'm just gonna not resist it.

I'm gonna do it. And  that's very, very easy. So I got very surprised. It was like, Easier than I thought it was gonna be. 

What you're saying is  when you don't resist so much, then it just becomes easy. And one part of it, acceptance, one part of it is  really honing into your own power.

 This of course is a lot of work I do with people as well, ,  everything is in your head. And  we have to get past that to then say, okay, now what do I do , in the future? And I love  how you're framing your work with people in terms of, here's what your past story is, how are you going to rewrite your own narrative?

And then how are you going to connect the dots Then the possibilities of the future open up. 

So Exactly. You can't abandon it. It's a part of you, right?  You can't just say this tho. Those are all mistakes.  You have to take good things out of it. You just have to make good out of that because you can't change the past, but you can change how you, how you remember it.

That's true. You can just change how you remember it because yeah, memory is a very tricky thing. It's not saved in the same place. It's attached to so many different things, and it's way easier to change it than a lot of people realize. But  once you start to walk on that path, you start leading yourself, leading others,  you start to realize it's so much easier when you're doing the job that you were born to do versus all the things that other people want you to do or all the things you think you should do.

And then you just are more at peace. You may have a lot of stress, but you will still be at peace, like in your soul.

You've been doing this for a few years now, so how have you and , your leadership qualities evolved over these years? 

All the time.  It's learning in progress.  Only leadership, like the biggest leadership exercise is continuous learning, right?  You should never stop learning and never think that you'll know everything.

And,  and  it has evolved because I've surrounded myself with a lot of great coaches, a lot of great people who I resonate with. They don't have to be Tony Robbins and they don't have to be these big people, but they are people who, who will teach me the next skill I need to know.

And . The biggest evolution has been like investing in myself way more than I used to before. It's very important to me.  I invest more than more than what I pay for my mortgage. So it's just something I did decide two years ago that it's an important area for the next five years and I'm gonna do it.

And, , hopefully cash in, cash it eventually in life. And that's where I'm gonna put in my money. I don't put it in stocks, I don't put it in investments, and I put in myself and that's the plan for next five years. And then we'll see what happens after that. But  the biggest evolution has definitely been just the learning piece and just the new ways of thinking, meeting new people.

And over the years that has become really great.  When I started, when I was younger, I always thought I should know more. I should speak more, I should be in front all the time. And  there's still parts of me that want that. I, I do have that, , I'm a socializer, so I'm, I'm somebody who likes the attention and likes the spotlight.

But it has been fun to put people ahead of me. It has been interesting to, , calm down my ego and say no, like, let them have the spotlight or, , when your clients do so much better in life.  When the first client does really well, it's, a weird feeling. It's like, I'm happy, but I'm also like not that happy.

, what's happening? , , you have to check your ego at that, those early days of coaching. And  that's how it has evolved. It has become more and more about other people. It has become more and more about learning and realizing that this learning will never end. I'll never be the best leader I can be.

Whether it's learning spiritually, whether it's learning skills, whether it's learning how to do something better I think it's an addiction. And  I'm addicted now to a lot of that.  I watch YouTube videos before I fall asleep.  It's weird. But ,  it has evolved from a place of like, I'm more open to learn.

I'm more open to accept my mistakes. I'm more open to correct, course correct. I'm more open to abandon things that are not working,  not get attached with a lot of solutions and not feel like there is a magic pill that'll fix everything, ? Which I thought a lot like three, four years ago.

I think there was a lot of like, once I figure this out, everything will be wonderful. And  this year has been like, no, once you figure it out, the problem morphs. , problems are shapeshifters. They go from one, one shape to another. So  that has been the biggest evolution. 

I love that you talk about , I'm addicted to learning and it's okay,   better to be addicted to learning than anything else, right?

Yeah. And that's why I don't feel, , I don't feel guilty about the investments I make in myself because I'm not hurting anybody, ? I would rather do it if I can than than regret that I couldn't. 

Right. I'm glad you are  bringing back the point about investing in yourself because that is also one thing.

 We don't think about .  You might invest in stocks or invest in some luxury goods or even  eat out and at a very expensive place and we don't think twice about those things. But if we have to invest in ourselves, either through a coach or even a program or training, whatever that might be, there's always  that second guessing , should I do it or should I not do it?

And then  women also think about this more because then there is that added thing where sometimes some might feel like , they should not spend it on themselves. It's selfish to do it, do something for themselves.  I'm glad you're saying that because it's very important for a lot of people, especially women out there to hear that.

You have to be able to invest in yourself. You have to take care of yourself and prioritize yourself as well. 

Right? And , I think it's a competitive advantage. That's how I see it, right? I don't have a Ivy League, Ivy League degree, I don't have the biggest networks. I don't have Vanderbilt as my last name.

I don't have a lot of things. I wasn't born in this country. I need to build leverage. I need to build competitive advantage. And if I have the resources, even if they are stretched, I would rather put them in gaining years back that I've already lost to the immigration process, right?  The 10 years that we all lost.

I would rather build that competitive advantage by throwing my resources, time, energy, effort, into the needle mover, which is gonna pull me much farther ahead than other people because all of them are scared to do, to go to that level, ? So I honestly think of it as a leverage, as a competitive advantage that.

I could figure this out on my own, but there's a cost of opportunity, which is always higher than what whatever I would give to a coach always high, ?  What I learned from that would stay with me forever. So I can never actually estimate the return on investment. I just can't ever calculate it because it's infinite, , it's just infinite.

It's a gift that keeps giving, ? Yes, traditional finance people would like freak out and that's fine, , because again, you live your life on your own terms and you decide what you value the most and exchange money for it, right? , I value the fact that other people have learned something faster or better, or they are the experts in the field, and I have no interest in becoming an expert in that field.

So I just want to know how I can use that skill in my area. So I'm gonna get those people in, , and learn from them so that I can save a lot of time. But  if you have money, and even if you don't have money, but if you have resources, You can start to prioritize this a little bit more, you'll have so much more competitive advantage than everybody else in your, in your company, in your team, in your family.

And then people are gonna wonder three years later, what, what, what are they doing differently that I'm not doing? It's like, do you wanna see the invoices from my coaches?  That's what I'm doing, , I'm putting myself first. I'm putting things that matter to me first. 

, I've seen you  sharing stories about how people are doing certain things, and one of this is.

Invest in yourself, and there's so many other such actions I've also seen you very openly share about, okay, , just use technology and do these things and, use them to your advantage. Because sometimes that is also tough for people to accept.  There's something new, some new technology coming in.

So how do you think  new technologies and things like AI play into how people can just get better at whatever they want, whatever their goals are?

 Yeah. I honestly am not a big like, I don't know a lot about it, right? , I don't know how it's built, what's behind it, like the technology piece.

But I do know that it's almost like, of course, , a lot of people are saying this, but it's  the internet, right? , if you don't accept it, it's gonna pass, surpass you, and then you'll have to accept it. I think personal branding is just like that too, where people are like, no, I don't want it.

I don't want it. And it's like, you could keep resisting, but eventually you'll have to, you'll have to build one. So I think AI is gonna be interesting. The only fear that I have is that, It will create more bias because it's such a data only system and the people who are building it, like the diversity in ai, like should be a concern for everybody.

 Of course the concern is the regulations and where it'll go. But I'll give you a very simple example. I was on Mid Journey and I was trying to build these avatars of women for our podcast launch for her STEM story, and we wanted to showcase these women as super women, right? And just wanted to show them as one.

Wonder women in STEM is the, is the idea. And so me and one of my one of my volunteers who's, who was also one of my clients, we were spending a lot of hours on mid journey and it was just not doing what it, what we wanted it to do. And we were frustrated. We are still frustrated because it just, it for me, it's not creating my face mid journey.

Other AI tools are better, but mid journey in general, which is by the way, an open forum. And it's actually getting billed on how many people are participating. It's taking all that data in and it's becoming better. Right? , and then, then we had a guy on LinkedIn do it for us. Adam Bid, actually, his name is, he has a really big platform now, and I had Adam do it and he sent me the first drafts, and then we used Mid Journey to improve them or change them.

It was interesting as to what Adam built and what we built and how different they were in perspective, because Mid Journey is all about using your words to draw something. . Right. And if you're, if you're saying things like, give me a photo of a woman in STEM dressed like an act, dressed like a superhero, da da da da.

It's biased because it starts to give you very masculine looking women, even though we've given it a photo. Right. And so it's interesting, and again, I haven't, I haven't really spent so many hours on it, but, and I would love to be challenged on this, but I think the scary part of all of this is that whether it's hiding people, whether it's fighting people, which is something that industries are trying to implement, is we are gonna fire people, right?

Based on ai. We're gonna, talent pool decisions will be made through ai. Are we sure? Are we sure about that? Right? , to your point, how are we going to assess people on those leadership nuances? How are we going to have the human connection, like at what will be the success rate of that? So we're probably going to see at least some growing pains on that end of bias, which by the way, as humans, we've not actually found a solution to it.

So, If the humans are building this ai, it's definitely gonna have the bias. And then, then who's participating? If it's being built on an open forum where people are contributing and we're gonna use all this data to then generate more images and then generate more data, then women should participate as well.

Right? Because it's a very important thing. And then the other part of this problem, of this issue is that now they're using AI detectors to detect AI usage in applications, in resumes, in job search. Definitely. I have a problem with that because let's say an immigrant who, who doesn't know English, use ChatGPT to just showcase their skills.

Nothing else, right?  Just to say this sentence properly and they get penalized for it when they're actually already penalized for being an immigrant and not knowing creative writing. I, I am sure you spend a lot of time on this with your clients. I spend, I think I spend 40, 50% of my time in creative writing.

How do you write this email? How do you write this message? How do you write the resume? How do you write the cover letter?  It's all about writing. And if you're gonna use ChatGPT to save money so that, because you can't afford, you can, we cannot all afford coaches and people to do it with us.

That's the whole point of the technology, how you gonna get penalized for it. So how do you di distinguish between the people who used it for the right reasons versus people who used it for the wrong reasons? And if you're gonna start doing this  checks on people, like how fair is that?  What I'm saying?

It's a very complicated topic, to be honest with you. But I feel like for leaders and organizations, it's important to learn the technology just like we all, at some point, I'm sure a lot of us learned coding. I learned coding when I first started. And only to be able to understand the capabilities and what it could do for people and then challenge that.

So when you know AI. When you've spent some time in it, on the back ends of it, or whether it's through ChatGPT  T or even, I think Mid Journey is a great place to start. It's $10 a month. It's a really great tool. If you just spend some time, it'll build your confidence, you'll be able to talk to people about it, and then you'll be able to pinpoint these things in boardrooms and,  decision making rooms where they're like, let's bring AI in.

And you're like, hold on, hold on. We should, however, can we talk about this? So  it'll play a lot of a, a really big role, but we can decide if that's positive or negative if we get familiar with it and not scared of it. And honestly, the, the fact that there are not enough women in some of these organizations, it scares me as to how it'll shape STEM organizations in the long term.

, that's just my very naive short-term view. Not knowing a lot, but interacting with it at a, at a small level and just also just. Thinking about it, it's like, hmm. Like it'll be interesting, but I hope, I hope it's not as biased as, as we already are. I hope it's better than us.  

I hope so too. You bring up a great point, and even though  that's not , where you're working on or your focused on, you definitely have thought it a lot just through your usage of it.

 That just goes to speak in terms of just also your. I for thoroughness and detail in terms of new technology, which  every leader should adopt. Frankly. It is true because I also fear like there's, it is being trained on all the data that exists for decades and a lot of that data because humans were biased.

That data is biased. And so , , are we just teaching them to be humans like we were 50 years ago or something like that? And it's, a hard problem to solve for sure. And you bring up very good questions. 

. I'm sure people much smarter than me are doing a lot more on this topic. And it's just as a user and as a person who would probably interact with it more as even business owners, right?

Like for copywriting, for all these other things. I just hope that it's going in the right direction and,  helps us in some way, right?  It, it shouldn't be a tool to just save time because then it's just shortcuts, right?  Then that's the other problem too.  Let's just shortcut this whole thing through, try ChatGPT it's like, what about creativity?

, if anything Priyanka, maybe it'll make our creativity more valuable. , who knows? 

I think so. . , the aspects where we work with humans and intuition and emotional intelligence and creativity,  those definitely , are going to be more valued. And I also feel that even if we take the shortcut and we are sure, increase your productivity, but then go do something better.

Yeah. 

Something more creative, something in the in maybe human things like that. And so if it can save us time to do that, that's a great outcome. But you're right, it shouldn't be used for the wrong reasons. 

. Which I think every technology has that challenge, ? 

That is inevitable, unfortunately.

Yeah. Yin yang, so 

that's true. Well, Prasha what advice would you give all the people, the rising women, the rising leaders

 believe in your brilliance?  It's really simple. If you believe in yourself, it's easier to believe in others. And  if you are not there yet, let's say you're somebody who has a lot of self-doubt, but you were given this promotion.

If you're experiencing a heightened imposter syndrome and you're like, no, today I don't believe in myself. What I've learned is start to put your belief in something bigger than yourself. ? For our moms, it was God, right? For a lot of people, it's God in a whatever form universe.  If you look at some of the best leaders in the world there, a lot of them are religious, a lot of them are, and.

It's not so much to follow religion per se, but it's,  to put your faith in something bigger, right? I mean, there's a whole lot of stories about Steve Jobs going to India, mark Zuckerberg going KanchiDham in India following Neem Karoli Baba  all these things are there for a reason because they put their faith in something bigger.

And  when you put your faith in something bigger, what happens is all those waves of emotion and confidence and failures and successes are just a little bit dampen, right? Where you can actually still keep. Because if you don't have that, I feel like even when you believe in your brilliance,  that is a really great support that I do believe that I'm very brilliant, but not in this very moment.

, in this moment I feel like things are falling apart and that's really probably a daily thing for somebody who's starting in leadership where everything's falling apart every time. You can relax. If you believe in something bigger, if, if you believe in something bigger than yourself.

Then you can just chill for a second, take a breath, and then come back to your, come back to the actions and everything else. I think any kind of routine, whether it's again, prayer, church, temple, whatever, like whatever you like, or even reading a spiritual book every night, like something that grounds you and gives you that faith that you're not alone in this and something bigger is supporting your mission.

And  if you read about all of these people, memoirs of people, you'll read that they, they did think that sometimes something bigger was either pulling them or holding them or, , pushing them. And  when you're, when you're new to leadership, when you're new to taking on challenges and being held accountable for it being told that you're wrong or you lost money, or you.

Destroyed a project or even though it was 15 people involved, you have to like, right? Like leadership is not just about all the good stuff, it's all the bad stuff. And maybe once in a while it's the good stuff. And so I learned that because I worked in quality and in quality, you're never right and in quality, you never get any appreciation whatsoever, right?

 The customers are yelling at you, the managers are yelling at you, you are just costing everybody money, like nobody actually likes you. And I learned that and I said, you know what? Some days when I get a million dollar claim, I'm like, I'm gonna go to the temple tonight. Like, I'm gonna just ground myself and then start again tomorrow.

Because that's what you need. You need resilience. And, again, faith in something, faith in yourself, but also faith in something bigger. 

That's lovely. And so well put. Thank you for sharing such wonderful nuggets of wisdom and your thoughts and just being very open and honest. I love the conversation.

Tell us what comes next for you. 

So  right now I have an eight month old at the recording of this podcast. So a lot about, , just getting him settled. But a lot more in-person events is what I want to do more retreats, conferences meeting more people, giving hugs.  We're all missing those.

So I'm ready to get out there and just, just meet more people and be out in the wild for, for the next 12, 12 months or so. I have a lot of trips planned and a lot of, a lot of cool things that I'm doing. . 

That's awesome. Tell us where people can find you. 

Absolutely. So you can go to my website at prashhadutra.com

you can follow me on LinkedIn, on Instagram. I also have a quiz at prashadutra.com slash quiz, which is a career clarity quiz. If you take that, you'll get added to my email list. And , just like all the stories I just told, I love telling stories. I have a newsletter called Believe in Your Brilliance. It goes out every Monday and you get confidence activities, tips, and new ways to think about things in less than three minutes.

So hopefully you'll, you'll sign up for that. So those are some ways to find me. I'm everywhere. I'm on LinkedIn, Instagram podcast. But wherever you are at, I'll meet you there. Awesome. 

Well, everybody you can find Prashha Dutra on all the social media and it's Prashadutra.com So once again Prashha thank you so much.

Really enjoyed the conversation and love hearing all your stories. 

Thank you so much, Priyanka. We can't wait to host you on her stem story soon. 

 Looking forward to that. And once again take care. Thank you. 

Thank you. Bye.