Curiosity and patience are the golden threads that run through the cloth of our guest, Shefaly Yogendra’s life. Today, this curiosity will take us to beehives in rural Kenya and onion warehouses in India, and we’ll see how patience, it’s less glamorous companion, can help us clearly define problems so that we can solve them correctly.
“…in most people’s minds these two things don’t sit together. But if they sit together, they create something of a very different order of magnitude.”
Shefaly studied engineering and earned an MBA from one of India’s most prestigious business schools. Cambridge and MIT are also on her school report. She has spent the last decade on the boards of some of the UK’s most significant listed investment trusts.
But for us, she is a is a reader and this comes through in her every syllable for she is also a storyteller. Her book Uncharted Spaces: Reset The Agenda. Reimagine the boardroom (out today) is ostensibly about boardrooms, but it also spoke to me as someone in the middle of a career change.
More than finding transferable skills, aspiring directors benefit from ‘metacognitive reflection’. What am I good at? What have I had to work hard at? What have I struggled with? How have I dealt with my strengths and my weaknesses? What has all that demonstrated to me about the values that have actually guided me versus the values I like to think have guided me? How can I make all this relevant to a board that I am interested in.
Shefaly Yogendra, Unchartered Spaces
It’s fair to say Shefali’s no slouch, but even so her path has not been linear, nor has it been without obstacle. Like us, she’s also had to start over, navigate uncertainty and meet closed doors. It’s time to press play on the conversation - listen out for how we should tackle the questions we need to ask as we move forward.
We begin where many of us find ourselves wanting to start something new, but facing the gatekeepers…
Before the next episode in two weeks’ time, let’s channel some of Shefaly’s curiosity. Make a list of questions about whatever you’re chewing over, a challenge, a new direction, a problem you can’t quite see clearly yet. Just the questions and then drill down. What further questions do you need to ask to find the answers to those?
In two weeks time, we’ll think about what to do with them.
“If we remain curious, open-minded, and seek to connect with people who have different perspectives, we can actually find opportunities in those uncharted spaces, even if they look daunting and too big to overcome alone….People say it’s an African proverb… If you want to go fast, go alone. If you wanna go far, go with other people.”
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ABOUT THE PODCAST: The Wobbly Middle is a podcast for women rethinking their careers in midlife. We spotlight women who have forged bold new paths in their 40s and beyond - women who have pivoted careers, returned after careers breaks, built businesses, and finally taken their long-neglected dreams seriously.
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ABOUT THE HOST: Patsy Day is a lawyer on a break. As an intellectual property specialist, she has worked on everything from anti-counterfeiting to publishing and from London to Ho Chi Minh City and back again. Patsy lives in Oxford and is currently immersed in podcasts producing SafeHouse Amsterdam alongside The Wobbly Middle.
This episode was produced by Patsy Day. Studio recording by The Pod Collective.
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