Episode 316 - Dr. Sheila Gujrathi discusses how to build real influence, find sponsors, and move into executive roles without losing yourself. We unpack how fear shows up and what to do when you aren’t the “obvious” candidate.

Renata Bernarde (00:00)
My guest today is Dr. Sheila Guajarati, a biotech executive physician scientist and healthcare investor. You see, she has led drug programs from idea to approval. She has steered companies through major acquisitions and alongside her scientific career, she has an important project.

Following her TED Talk, which has more than one million views, she’s become a leading voice on brave, inclusive leadership. She’s also the co-founder of the biotech CEO Sisterhood and has now authored the book The Mirror Effect. This book helps readers from all different backgrounds to feel comfortable in their careers and their ambitions and navigating upward mobility in their careers without losing themselves.

in the process because it’s hard to be what you cannot see. In this episode, we go deep into nervous system regulation, something that comes from her background and scientific understanding, which really helps job seekers who are going through job hunting and trying to regulate their nervous system through difficult situations at work. We also talk about authentic influence and how fear shows up.

for underrepresented leaders and professionals. Our goal was to give you practical ideas that you can use this week, but also inspiration that you can carry on for your life. And remember that if you need help with your career, I’m here for you. There will be a link in the show notes where you can find more about my services. I offer private coaching, peer group coaching, and courses to help you stay.

up to speed with today’s recruitment practices and prepare you to succeed in your next career move. I also have a newsletter that I would love for you to sign up because I have a lot of exclusive content just for the newsletter subscribers and I have events every now and then that I would love for you to participate. Many of them are free of course.

I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Sheila as much as I did.

Renata Bernarde (02:36)
I am so delighted Sheila that your team reached out to me because I then watched your TED talk and I have been suggesting that my clients watch it. I think it’s a brilliant TED talk. One of the really best TED talks I’ve seen about

leadership, inclusive leadership and bravery, which I think a lot of my clients, when they are going through job search, they need to watch an inspirational TED talk like yours. But I was thinking, you know, of your career, but, know, unlike people like Brené Brown, because she’s an organizational psychologist, she’s a psychologist, you are a biotech executive and a, you know, a scientist and, you know, you’re in health care. What was

it that drove you to try to solve that leadership problem.

Sheila Gujrathi (03:29)
Yes, thank you so much for the question. And you’re right. am not, to your point, a psychologist or I’m not researching organizational dynamics from an academic or even industry setting. I am a physician executive who spent the last three decades really ⁓ in biotech and pharma in different types of companies.

large pharmaceutical companies, large biotech companies, and then for the last 15 years, and small emerging biotech companies, both private and public, playing a variety of different roles. I’ve really done, I think, most of the roles at this point, operators, founders, board directors, board chairwoman, ⁓ investor. So this book has come ⁓ from a deep place inside of me, surprised myself that I wanted to go on this advocacy journey to help women

to help people with different backgrounds, like just really diverse backgrounds who don’t feel like they fit in or belong, and the next generations to have more of a kind of what I call real talk or this transparent sharing of what my lessons learned have been on the frontline in these roles, actively dealing and operating within these difficult situations and have them learn from my lessons from my success stories.

but also from some of the failures I’ve had or just bumps in the road, I like to say. It have all helped me grow as a person, both professionally and personally. But what I found in my own professional journey is that there was no playbook, there’s no manual, there’s no guide that you can turn to and say, what’s gonna set me up for success as I take on this next level of leadership? Whether that’s a director level role or your first executive role as a vice president or senior vice president.

Renata Bernarde (04:58)
Mm.

Sheila Gujrathi (05:22)
or a C-level executive and definitely not for a CEO job. So that’s, know, we’re often learning when we step into these roles, but I would argue that other, some of our peers, especially our male peers, just have like a better support system baked in ⁓ into, you know, whatever they’ve experienced, whether those fraternities or sports teams or just, you know, or just people they know, you know, that have been in these roles where they’ve been mentored.

Renata Bernarde (05:26)
Yeah.

Sheila Gujrathi (05:50)
Sponsored and coached and they have kind of their people they can go to to ask for advice I just I didn’t have that myself personally and And I I think I know now know how important it is to have so to your point I think what happened was I just realized that we needed to do more to help set ourselves and each other up for success and I started to understand what that looked like and how to actually do that and that’s really why I decided to write this book

Renata Bernarde (06:03)
Yes.

I love that. That’s where I think your point of view is so important because of that lived experience that you’ve had and what you’ve experienced in terms of good and bad leadership, good and bad onboarding, all of those situations you’ve been through. In my career, I’ve worked a lot with that as well in creating a pathway for individuals from different backgrounds to

⁓ embrace a new profession that they had not seen in their families, in their backgrounds. So for example, I worked with blue collar students that wanted to do white collar work and ⁓ indigenous kids that wanted to, you know, work in big cities. So all of these things I think are important because you’re right, you don’t come with the privilege that, for example, I had to have seen my, you know,

father and my grandfather and some women in my family have white collar jobs before I did. So I could sort of mirror, I mean, your book’s name is Mirror Effect, I can see it. You know, I can mirror in them, you know, my experience, I can sort of learn from them as well, both ⁓ by asking or just by observing, I don’t even need to ask, I’ve just observed that. So that’s such a privilege. What? Yeah.

Sheila Gujrathi (07:46)
Yeah, and I know this easily about that,

because it’s exactly right. I talk about how many of us just, don’t have, we haven’t seen mirrors. People who look like us, act like us, think like us, speak like us in these roles. So then as Sally Ride said, the famous NASA astronaut who was the first woman, American woman in space, you can’t be what you can’t see.

Renata Bernarde (07:56)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Sheila Gujrathi (08:13)
And there’s that aspect to, know, we’ve been trailblazing, but when you don’t see mirrors around you and they’re not those, you you don’t have these direct role models. You also don’t even know that it’s possible for you to take and play those roles. So I love what you’ve been doing. I think it’s wonderful. And there’s great to have trailblazers. And as soon as someone does it, it does, it impacts so many people. I know I’ve been that for many people.

Renata Bernarde (08:13)
Mmm.

Sheila Gujrathi (08:41)
being the first woman and person of color and woman of color, and many of the roles I’ve played, they’re like, well, if Sheila can do it, I can do it. And I think that’s amazing. it’s been a factor for me to actually take on some of these additional roles to become a CEO, to become a chairwoman, because in addition to challenging myself, which I do love challenges and I wanna keep pushing myself, ⁓ and I truly just enjoy these leadership roles.

Renata Bernarde (08:57)
Mm.

Sheila Gujrathi (09:09)
I also know a big part of doing this for me was showing others that it can be done. And then once you do that, that’s really being a mirror and a role model and paving the way for others to follow.

Renata Bernarde (09:22)
Yeah. Was there a moment where you realized you had to write a book and you had to speak about it? Or was this something that just happened organically?

Sheila Gujrathi (09:33)
Yeah, I think it was when I was in my CEO role, I just felt even more lonely than usual. I’ve had this kind of ⁓ immigrant experience in this country, in the US, and oftentimes didn’t feel like I fit in. ⁓ even in my professional world, I was always trying to prove myself and felt like I had to be perfect in all these pressures. But when you step into the CEO role in particular, it is a very lonely role. Everyone talks about

how the CEO is a lonely job. And that’s because you have no peers. You’re managing an executive team and an entire organization, and you have a board that you’re kind of reporting to in some ways, but you don’t have anyone who’s your peer that you can find these safe spaces to just relax with. So there was a big shift when you go from a C-level executive to that CEO role, or from whatever role you’ve come from into the CEO role.

Renata Bernarde (10:05)
Mm.

Sheila Gujrathi (10:29)
And I think again, as someone who’s more of a minority who didn’t have a support network, I felt like I even felt more lonely and isolated in that role. And then also, when I was looking for help and support and finding it hard to come by, I started turning to some women and there was just a few of us that were going to these different conferences and we’d see each other and we would know where each other were. We wouldn’t be very well aware of one another.

And, but then that was for a period of time. But then when we actually started reaching out to help one another, that was very, that was really, ⁓ again, eye opening and, you know, understanding how that could happen. So a number of us said, let’s form a women CEO network, ⁓ coming out of COVID, which is also an isolating kind of time and, you know, period and where we need to help one another. So we set out to really form.

a women’s CEO network, which ended up being called the Biotech CEO Sisterhood. And at the same time, I started writing this book because I just said, it’s time. We need to do something differently here.

Renata Bernarde (11:34)
Awesome. One of the things that I read, your team sent me parts of your book and I’ve been quickly trying to get ready for this conversation with you. I loved it. I loved one specifically that I want to use with my clients. And it is ⁓ that preparation that you do for your board meetings that you do before you go. Because the fact that you have this background as a physician scientist means that you bring this sort of ⁓

interesting neuro understanding of what happens to us when we get anxious, when you get stressed. And this is something that you don’t know about me, but I include a lot of that research into my coaching as well. But I hadn’t thought of that routine that you follow. I will tell you what I told a client just last night. I was helping a client and we were having a very late ⁓ conversation last night ⁓ because he’s in Europe, so it was morning for him.

But this is what happened. Whilst we were talking, he got a message saying he had an important interview coming up in a few days. And he’s like, look what happened. I have an interview coming up. What should I do? What should I do? And you could tell he started getting quite nervous. It is an interview for him. He didn’t have a lot of interviews recently. ⁓ That’s what happens in Europe because it’s summer there and just things don’t happen. There are no jobs advertised.

And I told him, first of all, make sure you sleep well between now and then and you eat well, you know, no junk food. And if you get really anxious, sweat it out. Go for a run. I know he’s a runner. Go for a run. Go to the gym. I want you to sweat it out. And he said, no, no, no, no. How should I prepare for the interview? And I’m like, that’s how you should prepare for an interview. You know your stuff, you know, if you’re fine, if you’re feeling good, you know.

in the meeting by having slept well, which hardly anyone does before a big interview like that, you are going to have an advantage against other candidates. So that’s what I told him. I want you to tell me if I did well, but I want you to also tell me your routine that I really like.

Sheila Gujrathi (13:49)
Yes, well, I think there’s a number of different things. ⁓ So as you know, ⁓ the first part of my book is really around holding up your own mirror and knowing myself. And I just very much want to highlight how important it is to spend time raising awareness of what’s going on in your mind, your heart, your body. Because

to your point, like when we have to prepare for a big interview or a board meeting or an important investment committee decision, those are definitely when the rubber hits the road, when we have to show up and perform and be our best selves. But I don’t want the preparation to start just then. You know, I think it’s I think it’s a it’s a lifelong practice that you know that and actually the earlier you do it in your life and career, the happier you’re going to be also. So it’s really something that is important. And this also comes from

Renata Bernarde (14:32)
Yep.

Sheila Gujrathi (14:45)
my spiritual background and in practice just because I had to face and deal with this early on in my life because I had lost my father at a young age and I was truly not very happy and searching for like what my purpose was and my mission here on earth. So I confronted a lot early on which then set this foundation for me and it really enabled me to be successful in my career.

Renata Bernarde (15:02)
Mm.

Sheila Gujrathi (15:10)
But I do want people to spend time working on that. And so I talk about this inner self-talk track that we all have, that critic, the inner glass ceiling, the negative self-talk, limiting thoughts, patterns, beliefs, and habits and conditioning. And so in the FIDS, the fear, insecurity, doubt, and shame. And the more we can name that for ourselves, ground around those and kind of reframe them and take action to address them. And I have…

different ways to do that within the book. For me, it’s journaling, self-compassion, other self-care techniques that you talk about, which are really important to help break free from some of these patterns. But the awareness piece is number one. So I think that is really, really important to start that early and develop those muscles, exercise those muscles so that you can kind of come back to them. And then you can re-center and ground yourself before you go into the interview, before you go into that board decision.

Renata Bernarde (15:51)
Yeah.

Mm.

Sheila Gujrathi (16:08)
⁓ or that board meeting, I think that’s really, really critical. And then for myself, I do different techniques ⁓ to, again, prepare for interviews or, you know, but it’s a lot of centering and grounding. And if I do have worries, I kind of go through my four step process to worry, which I did just for each, which I really talked about, like, you know, the name, the grounding, the reframing and taking action. And I talk about that in the book.

Renata Bernarde (16:08)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila Gujrathi (16:36)
But can do other things like do things to increase your energy, you know, the power poses and, ⁓ you know, whether, and, find a routine that works for you. For me, it’s breathing exercises, centering, writing down what I want the objectives of the meeting and what I would like to get out of that meeting. ⁓ how I would like to show up in that interview. ⁓ and, and kind of getting that clarity and doing some intention setting around it as well. Those are some of the steps that I take, you know, to really prepare well for an interview.

Renata Bernarde (17:01)
Yes.

Sheila Gujrathi (17:05)
But again, and definitely the sleep is critical in its heart because you’re usually nervous. know that you may not get good sleep and that’s okay. Don’t be yourself up about it. But I think start now in terms of this centering and grounding practices so that you can return to those states fairly easily in higher stress situations.

Renata Bernarde (17:11)
Yeah.

Thank

Yeah, I’m having some aha moments here for myself as a coach. I’ve been doing this full time now for six years and I think in the beginning I was less. I want to use the word bossy. I was more flexible with my clients when they came to me to work with me for like six months or three months trying to, you know, ⁓ reinvent their careers. But I need to.

to follow your lead in this and kind of require of them that time for us to workshop together and for them to do that pre-work before they go to market. I need to be more forceful with that. Because usually when they sign up with me, they want to immediately start looking for work. And that’s not how my coaching framework will work because, you know.

Like you, I believe that you need to do that pre-work before you go to market. Now, that’s different from a client that comes to me just for a one hour consultation. Then I don’t, you know, then I need to use all the gimmicks, you know, that coffee 30 minutes before the interview and, ⁓ you know, doing the breath work, of course. I think that that’s a great idea. There’s some.

movements with the body that I recommend that they do if they find a toilet, you know, a bathroom that they can go to and do some ⁓ some movements and even some tricks in inside the boardroom or the meeting room that, you know, that can sort of pause them and help them go through the meeting. One research that I read many years ago ⁓ was how women and men cope with ⁓ stress hormones in their bodies during that time.

So when I was ⁓ interviewing lots of people in one of the jobs that I had, they wanted to reduce the interview to 30 minutes because it was an hour long that this interview and I, and I insisted that they didn’t because women take longer to overcome the nerves at the beginning of the interview. could take 15 to 20 minutes, whereas men takes five to 10.

And I said 30 minutes for a woman wouldn’t be enough, you know, for them to, because this is an important interview and they need more time. And they said, all right, so let’s keep it an hour long. So these things, I think it’s important for people to understand about their mind and body works when they are in these situations. And that’s what I like about the advice that you give.

Sheila Gujrathi (20:11)
Yeah, no, that’s all true. And again, I have a whole chapter dedicated. I call it Harnessing Your Presence. And I don’t want to necessarily use that word executive presence, but it’s really like grounding and showing up as your authentic self and having that inner confidence, which is a real reflection of the way you’re viewing yourself and your self-worth and, again, that grounding and that confidence that’s coming through. ⁓ But I agree.

Renata Bernarde (20:17)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila Gujrathi (20:36)
in the sense that I hear you about maybe having longer interview times for women, but I think in reality that may be difficult. So that’s why really spending time grounding yourself before the interview and getting into that place inside yourself. Because when you get there, you know it. You feel like, okay, I’m centered, I’m grounded, I can go into this. And that’s from that place, you’re centered. And from that place, you’re going into the interview or whatever you’re going into, or whether you’re giving a talk or doing a podcast.

Renata Bernarde (20:44)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Sheila Gujrathi (21:06)
you’re operating from this place. And once you start to know what that feels like, then you can return to it more easily. But importantly, you also know when you’re not in it. So you can say, OK, I’m not, I’m feeling a little off right now. Let me spend some time. And hopefully, gets to be less and less time to get to that grounded place so that you can be, again, show up as your authentic, thriving self in these situations. Because in reality, they may not have a longer interview time.

Renata Bernarde (21:30)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila Gujrathi (21:36)
to, you know, for women candidates and male candidates. you we’ve got to step up and perform within, you know, within this kind of structure. But the more we do ourselves to get us there, you know, it all starts and ends with ourselves. And wherever you go, there you are. The more you’re going to be, again, set up for that success, you know, that successful outcome.

Renata Bernarde (21:39)
Absolutely, yeah.

That’s absolutely right. The other thing I wanted to ask you in that sort of interview situation is when you’re halfway through an interview or meeting and maybe something you said or the time or maybe you took too long doing a presentation and you lost the audience, they’re not with you anymore and you can tell by their body language, how do you recover from that?

Sheila Gujrathi (22:26)
Well, one thing I like to do is I do like to ask lots of questions. I like to ask questions to the interview about themselves, what’s inspiring for them to be in this company or this role, what for them would success look like. So really engage them, ⁓ ask them personal questions about themselves, be really curious about the company. I feel that that’s a great way to kind of reset.

and generate that dialogue and develop more of a relationship. Because you have to understand your audience. Where are they coming from? What’s important to them? What are they looking for? And on Earth, what are the theories they have? what hasn’t been working well? Again, what does success look like to that person? So I think that’s a really great way to kind of re-engage and maybe start and kind of do a little bit of a reset.

within the interview time itself. And people love to talk about themselves. it’s a good way for them to forget about whatever else was going on and just say, oh yeah, that’s great. This person’s really curious. It also shows your ability to listen, understand, reflect back, assimilate information. And I think it’s generally looked upon very favorably for most employers that this person’s going to really take time to understand what’s important for the company

Renata Bernarde (23:26)
Yeah.

Sheila Gujrathi (23:49)
for whatever task is at hand. So I like to do that. I also think it’s important to just, again, that your point, do those little steps to kind of reground. Because when you do subtle shifts and you’re shifting energetically, that can have a profound change in the environment also. Again, it’s amazing how much we affect our environment and the people around us. So if we’re finding that while we were a little frenetic and we just went off on a question and gave way too long of an answer,

Renata Bernarde (23:53)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila Gujrathi (24:19)
You know, just take a pause, some, do some, couple of breaths and things that aren’t super noticeable, but you know, feel your feet on the floor, you know, drop down into your, into your body. Take a deep breath, take a deep belly breath and just kind of ground yourself and then start again. You know, just that subtle pause and shift can really work wonders in a discussion and a one-on-one interaction in a group meeting. And so.

Renata Bernarde (24:37)
Yeah.

Sheila Gujrathi (24:47)
The pauses we take, the way we listen, all of these things are as important in terms of how we show up. We slow down our speech, we become even more intentional and grounded. Or if you’re feeling like you’re kind of losing people because you’re just maybe speaking too slow, at that point, maybe become a little bit more animated. Then we bring the animation in and like, well, how are you doing? my God, this is so exciting. I love what you’re talking about. This has been my dream to have a job like this, is you kind of bring passion in.

Renata Bernarde (24:50)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sheila Gujrathi (25:16)
So you have to be

Renata Bernarde (25:17)
Yeah.

Sheila Gujrathi (25:17)
aware of your surroundings and the best way to be aware of your surroundings and what’s happening around you and reading the body language and being attentive to what’s not only being said, but what’s not being said is to be grounded and centered yourself. If you having a big inner dialogue going on at times saying, my God, you’re messing up. You’re not, you don’t deserve this job. Why are you even here? Then you can’t show up and be present to objectively assess what’s going on around you. So that’s again, coming back to.

Renata Bernarde (25:30)
it.

Sheila Gujrathi (25:45)
doing that work internally so that you can really understand your environment externally.

Renata Bernarde (25:51)
I love that. ⁓ We spoke before, you spoke before about being the only woman in the room, know, just identifying the other female executives in a big room because there were many of them. And I’m wondering here how that translated in you showcasing executive presence. One of the biggest ⁓

words, keywords that people search for to find the work that I do is executive presence. How do I show executive presence? People Google that a lot and they also search for that on LinkedIn. I just found out yesterday that is one of the reasons why people find this podcast is because there it’s like the top reason is executive presence. And I find that I don’t know about it. I don’t think men are Googling executive presence. If you’re a man.

And you’re listening to this. OK, ⁓ please let me know because, you know, I’m sort of making some assumptions here, ⁓ gender based assumptions. But I think a lot of women come to me, you know, to ask me how do I showcase executive presence? And I get that question more from women than from men. So I’m just assuming that they are the ones making the searches on Google. Did you did you struggle with that as well?

Sheila Gujrathi (27:12)
Yeah.

Well, think, know, so first of all, I want to make a few comments on this. And I was actually talking about this at a panel, a CEO panel that I was on yesterday, actually. And we were saying, we don’t even like this term, executive presence, because like, what does that mean? Right. And we hear these terms, ⁓ you know, used a lot, like in performance reviews and feedback individuals are getting, especially for individuals who don’t fit the mold.

Renata Bernarde (27:24)
⁓ wow.

Yeah.

Sheila Gujrathi (27:43)
who may not, again, and act and behave like others because we speak differently and we act differently. And that is our authentic self. But that may be less familiar to those people in the room. So they may interpret that as we’re not as serious ⁓ or we don’t have the credibility or this other word that none of us really like in terms of, in my circle, gravitas. You need to have more gravitas. Like what does that mean? Because we are very serious. We’re committed. We wanna deliver results.

It’s not that we’re not serious when we show up to these things, but we also communicate in a certain style and we have to be ourselves as well. And for cultures that really embrace that diversity of style, speaking, acting, I think that’s wonderful. But for those of people who aren’t in those naturally diverse ⁓ environments, those who have to talk, walk, think, act this way to be taken seriously,

That’s not on you. That way is better than the way that you’re showing up. So I just want to say that because I want to take a little bit of the sting out of if someone’s gotten that feedback. And also that I don’t necessarily believe in those words the way they’re intended or sometimes used. They could be really indicating some bias.

whether that’s conscious or unconscious bias at play, filters that employers or senior leadership is using, you know, but it’s really, you know, representing some of that implicit bias that we do tend to experience. And I say that because I want to also say that it’s not you as an individual, it’s also the environment that you find yourself in. So just want to make sure I made those kind of statements because I think it’s important to hear that and know

Renata Bernarde (29:34)
Thank you. Yeah.

Sheila Gujrathi (29:37)
There’s nothing wrong with them. ⁓ The way I like to talk about presence and maybe not even executive presence, but the way we show up is really you want your best self to show up, whoever that is. do you want, I truly believe that power comes from authenticity. It’s difficult to be really powerful when you’re not truly who you are. When you’re wearing a mask or a facade and have your armor on.

then like how you truly be authentic and powerful? Because that comes from a deep place inside of us. That’s when we’re really, truly powerful and being our thriving powerful self. So again, I think the more the work you do in her and you have that centered grounded place from which you’re operating, you are naturally then going to show up with good presence, because you’re gonna be alert, aware, present to the conversation.

and engaged and I think that’s what people are looking for. And that confidence then will be a reflection of what’s happening internally. And I also like to use this phrase, resilient confidence, because you can come in and be like, okay, I’m gonna be confident, I’m gonna be confident. And then someone says something and all of a sudden you feel like, they knocked me off my center. So we wanna have resilient confidence. We wanna have that confidence that we can go into any room expecting to be knocked off center and we come right back to being centered. And we know again, cause we know who we are.

We know that we belong. We’re not questioning our own worth. And we’re operating in that place because we want to be there. We’re passionate about the job and we want to face these challenges. That’s why we’re here, to do some good, to contribute. And those are the reasons and the purpose and our values driving us, not because we’re trying to prove ourselves and seeking external validation. So these shifts I think are important occurring. And when they do, you will naturally show up more confident.

Renata Bernarde (31:24)
Mm.

Sheila Gujrathi (31:32)
with more presence. so for me, I think, you know, it’s been a journey. think because I had this passion to become a physician early in my life, you know, I very much, and because of the spiritual work I did, I want to live a life of what I call seva or service. So I was always able to connect with a higher purpose outside of me so that it wasn’t just about me. It was about taking care of patients. Now it’s about developing hopefully life-changing therapies and clinically meaningful therapies.

So kind of always coming back to why we’re here. And that gives me lot of strength and courage to show up, to say things, you know, and maybe, you know, have a different point of view because I truly believe that it’s going to be serving that higher purpose. And I don’t want to lose that North Star. And when I do that, I think naturally, you know, people know where I’m coming from. And so I feel like that shows up well for presence. And I do have that inner confidence.

I do my homework. I work really hard. I do my homework. I am a physician. I’ve gone to great schools. I know all this about me and I celebrate my accomplishments. And I’m sure all of your audience, they have great things that they’ve done in their life and their career. And even if they’ve grown up in challenging backgrounds, celebrate that. You should be proud of who you are.

Renata Bernarde (32:50)
Yes, I love that. You’re absolutely right. ⁓ Now, where you are means that you have this reputation that precedes you. So people know of you, they trust you already because of the work that you’ve done and all of ⁓ the experiences that you have accumulated, your network. What would you advise somebody to do who is not there yet and they don’t have that reputation yet?

and they’re trying to build trust quickly. So they might have started a new job or they are trying to engage with a network that’s new to them, maybe in a new country. I know that you have a checklist and I want you to sort of tell us a little bit about issues with trust that you’ve experienced in your past as well.

Sheila Gujrathi (33:39)
Yes, and I think sometimes it also has to do with our cultural conditioning and background where, you know, it was difficult to sometimes trust others. was then also that what happens is, is sometimes difficult to trust ourselves. And that is, you know, so there’s this whole concept of what does trust mean and how important it is. And trust is really fundamental in the work, in your work life, in your personal life. If you’re having a difficult time trusting others,

they’re going to have a difficult time trusting you too. And it’s not surprising that we have a difficult time trusting others because we’ve been hurt. We’ve experienced bullying or microaggressions and or inappropriate behavior or language that we’ve experienced and we’ve had to try to pretend like it’s normal. And if you’ve gone through those experiences and that kind of conditioning where things aren’t okay, but you have to act like they’re okay, that’s a very difficult.

set of experiences to go through and reconcile with ourselves, our value, our sense of self-worth. And so I do talk about this in the book because I do believe the conditioning that we experience in our early childhood years and growing up, whether that’s cultural, familial, generational, geopolitical, ⁓ you know, that it does stay with us and it contributes to the way we perceive ourselves.

And so, and some of us have even had traumatic things that have happened in our life, which is a whole other layer. And then I call it the double whammy effect. You experience it, which is, you which you can have shame about, but then somehow you internalize it and think it’s your fault. And so then you carry it forward. So it’s not only that it happened in that moment, it then translates, it transmits to the rest of your life and it’s in you and you don’t even know it.

And you kind of gloss over it and you don’t even know that you could be operating from this sense of fear and this place of fear, which I kind of came to this realization later in my career, despite all my amazing accomplishments, that I was still so fearful of not being perfect, of not being successful all the time. And as you grow in your career and if you had successes, the successes then you need to have get bigger and bigger and the stakes get higher and higher. And again, that’s no way to live. It’s just like you’re constantly on this, in that hamster wheel.

Renata Bernarde (35:31)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila Gujrathi (36:01)
in that rat race and again, that’s not really enjoyable. So kind of understanding kind of where this is coming from for you is so important. So coming back to trust, know, learning then to how to trust people, give them the benefit of doubt, but also be self compassionate and learning how to trust yourself. You say you’re going to show up, show up, you know, show up for yourself first and then show up for others. And then also see what they’re doing, give them the benefit of doubt and give them a chance to prove themselves. But if they don’t prove themselves,

If they don’t follow through on their actions, because I do believe actions are a lot of the words, then note that. We need to be smart. We need to know whom we can trust. We can still work with them, but we may not trust them as much. When I first started out in my professional career, I trusted everybody. I was kind of overly trusting. So pay attention to that too. We have to be smart about and see what people are doing. Follow their behavior as well and see, do they really deserve your trust or not?

Renata Bernarde (36:56)
Yeah.

Sheila Gujrathi (36:59)
There are going to be people who deserve your trust and that’s great. And those people who don’t deserve your trust, see if you can get to this place where you can develop a trusting relationship. So a lot of this, it takes time. I tell the younger generations and I told this to myself, it was very hard. I was very impatient when I was first starting out. I wanted to be successful. I wanted everything now. And I think at this frenetic pace when you’re seeing all these startup founders and we want everything now, success now.

Renata Bernarde (37:07)
Mm.

Sheila Gujrathi (37:29)
But it does take time, you know, and that’s okay. You’re gonna grow along your journey. So, you know, in my younger years, I actually had two little cards that I pulled and I thought it was, you know, get a good message for me. was integrity and patience, you know. You know, live a life of integrity and understand what that means for you and patience. And I used to have it in front of me and I would see them every day because I was very impatient and I was known for being impatient. I talked fast.

worked fast. I didn’t bring people along with me. I would go from point A to B and people didn’t even know where I was. And I only wanted results quicker than they came. So we do need to exercise that patience and realize building trusting relationships takes time. And it’s a pattern of saying you’re going to do something and then delivering on that. And that’s true when you’re a founder, when you’re talking to investors. You set out a timeline of what milestones you’re going to deliver.

And then you come back to them and say, you delivered on it. For those who haven’t invested in you yet, or those who have invested in you yet, because it’s a constant dialogue you have to have around trust building.

Renata Bernarde (38:38)
Okay. I love that you explained to us this pathway in your career from early years to now. How do you see your career progressing from now into the future? You wrote this great book. You also have all of this other work that you do investing in companies and, you know, and sort of finding out ⁓ where to, you know, who and what to do to

bring forward great ⁓ solutions for healthcare problems. I almost see that as like two ways of going about your career in the future. What does the book represent to you and how does it sort of combine with the work that you do in healthcare?

Sheila Gujrathi (39:26)
Yeah, they really go hand in hand. So the book for me has been part of this advocacy journey I’ve been on. And so coming again through my professional career and experiencing a number of things and understanding what I went through in the early parts of my career that no one kind of explained to me and also that no one talks about.

Renata Bernarde (39:33)
huh.

Sheila Gujrathi (39:48)
I felt like no one was really talking. It’s not like I’m the only one going through these things. But I felt that way. I felt very alone. And I had a lot of self-doubt. And I thought there was something wrong with me at different periods of life and different parts of my career. And I wish I could go back to my younger self and say, there was nothing wrong with you. And this is shared. Many people have these experiences. It’s not you. And that’s what I want to tell people. I don’t want them to suffer silently. ⁓

and suffer by themselves. I felt very alone and I want to be there for people and I want to talk about these things so we can address that shame. You Brene Brown talks about how shame really grows exponentially in isolation. And that really resonated for me and I ⁓ started understanding that, how important that is to address that. ⁓ But then we need really practical advice to how to do this, how to operate in these companies and

and start companies and deal with difficult personalities and deal with challenging environments that we often find ourselves in because that’s just life. And life throws this curve ball. So how do we deal with all these things? And so I wanted to, again, write this down. I took everything I knew and I put it into this book, trying to make it as helpful as possible. I also really wanted to be practical. So I created a workbook and journal to go alongside the book so that every chapter has like a summary of key takeaways of how you can step into your power.

But I said, even that to me wasn’t enough, you know, because you read about that, but then you can forget about it. So how do we make this alive? So I created a work book in journal where you could actually need to write. And there’s something about writing and getting out of your head, which has been shown to increase neuroplasticity and cognitive engagement to break old patterns of thoughts and actions and habits. you know, I wanted to have people like go through kind of active exercises, you know, by chapter.

to help them along this journey. And then as you know, I formed this biotech-CEO sisterhood and we have the CXO sisterhood. So we’re really growing all our sisterhood networking and we’re advocating to do this. Anyone can develop a community, find three to five people tomorrow and just start working with that, create safe environments for yourself and find your people. So this again, this is all part of this advocacy journey that I’ve been on the TEDx talk with part of that as well.

while I’m also continuing my passion of developing innovative therapies for patients with high medical need. And I think it’s important because I’m very much still in the arena and I still continue to grow, learn, evolve, practice these and continue to break through my inner glass ceilings and these external glass ceilings by these transformative powers of mirrors, holding on my own mirror and surrounding myself with mirrors to be the best leader I can be.

continue to hopefully be an inspiring role model for those around me.

Renata Bernarde (42:42)
Sheila, that’s wonderful. I love that. I love that you didn’t try to package everything into one route for yourself, that you were able to do those two things. And I think a lot of people could benefit from listening to how you’ve done it. A lot of people have ideas of what they want to do. when they come to me for advice, I almost feel like it’s a binary choice and it’s not. You can do two things at once and make it work. So good for you. I’m really delighted.

I want to get my hands on that workbook and I want to recommend that to my clients and of course all the listeners. So we will have links to your website and your book and the Ted talk of course, in the episode show notes. So if you’re listening and you haven’t watched it yet, please go check the links in the show notes. Sheila, thank you so much for coming to the Job Hunting Podcast.

I really love what you’re doing. want to continue to follow you. And if you decide to write another book or if you have any other new ideas to share with us, you’re more than welcome to come back. We would love to have you back.

Sheila Gujrathi (43:46)
Thank you so much. It’s really been such a pleasure and joy to be here and thank you for all that you do to help others around you.

Renata Bernarde (43:51)
Thank you.