Parin Mehta: Google & Airbnb GM Career, Tech Executive to Founder Coach & Leadership Advice - E450

​​Parin Mehta, Venture Partner & Board Member at Menyala, and Jeremy Au talked about three main points:

1. Google & Airbnb GM Career: Parin's journey began with his parents' migration from Uganda to the UK. Moving to Japan to teach English was a transformative experience that spurred his desire to return to Asia one day. He shared how he made the jump in 2007 from management consulting to Google rapidly scaling across USA, Europe, Africa, and eventually Singapore. He then stepped up as Airbnb's Asia-Pacific General Manager to lead the division for growth and through the pandemic.

2. Tech Executive to Founder Coach: Initially, coaching was a necessity because he led teams with more qualified individuals (which made directing them less effective) and thus focused on asking questions and removing blockers. This naturally evolved into a coaching style, which he has refined over the years through practice, certification and intentional development into a more reflective approach. He shared the joy and power of asking the right question at the right time.

3. Leadership Advice: Executives and founders are often lonely, stuck with difficult decisions, and actually responsible for the company challenges they now face. People seeking coaching will eventually come to understand that it’s not about getting answers but discovering insights through thoughtful questions. He stressed the importance of creating a safe environment for reflection and deep thinking, which leads to more meaningful actions.

Jeremy and Parin also discussed the importance of chemistry between coach and coachee, the misconceptions about coaching vs. consulting or mentoring, and COVID-19’s impact on team dynamics.

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(01:41) Jeremy Au:

Hey, Parin , good have you on the show.

(01:42) Parin Mehta:

Hey, Jeremy. Good to see you.

(01:43) Jeremy Au:

We always have these wonderful, nice walks in the evening in a botanic gardens. And I figured it's about time that we shared a little bit about your story over the Brave podcast.

(01:53) Parin Mehta:

That sounds great. It's actually kind of weird talking to you, not walking with you, we'll try it out.

(01:57) Jeremy Au:

So funny. It's like now we become very stilted and jaded and professional. So Parin, can you share a little bit about yourself?

(02:03) Parin Mehta:

Yeah. Thanks for having me, Jeremy. My name's Parin. Very deep interest in coaching and talent development. Really, I would say my mission for the years ahead of me is to really help entrepreneurial builders to build companies. And I'm originally from the UK. My parents are of Indian origin from East Africa. And after the dictator, Idi Amin expelled people from Uganda, they landed up in the UK under very fortunate circumstances to land up in a safe country. And so I was born and raised in the UK, went through university and childhood there. And then I took myself off to Japan for a couple of years to teach English, which was probably still one of the best jobs I've ever had.

And around that time realized that I could see consumer internet really booming. Or starting to boom in places like China, India, Indonesia, et cetera, or at least see the precursor for that boom. And so I thought, I really want to get back to Asia at some point and work on consumer internet.

Anyway, I went back to London first, worked as a management consultant for a while, was not very good at it, and then had the fortune to join a fast growing company called Google at that time in 2007. And so over the 10 years from 2007, had an opportunity just to work on different new businesses and in different parts of the world for Google across Europe, at East Africa and the US, and then eventually ended up in Singapore in 2011 to do my MBA. And then I've spent the last few years in Singapore, really working as a general manager at Big Tech and developing this deep interest in coaching, which has finally culminated today in working at a venture studio called Menyala, which is backed by Temasek, and really spending most of my day working with builders who are trying to build companies and coaching them along that wonderful journey.

(03:24) Jeremy Au:

That's amazing. And obviously there's so much to go through in terms of experience. Could you share, because it sounds like going to Japan was like a transformative experience for you. What, was that your beginning?

(03:33) Parin Mehta:

Yeah, so it was, I think there's, I would advise to every young person to take yourself off to a foreign land and try to figure it out because you just learned so many lessons about yourself and who you are and who you want to be through that process. I just turned 21. It was exactly 20 years ago, actually, this week that I went off and landed up in a small town of about 18,000 people in the middle of the Japanese countryside, and really just had to learn the language, figure out how to eat, figure out how to go to places, figure out how to see things, and figure out how to make friends and that experience was just wonderful because it does teach you just the obvious things about resilience and how to survive, but also just, I think the biggest learning I got was how to connect with people from a different culture and how to work together to get things done, even if you can't necessarily communicate effectively to start with. And I think that really spurred some of my interest in particularly coaching and then particularly leading diverse groups of people.

(04:20) Jeremy Au:

Amazing. And it's interesting because, you said that you also started realizing that there was a consumer tech, but it was also a management consulting kind of like decision that you made. So could you share a little bit more about how that happened? Because it sounds like you were understanding technology, but you also chose to do management consulting. How did that work out?

(04:36) Parin Mehta:

Yeah, I think at that time, when you're at the very early stages of your career, you just need to learn how to be domesticated. I can't think of a better word of saying it, but just the basics of how to communicate, how to present, how to write emails, how to structure your thoughts in a way that are coherent, potentially influence a group of people to move in a direction. And so I thought management consultant was the absolute best training to learn a lot of those basic skills on how to operate and how to work with big groups of people, but pretty quickly, I also realized it wasn't quite the perfect environment for me because on that spectrum of say, let's say creative versus process, I like to be a bit more creatively driven. And so I was looking for a way where I could use a lot of those skills that I've got, but use them in a more creative environment.

(05:14) Jeremy Au:

Yeah. And what's interesting is that, you chose to be a management consultant and then you chose to leave and you said you weren't a good management consultant. I was curious when you were a management consultant, did you know that you're not good? Or was it more push versus pull? How was that reflection?

(05:27) Parin Mehta:

I think even early in our careers, I think we all develop a sense of intuition, right? That's how we might navigate the world. And I think any day where it feels like an unnecessary struggle to try and get things done might be a signal that you're in the wrong environmentor doing the wrong g thing. And so for me I think too much structure was becoming a bit of a hindrance. I just couldn't really find a way to operate effectively or really get into the flow state that we all talk about. And so you have to just listen to yourself and figure out, is this the right environment for me? Or is there another environment where I could potentially be more productive and just enjoy the work that I'm doing?

(05:58) Jeremy Au:

How did you get into technology then?

(06:00) Parin Mehta:

So, I'd love to have some amazing origin story about some insight I had, but it was basically a friend from undergrad said, "Hey, I'm looking at this company called Google. They're growing really quickly. They've told me to call as many of my friends as they can because we need people." And that was really it but once I started looking at the business model and started to understand how the very first product AdWords worked. It became quite intuitive to me that this would be. An interesting business that could get really big and become really global. And once I understood that and then met a bunch of the people who were working there, it just felt like the very best place to be at that time.

And yeah, that was really the first introduction into, into big tech. And then over the years, just realized that the talent density in some of these companies was just exceptional at that time, particularly, Google from let's say 2007 for the 10 years after it, and then airbnb in the early days as well. You just get to learn from a lot of very interesting and accomplished people. And you also get to work with people in a very strong culture, which is typically founder driven and very clear about what the objectives are. So just that was a perfect recipe to get things done and scale companies and learn very quickly, which I really enjoyed.

(07:00) Jeremy Au:

Amazing. And what's interesting is that you chose to not only join Google, but you chose to stay for a long period of time. What was that journey like?

(07:07) Parin Mehta:

Yeah, it was really fun in hindsight, actually. I would say at the beginning it was very much right time, right place, as I mentioned, right? A friend was looking for other friends to come and join, but what I loved about the experience there was I got to work on many different businesses across Google because Google was scaling up very rapidly during that time. So when I joined, this was pre-Android, pre-Chrome, pre-YouTube, pre a lot of the products that a billion or so of us use every day. But every time one of those products was either acquired or created, it required some global rollout. And so one of the most interesting things I got to do at Google was really be in the early team of the group of people that was responsible for rolling out what's now Google Cloud.

But at that time it was just Gmail, right? Selling Gmail to enterprises. And then after that, another really interesting piece of work was rolling out some of the publisher platforms like DoubleClick and AdSense to publishers in Southeast Asia. So I've really enjoyed that process of working with customers or senior stakeholders and helping them figure out how new technology might be useful for them. And I think that in itself is a, is a kind of form of coaching, which I probably didn't realize at the time. But in hindsight, I've realized that if you can be available to someone, not necessarily to tell them things, but to ask them questions about what they're looking for, it can be a really productive win-win relationship.

(08:13) Jeremy Au:

What was it like to be part of Google? Because there's also a time of large, growth in terms of employees, structures, products, layers?

(08:21) Parin Mehta:

Yeah, it was constant imposter syndrome, because I would liken it to a video game, right? You play a video game, and your reward for finishing the level is you get to do the next level. And so Google was growing so rapidly, we were completing level after level. And you'd start the next level as a complete beginner. And it would take you about a week or two to realize that you didn't know anything about the new context and you're probably massively underskilled to do what was required for the next six to nine months. And that was really important because I think first of all, I think when you're younger in your career, there can be an element of bravado around this.

You can think to yourself, Hey, I'll just figure this out or hopefully no one will find out that I don't know what I'm doing. But as you get more experienced, you start to take this as a bit of a superpower and you can take this as a bit of a bonding moment and really use it as a moment of vulnerability to say to people, Hey, look, let's just recognize that we've just done something really good, but now the stakes are higher. And let's just be honest that none of us really know what we're doing. So let's figure out how we quickly have a plan and get that into place and figure out who needs to do what. And so I think that's just been a really nice learning through hyperscale of confronting the reality and using that as a way to unify a team as opposed to trying to put a brave face on it and then figuring out before long that you haven't confronted the problem and you don't know what you're

(09:28) Jeremy Au:

We'll definitely circle back to the coaching side of it. It's just that you also then chose to work at Airbnb as a GM. So definitely a step up in terms of a role in a different industry. What was that transition like?

(09:38) Parin Mehta:

Yeah, it was great. What attracted me to Airbnb was two things. One was there was a number of excellent people I've worked with at Google who had gone to Airbnb, and so I just wanted the opportunity to work with them again. And secondly, it was just a very strong, founder-led culture with a product that I loved using. And I think that was really important at that time because in these scale up companies, you do not enjoy every day of work. Some days are really, really rough. And so you have to have an underlying motivation to keep turning up and doing the work and doing the hard things of running a team. And that underlying motivation is often that you love the product and you want to see as many people around the world use it. So it was really great experience at Airbnb. I particularly enjoyed the international expansion aspect of it.

Had a core product that had product market fit in the US and Europe. And the job was to really make that happen in Asia and then spin up brand new categories in Asia. So one of the interesting pieces of work we did was we rolled up a brand new business called Experiences. And we literally went country to country, finding hosts, getting them on the platform, building a community, and helping them create this wonderful product for guests to use.

(10:35) Jeremy Au:

What was the cultural difference between, for example, Google and Airbnb?

(10:38) Parin Mehta:

Yeah, I've never seen a stronger employee culture than Airbnb. It was just a very special moment in time. And I think a lot of that is due to the founder-led nature of the company, right? Gives you this ability to take slightly longer term risk, particularly when you're pre public. And I found that really magical because you had really good justifications to do things that were very, very long term, even if they didn't have a short term outcome. So I thought that was, that was really amazing because I wasn't pre public at Google. I joined after had become public, so it was a slightly different.

I think the second thing was Airbnb, you really got to interact with hosts and guests on a very, very regular basis. I think I spoke to hosts almost every day. I was there for six years. So you're really feeling the impact of what you're building because it has an impact on some external stakeholders who are dependent on your product in some way for their livelihood. So those two factors together are quite powerful because it makes you very, very proud to be part of that and then it also is a way to attract great talent who want to be part of something like that as well.

(11:34) Jeremy Au:

Great. And then, along the way, then you also decided to start your coaching career. Could you share a little bit more about that?

(11:40) Parin Mehta:

Yeah, so the coaching came about almost by accident, but I would say eventually by necessity. And what I mean by that is, I was leading teams for the first time and again, didn't really know what I was doing, right? Wasn't really trained or didn't really have a clear point of view on the leadership style. And I found very quickly that because a lot of the work I was doing was focused on international expansion, the people I was hiring were much more qualified and much more capable at doing the job than I was. And so it became very useless very quickly, and frankly probably pretty annoying for the team members to be directed, to be told what to do.

And so I found a much more productive way of me and my team members working together was for me to ask questions, and for me to try and help them figure out what they wanted to do and how they were going to do that. And then remove any blockers or find any resources that would require that. So that, that was really the genesis of an interest in coaching, but I didn't actually know what coaching was. So this was just a behavior that kind of developed through necessity. And then I think it was amplified by this very natural curiosity I just have about other people.

Anyway, fast forward a few years, I started to learn a bit more specifically about what coaching was. And I thought, this sounds really interesting. I'd like to do more of this. And again, it became a necessity because I was leading bigger and more complex and more diverse teams. And again, had to just increasingly move to this idea of asking questions rather than telling instructions. And so that's just become a very natural part of my leadership style. And so over the years, it's just evolved into this really deep interest for coaching and just an ability to have an impact through coaching.

(13:00) Jeremy Au:

In terms of coaching, what have you learned along the way?

(13:02) Parin Mehta:

Yeah, I think the biggest thing I've learned is the power of the right question at the right time can be incredibly impactful. And so what I mean by that is most operators or builders have a pretty clear sense of what they eventually want to do, but where they struggle is how to land the specific gap, the specific actions to get them. And so I think one of the important things about coaching is this ability to be present pick up the mood of the person and then ask the right question at the right time to unlock an insight that gets to action. I think it's really, really important. So that, that would be the biggest thing I'm always looking for in a session, to understand whether the session is impactful or not. Are there moments of insight and clarity I can provide for the coachee by asking the right question and helping them feel really understood?

(13:40) Jeremy Au:

What's interesting is that you've taken a practice of coaching as a manager skill that people normally don't have to becoming something that you chose to have. And then you've also chosen to develop that further as a surface as well. Could you share a little bit more about the evolution of how you learned coaching?

(13:56) Parin Mehta:

Yeah. So again, you're going to see a theme here where things were in hindsight of look like a neat story, but actually the time they are completely by accident and a lot of trial and error. But I would say for the first few years I was coaching, I was doing it in a way where it was really about building as many repetitions as possible and just practicing the craft and trying to understand what my style of coaching might be and what has an impact with other people, but in the last couple of years, I would say really the last three years, I started to take it a lot more seriously. So I have gone to get certification, have been making sure that I'm doing some coaching every single day. And I'm just being a bit more reflective and thoughtful and intentional about what does it take for me to keep improving as a coach and keep helping other people be successful. And so, I would say that's the evolution it's gone from. Unintentionally, let me dabble with this in my day job to intentionally, how can I really improve this craft and have more of an impact for people I'm working with?

(14:50) Jeremy Au:

When you say that you were figuring out your style of coaching, how would you describe how he has changed or what you've discovered about your style of coaching?

(14:58) Parin Mehta:

Yeah, that's a great question. So I was thinking about this recently because I think it's been probably about 10 years since I've been coaching quite actively. And I would say that probably the biggest evolution has been a comfort with composure. And so what I mean by that is, in the early days of coaching, I was quite keen to demonstrate I could have an impact. And so what that would mean is, it would often mean a missed opportunity for the coachee, because we didn't sit in the discomfort for long enough, where some insight and clarity can really happen. And I think what's changed for me, particularly over the last two or three years is to really try and hold space for the coachee in the moment where it might be a long silence, it might be a feeling of discomfort, but it ultimately leads to deeper reflection and better insights. And so I'd say that that is the biggest change is just leaving space for thinking and discomfort. And insights to come up organically rather than trying to force it or prematurely push it to happen earlier.

(15:49) Jeremy Au:

Why is there value in the coachee being uncomfortable? Because, in modern medicine, it's oh, you have a headache, here's a Panadol, right? And technology is all about fixing problems, right? You feel lonely, here's a social media feed, right? So why is that this discomfort you think therapeutic or helpful?

(16:07) Parin Mehta:

Yeah. So I do think it's very important for us all to have these micro crucible moments, whether it's, a lot of us might be training physically and the act of getting stronger is that you are creating micro damages to get stronger. And I do think coaching is a large part of that, where you're setting up a really. What should be a safe environment for the coach and the coachee to take some risks together and really try and look at some situations in a lot more detail. And I think this is really important, particularly for founders or executives, because they don't have a lot of these times to have deep thinking in their regular day, right? There's always urgent and important things going on that require them to be reactive in the moment. And what coaching can do is just, it creates a bit of space in the day or in the week for the executive or the founder to sit down with someone who is purely focused on helping them reflect and think about the current context and think about where they're wanting to go. So I think the discomfort comes from just doing the work and really taking that time to go beyond some kind of day to day fast twitch, shallow thinking, to just reflect a bit more deeply on what is it that we're trying to do, and then how are we going to achieve that.

(17:11) Jeremy Au:

What's interesting is that you're talking about the difference between the role of being a manager versus a coach and I just realized that you must have spent like effectively at least five years being both a manager as well as a coach. So could you share like what are the differences between those two things because I know there's overlap, but how are they different?

(17:26) Parin Mehta:

Yeah, I would say, I would say this, the summary is, I think a lot of the role of a manager is to direct or tell. And so they are typically a subject matter expert or domain expert, and the people on their team might be less qualified or less experienced and are following directions. I think with a coaching style of management, you as the leader can have a lot more impact because firstly, you can create the kind of place where very talented people who know more than you and are more expert than you can come in and not feel threatened, but actually be enabled. And secondly, you are, as a leader, you are able to be accountable for things you don't know anything about, right? I'm not a product manager, an engineer or a designer, but I could potentially have people on my teams with those skillsets in a coaching style, because the real goal is to set them up to figure out how they can be successful rather than tell them how to be successful.

(18:09) Jeremy Au:

And from the delivery perspective, I'm just curious, what was it like? Was there like a day where you're like, I don't know, nine to five, you're a manager, and then 5 to 7pm, you're a coach do you code switch or change your language?

(18:20) Parin Mehta:

Not really. I think it becomes just a style of doing things and a way of doing things. Actually, I'll give you a funny example, right? Sometimes I'll be having a conversation with someone and they'll say, look, I get what you're doing, but I actually don't want coach mode right now. I just want to know what should we do or I just want your point of view, right? I don't want you to coach me through this. So I think it's more of a behavioral style, but the counter argument is you also have to use it responsibly and keep it in check because it's not appropriate for every situation. I'll just give an example, right?

Obviously running an air travel business during COVID, Airbnb was heavily impacted by COVID and I found myself making the mistake of trying to switch to coaching mode in situations where it really was a fire drill and it really was urgent and important. And thankfully, a couple of my team members said, Hey, look, I get what you're trying to do, but I actually don't need coaching right now. I just need clear instruction. I was like, Oh yeah, you're right. Okay, let's go. Let's do one, two, three. Let's check back in 30 minutes and then we can do four, five, six.

(19:10) Jeremy Au:

I like that. Normally it's the other way around, right? It's Hey, could you be like less of an asshole and be more empathetic to what I'm going through right now?

(19:18) Parin Mehta:

Yeah, yeah. The other tip I would say is also don't try and coach your family and your spouse. That generally doesn't work well either.

(19:22) Jeremy Au:

Oh, wait, I'm all ears with this. What was the discovery here?

(19:26) Parin Mehta:

Exactly. As I said, we don't need you in a coach mode. We just need your point of view or an opinion.

(19:31) Jeremy Au:

In the family? I don't know. I feel like I'm the opposite. I don't think anybody wants my opinion in the family.

(19:36) Parin Mehta:

I guess it's place for both.

(19:36) Jeremy Au:

It was like, yeah, so I definitely had that cold switch when I come home as well. There you are obviously, what are some myths or misconceptions about coaching?

(19:44) Parin Mehta:

Yeah, I've had a few of these where the expectations are not set correctly or there's a misunderstanding of what coaching is. And I think typically where I see this confusion emerges. This difference between let's call it consulting or mentoring and potentially coaching. And so I think a lot of consulting or mentoring is around being told the answer, right? The mentee wants to do X, Y, and Z, and the mentor tells them how to achieve X, Y, and Z. I think for coaching, it's a lot more of a discovery process together with the coach asking the right question at the right time to unlock the insight that the coachee probably already has, but isn't able to clearly articulate.

And so, one of the kind of health warnings I give when I first start working with someone on coaching is just to be really clear about what it is and what they can expect and the fact that there is some element of delayed gratification. Sometimes you'll have a session where the insights are unlocked immediately, but often it does take a bit of reflection time after the session to get to the real quality insight, which then motivates the next step or the action that needs to be done.

(20:38) Jeremy Au:

It feels like there's also many different types of coaches, right? If I was like a founder and looking for a coach, I would be like, okay, there's the NLP neuro linguistic programming coach. There's so many types of coaching. So how do I even start my brain processing about what kind of coach I need?

(20:53) Parin Mehta:

Yeah, it's a good question. So I don't have a great well thought answer for you, honestly, but what I tend to defer to more is it's very important to have a good chemistry between the coach and the coachee. And I think you can only really get that through a first interaction. And so I've found that I typically don't try and convince someone to be coached. I don't think that works. I think it has to be intrinsically motivationally driven. And so I'll typically engage with someone who'll say, Hey, I'm looking for a coach. Someone mentioned you, could we chat and say, yes, let's, let's do that. Let's see if there's a good fit. Let's see if you could see yourself working with me and let's see if I could see myself working with you. And then we'll typically go from there. So I think, I think that chemistry is really important. And I think for anyone who's potentially thinking about a coach, I think there's two things I would look out for. One is, can they ask high quality questions at the right time? And two, do they actively listen to what you're saying and help play it back to you in a way where you can better understand it?

(21:44) Jeremy Au:

Super fascinating here. And I agree with you that it's not about what school of coach, but like you said, the chemistry and the approach. What's interesting is that you also coach multiple types of people, right? So if you've coached kind of operators, people in business, you also coach executives, so like senior management in business and you also coach founders as well. So I'm just curious as a coach, do you feel like there's different flavors or differences between those three types of sessions or these three types of personas?

(22:10) Parin Mehta:

So there's, there's certainly differences, but I think probably what's more interesting is what's the same. And I think what's the same is a lot of people in these three positions are frankly stuck in a very lonely place, right? They can't have a super candid conversation with their board. They can't have a super candid conversation with their team members who expect them to be the leader and have the plan. And especially in bigger companies, there might be some elements of politics involved with their peers. And so I find that, a lot of people in these three profiles are just looking for an outsider to come in and just give them some space to talk through what they're experiencing and figure out a way to organize it into an action plan.

And so I think the biggest value is as I, I, I'm big into martial arts, a lot of boxing and judo. And so I always think of this idea of a sparring partner. What a lot of these three profiles are typically looking for is a high quality sparring partner to work with to improve at their craft.

(22:54) Jeremy Au:

When these executives are in their lonely ,place what do you notice is the normal or conventional approach? Because there's obviously some self behaviors they have to cope and then, point A, and obviously point B, they're working with you already, but I'm just curious what does point A look like and maybe a secondary question after that would be, what catalyzes them to go look for a coach?

(23:16) Parin Mehta:

That's a great, great point. So, just looming back to your question around how has coaching evolved over time? I think one of the biggest learnings I've had over the last couple of years is don't just coach the problem, coach the person and their relation to the problem. And so that unlocks a different level of insight, because just coaching the problem might be starting at Hey, I need to, I need to raise my Series C. How do we do that? But coaching the person, their relation to the problem gets you to a deeper level of insight, right? So it gets you to, why is it important for you and the company to raise this money at this time? What would success look like personally for you, if you're able to raise this beyond kind of what the outcome is for the company? How does this kind of motivate you to do what you want to do over the longterm? And so I find that level of coaching is really interesting because it also just helps the coach you better understand themselves and what ends up happening is you're not just solving for that situation. You're actually giving the coachee a bit of a system to make even better decisions in the future on a different range of topics.

(24:08) Jeremy Au:

What does it mean to have a relationship with a problem?

(24:10) Parin Mehta:

Yeah, it's great. That's a really great question. So I think I think this is the question I'll be trying to answer for the rest of my life, honestly, because it's very complex. But I think, often what we all end up doing is because we don't have the time and space to think deeply during the day, we will tell ourselves a story about a situation, right? So we will say something is not working the way I wanted to because of reasons X, Y and Z. But if we reflect a bit more deeply, there might be reasons beyond x, y, and z. And some of that might be related to how we approach the problem, or how we perceive the problem, or how we think about solving the problem.

(24:41) Parin Mehta:

And so I think that's where the real insight gets unlocked, right? So to give you an example, I've been working with some people recently who are looking to leave big job titles, but they are very, very scared of losing the identity that comes with that big job. Even though they're very qualified, have great networks, have accumulated wealth, but there's some hesitation to leave that big job title.

And some of them have described this as I'm quite scared to find out who are real friends and who are deal friends. And what that means is, who was a acquaintance or friend because of the job title and who is a real friend. And so, that's a really good example of going beyond the surface. The surface level conversation here is, I want to leave job X to go and pursue job Y. The deeper conversation, which is about the person's relation to the problem is how do I think about my identity when I'm leaving job X to go and do whatever it is I need to be doing next?

(25:29) Jeremy Au:

When you say that, there's friends versus not real friends, and then he also ties back to the point that you said about feeling lonely. What goes on in the workplace that makes that happen?

(25:39) Parin Mehta:

That's a great question. Look, so it's been a while since I've been in a big corporate environment. It's been, it's been a few years, so I don't have up to date information, but just from my own experience, I would say that, it's just a very frenetic pace, right? You are doing, typically, for an executive or a leader, you're in back to back meetings all day. You barely have kind of five minutes between meetings to take a deep breath and get a glass of water and get some sunlight and go outside. And you're constantly being bombarded with asks or requests from other people to either make a decision or do something or act on something. So I think that alone is pretty difficult.

And then I think that was compounded even further by the years we all had in COVID where we weren't able to physically be in touch, particularly for global teams where they couldn't travel to meet each other, learn about each other's mannerisms or interact in person or even build deeper relationships beyond a video camera or a telephone call. So I think those two things is, they're multiplied to get us to where we are today, which is this need for leaders to find a way to connect with the people they work with, and to be understood both ways. So for leaders to understand their teams, teams to understand their leaders, and then all the leaders in the company to understand one another.

(26:40) Jeremy Au:

And how do people decide they want an executive coach from your perspective, right? Because that's a weird thing to say, right? I mean, you know, you asked me, Jeremy, stay lonely. I'll be like, yeah, I'm happy to stay lonely. Hey, Jeremy, go find an executive coach to stop your loneliness. And I'll be like, why? What do you think is the catalyst or those threshold moments that create somebody to say they want to get some help?

(27:00) Parin Mehta:

I would say loneliness probably isn't the thing. I think typically it's rooted in a business problem, right? That's where most of these starting points emerge from. For an executive or founder, there is some thing they need to achieve through their business that they're not able to achieve today. And there's a gap between what their intention is and what the reality is today. And so I find most productive coaching, particularly with executives, is very goal focused, it has to be a clear business goal. And then what we'll tend to do is figure out, okay, so what is the reality today? What are the obstacles of getting to that goal and then what are you specifically going to do next? And we call that the grow model, which is quite popular in coaching. So yeah, I would say typically that the goal is a business problem or a company problem that needs to be solved. And then the most productive way of working through that is not just solving for that problem, but also solving for the person's relation to that problem.

(27:43) Jeremy Au:

Yeah. You use the word relationship a lot, especially the relationship with the problem. I think what I personally find interesting is that a lot of senior executive leaders, if they're facing a problem, they probably caused it because it's not as if the problem has existed, they joined a company today, therefore they're looking for a coach. It's more they have been a business leader for multiple years the problem exists today, which is a combination of past business decisions and they are responsible for the problem. So how do you look to address that relationship or, kind of address that, I don't know chicken and egg problem, like you said, right? Like you cause a problem and a problem is causing you problems now. How do you solve that?

(28:18) Parin Mehta:

Yeah, so I think there's two really important steps here, right? One is identifying the problem and then two is encouraging the person to take some ownership to change the situation. So actually I'll give you a very specific example here. And this is one of my favorite coaching interactions I've had over the years was with an executive who came to me with a goal of, "Hey, look, my leadership team keeps turning over every six months and I just can't find the right talent." And where we got to after three sessions was my leadership style probably isn't appropriate and I'm having problem retaining talent, right? And what I really admired about this coachee is they were willing to reframe the problem, even though reframing the problem in that way made the root cause sit with them.

And so there was a bit of discomfort in that initial reframe, but over the long term, it was much more productive because they were able to bring a number of factors into their control to then go and solve the problem. And the coaches I admire the most are the ones who are looking to take things which initially feel like they are being done to them and figure out a way to bring them into their sphere of control. And then they can more intentionally change the situation that they are not happy with.

(29:12) Jeremy Au:

That's a wonderful example of addressing that, and I see that all the time, actually, as well. I actually agree with you that that's a common reframe of the problem. Is there a problem of acknowledging that you were wrong or that you contributed a problem? Because, for example, the example you gave, I feel like the natural in between step is oh, I'm a horrible manager. And either I just dodged that realization and not change, or I feel like horrible about that realization.

(29:36) Parin Mehta:

Yeah, you're absolutely right. There can be. And I think this is where the, that that chemistry at the beginning is very important, right? So typically two things I'm looking for when I'm assessing whether I want to work with someone is, really, are they able to clearly articulate a problem? And two, do they seem intrinsically motivated to do something about this problem? So I think, we all know someone who has stated a desire to change something, right? Like I want to get fitter. I want to learn a language. I want to do X, Y, and Z, but they just never do it. They just never do it. Year after year, they never do it.

They keep talking about doing it and they never do it. And so I'm looking for the exact inverse of that, where someone can clearly articulate situations in the past where they've identified a problem and then gone to solve it because that just makes the coaching much more rewarding for both sides and much more fulfilling. And ultimately you're driving to an impact, which is what everyone wants.

(30:17) Jeremy Au:

Could you share about time that you personally have been brave?

(30:20) Parin Mehta:

Yeah. Part of this transition I mentioned from working in big corporates to of a smaller scale and earlier scale setup was a lot of it was driven by a desire for a different type of lifestyle. And about two and a half years ago, I had a very serious back injury. And slipped two discs and had a big spinal surgery and had about six months of recovery. And it was strange because at the time, it didn't feel like a big deal to me because I didn't really have time to think about anything else. The only thing I had time to focus on was the recovery. Getting up and able as quickly as possible so I could be with my family and support and provide for my family.

But I've recently been reflecting in hindsight on the amount of work it took to go from having a big surgery, the amount of strain it put on my family, particularly my wife, because we have two young kids, to then going through rehab, being diligent about exercising every day, and restrengthening and changing my lifestyle in a way that supports good health and strength going forward. And so, it probably wasn't brave at the time and it probably wasn't a story about being heroic, like many of your other guests I've seen share, which is great, but I would say it's more a type of bravery, which is where the bravery is in the consistency and the discipline to do really, really boring things every single day, day in, day out for multiple years.

And so I've just been thinking a lot more about where is their bravery in compounding generally, right? What's like the least glamorous version of bravery where you commit to doing something and you just do it every single day, day in, day out, no matter what the circumstances are, because you want to change your situation from where it is today to where it could be in the future.

(31:45) Jeremy Au:

You mentioned that it wasn't as serious going through it versus now you look at it. What's the gap here? How did you realize it was more serious?

(31:53) Parin Mehta:

Yeah, I think you just go into tunnel vision, right? You go into fight or flight mode, survival mode. And so you're just not able to think about anything other than doing the thing that's required. And I think it's only often in hindsight or reflection that you realize what actually happened. And then you start to think about, okay, what what did I learn from this experience? What could have gone better? What went well? How could I help other people who are going through a similar situation. And I've found this has happened quite a lot with people who have experienced difficult things. I've been also coaching people who have gone through layoffs and they've also said similar things. At thee moment, they didn't realize the impact of the situation. And that was a self defense mechanism in many ways, because it helped them get super focused on finding out what the right thing was, but then a year or two later, they realized, wow, that was actually a pretty big experience that I went through and I've changed quite a lot as a person.

And I figured out what I want and what I don't want. So I think, I think there's a lot of value in looking back at some of these crucible moments and figuring out, okay, what did I learn from that episode that I could learn for the future?

(32:49) Jeremy Au:

And when you think about that, what are the future things that you think you'll be learning more of?

(32:55) Parin Mehta:

Yeah, I just want to go back to that theme of compounding, right? I'm convinced I will be coaching for the rest of my life. If I keep taking care of myself, I've got another 40, 50 years of doing this. And I just want to get consistently better. And consistently better is working with a wider range of people on hard problems to have a bigger impact. And I'm pretty clear what I'll be doing for the rest of my life. I'll be working with entrepreneurs and builders to help them create the businesses they want to build by offering them some space to think and reflect and really figure out what they want to do and how to get there.

(33:23) Jeremy Au:

How does a coach get better, right? I'm sure the early stages, you read a book. You're a manager, you've got a coach in a subordinates anyway. So I think the early part makes sense. But, once you make it like a full time thing, obviously it's one on one, there's nobody observing you coaching, do you, I don't know, coach to coach, you know, like how does that work?

(33:41) Parin Mehta:

Yeah, 100%. So it's like getting better at any skill, right? First thing to figure out is what's the atomic unit of success. And I think for coaches, it's the quality of the questions. So for me personally, I'm constantly doing work to figure out what is the arsenal of questions I have to help someone unlock an insight. And part of that is, is, through the newsletter that I send out every week, right? Just send a simple coaching question out to people around the world to just practice and get real time feedback. I watch a lot of standard comedy and it's like a comedian going to do sets in different venues just to test out new bits and refine them. So I'll do that. I'll do the same with questions. I'll try and stress test questions and get them better and better in a way that I can see they are helping someone unlock an insight. So I think that's the first thing. And then the second thing is, yes, of course, as a coach, you go through kind of training.

I also get coached myself by other coaches who I admire to help me improve the craft. And then you also just learn some evolution. One of the biggest ones I talked about is rather than just coaching the problem, you coach the person's relationship to the problem. But I think that the next level of that then starts to become, how do you challenge the misconceptions someone might have about themselves, right? And help them get a bit of a reality check of maybe the reality of the story they're telling themselves and the story of what the reality is. Yeah, I think a lot of this is practice. A lot of this is putting yourself in different situations. A lot of this is taking risks with the questions, sometimes overreaching and trying a question that you might not have tried before, which might feel uncomfortable at the moment, but I think it's about continuous, consistent improvement.

(35:01) Jeremy Au:

On that note, thank you so much for sharing. I'd love to summarize the three big takeaways I got from this conversation. First of all, thank you so much for sharing about your early technology career, about how Japan was a transformational experience, and how you decided to take different career decisions as a management consultant at Google and at Airbnb as a general manager.

Secondly, thanks so much for sharing about your own professional journey of starting a new chapter as a coach. I think it was fascinating to hear about how you got started while at work. I think it was also fascinating to hear how you've developed the art and science of it, practicing as well as getting coached in order to improve and compound as a coach.

Lastly, thanks so much for sharing about your advice for people who are seeking coaching. I thought it was fascinating to hear some of the common insights where, for example, executives may feel lonely. They have a relationship, the problem and that they have to take a hard look at themselves and their own dynamics to make a final decision and sit in their discomfort before they take action.

On that note, thank you so much, Parin, for sharing.

(35:58) Parin Mehta:

Thanks, Jerry. And yeah, you summarized it better than I did. Thank you.