Stop Competing, Start Succeeding: Rethinking Ambition with Ruchika Malhotra
Ruchika Malhotra
Ruchika T. Malhotra is the founder of Candour, a global inclusion strategy firm that has worked with some of the world’s biggest organizations, and author of Uncompete: Rejecting Competition to Unlock Success. A former business journalist, she is now a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review.
Ruchika has held adjunct faculty positions in communications at the University of Washington and Seattle University and is the author of Inclusion on Purpose: An Intersectional Approach to Creating a Culture of Belonging at Work, MIT Press’s top-selling book of 2022.
We live in a world in which comparison and competition are rife, and stepping on others can seem like the only way to win. So, how can we find a way forward that shifts the focus from a cut-throat, zero sum game to collaboration, abundance and mutual success?
In this enlightening conversation, author and global thought leader Ruchika T. Malhotra discusses her brilliant new book Uncompete: Rejecting Competition to Unlock Success, which challenges the traditional notions of competition in the workplace and life. She emphasizes the importance of collaboration, community, and an abundance mindset as essential elements for success.
The wide-ranging discussion explores various myths surrounding competition, the need to reset our mindsets, and the significance of reframing comparison. Ruchika also highlights the necessity of seeking peace as a form of resistance against societal pressures.
Key Takeaways from this potent conversation with Ruchika
How uncompete is about rejecting the zero-sum mindset.
Why collaboration leads to greater success than competition.
The many ingrained beliefs we have about competition are harmful.
The key reasons resetting our mindset is crucial for personal growth.
How comparison can be reframed to motivate rather than discourage.
Why building community is essential for mental health and success.
The legitimate concerns around male loneliness in society right now.
Why success should be redefined to include community and support.
How seeking peace is a powerful form of resistance.
Why abundance mindset fosters collaboration and innovation.
Learn more about Ruchika and her work – and secure a copy of her brilliant book – at her website.
Prefer to watch the episode? Catch it on YouTube here:
Chapters and Transcript
00:00 The Concept of Uncompete
05:48 The Importance of Collaboration in Leadership
08:45 Challenging Competition Myths
11:35 Resetting Mindsets for Uncompeting
14:28 Reframing Comparison and Envy
17:39 Building Community and Support
20:43 Seeking Peace as a Form of Resistance
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (00:03.337)
Hello and welcome, Ruchika. It's so beautiful to sit down with you today on the podcast and we want to begin with the namesake of your new book, Uncompete. Can you tell us what does it mean to uncompete and why do you think that is so necessary right now?
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (00:20.748)
Thank you both for asking this question. And I feel special being able to respond to this because it is a word I made up. It is a word I made up. But fortunately, once you hear it, it hopefully feels pretty intuitive is what I've heard from people. Especially this is before the book came out, people would be like, what do you mean uncompete? Is that a new word? Is that something you made up? And I'd say yes.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (00:30.446)
You
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (00:38.923)
Yes.
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (00:47.992)
But then intuitively people would understand, at its very core, it's rejecting the idea that life is zero sum, the workplace is zero sum, winner take all, that you have to approach everything with a scarcity mindset. instead it invites us to approach life with, and the workplace with collaboration, abundance, the idea that, you know, together we can all win.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (00:57.269)
Mmm.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (01:14.986)
Amazing, Rochika. I think that's something that's resonating for a lot of our listeners right now, this idea that there isn't this zero sum game that we can adopt an abundance mindset, even in the context of work, which is so often, I think, inherently a place that feels very competitive for us. Can you tell us a little bit about why this feels so enormously essential right now? Why is this message so important for leaders to be hearing and embodying right now?
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (01:27.169)
Mm.
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (01:41.26)
Yeah, well, I think at a time of the type of poly crises we see right now where the world feels, and I think indeed is more volatile, uncertain than we've ever remembered in history. You know, we've just come out of this once in a lifetime, once in a hundred year pandemic. We have AI disruption, you know, hot on our heels. More of us are burnt out and struggling with mental health crises.
Leaders have a lot to manage at the same time. It's like one of those, know, everything all at once types of moments. And so what I'm hoping to offer is a way to approach what is a very tough and overwhelming time in leadership to be a leader with the sort of, you know, with a framework that says, you know, we don't have to go straight into our knee jerk reaction, which is, know, to fight or flight all the time.
to feel stressed all the time, there are ways to build something that is meaningful and impactful over the long term, if you do it collaboratively, if you do it with, some of the tenets I talk about, which is, you know, with an abundance mindset, in community and collaboration, you know, through inclusion, solidarity, and radical generosity. So it's this idea that, you know, even though things are really hard,
we don't have to kind of go towards the worst of sort of our own instincts to navigate this time. And actually when we slow things down, work together in community, we can actually navigate, you know, even times of great disruption, like right now.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (03:23.67)
It's such a potent message, Rachika. And interestingly, I often feel the way modern society is, and we feel constantly busy, stress and pressure coming from so many different perspectives. The natural instinct for me is to run faster, try harder, compete harder, do more, do more, do more. And your message
is actually one that feels a little counterintuitive, if I'm to be honest, but when we slow down and settle into the energy of uncompete, we actually realize it sort of releases us from a lot of those stresses and external pressures that we were feeling. And I wonder, was that at all your personal experience when you came to writing this book?
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (04:05.354)
Absolutely. mean, so much of writing this book and even researching for it, absolutely, you know, turned a lot of my own very much conditioned and inbuilt ideas. So one example I'll give you is I, you know, I've never I've never loved the idea that like competition is inborn and like we are born to compete as a species.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (04:17.216)
Hmm.
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (04:30.606)
Yet, you know, I did biology like everyone else. I learned about Charles Darwin like everyone else, theory of the survival of the fittest, et cetera. And so, you know, even though instinctively, like there were moments where I was like, don't feel like I was like, maybe I'm just not like maybe I was hardwired differently, but as a species, humans are hardwired biologically to compete.
As I researched for this book, I was so heartened to chance upon research by, know, Brian Woods and Vanessa Harewoods, which was essentially, you know, joining a chorus of scientists and, you know, researchers who are saying that actually what has allowed us to thrive as a species is that we're so collaborative with each other. We're really good at, you know, making sure nobody in our tribe, whoever we consider part of our tribe,
gets left behind and done correctly again, you know, and applying this to even modern leadership and modern society, we can, you know, we are hardwired to think about like, how does everyone in our species gets a, get a chance to move ahead where, even this idea of like a lone wolf isn't true. Wolves travel in, in packs. So I just, I was very much surprised at even how deeply this was conditioned in me and how
much of a sigh of relief I sort of had as I started finding this research that confirmed what internally still like I was grappling with, but finally I was like, good, there's research to back this up.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (06:04.074)
It's so interesting that you say that, Rajika, because that really reflects my own thinking and experience around these kind of conversations as well, that when people sort of throw around these ideas of this is just how we are as a species, it feels very limited and reductionist to me. So to see this research emerge that's showing not the survival of the fittest, but the survival of the most connected, if you will, is really powerful. I think very much aligns with a lot of our thinking at human leaders in our practice, but also
more generally in the world of this abundance and sort of collaboration that is really what has really driven the survival and evolution of our species. And I think it taps in a little bit to some of the beliefs that you mentioned in the book that are very much sort of foundational, that are often unquestioned in our societies, in our culture, that really give rise to this idea that competition is just the only way to get ahead.
Do you mind sharing with us a couple of those beliefs and just letting us know a little bit how they actually harm us?
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (07:07.352)
Yeah, great question. I have to say, when I was writing this book, and I really appreciate my editor for pushing back on, initially when I was like, okay, I'm going to dispel competition myths and I'm going to use examples of like, look at this competition where someone like, you know, the other person perished or like, you know, they cheated to get ahead. And, you know, that's why, and my editor was, you know, Emily was wonderful at saying, actually, Ruchika, I think the task here.
is to try and appeal to and talk to people like yourself who may understand like who know, like cheating is bad or like cheating when you compete is bad. But those people who may not question how under the skin competition really is and may not understand how much it harms you. Imagine talking to like yourself before you started this research.
And instead of going into extreme examples of competition being harmful where people can be like, okay, no, duh, you're actually tackling those very, like, again, as I said, under the skin myths. So one of the ones that I talked about is, or one of the things I wrote about is, you know, competition makes us smarter and, you know, grow more and is better for our teams, more innovative. Again, you know, research doesn't back that up. In fact, some of our best innovations in history.
those that really impacted us that made the world a better place, whether it's the Human Genome Project, whether it's even the technology that's really helping us move ahead as a society. All of that has been developed in a lot of collaboration with each other, not in competition with each other. If you look at research around psychological safety,
in the workplace, you the most innovative and high growth teams. is wonderful research by Dr. Amy Edmondson at Harvard Business School, but the most innovative teams even at a company like Google, the one thing they all had in common is they felt like their teams had their backs, right? So if you have a team, which is very competitive, there's a lot of rivalry, there's a lot of like, we're going to elbow people out of the way, you're not going to be able to create psychological safety. So having a psychologically safe team,
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (09:23.668)
is really good for business. It's really good as a leader. It's really good for you as a human working on the team. So that was another myth. And then the last one that I think is this idea like, I don't compete, someone else is going to get ahead, right? So I tackle five myths, but especially this one, it's just the way it is. If I don't compete, I'm going to lose out. And again, we don't talk about like, what is the cost of doing that? The cost of relationships of
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (09:38.84)
Hmm.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (09:41.73)
Hmm.
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (09:52.194)
whether it's in society, but certainly in the workplace. I opened the book with a story of someone who was a dear friend at that time was, you know, what we call in modern society, my work wife had a wonderful experience working together, confided in each other, you know, commiserated, like all of those good things. And then one day to be betrayed by someone like that. And then my takeaway from that situation wasn't even
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (10:14.933)
Mm.
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (10:19.092)
that, you know, that, you know, this was a one off. It was like, I'm so silly. I didn't know how to play the game, but now I'm going to compete. Now I'm going to elbow others out of the way. And that really starts a vicious cycle.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (10:31.209)
Yeah, she could have so much in that that, you know, Sally and I were just yesterday having a conversation around this idea of sort of that betrayal or feeling misunderstood by other people and how a lot of the times when you feel like yourself in that position of anger, for me tends to be the end part of the cycle when I've sort of moved through the grief and the sadness of it. We often have those two choices to either
then go through the world and treat other people in that same way and cause those same wounds elsewhere or to sort of transform that anger as Sally so eloquently was coaching me yesterday to actually do better. So we don't sort of push that or project that onto other people. So it's such a beautiful reflection. And I think what's interesting as well, to an earlier point you made around sort of this idea of what it means to uncompete and some of the more sort of insidious or covert ways when that might be showing up for us.
It reminded me of my very first consultancy job where I think the director at the time actually confused competition with high performance. And I think this is something that we see really often in our work is that the idea of competition is synonymous with high performance. That if we are to be an organization that has the best clients, charges the most money, does the best work.
is the most innovative, whatever it might be that we have to be in competition within our organization. We have to drive people against each other so that we kind of create this snowball of people trying to out-compete one another so that we can come up with the best product. And in my experience of working within a company like that, I wasted most of my time and energy just being anxious about being behind.
and almost running in a circle in my head to just try and do things that weren't actually important, but that looked productive and that I thought were getting me further ahead rather than relaxing into the feeling of what's really going to drive change, what's really going to be innovative, how can we really tackle this client's problem in the most innovative way? And so for me, when you were saying that, I was a moment where I just reflected, of course, cheating is bad. At a moral level, I see that as a really obvious one.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (12:43.051)
But what I hadn't kind of put the two together at that point is that often competition is far more sort of covert and insidious and we don't even realize all the ways that we're trying to compete and how that might be working against us.
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (12:55.766)
Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that example Alexis and it's exactly what I want to tackle in this book and what I started seeing, you know, even in my own consultancy both in building my own business and you know towards the end I write about an you know, an experience I had where I was offered to grow the business and I really thought for a long time about what does ambition and growth mean to me? What do want my life to look like? So I share that in the book
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (13:08.363)
Hmm.
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (13:23.032)
But also within organizations, when I've worked with fabulous teams, what you start to realize is when you pit people against each other, you know, a lot of every, like whether it's team morale, whether it's trust, whether it's employees feeling belonging, whether it's employees feeling like they can, you know, show up as the true selves at work, whether it's burnout and mental health and other, you know, chronic illness and then disability. I mean,
The layers are so deep and yet we as a society often don't feel comfortable pushing back against this competition always at all costs mentality.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (14:01.054)
Mmm.
Yeah, I couldn't agree with that more. in your book, Ruchiki, you discuss eight practices that we can use to, you know, begin this sort of journey to uncompete, if you will. And one that really stuck for us was reset your mindset. It feels very foundational to being able to do a lot of the others. Can you help us understand and unpack in the context of uncompete? What does it mean to reset your mindset? How might we go about doing that?
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (14:30.208)
Yeah, thank you. I mean, so much of resetting our mindset comes from, know, so actually, I'll back up a bit. What I tried to do with the book is I wanted to structure it into three parts, which is choice, action and resistance. So reset our mindset really comes in the choice part of, you know, the book where you really start out by questioning and pushing back against many of these insidious ideas that competition is something I always have to engage in.
Competition is just the way things are. Even if I don't like it, I still have to do it. Otherwise, I'm going to get left behind somehow. And resetting our mindset is pushing back against those ideas and choosing very specifically to uncompete, very intentionally in every situation. So for example, I write about the fact that, for example, you could be up for a promotion and your work bestie is also up for a promotion.
And in that sense, in that situation, in that scenario, a competition mindset or a competition at all costs approach would tell us, well, it doesn't matter because I'm ambitious and I have to compete and it doesn't matter if I'm gonna elbow my work bestie out of the way to do that. When you uncompete, when you reset our mindset and sort of push back against the idea that you just at default, knee jerk, we compete, is you kind of slow down the process and you kind of ask yourself like,
A, do I really want this promotion? Is this the right time for me? Is the only way we can approach this is it's us against them, like us versus them, or might there be a scenario where I could talk to my manager or talk to the organization and say, like, really value this relationship. I really want me and my team member to collaborate, and I worry that having this sort of adversarial approach to it.
would ruin that and would have a business impact or it would have an organizational impact or a team impact. So it's really slowing down the process. It's not saying don't compete. It's not saying, you know, don't like put yourself up a promotion or don't be ambitious. But it is saying like, let's reset our mindset in a way that's like from autopilot to asking and slowing down and saying like, do I really, really need to compete?
Sally Clarke (she/her) (16:52.552)
Really powerful point, Rachika, and it takes me back to my time as a corporate finance lawyer in a previous life, very much in an environment that was highly competitive, I would describe it as cutthroat. And to some extent, like you use the word adversarial, and to some extent, I think the legal profession is inherently competitive because it has that almost inherently us versus them sort of mentality.
I'd love it if you could sort of speak to me at that moment when I was, ended up leaving the law, I think in part because I felt like there wasn't a way for me to uncompete in that environment. But I'm sure there is. Could you give me a message like for those people who are in an environment that may not be necessarily lending itself to that kind of mindset, what would you advise?
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (17:36.918)
Yeah, I love this question. So I will say one thing that is really fascinating. I love looking at the research around negotiation and this idea that like, I think a very sort of older, like pale male and stale is the way that I've heard it be described sort of approach to negotiation is like, you know, it's us versus them. It's if you win, it's at my loss. And therefore, when I win, it's at your loss.
And now when you talk to negotiation experts, especially like, for example, when I quoted and we had a longer interview, we ended up just unfortunately using a short bit of my interview with Alexandra Carter, who is a lawyer, who is at Columbia University, who is a negotiation expert, who especially looks at gender and negotiation. She specifically said like the best negotiations are where everyone walks away winning something.
Right? Everyone gets what they want is what a great negotiation is. It's not zero sum. And I loved that the fact that more and more again, you are like, I think understanding that the playing field isn't ever truly level. Right. And the cards are typically stacked against one person or one sort of one party. So how can you create a situation where truly both sides walk away with something that is
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (18:57.985)
Mmm.
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (18:58.638)
really beneficial is what an ideal negotiation is. So kind of bringing this back to, Sally, your time in corporate law, here's the reality. A lot of, unfortunately, organizations are set up to be very adversarial, to be very competitive, especially in the legal industry and the research I've seen. What gives me hope is I'm starting to see more and more, especially women, know, lawyers, especially lawyers from backgrounds where
you've typically not seen yourself represented or the industry or norms, especially in large organizations, were not set with you in mind, is actually kind of splintering off to start your own and saying that I'm going to do things a different way, right? And what do I want to do? And what is the impact I want to make? I'm so lucky to work with a fabulous team of attorneys for even my own business, for various things I've done, you know, over the course of my career, certainly as a journalist as well.
Like how do you design for impact in your life versus, I'm just going to get that big law job because someone else told me that's what I should be doing.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (20:04.033)
fascinating sort of reflection I had while you were speaking there, Rachika, is that basically it feels like this reframe away from winning, which seems quite obvious, but it almost when you intentionally slow down and to your example around competing with a friend for a promotion, it's allowing yourself the time and space to sort of have the forethought to say, what is most important to me as an outcome here?
Is it the relationship? Sally's case, I'm not sure so, but is it feeling like I'm doing meaningful work versus winning every sort of battle? And I do quite a bit of volunteering as well, where we work with a committee of volunteers. And so often I find we come to the table with a lot of personal differences around how to do things. But when we always ask the question, what is it we're trying to achieve in the best interest of our members? When we put that first, we can reduce the sort of competition amongst ourselves or like,
the idea that it has to be your way or the highway. it's sort of, that was just something that came to me as you were speaking there. It's this opportunity or this invitation to slow down and say, what am I prioritizing by doing it this way?
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (21:12.29)
You're so right. And also what actually does winning mean? know, of the things that in my work, both in equity and inclusion to date, talking to so many amazing leaders, especially women leaders, you people of color leaders, is what starts to happen is you do all this, you're exceptional, you overwork, you do everything you can.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (21:16.012)
Mm-hmm.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (21:16.085)
Yeah, exactly.
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (21:38.51)
You play the rules by what you know, the guys do and blah blah blah and you and it's so damn lonely and The cost is so high
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (21:42.369)
and then I'm done.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (21:45.761)
Yeah.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (21:45.769)
Yes.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (21:48.558)
Absolutely. I think inevitably, know, Lex and I both relate that to that very, from our own personal experience too, in that at a certain point, inevitably you have to ask an almost existential question of, this who I am? Is how I'm spending my precious time and energy in the workplace? Does that align with my own sort of considerations around success or how I want my life to look and feel? And I think it's a...
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (21:51.584)
Yeah.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (22:15.232)
It can often be a bit of a tipping point for people to sort of reach that point and sort of look at the checklist of I've done everything by the rules, I've played the game and I don't feel fulfilled and I don't feel like I'm being aligned with my authentic self. What will it take to get me there? And I think uncompete is this really beautiful framework that we can use, I think, to do some of that exploration and to see how some of those ideas that we have.
and assumptions that we make about the workplace and about success are simply not necessarily true. And I love that the research is increasingly showing that that is the case. And I think to sort of move through another of the practices that you share, which really resonated for us and I think is an incredibly topical one, which is to reframe comparison. I think all of us viscerally feel right now.
the intensity of comparison that is obviously a natural human trait to compare ourselves to one another and has an evolutionary purpose. But because it is being so intensely pushed at us from external sources, including social media, news media, all kinds of sort of an array of sort of places around us, it's such an important consideration. And we'd love for you, if you can, sort of break down for us, what does it mean to reframe comparison?
And why is it so important in the sort of practice of uncompeting?
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (23:33.58)
Yeah, one of my most, one of the parts that really resonated for me when I was writing this book, you know, and it's interesting like stepping back now that I can be like, which parts actually are relevant to me exactly at this point now that the book is out, now that I can actually talk to people with a frame of reference of what I was writing about. Probably this is the chapter that's really come back many, many times over the last few weeks. My book has only been out.
for 10 days, actually it's gonna be 13 days tomorrow. And I think what is really fascinating is looking at social media and looking at like, what are other people doing and how are their books doing? And of course with comparison as is human nature is specifically to compare yourself with people who are highly relevant to you, right? So.
Generally, I'm not going to be looking at someone who is a physicist and thinking, my gosh, like, where do I compare over there? Because I know where I compare over there. But I will be looking at other authors. I will be looking specifically at other authors who might write around the same topics as me and how their books are doing. Social media doesn't make it easy because it feels like everyone is out there winning awards and living this wonderful, fabulous life that, you know, where you're not. And I think one of the, this is the
chapter I've had to come back to my own self, especially in the sort of wake of this book. And it's especially around the idea that we have to understand that there are different ways that envy show up in our lives and in our bodies, especially. And how do we understand envy and how do we channel it to be something that's beneficial and positive for us? Because envy comparison are very normal human emotions.
And when we look at the research behind envy, broadly speaking, there are two types of envy that I write about in the book. One is called benign envy or motivational envy. And this idea that you look at someone doing great things and you use it as a signal. Like, is this what I want? Can I do what it takes to get to what they're doing? And, you know, what are the signals that I'm learning about what I want? What are my ambitions? What are my goals and dreams from this envy I'm feeling? The other is called malicious envy.
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (25:52.426)
extremely like can be you know sabotaging both self-sabotaging as well as to others you know they cheated they didn't deserve it they shouldn't have got there like you know or pulling yourself down into a spiral of like i'm the worst i'll never get there blah blah blah and so how do we what i what i really took away from this chapter even now that i'm literally tasting my own medicine almost on a daily basis is
Sally Clarke (she/her) (26:15.694)
you
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (26:20.138)
understanding NB as it shows up, know, how social media exacerbates it. I have ideas in the book about how we can limit social media usage, or at least have it be a much more motivational source for us. It's also looking at, you know, when I see other people doing things or achieving things that I think are wonderful, both trying to understand what that tells me about what I want, but also approach it with the effort with the expectation that they put effort for it.
they deserve it. I'm grateful for them that they're getting what they deserve and they need. And I'm going to get that too for myself, you know.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (26:48.299)
Yeah.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (26:57.291)
think that's a really powerful and intentional way to stop and reflect on a rachika because I think, I mean, the interesting thing with comparison, and we know human beings love to do this too, but it's typically upward that we are comparing. So it's always people who have what we want, which is, for me personally, I will say, you know, in my consulting work, in my author's journey, it's, it's oscillated a lot between malicious envy and benign envy, because it can feel like
everyone has what you want and what you're working so hard to get. And social media constantly puts that in your face. And I think what's interesting as well, when I was reading your book, looking at this idea of reframing comparison is that how social media also shows us a lot of things that other people have that we don't actually want, but we think we want because it's just in front of our face all the time. So that was also something for me where I was thinking, well,
I don't want to compete, as you mentioned, with an author in the physics world or with a professional athlete. It's just that I feel like everyone else has success and I don't. But my definition of success is so unclear to me because I'm not actually giving myself the time and space to slow down and really investigate that a little more as well.
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (28:13.602)
That's so profound what you said, Alexis. It's at the heart of uncompete, right? Like, again, I think sometimes I worry that, and I worried a lot more before the book came out, now that people are actually reading it, it's wonderful to hear your perspectives on it. But one of the worries I had is are people gonna say, you know, and I write this very deep, like I literally write it, like I'm not saying like you should sit on the couch all day long and not have any ambitions or goals in your life, but it is to understand deeply like what it is that
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (28:37.281)
Mm.
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (28:43.116)
you want in your life? What is it that makes it uniquely your own? And then go from that, because again, I think in a world of social media and you're sort of the digital age, we've moved from where, you know, maybe once a month at a party, would meet someone who you knew and they were like, I'm living this fabulous life. And you think, gosh, I'm not. And then you'd go home, you'd feel bad for that, you know, that night. And then the next day you'd go on with your life.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (29:08.479)
Yeah. Yep.
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (29:10.414)
to like now literally every single time you scroll or every time you log on to any platform, it's like this piece, everyone's living this fabulous, glamorous life. And so that context has changed dramatically. it's how do we, in a time where the context has changed so dramatically, how do we still retain agency and control over what motivates us and makes us happy and successful?
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (29:33.588)
you
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (29:38.228)
this term agency, think is so fundamental to that experience, Rashika, and allowing ourselves again to keep coming back and checking within ourselves, is this actually what my definition of winning and success looks like and not being swept away in the doom scroll of everyone else's success? It's so tough. And another big part of your book that really hit home for both myself and Sally was this idea of abundance and this idea of having a community of support.
around you. And I wonder, can we just explore this a little bit more? We're seeing a lot of research now that talks about loneliness, about how certain demographics of society, like men, have less friends than they've ever had in the past. How might this idea of abundance and building a community of support around us help us to uncompete, but also, I feel like, just to generally live a better life?
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (30:30.124)
I love that Alexis and Sally, both of you, really resonated with this idea of abundance. I have to say, when I look at the research around loneliness, and I know that there's a chorus of us saying this, that the researcher on male loneliness is really important for us to push back and resonate, and sort of investigate a little deeper. The reason why it's important for us to investigate the research around male loneliness, which is an epidemic.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (30:36.001)
Mm.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (30:47.584)
Yeah.
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (30:58.818)
I'm very personally invested in this. I'm raising a nine-year-old boy. I'm married to a man. And on top of that, I have some wonderful male friends and figures in my life. And I think the reason why we must investigate this is because it's deeply tied into what our definition of success has meant in society, and especially from a gender lens, what it has meant for and what has been the cost of competition and rivalry at all costs for so many men.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (31:24.866)
Mm.
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (31:28.152)
who have felt isolated, right? And the reason why we see such a precipitous drop in men engaging with other men is because there's no time and there's no reward for engaging with other people and creating a community, especially if you've been socialized in a very sort of traditional definition of male success. And so what I'm hoping is as we uncompete, it's not just women, quote unquote, or it's not just people who identify as women.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (31:48.622)
Mm.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (31:49.217)
you
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (31:57.004)
we're really trying to create a society which defines success as one where people have community, where people have friendships, where people feel like they're supported and loved, especially again, in a time of AI disruption. In fact, seeing the adoption of AI into personal friendships or personal relationships is concerning to me as well.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (32:05.366)
Hmm.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (32:21.409)
Just really quickly want to touch on something you just said there. And that is this idea that men haven't seen or haven't valued the idea of there being a reward from friendships and community. Like this feels wild to me that we've come to a point where unless it's a measurable sort of status driven or external metric for success, we don't value the reward that community gives us and how that
meets our deeper, more innate human needs. Like that is just so something that is so prevalent, especially here in Australia and Western cultures, that if it's not a measurable reward metric, like is it getting me more money, bigger houses, further in my career, it's not something worth pursuing. That is such a message that we've internalized for so long now. And it breaks my heart to think that men are more lonely than ever as a result of this.
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (33:19.662)
You know, Alexis and Sally, there's this one of the few times where I do credit social media for putting something in front of me that really helped contextualize this for me was there was a meme going around that, you know, if we were studying an animal species as humans, if there was a species you're studying, say gorillas, and we found that there was one gorilla who was more aggressive than all others, hoarded every like every single resource, all the food.
all the shelter while all the gorillas starved in the corner were dying off, we would say that there's something wrong with this gorilla. We would say there's something wrong with this species or this member of this species. But in human society, we put them on the cover of Forbes Magazine. We will call them an asshole in the gorilla world, but in our human world,
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (34:06.601)
Yeah, yeah, we would call that gorilla an asshole, I think.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (34:06.741)
Hahaha.
ehehehehe
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (34:14.217)
Yeah.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (34:16.494)
we venerate.
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (34:17.558)
we venerate exactly that kind of behavior. And I think it's really deeply impacting men. And I have to say that if we don't rework the measure of success, and this is why, again, with my nine-year-old boy, the last thing I want to do is raise him to believe, having a community is someone else's job. Or if you find it's your partner's responsibility, and especially if he marries a woman or
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (34:23.925)
Yes.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (34:41.493)
Mmm.
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (34:46.54)
or is pregnant with a woman, I don't want that to be what he takes away.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (34:52.398)
Wonderful to hear that, Ruchika, really inspiring. And one of the things that's come to me on social media, and I was so excited to see you reference them in your book, is Alok Menon and their work around this shift from a very binary idea of gender, I think, and probably getting slightly off track here, but I think you weaving their perspective into the book made so much sense to me as well, because I think it really speaks to that abundance mindset. It's really shifting away from that polarized us versus them.
extremely labeled, extremely with us or against us type energy towards this community mindset. And they speak of course so eloquently also about deriving a social connection from an array of arenas and doing it in a way that is very different to the sort of very traditional ways that we've thought about socialization in the past. So I just wanted to shout out thank you for referencing a look. Now we would love to unpack.
all of the eight practices with you, Ruchiko. Unfortunately, we have limited time, but we did just want to, before we round out our conversation, touch on one that really resonated at a heart level for both of us. And that was the final practice, which is to seek peace. And even just saying that I can feel my parasympathetic nervous system kicking in, it feels again, very needed, but also very hard and sort of almost counter cultural, counterintuitive at this moment.
What does seek peace mean to you, Ruchika, and how can someone who's listening right now start to build that in their lives?
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (36:18.22)
Yeah, thank you, Sally. What I feel excited about when I did this chapter is I I titled the chapter C-Piece and it was under the, you know, of the three ways that I've structured the book under, you know, choice, action, resistance, actually put seek peace as the last chapter as like the final practice of resisting, you know, competitive norms, which sounds counterintuitive, right? Like you're either seeking peace or you're resisting. Can you do both?
And in seeking peace, in saying that like the most important thing, that my measure of success, my measure of joy, my measure of impact as a leader, as a human, as whoever I am in my life, it is centered around this idea that I should feel peaceful, that I should feel like I'm in alignment with who I was meant to be is actually one of the most.
deepest forms of resistance we can have in a society that tells us you've got to always be on, you always got to be hustling, you've always got to be elbowing out others, otherwise your piece of the pie will somehow be taken away, which again, I push back against the sort of pie metaphor in the book anyway, but it's such a deep form of resistance. And when you're around people who have found...
that their idea of peace, it's so profound. When you're around them, you're like, wow, you're so OK with yourself. You have so much of security about who you are that you have the type of generosity and abundance that can really change the world. And you will notice that with people who change the world for the better. Many of them have that deep peace. And I think that's how we resist these norms.
Alexis Zahner (she/her) (38:06.133)
Ruchika, such a potent and profound message to finish our conversation on. Thank you so much for sitting down with us today and having this conversation. It's been such a pleasure.
Ruchika T. Malhotra (She/Her) (38:17.56)
Thank you both for having me. What a pleasure truly.
