Let Your Intuition Guide You: Interview with Gaurav Bhatnagar and Mark Minukas, Authors of Unfear

I recently spoke to Gaurav Bhatnagar and Mark Minukas. Gaurav and Mark are the co-authors of the new book Unfear: Transform Your Organization to Create Breakthrough Performance and Employee Well-Being and former McKinsey consultants turned partners at Co-Creation Partners.

Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?

Mark: I don’t have a traditional background for this kind of deep cultural work in organizations. I started my career as an engineer and as a Civil Engineer Corps officer in the Navy. Not a typical “touch-feely” set of environments. But I did study systems engineering and then human factors. So early in my career I felt this tension between getting the “right” technical answer to a problem but also trying to understand the complexity of human and organizational systems. As a consultant I saw how fear was used a blunt force instrument to create movement and results in organizations through big top-down transformations and headcount reductions but at the expense of the well-being of many employees. This also didn’t lead to long-term results for clients. I went searching for something better…which eventually led me to working with mindsets, not just the outer workings of organizations.

I’ve also struggled with fear-based patterns in my life. This book and my work with clients is also a reflection of my own personal learning journey. Fear of failure and rejection have been a big presence in my life since around middle school. This led me to develop a very strong competitive drive – “do well in sports, school, jobs, etc. and I’ll be accepted and OK.” But at some point in my 8 years at McKinsey and Co. I looked around and realized how isolated, alone, and unsatisfied all of this competition was making me. These fears are still with me, but I relate to them in different ways now.

Gaurav: I grew up in India in the 80s and early 90s, a place with a surfeit of ambitious and talented people all trying to get ahead and relatively few opportunities. For example the acceptance rate at the best business schools when I was competing to get in was 0.5% , to give you some perspective. So I became this classic insecure ultra competitive person constantly using my fear of falling behind as an impetus to “achieve”. And I defined achievement in a highly individualistic and materialistic fashion. I was checking all the boxes but my relationships were messy and my head was a miserable place to be in. The pivot in my life began in South Africa when I found myself in a “mindset” workshop that my organization had organized to enhance performance. I was deeply cynical about the workshop but completely unexpectedly had an experience (which I describe in the book) that completely transformed all my mental models about life and work . It made me a better leader, a better husband, and a better human being. And the office went on to become one of the best performing offices across the globe. It was my first experience that performance and wellbeing are not an either/or proposition, the AND is possible I have not looked back ever since and “Unfear” is the culmination of this 21-year journey. I have stumbled, made many mistakes, and almost been fired but have also had the immense joy of seeing the spark in peoples’ eyes when they truly reconnect with their true potential. I have seen organizations that have delivered previously unimaginable performance and I have seen leaders create both high performance and well-being. 

My greatest teacher has been fear, more specifically the fear of being isolated and irrelevant. I have worked a long time learning what this fear is teaching me about myself and my limiting beliefs and how to reframe this fear to see that all it was inviting me to do was to know that “I am good enough”. I hope this book inspires some of you to get in touch with your fear and learn from it.   

Adam: What do you hope readers take away from your new book Unfear?

Gaurav: I hope what readers will take away is that fear itself is not the problem. The problem is the limiting story that we create around fear that leads to dysfunctional mindsets and behaviors. Even more importantly the solution sits already within us, like the angel in the stone. All we need to do is to reframe our story around fear to find our solution. 

Mark: There are two ideas I hope readers walk with. First is that many leaders are stuck in a fear dilemma – believing that they either need to use fear within themselves or others to achieve results…or they need to avoid fear and suppress it because it’s bad for well-being. This is a false dilemma. Unfear is about how to get out it. Second is that deep, sustainable change happens from the inside out. Business leaders tend to focus on the outside, rather than the inside (our mindsets, stories, and deeply held assumptions). We hope they walk away with a new appreciation for both.

Adam: In your experience, what are the key steps to growing and scaling your business? 

Gaurav: I’m sure your readers have received many perspectives about this from many different people. Since I’m the mindset guy, I’m going to talk about the four key steps on mindset that are key to growing and scaling a business. Step 1 : Creating and adhering to a purpose that you are deeply passionate about. This is your reason to be invincible, to give you energy to keep going even when the going is tough. Step 2: Having a belief about eventual success even when the odds are stacked against you. That it’s a matter of adapting and being flexible and creative and trying different things to hit upon the right path out of any hole you may be in.  Step 3: Being disciplined and committed to quality execution.  Step 4: Having humility and gratitude that allows other forces to support your effort.

Mark: I like Gaurav’s answer. I’ll just add that fear-based patterns of action (what we call the 8 fear archetypes in the book) may be hindering growth. One archetype is the Perfectionist. Obsessing too much about perfection of a product could make it harder to adapt to customer feedback and market needs. This is just one small example. Becoming more aware of these patterns and shifting out of them is one of the key steps to sustainable growth.

Adam: What are the keys to building a winning organizational culture?

Gaurav: My core belief about building a winning organizational culture is that organizations don’t transform, individuals do and when a critical mass of individuals transforms, the organization tips over and transforms by itself. What this implies is that building a high-performance culture is an inside out process. It starts with the individual and then goes to the team and then the organization. And within an individual, it starts with the mindsets (the mental models) of how we view the world that condition our thinking, our strategy and ultimately our actions. The role of the organization in creating a high performing culture is, through its stories, role modeling, processes systems and training to create the conditions for this inside out transformation to happen. 

Mark: Yes and be intentional about the culture you want to create. Spend time defining what that winning culture looks like for your organization. Be honest about where the culture is today. Be willing to commit yourself to living and acting the changes that are needed to get there. Building a culture intentionally takes work, but it pays off.

Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading and managing teams?

Gaurav: My best advice to building and managing teams is to tune in to the needs and fears of all its members, support them in reshaping their relationship with fear to create a collective space of trust where everyone engages in difficult conversations effectively and with courage. 

Mark: Trust is an essential ingredient for high-performing teams. Building trust is much more than simply doing what you’ll say you do and meeting commitments. It also involves care and acceptance for other people (including yourself). Fear and mistrust creep into teams when people constantly judge and label each other. The antidote to this is to notice how we subtly label others in our minds and to not cling so tightly to those labels or assumptions. Get more curious about others.

Adam: What do you believe are the defining qualities of an effective leader?

Gaurav: One of my favorite quotes is one by GK Chesterton “Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly”. It is my firm belief that really effective leaders have the confidence and wisdom to engage with everything with ease and to have vulnerability that draws people in and inspires them to go beyond what they expect of themselves. Confidence and vulnerability might seem like an oxymoron, but in my book it takes confidence to admit to vulnerability, and when you do it with ease it normalizes what everyone is already sensing and feeling, and it becomes a place of strength. And people appreciate that you are leveling with them and are more willing to trust you. Truly great leaders know that leadership is never about themselves, it is about collective action. 

Mark: Love that. And collective action is a matter of belief. Belief in some future outcome that doesn’t yet exist and in the possibility that our individual and collective efforts will get us there. Great leaders help people believe in the future and in their own capacity to realize it. Great leaders create a belief in this future that’s stronger and more inspiring than any fear or discomfort we may experience along the way. Beliefs are encoded in stories. So great leaders are great storytellers.

Adam: How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level? 

Gaurav: In keeping with the idea of inside-out transformation, leaders looking to take their leadership to the nest level need to go inside and deepen their self-awareness. Awareness not just about their limiting stories and beliefs but awareness about their incredible potential. This awareness is the key to the confident humility that allows leaders to inspire without force, to draw out performance without stress and to lead without needing to be the center of attention. 

Mark: Experiment with a mindfulness practice that helps you tune in more effectively to your own stories and patterns of thought and action. First step is almost always awareness.

Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives and civic leaders? 

Gaurav: No 1: Move from being right to being effective. Leaders often forget that their role is to create action rather than coming up with the perfect solution. Often the need to be right comes in the way of being effective. No.2 Be curious and deepen your ability to see distinctions and have a more nuanced perspective. Leaders need to understand that their listening and understanding is conditioned by their knowledge and thus their distinctions about a subject. The deeper the knowledge and distinctions the more nuances and discerning the conclusions. So great leaders surround themselves with people who know more or differently than they do and they listen when these people speak. No. 3 Trust your intuition in decision-making. I was recently at a retreat with business leaders from across the globe and the conversation over dinner came to decision making. And one of the leaders asked the others, how do you make your most important decisions. And to my surprise almost all the leaders said it was by gut. This inspired one of the leaders at the table to tell us a story. He narrated that he was hiring for a very senior position in his organization and one the lead candidates came to him with a detailed spreadsheet of the pros and cons of him taking the offer. The leader then asked the candidate “How did you decide to marry your wife?” The candidate talked about how he was at a dinner with his then-girlfriend and this woman walked by him and he just knew that she was the one. And in that moment the candidate realized that this was not the role for him because he had to think so much about it and he still wasn’t feeling it. So my advice is once you have listened to a variety of perspectives as in the second tip (and this part is very important, don’t skip it), let your intuition guide you in the decision-making.

Mark: Yup.

Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?

Gaurav: The single best piece of advice I ever received was from my spiritual teacher who said “Do not desire for happiness, but happily desire the whole world”. What he meant was that happiness is a natural state within us and when we look for it outside us, a. we are never going to find it and b. we disconnect from our true nature. And that is what becomes the source of stress, pain and lack of ease. But when we “happily desire”, then we know that we already have what we want the most, and we are operating from a place of ease and resonance that allows us to perform and contribute at our highest. 

Mark: My daughter: “Dad, put your phone down and play with me!”. I think it’s far too easy for people to be in a constant state of distraction. Busy-ness and action alone don’t make for productivity. Be present and intentional. It’s quite hard to do when there’s a lot going on. But I’m glad my daughters will remind me of that.

Adam: Is there anything else you would like to share?

Gaurav: The last thing I would like to share is that I often hear people complain about how other people are the problem – how they are incapable, they are unreasonable, they are unfair…. My advice back is that it is easy to be a saint when you live in a cave but the real task of living is to be a saint in relationship to people. And the people we are complaining about are in fact our greatest gifts because they allow us to practice and to learn to be creative to be effective in the world.

Mark: Would just like to share a quote for people to reflect on. This comes from a barefoot man we met in the woods while on a company retreat to South Africa. We got to chatting and when he heard about the topic for our book said “Oh, great topic. Fear is just love that’s forgotten itself. Good luck!


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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