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Wonder Woman : Embrace the ‘and’ with Priya Chetty-Rajagopal

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Embrace the ‘and’ with Priya Chetty-Rajagopal

 Priya Chetty-Rajagopal is a multi-talented powerhouse who is well known in Bangalore for her work in CXO executive search. She also makes an impact in other aspects of her life, whether she is rescuing an injured street dog with her initiative the CJ Memorial Trust, spearheading the Steel Flyover Beda Movement in Bangalore, ensuring heritage preservation with #HeritageBeku, or speaking at TEDx events. She does it all with aplomb because she embraces the ‘and’.

Priya is successful because she doesn’t shy away from her various identities. In her spare time—because she actually has time to spare—she is a columnist and activist, and can frequently be found immersed in a good book. She often remembers to ignite the crazy in herself and do over-the-top stuff—she is determined to never get old.
Priya’s primary philosophy is to embrace the ‘and’. This means switching on as many lights as possible—embracing several universes and multi-dimensionality—to make the biggest impact. In welcoming the ‘and’ into her life, she has learnt to let go of the tyrannical ‘or’, which forces many of us to narrow down our choices. Why not try many things instead of adopting a singular focus? Priya gives herself permission to fail and accepts that she may fail often. But the bottom line for her is to go for what she’s passionate about without pre-empting efforts by worrying about outcomes.
What led her to embrace the ‘and’? 
For Priya, it was always the fear of failure. The narrative in her head when she was working her way up is summed up perfectly by an Avis campaign slogan,which came out when the company was second to Hertz: When you are number two, you try harder. Like many women in business, Priya was regularly plagued with the possibility that she wasn’t good enough. This drove her to work harder and keep pushing to become the best. Good enough always seemed just out of reach, so it became her single biggest motivator.
Rather than allowing negative thoughts to take over, Priya focuses on positive visualisation, which she believes is an important part of taking meaningful action. Building capacity is another critical goal of hers. She says that if you truly believe in a cause, being the only leader isn’t good enough; creating other, better leaders than yourself is key.

When thinking about taking action in the Steel Flyover Beda Movement, she asked herself, ‘If not now, then when? If not me, then whom?’ And these questions have clearly influenced decisions in other aspects of her life—she takes ownership of what she believes in and follows through wholeheartedly.
 So let go of the tyrannical ‘or’ and embrace the ‘and’ in your life.

Priya Chetty-Rajagopal is a co-founder of Multiversal Advisory, the Founder-Chair of the IACC’s Women’s Business Council, Convener of the CII Women’s Business Leadership Forum till 2011, and a TiE Charter Member, among others. She was named Femina Woman of the Year 2017, conferred the Indira Gandhi Priyadarshini Award for Excellence in 1997, selected by the British Government for the Chevening Scholarship in 2004, the list goes on…