Book Review —My Life In Full -Indra Nooyi Biography
Recently I came across Indra Nooyi’s biography. I haven’t read any piece of info about this woman, I hadn’t seen any video. Youtube never recommended any shorts or videos from her. I had just known that she served as CEO of Pepsico, and most Indians claimed her to be one of our own and celebrated her success. I assumed that she would be a second-generation immigrant as is the case with most overachieving people of Indian origin. I never thought about Indra Nooyi, the inspiring figure, which was not intentional, she just never fell on my radar. So I had zero expectations out of this book. I don’t even remember what prompted me to pick this book from my kindle library.
This book is going to be on the read-reread list for a long time. The book has exactly her personality — no nonsense, no extra frills, no dramatic moments; just a clean and lean story of hard work and success. Honestly, across a few stretches, Ms. Nooyi doesn’t even tell us, what was she feeling when she was navigating a few of the sticky situations in her life.
The amount of work she seems to have put through for her career, is super human. And to think that Ms.Nooyi has built this impactful career in the 1980s-2000s is certainly inspiring. Spoiler alert — the struggles associated with creating a career for oneself when you are a woman from an orthodox family in a close-minded, anti-feministic society from a third-world country seem to be sparse and almost non-existent in Ms.Nooyi’s story. But that is not to discredit any of the blood, sweat and thought that went into her scintillating career.
Being a woman, from a middle-class family in a similar society, with ambition and dreams for myself, I can relate to a lot of what Ms.Nooyi has gone through. But I am in awe of the way, she put her career first, unapologetically, without a shadow of doubt, without fear of judgment or anything else. I get that it stemmed from the need for financial wellness and being an immigrant, but still inspirational, no less. I have always thought women are a tad more aggressive than men, in terms of emotional strength, ambition, resourcefulness, and desire to live life to the fullest. I am lucky to have met women who reinforce this theory of mine. I am proud of each one of them. Reading this book, I came across one more such woman — Indra Nooyi, the force of nature.
She might have been overthinking about life, career, relationships, children, family, etc.. If she did, it doesn’t show in the way she unfolds her life in the book. Her focus seems to have been on the right things — career, growth, accountability, family. As she says about herself, she has had this indomitable spirit, the self-belief that she can learn anything and do anything, if she puts her heart and soul into it. That is the single most important takeaway for me in this book. It is not groundbreaking ideas, awe-inspiring genius, lavish financial support, lucky opportunities like being on the cusp of a paradigm shift in the industry etc. Her success is solely defined by the consistent, single-handed, single-minded hard work, dogged efforts invested in learning, and deliberate practice that she put into her work over the years. She said that if she puts her name on something in way of approval, she doesn’t take it lightly, even if it is unrelated to her work — say technology or bottle processing or IT — she still takes time to understand every single detail, ask tons of questions and only when she is satisfied, she puts her name on it. How inspiring is it? I am thoroughly ashamed of the countless times I put in half-hearted effort into my work. This is the mark of a stalwart, and this is what took the woman to unscaled heights in corporate America.
Ms.Nooyi talks about the lack of support for women in the workforce, especially women in leadership roles for family obligations — like child care and elderly care. She talks about the little sacrifices or trade-offs she had to make to juggle growing a family, demanding work, and taking personal downtime. Her empathy shines through her story.
Due credits to people, without whom, Ms.Nooyi wouldn’t have done it all -
the American Executives in ABB, Pepsico — for not caring about her gender, nationality, immigrant status, and other trivialities,
the husband — for not placing his ego above her dreams and aspirations, and trusting in her, and supporting her fully and being her partner in the truest sense of the word,
the constant trickle of relatives, neighbours, friends — for shouldering her responsibilities at home.
It does take a village not just to raise a child but for a woman to have a successful and fulfilling career.
